American Fraternity Man

by Nathan Holic

  “I give my money,” says Clyde Hampshire. “I simply cannot give my time, too.”

  “Only retirees can afford to give time!” Dr. Wigginton says, slaps Clyde Hampshire’s knee. “You’re still a year away, sir!”

  “Tell you what, doc,” Ben says, “I win the powerball and the first thing I do…well, second thing I do…first thing is, I dump the wife and pick up a little piece of ass with college girl written all over her…But the second thing I do is I put a couple hundred grand into this fraternity. You match me, we invest that shit, and you see what we can come up with. You and me, we’ll make that Pittsburgh house into something special. Hell, build myself a guest house.”

  “It wouldn’t take much time,” I say. “It’s just that college kids need mentors in the business world. They need someone to help them figure things out.”

  “Bah,” Clyde Hampshire says. “Millennials.”

  “What does that mean?” I say.

  “Millennials,” he says again, and I notice now how massive his gray eyebrows are, hairs curling outward. Nose hairs descending, also, and he’s missed a few spots shaving on his neck and on his left cheek; the hair is long, looks as though he’s missed those spots for days. I expected a man with so many business-world accolades, such wealth and prestige, to appear careful and orderly, but Clyde Hampshire shakes, jitters, slurs under the influence of alcohol. “The Mil-len-nial Generation,” he says, “that’s what they’re calling kids today. Kids born now, kids going to school. It’s the next generation after Generation X. Kids who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”

  Dr. Wigginton laughs hard, but no sound comes out; he holds his belly.

  “Of course they need mentors! They know all about the Simpsons and Britney Spears,” Clyde Hampshire says, “but they can’t tie their own shoes. Of course they can’t figure anything out! Everything has been handed to them.”

  “Here, here!” Ben Jameson says, pounding his glass on the table.

  “You want me to waste my time mentoring kids who should have their act together anyway?” Henry asks. “That’s the idea here?”

  “No, I’m not saying that.”

  “Everything has been handed to them,” Hampshire says. “Everything.”

  “It’s not that they’re lazy or sloppy,” I say, and I struggle to say “they” and not “we.” “It’s just that some of them, some students, they’re lost, you know? We’re a leadership development organization, so—”

  “What about the parents?” Henry asks.

  “What about them?”

  “Shouldn’t parents be the mentors? Teach them all this stuff?”

  “But the fraternity should bolster that,” I say. “Not everyone’s born into the same family, but joining the fraternity should be like joining a new family, a perfect support network that’s never going to fall apart. It’s…it’s the Millennial Family.”

  “A family,” Henry says. “Already got one of those, thanks.”

  “And what do your parents do for a living, Mr. Washington?” Dr. Wigginton asks.

  “My parents?”

  “Yours.”

  “My father is in real estate.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She was an administrator at a doctor’s office,” I say. “But my father made enough that she resigned a few years back.”

  “Ahh, they’re still together?” Clyde Hampshire asks. “That’s all the support network a young man should need. A stable family.”

  “That’s not what we were talking about.”

  “But here you are, Mr. Washington,” Wigginton says, and he scratches behind his ear with a professorial pretentiousness, as if settling the matter. “A self-sufficient young man who’s clearly benefitted from the mentoring of your father. A strong work ethic instilled by successful parents.”

  “Unlike most of this generation.” Henry Guffman gulps his beer. “They just use and abuse it, know what I mean?”

  “Millennials,” Hampshire says one last time. “Dependent. The Entitlement Generation.”

  “Indeed,” Wigginton says, eyes half-closed, head swaying. “If it weren’t for us, many of these undergraduate chapters would be headed down that dreary road to closure. They need us.” He places his cold hand on my wrist and I try not to flinch. “Why, Mr. Washington, just last Spring, we had to step in at Penn State. The administrators, you see, they attempted to shut down the house. Claimed to have evidence of some indiscretion, hazing or sleep deprivation or some such nonsense. We’d warned the undergraduates before, of course. The culture has changed, we told them: these things are no longer allowed.” He releases my wrist. “I had to organize the alumni, men whose combined contributions to that university exceed seven digits. We had to threaten the administration, Mr. Washington: punish the undergraduates, and we will withhold future donations!” His eyes are open now, face smooth but volcanic red. “What Mr. Hampshire says is God’s honest truth. These children are handed everything. What more should we be expected to give them?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  A grand tradition stretching back more than a century.

