Drunk & Disorderly

The Founding Fathers of Cal Poly Pomona’s Delta Sig chapter crash Catalina Island on an epic rampage littered with booze, beach bunnies and mugshots

[This story was first published in Low Magazine in its Fall 1994 issue. It is dedicated here to Brendan Angus Flynn, 1968-2022]

By Mark Cromer

Caligula would have been pleased.

I couldn’t shake the thought as I held on to my beer and watched the chaos unfold around me. We were tucked neatly away in the bowels of Antonio’s Pizzeria on Catalina Island and the annual reunion was just getting started. The Brothers were just getting warmed up. Rounds had been ordered and downed and reinforcements were on the way. Beer was being sent to the table in ice-packed buckets. I stopped counting after six metal pails piled up and were emptied within an hour. My note pad was soggy and bleeding ink from the spilled brew that was sloshing along the long wooden table, but I wasn’t writing much anyway.

I was just letting it all sink in.

It was the Fourth of July weekend and the Founding Fathers of Cal Poly Pomona’s Delta Sig chapter had sailed into Avalon for what had alternately been dubbed ‘The Trip’ (by those who’d survived the previous year’s Orgy in Mammoth) or Hedonism II (by those who had only heard about the ensuing stories.)

The pizzeria was packed with tourists who had skipped the last boat off the island that night and were settling in for dinner. They were a camera-toting crowd, the kind who were still clutching plastic bags full of postcards, key rings and the $12 plastic seagulls feet they’d bought at the souvenir store. They probably had hoped to enjoy their dinners in a somewhat congenial environment, but The Brothers had different plans. As the rounds at our tables progressed, bottles began to get cracked and smashed in violent toasts to what the conquests of the night—and The Trip—held for each an every one of us. Voices were beyond raised, The Brothers were shouting and offering the odd punctuation of an occasional grunt or burp.

The boys were being boys.

The night manager had rounded up his doormen and a beefy-looking dishwasher was eyeing us nervously from the bar. I could tell he was mulling over the politically risky act of cutting our tab off, playing over in his head all the potential outcomes such heresy might bring. He was weighing his muscle against ours. It would be three against eight, but the dishwasher looked like he enjoyed crushing skulls.

Perhaps sensing a watershed moment was upon us, Brother Number One, Brendan Flynn, a man of many talents and our spiritual tour guide for this excursion, climbed on to one of the tables to address his brethren and, no doubt, ease the night manager’s concerns.

Beer in hand and eyes only slightly glassed over, Flynn raised his voice and with the casual inflection that only a true California boy could utter, he delivered his keynote address as The Brothers sat in rapt attention.

“Men, we are gathered on this island for a truly righteous cause,” he proclaimed in a face that was beautifully framed in an aura of total conviction. “We have traveled from far and wide, not only across the channel, but through time itself, remaining faithful to our Delta Sig roots long after we fled that prison called Cal Poly. So let us not deny or defer the destiny that is ours any longer. Self-awareness is our fate, and we should milk it! And know, my Brothers, as you stroll the bars tonight and the beaches tomorrow, as you pour the sun tan oil across her hot skin and slip your fingers under her thong and insider her snoopy, please remember above all else, this trip has been sanctioned by headquarters.”

A hearty chorus of ‘Hear! Hear!’ and ‘Flinchy Boy!’ went up from our tables, but the rest of the pizzeria were a little less certain his address contained positive implications. As soon as he made it down from the table the night manager and his hoods were on Flynn, impressing on him the importance of our immediate departure.

Flynn was stunned. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Was it something I said? Everything appears to be in order, your honor.” Our tab liquidated, we were quickly corralled and herded toward the door, but not ejected before Brother Greg, a former high-ranking official in Cal Poly’s ASI government, unloaded a torrent of threats and provocations on the night manager. “You don’t know who we are, do you?” he screamed. “Does the name ‘Delta Sig’ mean anything to you? You’ll pay for this humiliation. I assure you. You will pay.”

