American Fraternity Man

by Nathan Holic

  I fill out all the forms with my red pen. Sign them, date them.

  Rush Season, LaFaber said. And yes, here I am, working so quietly that Special Ops would be proud. Forms, forms, forms, until I’ve got a stack so thick that it bends the paperclip binding it together. This is how I spend my Monday, often retreating into my Explorer, an orderly place where no one will find me, and I sort through the evidence.

  At dinner, Neagle sees me walking to my car, shouts from the porch: “Dinner?”

  “Got a couple things to finish,” I say. And I’m back in the Explorer.

  And even though he tells me later in the night that I can take his bed because he’s going to sleep at his girl’s place, I stay on the stiff couch.

  *

  Tuesday evening. Lists and lists of infractions. Digital photos of kegs stored in bedrooms, in closets, dirty shirts thrown sloppily over the taps. Bongs beside x-boxes. I’ve got it all. Written infractions like police reports, on the NKE standardized forms, the letterhead, official, signed, authenticated by the Educational Consultant, the Fun Nazi, my name fucking them:

  This is a drinking club about to lose its charter. About to get evicted from its house.

  Tuesday evening, safe in my Explorer, I dial LaFaber at the National Headquarters, the final minutes of HQ business hours. He answers after one ring, knows it’s me from the Caller ID and says, “Charles, it is great to hear from you,” so quickly that I think he might have been speaking before he even picked up the phone.

  “Why is it good to hear from me?” I ask.

  “It’s always good to hear from you,” he says.

  “Oh. Well,” I say, “thank you?”

  “Anytime. What’s up?”

  “I’m at Shippensburg right now, but you probably already knew that?”

  “The reason for my good mood.”

  “Shippensburg? You said this chapter was worthless.”

  “It was,” LaFaber says. “Until you got there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve done a hell of a job in two days, Charles. A hell of a job.”

  “But I haven’t told you what I’ve done.”

  “I just spoke with Donald Annbloom, their Housing Corporation President? We’re on the verge of some good things out there.”

  “I don’t…know about this,” I say.

  “Sometimes,” LaFaber says in his gritty halftime-speech voice, “when you’re on the ground, in the middle of combat, enemy fire all around you, it’s difficult to see that you’re actually winning the battle. That you’re winning the war.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the case. I’ve got to tell you about some of the things I found here. I mean, this chapter is about as bad as it gets.”

  “Okay, okay,” LaFaber says, and I think he sighs. “Don’t say this over the phone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Liability, Charles. Did you write any of this information down? The bad stuff?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes. I’ve got photos. I’ve got descriptions, forms. I’ve got everything but their charter.”

  “Hmm,” LaFaber says.

  “This place is a risk management nightmare.”

  “All written down?”

  “Yes,” I say. Proudly, because I’ve done it. I’ve shed those old college clothes, the t-shirts and jeans, stepped one leg at a time into the pressed pants of professionalism. I am exhausted, but I did everything I could to fulfill our national mission. To the fucking letter.

  “Okay, okay,” LaFaber says. “Let me tell you what Donald Annbloom told me. Our conversation. You realize the sacrifices that Housing Corporation has made the last few years?”

  “They’re in debt. Finances look bad.”

  “The Housing Corp—it’s just five alumni—they still have more than half a million to pay on the mortgage, Charles. This is big-time, you know. And that Ship chapter hasn’t had their house filled to capacity in ten years. That Housing Corp has accumulated so much debt…the alumni have sunk their personal finances into that structure.”

  “They can sell the house,” I say.

  “Charles. You’ve been staying in that disaster for two days—”

  “Three.”

  “Three days. Do you really think anyone would buy it? Especially in this economy?”

  “Maybe. Another fraternity? One without a house.”

  “That’s a dying Greek Community, Charles. Ship has closed five fraternity chapters in the past three years. There’s nobody left to buy it. And no National Fraternity is going to start a new chapter there. It’s not safe. It’s a financial sinkhole.”

