American Fraternity Man (18 page)

In another conversation, one stout young man pounded his fist into his open palm, thundering the words, “And I said, you
buy in
…or you
get out
!”

Someone else said, “It’s the drug culture. That’s why I’m here. Stop! The! Drugs!”

And someone else: “—helped my fraternity to become the first on my campus to accept gay men without reservation—”

“—the house occupancy was dismal when I first got there, so I—”

“—so much opportunity to help the—”

“—and we need to really bring the
energy
, you know?”

The
Henderson Memorial Auditorium is the centerpiece for the Indianapolis “National Greek Row,” a single stretch of road in the unassuming heartland city of Indianapolis, where there is a carefully constructed corporate empire of national fraternities and sororities—headquarters buildings packed with full-time office staffs and file cabinets and three-ring binders and databases and spreadsheets—dedicated to maintaining the centuries of tradition within the world of “Greek Life,” dedicated to reforming the fringe elements.

My
headquarters building was a quarter-mile away, all the way at the far end of Founder’s Row: a large gray triangle, the sharp point facing the road and the window-adorned wings spreading out in the grass behind it. Fierce like a Stealth fighter aimed straight for you. On the front lawn, distinctly visible from where we stood, was a gigantic set of concrete NKE letters, surrounded by white carnations (our national flower) and a small fountain which spurts water throughout the summer.

We stood in a giant clump in the gravel, all of us super-early on our first day of training with our respective national fraternities and sororities, fighting to show that our bodies were 90% excitement and only 10% flesh-and-bone. But even though we were all there for the same reason, a group orientation, I knew even then that some of us had more reasons than others…From fifteen feet away, I could hear the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity consultant detailing how he’d cleaned up the alcohol culture in his house, how it had inspired him to want to make a difference in the lives of young people; I could hear the sorority consultant from Alpha Xi Delta telling someone that—when she was a freshman—they were the “nasty girls” on campus, the girls you picked up at the bar at 2 AM, but she took over as president and flushed out the “girls with the wrong priorities,” changed the sorority from
nasty
to
classy
, changed the reputation, changed futures. “That’s what I want to do as a consultant,” she said. “Empower young women to make the
right
choices.”

And yes, everyone around me had a story. Everyone around me sparkled with passion.
They were born ready for this.

“Just what we need, right?” said the young man beside me, Southwestern cattle rancher’s accent layering the words with down-home joviality.

I jumped, didn’t realize he was there.

He looked familiar: the military-sharp blonde crewcut, the thick eyebrows and fist-sized Adam’s apple. Maybe I’d met him already? Some other conference? Some other event? But he didn’t seem to recognize me, seemed instead like he was the sort who was accustomed to striking up conversations with strangers, making them feel like they’d already been chatting for an hour. “Our first meeting is in an auditorium,” he said, pointing at the doors. “
We drive all weekend, and then we sit our asses right back down.” He extended his hand so we could shake. “Brock London. From Central Texas University.” And he had the sort of knuckle-cracking handshake that I should have expected from someone built like a tractor. I tried to match its energy.

“I’m Charles!” I said. “Edison University! Nice to meet you!”

“Whew. No need to shout, buddy,” Brock said. “I’m right here.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just…loud. All around us.”

“No biggie. Have a long drive?”

“Eighteen hours. All the way from Fort Myers, Florida.”

“About the same for me. Guess we’d better get used to it. Part of the job.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Part of our job.” And it felt good to say this, the first moment that morning that hadn’t felt forced, because yes, this is what I
did
have in common with all the graduates gathered there: we came from everywhere. Florida and Texas, California and New York, Chicago and Seattle, each of us from different fraternities, different sororities—there are 29 national fraternities and sororities headquartered in Indianapolis, most of them represented in that gravel parking lot (“I’m with Zeta Tau Alpha sorority,” one girl was saying in front of me, while behind me another said “Heather, from Alpha Xi Delta,” and there were ten more introductions happening all around me, Theta Chi and Delta Delta Delta and Sigma Nu. When a name wasn’t paired with an alma mater, it was paired with Greek letters.). Hundreds of gallons of gas for all of us to get there, hundreds of hours driving in our Altimas and Explorers and Corollas, some cars built for the travel and others in the lot clearly winded from the effort. Hundreds of gas station stops, bags of Cheetos and Chex Mix and 44-ounce Diet Cokes; dozens of hotel stays, bad coffee in styrofoam cups before hitting the road. We’d left behind vastly different campuses: Albright College, West Virginia Tech, LSU, Kansas. We’d left behind vastly different chapter houses, some of them four-bedroom homes in neighborhoods outside campus, some of them four-story mansions with eighty beds, boardrooms, libraries. We’d left behind friends, girlfriends/ boyfriends, fiancés. Or, like Jenn back at EU, someone we were
hoping
would become our fiancé if we could get through this year. We’d turned down offers for better jobs, better money. (Well. Not me. But most of
them
.). We’d argued and argued with our parents, with our professors, with everyone who told us that it was a foolish choice to spend the next full year employed by a national fraternity or sorority.

But
we
knew
that we’d live from our cars, from airplanes, from suitcases, from the Starbucks and Panera cafes at which we’d soon type our reports, and we knew that our paychecks would be tight, that we were here together in a collective orientation because each national fraternity and sorority is a not-for-profit that operates from student dues, and a group orientation saves money, and as our web sites and brochures tout, “No matter the letter, we’re all Greek together!” We knew it. We’d all signed up for this because…well, because we care about something greater than a “pay-off.”

“I packed lots of CDs,” I said. “But I should have subscribed to XM.”

“Sure. Good for the long drives,” Brock said. “So what’s your letters, chief?”

“Nu Kappa Epsilon
,” I said. “I’m a Nike.”