And with that we were out on the street.

A crisp breeze was blowing in off the sea. Avalon’s main strip was clogged with cruising students, tourists and a smattering of locals. We staggered into the human stream on the strip. “Let’s hit the Chi Chi Club,” one of the Brothers called out. It was agreed. The Chi Chi Club was next.

Opening ceremonies were over.

The party had begun.

It had all started for me just the morning before, when I was awakened in my Pomona cottage by a telephone call from Flynn. It was urgent. The charter members of Cal Poly’s Delta Sig fraternity and a few of their friends were setting sail for Catalina for their annual reunion.

“I know this is short notice,” Flynn barked. “But you’ve got to be there. D-Day wasn’t this big of a landing. And there will be five-times the amount of chicks that awaited our G.I.’s in Paris. And much hornier. Would I lie?”

I knew he wouldn’t.

As the sleep cleared from my head, I considered my options. My calendar was fairly open. Two days earlier I had been suspended from my day job as a cop reporter at the Daily News for violating the newspaper’s freelance policy by writing a piece for HUSTLER. The prospect of losing a week’s paycheck had left me in a fairly bitter mood. I was broke, but Flynn assured me that, as a working journalist covering the trip for Low Magazine, this was a junket of which I had dreamed.

“Look man, I know you’re bummed we never made it with Julia and Janine,” he said, evoking the specter of our long and bitter search for two lipstick lesbians. “But this is a different scene entirely. It’s going to be so sweet you won’t even have to make anything up.”

That night I turned off the answering machine, told my girlfriend I had got a gig from Sports Afield covering new trends in live-bait deep sea fishing and, by 6 a.m. the following morning, found myself at the doorstep of Flynn’s Balboa Island apartment. Nestled behind a Marine Boulevard juice bar called the ‘Main Squeeze,’ Flynn’s new apartment seemed much more authentic, much more Brendan, than his previous digs in Santa Monica. A media liaison and ‘project facilitator’ for Pac-West, Inc., a Los Angeles-based outfit that handles PR for a sordid mix of politicians and porn stars, Flynn had been sent down to pioneer the firm’s Orange County office.

He was a natural for the job.

A surfboard with his address spray-painted across it hung from the banister of the staircase leading to his door. He answered my knock with an apple in one hand and a Coors Light in the other. “Glad you could make it, Mark,” promptly handing me a beer. “We need to cut down on some of our supplies before boarding the ship. We’re going to be traveling light this time around.”

On the way to the Newport Pavillion, Flynn introduced me to Brother Greg, a smooth-looking Poly grad who now did pre-litigation number crunching for a Big Six firm. He had survived the Orgy in Mammoth the year before, though he still cringed when he recalled how close he came to taking a swig out of a urine-filled beer bottle during the festivities. He hadn’t been too drunk to notice that the bottle felt unusually warm in his hand. But such experiences are what make these reunions worthwhile, he assured me. “You’ll see,” he promised me. “You’ll get a story out of this, we won’t let you down.”

I didn’t think they would.

We boarded the Catalina Flyer without incident, the bottles that clinked loudly from every bag we carried didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “It’s to be expected,” one deckhand told me. We found a row of seats on the top deck. It was just the three of us. The Plan, as Flynn explained over breakfast round of Bloody Marys and Screwdrivers, called for us to rendezvous with the rest of the Brothers later that night. I pondered what the town folk of Avalon would do if they knew their tiny island was being converged on by clique of young men who planned to spend three days trying to surpass the havoc they wreaked on Mammoth the year before.

As we crossed the channel I had the feeling that we were enjoying the last remnants of the calm before the storm.

Brother Eric, who appeared to be the money man behind the trip, had reserved two rooms at the Hotel St. Lauren, a glaring pink structure that sprouted from one of the hilltops overlooking the bay. We stowed our gear and quickly headed off to a seaside joint next to the Casino where we wolfed down plates of fish tacos and fries and pounded enough beer to keep us focused on what the Trip was supposed to be all about.