  “So are you saying that…Wait, what are you saying?”

  “This looks like the first good Rush the chapter has had in ten years,” LaFaber says. “Thirty new pledges, they’re saying. They can fill that house. Their president—this James Neagle—actually set up a payment plan with Annbloom to start chipping away at the debt. That’s your influence, Charles.”

  “I found kegs in the house,” I say. “Kegs!”

  “Yes. That is a serious infraction.”

  “You should see some of the things I’ve documented. I’ll send you the photos.”

  “Listen, Charles,” LaFaber says. “This is great. This work you did is great. I don’t want to understate that. But you’ve got to understand when I say that we can mold this chapter. Our business is to develop socially responsible leaders, not just cut our ties when things are tough. They’re with us. They’re on the verge. What we’ve done is shift their attitude. That’s the tough part for a higher-ed professional.”

  “Kegs,” I say. “Their attitude?”

  “You haven’t sent me any of those photos or documents yet, have you?”

  “No.”

  “I need you to delete them, Charles.”

  “Delete…you’re kidding me.”

  “We can work with them, Charles. They’re with us.”

  “All the work I did,” I say. “Work with them?”

  Silence from the other end; Walter LaFaber can be as excruciatingly patient as a first-grade teacher, holding his thoughts, thinking or waiting for someone else to speak, but silence makes me uneasy. So much blank space, and I want to fill it. While driving the highway the past few weeks, past open fields extending so far into the distance that they go hazy, I kept picturing some sort of commercial development, progress, in all of that blank space. Right now, it’s just grass. Just tree stumps. Certainly something must be better than blank space! And so I keep talking, telling LaFaber how I had to sneak around to take pictures, how I had to investigate, spy, and this was such a dangerous operation because what if they found out? And we can’t just give up now. It’s not fair to anyone, not fair to me.

  “You have to realize,” LaFaber says, so patient, “that this isn’t about you.”

  “I know that.”

  “This is about something much larger than you.”

  “I know. It’s just that we’ve got all of this evidence.”

  Silence again.

  “This is about a national organization,” LaFaber says. “This is a business. Millions of dollars are on the line, Charles.”

  “What these guys are doing is not good, though. It’s dangerous. We’re trying to prevent another Sandor lawsuit, right?”

  “I appreciate the work you’ve done, Charles. But I need you to keep something in mind. Nu Kappa Epsilon isn’t your run-of-the-mill business, your FedEx or Starbucks.”

  “I know that,” I say. “We’re values-based.”

  “Yes. And tell me again where our money comes from?”

  “Alumni. Our foundation. Student dues.”

  “Correct. Our money comes directly from those we are supposed to discipline. When we close our chapters, we shut off our income. We have no money for the programs, the workshops, the consultants, the Headquarters, all that helps us to keep our focus on values and leadership development. We live and die with the students.”

  Silence, and I�
��m supposed to be understanding and accepting Walter LaFaber’s viewpoint, but I fill the blank space by saying, “This just doesn’t feel right.”

  “This isn’t about you,” he says again.

  *

  Here in Neagle’s bedroom on Tuesday night, as I twirl the Fun Nazi card around and around in my hands, I’m surrounded by tacked-up Maxim centerfolds and covers. During dinner last night, Neagle told me that Maxim just started shipping magazines to the house a few months ago. More subscriptions than there were members in the house. So many magazines. So the guys cut them apart, plastered them to walls. In the bathrooms here at Shippensburg, there are tall stacks of sticky magazines. Wet pages, ink-smeared covers. In Neagle’s bedroom, Christina Aguilera receives a full wall. The same photos, over and over again. Christina in a thong. Christina in the pool, with a beach ball.

  Fun Nazi card twirling, twirling, corners bent now.

  I’m trying to think of Jenn, but I’m afraid to call her. We keep missing one another, and I’m afraid that another phone call will mean another message. Here in Neagle’s bedroom, alone, models staring at me from every wall, liquor bottles staring at me from the top shelf of his door-less closet. Neagle’s room is the prototype for frat star bedrooms…Neagle is the prototype frat star. And now a new generation of frat stars will assimilate into Ship after Rush.

