American Fraternity Man (57 page)

Inside Buenos Noches, our table is large and round, looks like it would make a perfect flotation device after a shipwreck, like it could save fifteen people from tumultuous post-wreck waters. And it’s
topped with so many baskets—
buckets
—of tortilla chips and deep bowls of salsa that the entire restaurant sounds as if it’s in a constant state of crunching. Around me are the eight Executive Board officers, and in heavy contrast to the chapters I’ve visited thus far, Sam is one of only two white men: four are Hispanic, one is black, and one is Asian. From their initial conception in the mid-1800s as secret literary societies, fraternities have always been clubs for “Good Ole Boys,” exclusive societies where status is a primary factor in member selection. I’ve heard stories about fraternity life in the 1950s and 1960s (even the ‘70s and ‘80s), when chapters split divisively (or voluntarily closed themselves and disbanded) over the issue of admitting black men. These are regrettable memories today, of course, though the tradition certainly survives in racist bedrock states where members whose fathers and grandfathers wore Nike Red still shudder to think that they could call any black man a “brother.” But Nu Kappa Epsilon’s mission includes an initiative called “Diversity of Brothers,” page 51 of the
Marathon
handbook, stating: “Every chapter should take extra efforts to seek out potential members from diverse backgrounds. Chapters will be stronger through their difference, and each brother may learn from his fellow brothers about new cultures and backgrounds.” Most national fraternities have made similar proclamations, and some have even revised this statement to include an open-armed addendum on homosexual men.

Seated here in Buenos Noches and thinking about all of this, I realize that I haven’t said a word about the Nu Kappa Epsilon mission statement in hours, and it suddenly worries me: today, these guys have seen me drink at least eight beers over the course of the afternoon, but I haven’t offered a single piece of leadership development wisdom.
Jose, in fact, looked annoyed when he led us away from the fraternity house like maybe I wasn’t doing the job he’d hoped I would do. So after we order our food, I say: “It’s great that you guys are really fulfilling the Nike Diversity Initiative.”

They give me sandblasted stares, all eight of them.

“What do you mean?” Sam asks. “Diversity initiative?”

I search the table—white, black, Hispanic, Asian—and look for a glimmer of recognition. “I mean, it’s great that you guys are so
diverse
, you know?”

Sandblasted stares. Silence.

“Some chapters aren’t quite so…full of people from different backgrounds.”

“Almost everyone in our chapter is from New Mexico,” Jose says. “So…?”

“I mean, like, backgrounds. You know?”

They look to one another, eyes squinted, many of them shaking their heads or shrugging.

“It’s not…
this way
…at other schools,” I say.

“You mean we are not white?” Jose says, and now the others are smiling.

Sam laughs. “Chapters out in Iowa are just a bunch of white farmboys, huh?”

“They have never seen a Mexican
,” Jose says. “I would scare them.”

“No,” I say. “T
hat’s not I what I meant.”

“Sure it was,” Sam says.

“No. It’s just…some chapters are traditional.”

“White is traditional?” Jose asks.

“Tradition, ha,” says Brandon, the short and (by his own admission) enchilada-fattened black Treasurer for the chapter. Earlier today, while we drank on the porch at El Sombrero, Brandon and I talked for over 45 minutes about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Arizona Cardinals; he’s had Cardinals season tickets since he was a boy, he said, and they were the sorriest sports franchise you can imagine (“The Bucs had a rough stretch, too,” I argued, but he wouldn’t budge). But he’s fiercely loyal, kept telling me that dedication is the most important quality of a good citizen. It pays off, he said. Hell, if Arizona can win a Super Bowl, it’ll mean more to the dedicated fans because
they stuck with it
. “We’ve only been chartered for ten, twelve years,” Brandon says now. “There
is
no tradition here. That’s what I like. We’re
building
it.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I say. “You have a choice of what you want to be.”

“We met the brothers from LSU at the last National Convention,” Brandon says. “Five feet from us, and one of these pricks says, ‘They’re letting beaners into Nike now?’ Beaners, this guy said. I almost socked his ass. Who even uses that word?”