“I just want to get lost out here,” Flynn remarked as we watched a steady stream of yachts swing into the harbor, a party in progress on every deck. “I want to kiss the frenzy of L.A. goodbye and surrender to one big glorious swamp of feminine flesh and booze.”

It was clear that working as a flak for politicos and smut princes from the Valley had taken its toll on Flynn, yet Brother Greg assured him the itinerary for the next several days would help heal his psyche. “Why prolong this any long, let’s get down to the sand.”

The beach was laid out before us like some carnal all-could-eat buffet, stocked with G-strings and French cuts and plenty of beefcake for the ladies. There was more temptation beckoning on that white sand than Adam had faced in the Garden of Eden, but I found myself gripped in a moment of self-doubt. Uncertainty. How far did I want to take all this? Flynn, ever the faithful therapist, reassured me.

“I have no dilemmas,” he said. “I set it up so I’d have none, and I don’t. And in your case, Cromer, well you would do well to remember that the great George Plimpton forged ‘participant journalism’ for gigs precisely such as these. For God’s sake man, you have a job to do!”

I could see his point.

An hour later we were safely ensconced at a beachside bar, sipping Mai-tais and Gin Slings and watching the girls drift in from the Casino. The talk was casual, taken between long drags off smokes and punctured with mutual assurances of the sheer hedonism that was going to happen that night.

After awhile, we ambled back down to the beach, where Brother Greg passed out on his towel and began foaming at the mouth while Flynn crouched in the burning sand next to me. At first I thought he was pondering life as he sat facing the ocean, but as his trademark grin spread across his face I knew something else was happening.

“That, my friend, is what you call a ‘surfer’s piss,’” he said, pointing to the small murky puddle that was rapidly fading in the sand next to his knee. “I learned it from a drug addict in Laguna. This guy could piss while I was talking to him and I wouldn’t even know it.” It was a tactic which called for carefully snaking one’s cock out of the leg of one’s shorts while kneeling in the sand and covertly whizzing away. Flynn had mastered it.

The three of us baked on the beach. As the sun broiled from above, the booze was starting to manifest itself differently on each of us. Brother Greg was unconscious and frothing, little bubbles of spit floating away from his mouth. I felt immobilized, as if I’d been hit by a dart from a tranquilizer gun. Flynn began to feel politically active and started to display a mean streak of Pasadena Republicanism. “Goddamit, Cromer!” he shouted. “Do you know how that socialist bastard Clinton met Hillary? They were both dating the same girl in college.” I agreed, but argued for that very reason alone every Delta Sig serious about being a good greek ought to Support the President. After all, it was about time we had someone in the White House with enough blood pressure to sustain an erection. Wasn’t twelve years of impotent, old conservatives enough? Clinton was a man Ready and Willing to Act.

Flynn saw my point, but insisted that under such criteria JFK was definitely The Man. The shades, the smile, the style. He bagged Marilyn and kept the wife in line.

That settled, Flynn shut his eyes and surrendered to what he later called a “power snooze.” I noticed that like a dog, his leg twitches when he dreams.

We awoke from our collective stupor as the sun began to drop behind the Casino. Flynn was badly toasted on one side and he winced as he gauged the damage to his pale, freckled complexion. Still, he taunted Mother Nature, warning her not to mistake his fragile epidermis for weakness. “A darker complexion is a sign of working-class roots,” Flynn noted deadpan. “My ancestors were nobles. My nobility shines through my paleness.”

We walked back to the hotel and prepared for the arrival of the rest of the Brothers. Flynn stood on the balcony, keeping an eye out for smoke, explosions, sirens or any other signs they were on the island.

The Chi Chi Club was deserted when we arrived.