  At Edison, the university co-owned the fraternity houses with our alumni donors; we obeyed the rules, feared the reach of the National Headquarters. But there is no reach, is there? Flipping the Fun Nazi card, staring at the typed title, flipping it again, staring at the blank back.

  Two doorways down, 50 Cent is playing again. “You can find me in the club,” 50 is spitting, lazy-hip, “I’m into havin’ sex, I ain’t into makin’ love—”

  And I don’t hear barbells this time. Only laughter. Conversation. There is no reach, I’m thinking, and I know they’re drinking over in that bedroom, clinking Bud Lite bottles, talking about college football and some sorority girl’s Facebook photos, and I want to change out of my khakis—in college, I never wore khaki pants, how fucking old they make you feel—and over there, the song changes from 50 Cent to Miley Cyrus, and she’s telling them that there’s a Party in the USA, and she’s nodding her head like yeah, and they’re laughing cause they’re listening to Miley Cyrus and why not?, it’s funny, and Miley is talking about how the Britney song was on, the Britney song was on, and I’m thinking of the CD in my car, Britney asking me, “Don’t you know that you’re toxic?” and I’m thinking, yeah, if this isn’t about me, then I don’t have to model some strict Code of Conduct, and I’m standing up, stretching, tossing the business card onto my suitcase, creeping to Neagle’s bedroom door, entering the hallway—

  —but suddenly someone is in the doorway.

  —Danny, the Vice President of Recruitment. “Time for our one-on-one meeting, right?” And he’s shutting the door halfway, just halfway, and it’s the two of us in the bedroom and I can barely hear the music now, and Danny’s saying, “I been thinking, you know, and I got a lot of things I want your opinion on. A lot of different ideas for Rush.”

  And I’m saying, “Yes,” and now it’s business as usual.

  *

  Wednesday morning. Late. I haven’t talked to any of the brothers this morning because it’s pack-up-and-drive time. It’s rearrange-my-items-in-my-suitcase time. It’s straighten-up-my-Explorer time. Pittsburgh to Kinston. Kinston to Shippensburg. Shippensburg to Saint Joseph’s.

  I shove my suitcase into the back-hatch of my Explorer, carefully removing stray items and finding new homes for papers and materials that have somehow come loose from their previous positions. Replace several shirts on the backseat rod. And, packed up tight, I drive, making sure to tear out of the Greek Row parking lot, making sure to leave a heavy cloud of dust to coat the parked cars.

  “Charles is…excited to get out of this shitty little town. Fuck Shippensburg.”

  “Charles is…driving to Philadelphia!”

  “Charles is…driving, driving, driving.”

  “Charles is…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  But sometime around noon, the green Central Pennsylvania countryside slowly morphing into the gray outskirts of big-city urbanization, my cell phone rings. I turn down the stereo volume, diminishing Britney Spears’ voice, and I answer the phone without checking Caller ID.

  “Charles,” says an urgent voice on the other end.

  “Walter LaFaber. So good to hear from you again.”

  “Yes,” he says. “Listen, Charles…”

  “Good news again, I hope. Good news because it’s me?”

  “Not quite, this time. Unfortunately. Where are you, Charles?”

  “Driving east to Philly.”

  “You’re already on the road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get off on the next exit, Charles,” he says. “Get off on the next exit and turn right back around, just the way you came.”

  “What—” I say. “What are you talking about?”

  “Emergency. Extreme emergency at the University of Illinois.”

  “Um,” I say. “So?”

  “You’ve got to get to Illinois by tomorrow morning, Charles.”

  “I’m in Phila-del-phia.”

  “You’ve got to get to Illinois, Charles,” he says again. “You are a traveling consultant. This is the job. This is what you live for.”

  “That’s…how far is that? I can’t just turn around!”