“Hey hey!” He slapped my back with one hard-as-a-board hand, like he was not a stranger but instead my older brother, and this rough-house exchange was an established part of our relationship. I fell forward a few steps. “Me too! Looks like we’re gonna be working together!”

Brock London: and yes, I knew the name sounded familiar. There were dozens of consultants all around, but
even on my first day of training I knew that I was one of just three new consultants hired by Nu Kappa Epsilon. And yes, I remembered the name Brock London. He’d already been hired before I was even interviewed.

“So,” he said. Looked around, lowered his voice. “You know why we’re here?”

“Why we’re here? Like, the job responsibilities?”

“No, no,” Brock said. “Heh. I’m a big dumb Texas boy, but I’m not that dense. I know why
I’m
here.” And he smiled wide and slapped me on the back again, but this time I braced myself and didn’t stumble. “I meant, why are we
here
? The auditorium?”

I stood straight, grimacing. “You didn’t get a copy of the agenda?”

“Don’t think so. I just knew that training starts today at 8 AM.”

“And you got here early?”

“First day, buddy. Don’t check my email too much, but I do know that you gotta make a solid first impression. You think you’d be the only one to show up early?”

“I guess not.” But I pulled a sheet of paper from my leather portfolio, handed it to him. My first victory: fully prepared for the first day’s training sessions. “Here you go. I
try to print out all of my appointments. I think I have internet on my phone, but it costs an arm and leg, and it takes forever.”

“Heh,” Brock said. “We’ll get along just fine, you and me. I don’t even know how to send a text message.
I just go with the flow.” He read from the print-out: “‘Consultant Orientation, 8 AM. The Mission of Greek Life, with W. LaFaber – H. M. Auditorium.’ Well, damn. Walter’s leading this session?” And now Brock looked all around, as if Walter LaFaber had perhaps materialized in the parking lot. “Hell of a start to the day! You’ve met him, right?”

“I have.
During my interview.”

And yes, if it is indeed a corporate empire of national fraternities and sororities there in Indianapolis, Walter LaFaber is not just my supervisor at NKE…he is at the forefront of the entire empire. The promise of what frater
nity life could and should be.

With only
a few minutes remaining before the start of the orientation, I said to Brock, “So what’s your story? Why’d
you
take the job?”

“You might never heard of me,” he said, running his hand over his buzzcut, “but you know why I’m here.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You heard the name Ashton Simon, I bet.”

Ashton Simon. And it dawned on me that I shouldn’t have asked for his story.

Because
every fraternity man in the last decade knows the story of Ashton Simon. “The Ashton Simon Tragedy” had not just made headlines, but had become the sort of cautionary tale preached about at national conferences and in fraternity manuals. It had brought down an entire national fraternity. Everyone knew the name and the basic details, but now I was going to hear the full story.

This is what Brock told me:

During his freshman year at Central Texas University, a private school of about 2,500 outside of Fort Worth, Brock and his childhood best friend Ashton Simon decided to pledge different fraternities. They’d been friends their whole lives, so they figured: why not branch out, meet new people? Brock chose Nu Kappa Epsilon. “Had some problems from the start,” he told me. “Always been more of a leader than a follower,” and the chapter hazed without abandon, subjected the pledges to all sorts of subservient activities. “Had to spend a night pretending to be a coffee table,” he said. “Most humiliating night of my life.” Ashton, though, chose a fraternity called Beta Beta Alpha and had a different experience entirely. Immersed himself in the chapter during this first semester, played intramural football, even became Pledge Class President. Never hazed, not once. Always bragged that this was fraternity the way it was supposed to be. But at the very pinnacle of the semester, just as all was going so well for him, Ashton was forced by an older brother to drink a full bottle of cheap vodka after a Big Brother-Little Brother ceremony, and afterward passed out. Asphyxiated on his own vomit.

And Brock stood tall as he told the story, eyes locked on mine, such gravity that I felt as if my body was liquefying and sinking into the Earth.

Without a pause or stutter, Brock told me that he’d fallen into a deep depression, had withdrawn from his classes, left campus. The two had known each other since preschool, had played Little League together. JV football. Varsity lettermen, Powder Puff cheerleaders. How could something like this have happened?

So when Brock returned to campus the following semester, he was a man on a mission:
Beta Beta Alpha National Fraternity had crumbled from its legal battle, was now defunct, but Brock re-pledged Nu Kappa Epsilon and took a leadership role, rebelling against brothers when they attempted to haze him, tackling and pinning down the soft, spoiled Dallas and Houston brats when they tried to drive drunk after parties, counseling other pledges who were coping with peer pressure and alcoholism in their first year in college. By his junior year, he was president, had expelled the chapter troublemakers, and had convinced the administration
and
the students at Central Texas to ban alcohol in student housing; he even traveled Texas on a lecture tour with several anti-hazing and anti-binge-drinking presenters for CampuSpeak. Appeared on morning talk shows. Became a celebrity and advocate for values-based campus organizations. “That’s how I met Walter LaFaber. He had me scouted for a long time, offered me the job after a speech I gave at Texas A&M.”

Yes, that’s Brock London. The sort of consultant who never had to change a thing about himself. Born for this.

“Start our summer training with a speech from Walter LaFaber,” Brock said after finishing his story, face beaming with born-again intensity. “Gonna be good. Yessir.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m excited.”

“Are you?” Brock asked, and his eyes suddenly darkened with the same skepticism that I’d seen in
Jeanna-from-Bowling-Green’s
eyes. Buzz cut seeming somehow sharper, cheeks losing their jolly roundness and turning hard as elbows. And I thought that he might ask me if I had a similar story, something that compares, something dramatic and important. And if not, why the hell was I even there?