A few GQ wannabes who thought they were in a Budweiser Gen-X commercial drifted around the pool tables, toking on Camels and pretending some imaginary beauties were watching them. I could tell Flynn had the immediate impulse to start a fight—a habit if his when properly drunk—but he was distracted by the cocktail waitress, who waltzed over with a tray of tequila shooters.

Goodbye Jumbo.

I think Flynn and the rest of the Brothers caught the A-train to oblivion at that point, though like walking hand grenades they continued to explode in moments of brilliance throughout the night.

After downing his share of shots, it was clear that the Chi Chi Club was getting the better of brother Eric. He put his arm around my shoulder and pointed to the two older women who were sitting at a small table off the side of the dance floor. “You see those hookers? Just say the word bud, and I’ll talk ’em both into a couple of freebies,” he said. “You just say the word.”

It was a tempting offer, if only to watch him walk over to their table and attempt to work a “freebie.” But I knew I was still several drinks away from being able to handle it just in case they decided to play along and before I reached the point of no return we were getting thrown out of the Chi Chi Club. Flynn and brother Rob had apparently started climbing the pool tables and had christened the green felt with beer, which the proprietor felt was unnecessary.

On the street again, our next target was the Marlin Club. A much smaller dive than the other joints we had hit that night, the story at Marlin Club was much of the same, except we seemed to be getting thrown out more quickly. The Brothers had swept through the door with enough drunken bravado to terrorize even the most low-key bartender and our stay at the Marlin Club was wonderfully brief. One of the Brothers threw his drink at a comrade, but missed him and instead ended up dousing a woman sitting nearby. She began to scream in such a high pitch wail you’d think she’d been soaked in battery acid. As the tension grew, I headed toward the door, understanding the situation was not salvageable.

A large commotion erupted inside the club and several of the Brothers spilled out of the door and quickly blended into the crowd along the street. Uncertain what fate had met those still inside the place, we decided it was best for all parties concerned to Keep Moving.

By this time Flynn was nearly incapacitated. His motor skills seemed in flux, appearing passable one moment and totally short-circuited the next. He was muttering to himself about the ass-kicking those bastard doormen at the Marlin Club would have received had they tried pull any of their shit with him. Flynn tried to keep up as moved through the crowded strip, but the remaining Brothers smelled blood. Flynn was a wounded animal. He had become a liability. He had to be dealt with. In a savage burst of street Darwinism, the pack turned on him, rushing him as he flapped and flailed about like a fish dying on the deck of a troller.

It might have turned into a severe thumping, but Brother Pat stepped in as our new leader and issued clemency to Flynn, pulling the rest of the Brothers off him. It was a bloodless coup. Reinvigorated with new leadership, the tribe proceeded down the strip to Luau Larry’s, a tiny bar that was packed to the gills with beach bunnies and assorted drunks wearing basket-size straw hats.

Flynn never got through the door, the bouncers spotting trouble as he staggered up to the entrance. For a moment, he seemed gripped in defeat. His plans for diving head-first into a “swamp of feminine flesh” had been blown out by too much booze. He lingered in front of Luau Larry’s for a few minutes, peering through the windows with the forlorn look of a child who had been thrown out of a birthday party for being bad. Yet I could see a feeling of defiance welling up inside him.

The last I saw of B. Angus Flynn that night, he was stumbling down the strip, weaving and bobbing through the crowd, his dukes curled up in front of him like some hammered Tyrannosaurus Rex, taunting unseen ghosts and shadows with ‘C’mon, punk! Ya feel lucky? Put ’em up, I’ll take you all on!”

Inside the bar the energy levels were transcending. Brother Pat, who bore a striking resemblance to Mickey Dolenz, was nursing a gin and working hard on a eight-month pregnant woman who seemed delighted he wasn’t intimidated by the bread she had baking in her oven. At that stage, I don’t think any of us were intimidated by much. Compromise was in the air. The hour was late. Negotiations were becoming urgent.

I had walked back to the hotel alone.

