American Fraternity Man (33 page)

“First,” I say and open my portfolio notebook, “a couple housekeeping details that I’m required to go
through. No pun intended. About, um, housekeeping?” Blank stares, angry stares. “Okay,” I say. “I’m going to pass out the Officer Update Form. I need you all to update your contact info and return it to me by the end of this meeting.”

And now they’re not even looking at me. Eight officers, staring at the vent, probably wishing they were behind their own stereos, under their own dumbbells.

“Blood in my eye, dog, and I can’t see,” 50 Cent blares through the vent.

James Neagle, chapter president, makes no attempt to sustain everyone’s focus.

“And I’m try’n to be what I’m destined to be,” 50 Cent raps.

“Next,” I say, speaking louder, “I need to schedule one-on-one meetings with each of you. I’ve got a list of visit responsibilities while I’m here, items I need to collect and things I need to talk about with every officer.”

“And niggas try’n to take my life away,” 50 Cent raps.

I stare at the vent, willing it to shut, but there’s no chance of that.

“I put a hole in a nigga for fuckin’ with me,” 50 Cent raps.

I speak even louder, running my finger down a “Chapter Efficiency” checklist on my laptop
. “How many active members are currently in your chapter?” and “Does each officer have an operations manual?” and the answers thud like thick, dusty library books dropped on a table. The eight officers have melted into one dark clump, a mass of antagonism, crossed arms and squinted eyes, sighs and shaking heads, as I continue with the questions:

And then: “How many new members has your chapter recruited in the past year?”

“Recruited?” one of them asks. Danny is his name. Danny DeKalb. Kid with hair so perfect he doesn’t seem to want to mash it down and spoil it with a baseball cap like everyone else. The only blonde in a room full of soot-colored scalps. He’s the Vice President of
Recruitment
, but his James-Franco-face is cocked into a sucker-punched scowl. “What do you mean by
recruited
?”

“Recruited,” I say. “New members. Like, through Rush.”

“Why not say
Rushed
, then?” he asks. “Why this technical word? Makes us sound like we’re a business or something, not a fraternity.”

“Rush and recruitment,” I say, “they’re not the same.”
Minor difference in word choice, but major difference in attitude, I tell them. If we can change the word choice, that’s the first step to changing the culture. I tell them that “Rush” is just a week out of the year set aside by the university, advertised to students, and then all of the fraternities and sororities use this
single week
for
new member recruitment
. But at the Headquarters, we found that it’s better to say
recruited
, because that way we can understand that recruitment is a year-round responsibility. It’s anytime that you’re selling your fraternity to non-members. Fraternity recruitment is 24/7/365. We’re always selling ourselves, that’s the point. Always abiding by recruitment guidelines when speaking to non-members, always beacons of leadership, Marathon Men:

Blank stares
from the eight of them.

“Thirty,” Danny says. “Fucking shit. Didn’t need a dissertation. Thirty pledges.”

I nod, exhale, input the number into the worksheet: 30.

“Next question. Do you use alcohol in recruitment?”

And the answer is obvious by the condition of the house. Alcohol? Kegs, hunch punch, jell-o shots, ice slides, jager bombs, frozen margaritas, shotguns, Irish car bombs? Hell, if it’s
in
, and it’s cheap, and it’ll rock the Row, these guys probably did it last night. Shit I’ve never even heard of.

“That’s against the rules,” Danny says.

The others nod, their faces aglow with deceit.

I wait a moment, unsure if I should force the subject, unsure how I can do it tactfully and intelligently,
but I finally just blurt, “But you had a party last night.”

“Rush starts on Wednesday night,” Neagle says. “After you leave.
Since you wanna get all technical and shit.”

“But it was a
recruitment
party. Didn’t you just hear what I said? Recruitment is year-round.”

“Rush starts on Wednesday,” Neagle repeats.

“You had a party. An open party? Free alcohol? To
recruit
new pledges?”

“Can’t be a Rush party if it’s not during Rush Week,” Danny says, shaking his head. “Everybody gets crazy
the start of the semester. Whole Row blows up. We drank some beer, had people over. No different than anyone else.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” I say, thinking
of all those drunk driving accidents, porch collapses, blood alcohol poisoning, all the ways that fraternity members and their guests have died over the years, have fed the Frat Guy stereotype. I’m thinking of the Sandor lawsuit, those parents who want to sue Nu Kappa Epsilon into oblivion. Head pounding, and I’m thinking of marijuana and ecstacy, beer and GHB, 16-year-old girls in the bedrooms of 25-year-old males, drunks drowning in bathtubs, young men crushed under tumbling dressers. Rush is a full season at universities, and when something goes wrong,
the specific day of week doesn’t matter.