  We are leaders.

  A mission to build young men into socially responsible citizens.

  “Noble,” Jenn said when we talked about my career. Noble.

  And then it is Pitcher Number Seven, and I hang my head each time the waitress stops by the table, and every other word out of anyone’s mouth is slurred, swears speckling every sentence as if they are trying to fulfill the criteria for a Good Ole Boys Club caricature, titties from Guffman and for fuck’s sake from Hampshire, buncha cunts from Ben Jameson, so very faggy from Wigginton…

  The dinner bill comes—I reach for my wallet, but Dr. Wigginton is a king, a provider for his people, and he covers everyone, the alumni all ho-hum like they expect it but I am jubilant because this meal cost more than my daily budget allows. Ben makes one last attempt at the waitress, but she looks beyond patience and so he says “fuck it” (loudly), and I help the Doctor out the front door, take the keys and help him into his passenger seat, and then I am driving us back through dark roads and twisting mountain setbacks, back to Kinston and to his home, but he falls asleep and I make a wrong turn and at one point the road ends and I have to turn around and drive fifteen minutes back to the last intersection and he wakes up briefly and says, “Oh, left here,” then closes his eyes again.

  And when we grumble into Kinston and park in his brick driveway, he opens the passenger-seat door and tries to get out without taking off his seatbelt, then unlatches and tumbles onto the ground. Stands and wobbles, sloshes past his front door, through his living room, falls into his bed in his blazer and dress pants. “No fun-time tonight, young man,” he says, but then goes silent.

  I turn off his bedroom lights. Leave him. Decide to take a late-night shower, since Henry Guffman knocked over a glass and coated my entire upper torso with Yuengling. A late-night shower, so I can sneak out of here early in the morning.

  The tub and shower curtains have a musty old man odor to them, like vinegar and Dial bar soap and orange Bic razors. For awhile, I think about how funny it would be to snap a photo of the good doctor, passed out like that on his bed. Snap a photo and share it with the other consultants. So pathetic, this old, drunk man. This fraternity figurehead, this Nike Hall-of-Famer. This man who has been built into an Alumni Legend…look and see the grand tradition of the fraternity! Legs hanging off the bed, slacks going wrinkled, face mashed into the headboard, glasses sideways and ready to snap.

  I think about taking the photo.

  Uploading it online: I’m the one who needs to worry about a digital footprint?

  Charles is…just showing it like it is.

  Dr. Wigginton is…going to be surprised when he finds himself on Facebook!

  But I leave the camera in my bag.

  This night wasn’t supposed to happen like this, but I still need Dr. Wigginton to be who he should be. Mayb
e everyone does. What good is it to destroy the legend, the history? I still need Walter LaFaber to be who he’s supposed to be, also, can’t let myself think that this was a joke, or worse, that he’s just funneling exuberant young men into the gleeful open arms of a lonely old pervert in the no-one-can-hear-you-scream mountains. Those things can’t be true.

  Late at night I call Jenn again, and when she answers, all I hear is the static-loud noise of a party, a bar, a DJ, whatever, and she just keeps saying, “I can’t hear you!” Two nights in a row. And so I hang up and turn off my phone. I sit on the brown sheets and a sharp glint of white catches my eye, something poking out under the pillow; it’s that fucking Fun Nazi business card again. I turn it over in my hands, over to the white, blank back, over to the front, to “Fun Nazi.” I should toss it in the trash, just forget about it because it was a meaningless gag, but this is the thing that I won’t let go, this is the thing that I’ll latch onto.