I didn’t have a key to the rooms and settled for a couch in the lobby, where I collapsed and curled up into a fetal position, with a sick feeling the room was going to start spinning. I had been out for awhile when I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a voice saying “Hey, Low Boy, wake up. The party’s upstairs.” It was brother Eric. Behind him was brother Rob and two girls I had seen earlier at the Chi Chi Club. One was a dumpy looking blonde and the other a cute brunette. The blonde looked nervous. The brunette, horny.

Upstairs the boys rousted several other Brothers from their beds, rolling two of them onto the floor, their unconscious bodies landing with a heavy dull thud. The brunette quickly joined Brother Eric on the mattress, but Brother Rob was facing difficulties. The blonde was calling a cab. She wanted to go back to her tent on the beach.

I staggered into the adjoining room, where there was a mass of bodies passed out on the floor and beds. Brother Pat was sitting on the window ledge, smoking a cigarette and gazing out at the harbor lights below. “I can’t believe she was a preggo,” he kept muttering. “She really wasn’t showing.”

Back on the couch in the lobby, I curled up again. Before I fell asleep, I watched as the blonde furiously dragged the brunette out of the hotel and into a waiting cab.

The morning shift manager awoke me, asking if my wife had thrown me out of our room. I told him that she had, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Back up at the rooms there was an eerie serenity amid the carnage. Flynn was still MIA. “He’s either in jail or eating sand,” one of the brother’s mused. I rang up the sheriff’s station on the island and explained I was looking for a friend who had got lost last night.

The desk sergeant asked for his name.

“Brendan Flynn.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Flynn spent the night here,” he said. “We released him about twenty minutes ago.”

“What was the charge?”

“Drunk and Disorderly.”

It seemed a fitting title for his autobiography.

As he sipped coffee back the hotel, Flynn recalled leaving Luau Larry’s and trying to make it back to the rooms, but he determined he was not going to get there on foot. His legs were faltering. Mustering his last reserves of semi-coordinated energy, he tried to push-start a little electric golf cart that was parked in front of a business. He gave it his best shot, but a VW Bug it wasn’t. Then, like the opening scene out of Cool Hand Luke, Flynn found himself basking the glow of a spotlight. He tried to reason with the female deputy. Afterall, he was a Delta Sig and therefore entitled to all the privileges and benefits accorded to visiting fraternity brothers.

He was arrested without delay.

By 8:30 a.m. we were back on the strip, starting the new day with more Bloody Marys and a refreshed outlook on life. Sure, things hadn’t gone exactly as planned last night; Flynn got busted and Brother Eric had an ugly gash in the side of his head, but these things, as the deckhand had told me, were to be expected.

“By tonight,” Brother Pat predicted, “We’ll be hitting our stride.”

Later on, we filed down to the beach on the other side of the Casino and found it deserted. Clouds had rolled in and a chilly breeze had kicked up. Brother Rob swam out among the boats anchored in the bay and the rest of the Brothers decided to play ‘Depth Charge’ with him, hurling rocks and chunks of cement at his bobbing head every time he tried to swim back ashore.

Like the Ghosts of Delta Sigs Future, two young boys huddled on a shattered concrete structure that stretched from the beach and descended into the sea. A sign reading ‘Danger Keep Off Rocks’ loomed over their heads. They seemed tired. Lost. Defeated. On the run.

I took it as an omen.

Three hours later I was back on the Catalina Flyer, making a fast clip back across the channel to Newport. Flynn and the Brothers had regrouped. With three Gold Cards and a dozen condoms between them, they were clearly ready for whatever awaited them. There was a nagging sensation that floated around the booze in my gut, a small regret that I hadn’t stuck around to watch Round Two. “That’s when it’s all really going to happen,” Flynn told me in a last ditch effort to get me to stay on the island. “Tonight is when the real story is going to go down.”

There was every indication he was right.

I settled back int my seat and watched the island fade into the horizon.