All the workshops and manuals
. But it’s blank stares because they don’t care.

“What the fuck do
you
know, anyway?” Danny says finally.

“I know that you guys are not in good shape, financially,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can say that won’t cause them to erupt. I can’t tell them that their house is a disgrace and that they’re a disgrace. No. My comment is safe because it’s just numbers, inargu
able numbers, and no one can deny numbers: “You don’t have enough members to afford this house,” I say. “Your dues are too low. You’re spending more money on Rush than a full semester of pledge dues will generate for your chapter. These numbers don’t indicate a very promising future.”

“Phhh,” Neagle says. “Thanks for the update. You’re a real Positive Pat.”

*

At night
I try to sleep on Neagle’s couch; I stare at his empty unmade bed and wait for him to walk upstairs from whatever they’re all doing on a Sunday night, down in the main foyer and in the basement. Stereo-speaker bass rattling the cob-webbed vents. Stayed out too late with the alumni last night. Wait, that was
last night
? Need sleep. Can’t allow myself to wake up later and later each day.

But I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about what might happen if I let my guard down. I keep thinking about those Fun Nazi business cards, the
craftsmanship. I imagine a permanent-marker mustache on my face, a fake plastic snake on my chest, my hand submerged in warm water and my pants soaked with urine. I imagine Facebook status updates, too, all of my thoughts squeezed into 160 characters or less: “Charles is…at Shippensburg, and can’t sleep.”

“Charles…can smell fifty different types of beer soaked into the carpet.”

“Charles…would rather be sleeping on the floor.”

And I’m awake. For hours, it seems. But Neagle’s bed remains empty.

The bedroom is hot, dark, full of angry angular shapes.

Before tonight, sleeping accommodations
were below expectations, but still manageable. At the University of Kentucky, I stayed with the Alumni Advisor in the former bedroom of his 22-year-old son. Clean bed, clean sheets. At East Tennessee State, the chapter cleared out an unoccupied room for me. Even at Pittsburgh, I received the guest room. At the time, that house felt like a melting house of wax, but now…a fucking
couch
? I’d kill for Pittsburgh again.

The cushions are hard, too. No. Just one is hard: the middle cushion.

Sometime after 2 AM, my eyes adjusted to darkness now, head pounding and still no Neagle, I roll off the couch, kneel beside it, inspect the three cushions. And I knew it. Different patterns! All three cushions have come from different couches! I move the hard cushion to the end, to my feet. Head pounding.

But now the “head” cushion is too soft, and every time I hear any noise in the hallway, my eyes open and I tense up. And something is poking me in the back, and it’s probably something they left in the couch, like a fork or something, just to fuck with me, but after awhile I check it out, and it’s just a spring: a spring has popped through the cushion fabric. I feel an open wound on my back.

“Charles is…bleeding, and itches.”

“Charles…just wants to fucking sleep! Is that really too much to ask?”

Head pounding, and this is tomorrow’s schedule:

And I just keep picturing it behind shut eyes, arguing with myself that I have to be ready by 9 AM, not 10 AM, not 8
AM, arguing with myself that I’m remembering the right schedule.

“Charles is…hearing someone having sex down the hall. Really
?”

Sometime after 3 AM, head pounding and still no Neagle, and I stare at the cigarette-smelling pill
ow that Neagle gave me, and it’s covered in hair. Short hair. Clipped. Curly. Cat hair, I want to think, but no. Shavings from someone. Head, neck shavings? Chest shavings? Scrotum shavings. I throw the pillow on the floor, use the armrest for my head. Roar because Neagle isn’t here, that fucker, and if he was…if he was…

And
then I spend the night staring at Neagle’s bed, coughing loudly, swearing every now and then, hoping to wake him. But the bed remains empty, I know that. Even when I awake in the morning, more tired than when I’d first slipped under this rough blanket, Neagle isn’t there. Empty bed. Empty fucking bed, and my back hurts from the couch.

Anything suspicious, report it, LaFaber said.

And that’s it, now. Fun Nazi, it’s not so difficult.

Sometime after 11 AM, as I sit in the foyer talking with the Treasurer, Neagle bumbles in through the front door. “Spent the night at my girl’s place,” he says. “Thought I’d give you some privacy. You sleep well?”

“Hmm?” I ask, and I could waste my energy on being mad at him—you
fucker!
I needed a good fucking night of
sleep
, and you gave me your
couch
when I could have had your
bed
, you lousy
piece of shit!
—but I keep it in check, say, “Oh yeah, fine.”