  “You can,” LaFaber says. “Nobody plans emergencies, Charles. Nobody plans on a kid going to the hospital for blood alcohol poisoning.”

  “That’s terrible,” I say, “but what am I supposed to do about that?”

  “That’s not all of it. We found a Facebook event page. Open keg party at the Nike fraternity house: six bands, Jell-O shots, water slides, a Girls Gone Wild camera crew. This Thursday, the page says. We need you there before this happens. Need you. It’s rough, I know, but it’s something every consultant has to do at some point.”

  “You stumbled across a Facebook page?”

  “We’re lucky we caught this when we did.”

  “You’re kidding, right? This is all a big fucking joke, right?”

  “Charles,” he says, voice rigid again. “Show some professionalism.”

  Drive. Turn around and drive. Shippensburg to Philadelphia, u-turn, Philadelphia to Illinois. To fucking Illinois. To Champaign-Urbana, Central Illinois. Approximately 147 miles between Shippensburg and Philadelphia, according to the Yahoo! Maps directions I printed and store in my snap-shut plastic case on my passenger-side floor. One set of directions for each trip, from university to university, chapter house to chapter house: Pittsburgh to Shippensburg, Shippensburg to St. Joseph’s, St. Joe’s to Delaware? Or is it Marshall? All the way through December at the University of Iowa. But no directions from Philadelphia to Champaign-Urbana. No mileage. No telling how long this drive will take.

  Three days at Illinois, an emergency visit.

  Rush Season. Anything suspicious, report it.

  Why bother? I’m thinking, but I set my Explorer to cruise control.

  CHAPTER TWELVE. Emergency Visit.

  Thursday morning. Early afternoon of my second day of travel toward the University of Illinois. Shaky from caffeine and sugar. Coffee, a sausage biscuit, orange juice, coffee again, Mountain Dew, a glazed donut, all the things I swore I would not eat while I traveled. My hands shake on the steering wheel as I drive. Past noon, but a giant styrofoam cup of cold coffee still sits in my cupholder, the liquid muddy brown from powder creamer. One of my goals for this Fall Semester was “No Coffee in Mornings,” because I read a National Geographic article which claimed that apples wake you up quicker than coffee, and they’re more nutritious, but comparing apples to coffee is like comparing apples to oranges: a fucking apple while driving? Holding the core in your hand, fingers sticky all over the steering wheel and the stereo volume, waiting for a clear spot on the highway
to toss it. No, on the road coffee is the only solution. And on Hour Four of my drive last night, I even drank a couple sodas. Broke another Fall Goal, stopped at McDonald’s, ate a 20-piece Chicken McNugget as I drove. Every fucking nugget.

  And now I’ve stopped at another gas station, a 7-Eleven on the outskirts of Champaign-Urbana, home of the university. More soda, a bag of Cheeto’s, a prepackaged turkey sandwich with squeeze-on mayonnaise. I sit in my Explorer, chewing, headache growing, and I stare at the Fun Nazi business card stuck below my odometer. I’ve stared at it for hours, off and on, flipping it around to the blank side sometimes.

  I pull out my cell phone, inhale, and I force myself to be patient like LaFaber. Aside from voicemails and texts, Jenn and I have now gone five days without meaningful conversation. I dial and the phone rings three times; I flip the business card to the blank side, and I’m already thinking that she won’t answer. Maybe I should just hang up, pretend she isn’t—

  “Hello?” she asks suddenly.

  “Jenn,” I say. Smooth my pants. “Jenn. Hey.”

  “Charles,” she says.

  “How, um, how are you?”

  “I’m good, Charles,” she says, and her voice is not high-low, not sorority-girl happy. A silence follows our opening remarks, the type I’ve been encountering so much lately, where both parties in the conversation seem to realize that there is much to be said but where to start, where to start? “Too busy to call me lately?” she asks finally.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m sorry. It’s been pretty bad. A lot of phone tag.”

  “I’ve been pretty busy, too.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “It is possible for me to be busy, too, you know.”

  “Yeah. Of course. I just…you know?”