  I place it atop my laptop case so I can stare at it. I’m the Fun Nazi? I’m the one who doesn’t get it? I wander Dr. Wigginton’s kitchen, floorboards creaking, find a bottle of Gentleman Jack in a high cabinet, floorboards creaking from somewhere else but his bedroom door is still shut, it’s just the old wood and ghosts of this house, and I take a quick shot and put the bottle back, then grab the bottle again and sit outside on the porch and all is black and sounds like crickets or birds or wind, branches snapping, and I pour another shot, kick it back, then another. I’m the Fun Nazi?

  *

  Early in the morning, I wake up to a cup of coffee, toast, and oatmeal on the breakfast table. But I leave as quickly as I can, thanking and thanking Dr. Wigginton until I’ve said “thanks” so many times that—like “fraternity”—it doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore. “You are welcome back any time, my brother, any time,” he says, and I say, “It’s a little out of the way,” and he just says again, “Any time, Mr. Washington, that bedroom is yours. I am indeed impressed by your professionalism, sir. I’d love to catch up at greater length.” Smile. “Enjoy Illinois.”

  “I’m not going to Illinois,” I say.

  “No?”

  “I’m going to Shippensburg.”

  “A fine mess, Shippensburg,” he says. “But I have a feeling you’ll be headed to Illinois soon enough. Soon enough. There are fires that need putting out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay safe,” he says. “Stay alert.”

  “Right. Thanks for putting me up.”

  Pack up and drive. From Kinston, back to Pittsburgh. Then Pittsburgh to Shippensburg.

  A long drive today. Barely slept, and if I was tired yesterday, today I feel like I could collapse at any moment. Clothes are wrinkled, but no time to iron. Suitcase is a disorganized mess of dirty and clean clothes. Didn’t have time to do laundry. Hair feels long. Fingernails. I didn’t shave, didn’t brush my teeth. Pack up and drive and arrive at Shippensburg and stay professional, that’s the goal. Forget about the last workshop, forget about the alumni visit.

  Three days at Shippensburg. Three days. Then I pack up and drive again. Then: St. Joseph’s. Then, a week from now, a night at a hotel, and sleep, and time to re-energize. Then…well…yes, then then then.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Ship.

  “Be on the look-out,” LaFaber said to me in our one-on-one phone-call debrief last Monday, just after I’d facilitated a recruitment workshop at the University of Virginia-Green Valley (the students still call it “Green Valley College,” the school’s name before its absorption into the UVA system). “Be on the look-out for anything and everything, Charles,” he said in that meat-grinder voice of his, and—as always—I pictured him standing in his cold office, fingers touching the spine of some leadership journal in his metal bookshelf, looking out the window and searching for me. “It’s Rush season. An exciting time, but a dangerous time.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I remember Rush. I’ll be ready.”

  “You’ve never been to these Northeast schools,” LaFaber replied tiredly, as if I couldn’t possibly understand what he was preparing me for. “We can’t afford another Sandor lawsuit.”

  “I know. Trust me, Walter.”

  “Be on the look-out. Anything suspicious, you report it. Right away.”

  That was a week ago. Now it’s Sunday morning, and after a long drive from Kinston in the western mountains of Pennsylvania, I pull into the choppy gravel parking lot for the Shippensburg University fraternity row, tiny stones kicking up from the ground and tink-ing against my Explorer’s underbelly. A headache pounds under my skull in an inconsistent rhythm, eyes crusty no matter how many times I rub them, back aches from all the packing-up-and-driving, the poor sleep, the detour to Wigginton’s house. I park between two Jeeps, as far away from the seven fraternity houses as possible, crunching over empty beer cans on my way to the curb. Nu Kappa Epsilon has the very first house on the row, and like the seven other houses situated around this gravel parking lot, it’s a block of a building, two-story, sandy-yellow with a sagging wrap-around porch.

  Each house has the shell-shocked look of having been party-bombed last night. Red cups and Rolling Rock beer bottles litter the yards, along with Taco Bell wrappers and deflated basketballs and volleyballs and dirty socks and underwear, all of it existing together in a muddy marshland of trampled grass. Looks like all of the famous photos of Woodstock’s aftermath. It’s almost noon here in Shippensburg, but the row whistles with a Ghost Town emptiness, full parking lots, sure, but the middle of the day feels like the dead of night.

  Be on the look-out? Not very difficult.