“Like he memorized an episode of Carlos Mencia,” Sam says. “
Psssh
.”

“Hmm,” Sam says, rubs his chin. “Diversity Initiative.”

“Diversity Initiative,” I say. “Whether you know it or not, whether you planned it or not, you guys are making good choices. Setting good traditions.”

“Obviously you don’t know us very well,” Sam says, and the table laughs.

Jose turns to me. “Tell us about the ‘traditional’ chapters.”

“One of my first chapter visits,” I say, “was at Green Valley, a little college in the mountains of Virginia. Town of about 5,000, including students. Southern kids who grew up in town, graduated, never left. Nike’s been around Green Valley since the ‘40s, so half the town is Nikes. The furniture store owner, the gas station owner, the mayor, the police chief. It’s like a country club. Lots of pressure in that school to be a Nike.”

“Fucking inbreeding,” Sam says. “And I thought our school was bad.”

“The more tradition
, the more uptight everyone gets. Serious money on the line, and everyone’s fighting over it. The students, the university, the alumni, nationals.”

“No money to fight over out here,” Sam says.

“Just wait a decade or two. Until you’re an alumnus, and some 18-year-old kid is spraying beer all over the ceiling fan that you just installed in the chapter house.”

“So this is a real job, then, Charlie?
” Sam asks. “No joke?”

“Yes,” I say.

“You get paid?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not in school, still?”

“I graduated.”

“Real job. And you just go house to house, hanging out? Is this fun?”

“It has its moments. But it’s
still a job.”

“You’re visiting fraternities,” Sam says. “
Frater
-nities.”

“I bet you get to see a lot of shit like our Etiquette Dinner, huh?” Brandon asks. “I bet you get to see some pretty cool parties.”

“Chapters are scared of me,” I say. “They think I’m there to spy on them.”

“
You’re not?”

“Doesn’t matter why I’m there. Most chapters hate me as soon as they meet me.”

“That sucks. I’d go crazy if I were you.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“If I had to always be a bad guy.”

The Fun Nazi business card, I’m thinking. Keep it flipped.

“I’m not a bad guy,” I say. “I don’t
want
to be a bad guy, anyway.”

“We got
ta take you to Juarez,” Brandon says. “That settles it. You’re going. We’ll treat you like a brother, not a fucking spy.”

“Okay?”

“Seriously,” Sam says. “Take the night off, ‘kay? Have fun.”

“I can’t take a ni
ght off,” I say. “I’m always on.”

“I’ve seen you drink
a dozen beers today, bro,” Sam says. “Can’t take a night off? Shit, if this is the working life, where do I sign up?”

“No, honestly, I’ve got a Code of Conduct and everything. I can’t go overboard—”

“Have another beer,” Brandon says.

“We’ll call up Maria,” Sam says. “We’ll have a grand fucking time.”

“Give this Maria stuff a rest, will you?”

“Come on
. This is a fraternity. Brothers take care of one another.”

“It sounds nice,” I say. “But I could get in a whole lot of trouble for hooking up with some undergraduate girl. This is bigger than just, you know, a few beers. Dicey stuff.”

“Don’t be a pussy,” Sam says. “How’s anyone going to take you seriously if you don’t hit that shit, yo? From, like, a professional standpoint, I don’t even think you’ve got a choice.”

We talk “new member education” for a few minutes, and I slip in the possibility that, you know, maybe the Etiquette Dinner could’ve been intimidating, and maybe tone it down so you, like, don’t get in trouble. You know? This isn’t me, I say. If it was up to me, hell, do whatever. I trust your judgment. But if a school administrator saw that: that’s what you’ve got to do, I say, think about how it looks to an outsider.

“Sure,” Sam says. “I gotcha. Makes sense.”

“Just wanna keep you all safe,” I say. “You’re already my favorite chapter, and I don’t want you getting in trouble for something so ticky-tacky.”

Dinner ends. Beer at the house, they keep saying. A couple beers on a Sunday night, and so we pile back into Sam’s car and I’m given the front seat again but now there’s no end to the swearing. No caution flags, no loudspeaker warning that “THE EC IS IN THE CAR!” Now, it’s green lights and gas pedals to the floor and Sam saying, “I always have to fucking drive you clowns around,” and Carlos in the back saying, “I’m going to get so fucking ripped tonight, bro,” and someone else adding, “That Phi Mu is working bar on Tuesday night, man, and she is so fucking banging,” and “I want to bang the shit out of her,” and it’s a race track jam-packed with speeding swears and zipping 200-mile-per-hour disregard for professionalism, but it doesn’t matter because now I’m living on the blank side of the card.

*

I wait to call Maria, wait until I’ve been asked—“you’re going to do it, right?”—and urged—“bro, she was all up on your D”—by every brother and pledge in our NMSU chapter, wait until I’m absolutely convinced that, if I do call her, the result will not shatter the illusion of “Charles Washington” that I’ve built. I wait all Sunday night. I wait through a two-hour-long chapter meeting on Monday (during which I earn a round of applause when Sam introduces me as the “Nationals Pimp,” and Jose says “Quiet, quiet. Okay, quiet. There is business to be done.”). I wait through three or four officer one-on-ones (during which the conversations quickly derail from Nu Kappa Epsilon policies and procedures to
Iron Man
and Lil Wayne and USC’s killer season). And I almost wait through Monday night, too, but I’m sitting in a Mexican restaurant called Green Chile with Sam and four other brothers—all native Mexicans, and they tell me why this is the best
New
Mexican (not
Tex-
Mex) restaurant in Las Cruces, and then they won’t let me continue waiting. Monday night, they’re assertive.

“Do you have her number
right now
?” asks a pudgy-cheeked kid with curly black hair and a blue Adidas shirt. His name, I think, is Andy, but I’ve been afraid to call him by name, just in case I’m wrong. The name might be Alejandro, and I don’t want to say the wrong thing and look culturally insensitive, as if I always hear “white names” no matter what you tell me.

“I saved it in my cell phone.”

“Listen, bro,” Andy (?) says. “You’re only here for two more days.”

“I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Andy (?) curses in Spanish, speaks an entire Spanish sentence. An entire paragraph. All night, when they haven’t been extolling the benefits of green chile salsa over tomato-based salsa (“New Mexico is green chile country, amigo,” they’ve said a thousand times) or bragging about their fathers’ gamecock training pens, they’ve been drifting into Spanish or Spanglish as though I’m fluent in either. “Como?” I keep asking, jokingly, and they laugh. “You’re from Florida,” Jose said to me last night. “How is it that you do not speak Spanish?”

“Give me the phone,” Andy (?) says.

“Why?” I grab a tortilla chip from the large black bowl in the center of our table. I’ve come to expect free appetizers at every restaurant, and I’m sure I’ll miss them when I’m back in New Jersey or Delaware.

“If you don’t call her, I will,” he says.

“I’ll do it. Just not now.”

But
before I know what’s happening, Sam has me in a headlock, and the tortilla chip flings out of my hand and lands on the floor, and I make a desperate
unngh
noise, flail for a second, but Andy has my phone and he scrolls through the numbers and says, “This is what brothers are for, homeboy.” And then he says, “A-ha!” and his face lights up because he’s found Maria’s number in my phone and he’s hitting “dial” and until now, it’s been pure fantasy, just another in a long line of “things I want to do but never will,” but when Andy says, “Is this Maria? Oh. Oh, good, good,” the fantasy itself is just a fantasy, because Sam lets me loose and Andy says, “Charles lost your number, so we called you for him. Here he is.”

He hands me the phone.

Released from the headlock, I flop forward in my seat and take the phone hesitantly, hear Maria say “hello” and I clear my throat and speak. Five minutes later, I have plans to go out to Juarez on Tuesday night.