  Shippensburg appears to be smack-dab in the middle of “Rush Season,” starting its fraternity “Rush Week.” Across the country, in the early weeks and months of the Fall semester, fraternity chapters scrape together thousands of dollars from their budgets—tens of thousands, sometimes, at schools like Florida, Alabama, Ole Miss, the Big Ten, the Ivy League, where big money is on the line—to repaint the scratched and stained exteriors of their houses, to replace broken hinges and door knobs, broken doors, to purchase two-story-tall banners with bright Photoshop-designed lions and tigers and “star shields” and Vikings and dragons and larger-than-life Greek letters,  in italicized purple,  in gold and navy blue,  in thick muscular letters. Rush Season, forty or fifty testosterone-fueled 20-year-olds re-converging and shattering the long dormant summer at the fraternity house, the long dormant summer of the college campus likewise shattered by new freshmen moving into dorms, attending their first lectures in centuries-old college halls, allowing themselves to be pulled in every direction by their new independence. An explosive mixture, this population of young people, thousands and thousands of 18- to 22-year-olds arriving all at once, these kids in Abercrombie t-shirts, Gap jeans, thinking about youth and friends and MTV and parties and Van Wilder and Road Trip and every other college movie ever created, thinking Spring Break, ESPN College Gameday, all at once…and the fraternities are there with their Rush budgets funneled into renovated and redecorated houses, doors flung open, kitchen tables topped with barbecue and brownies. Rush Season. Doors open, arms wide open to take in the young and eager masses aching for activity.

  At the National Headquarters, we get daily updates on “pledge number tallies” from our chapters, hard data assuring us that chapter houses will now be filled for another year, that the torch will be passed and the Grand Tradition can continue. But while Rush Season is cause for optimism and excitement, it’s also cause for extreme worry. At most schools, Rush is informal, a single week set aside by the university for fraternities to recruit recruit recruit and replenish their ranks with freshman men, the fraternities holding informational sessions and social events—cook-outs, lobster bakes—and voting late-night on potential new members, issuing bids to those desired for membership. A whirlwind week of hard work, long nights, new faces. And a mandate—real or imagined—that the fraternity must do whatever it takes to achieve the highest pl
edge tally on campus. Last year, one fraternity chapter at Moo University received 200 underage drinking citations at a party. Members and guests. And on the same weekend, at the Delta Pi Beta house at DuPont, a fraternity brother was giving a tour of his chapter house when he discovered a dead girl in the basement from a wild party the night before. She’d crawled into a closet, drunk. Alcohol poisoning.

  Rush Season. The things I learned during training. The scope.

  Back at Edison University, Rush was formal. Male students dressed in shirt and tie and paid an entry fee to be escorted from house to house by a Rush Guide for a full week. At the end of this week, the student decided which fraternity he’d pledge by filling out a scantron with his top choices. I was usually responsible for giving the Rush presentation to the assembled freshmen at our house, listing our intramural championships, our academic accolades; during the presentation, another fraternity brother would pull several freshmen from their seats, offer them a “house tour,” lead them upstairs to his bedroom, tell them to close the door, shh shh, this is against the rules, and he’d open a large blue cooler in the center of his room, revealing plastic milk jugs filled with Hunch Punch. “Enough of the presentations and trophies,” he’d say. “This is what it’s all about.”

  Just one harmless cup. I’d like to think—now, as a consultant—that we didn’t do this, that I didn’t know about it. But as a freshman, I drank from those jugs.

  Be on the look-out, LaFaber told me. Anything suspicious, report it.

  Charles is…going to do things right this time, damn it.

  *

  Earlier this morning, over the bottom right corner of the plexiglass covering my speedometer and odometer, I taped the Fun Nazi business card. It seems to keep reappearing no matter how I try to dispose of it, so I figured, why not just keep it around as a reminder? Let it be my daily motivation. The only problem, though, is that it didn’t mean the same thing this morning as it did last night. Last night, I saw this card and thought, “You don’t have to be a Fun Nazi. Loosen up.” Now I’m thinking the opposite: “You don’t want to be the same as those guys last night.”