by Nathan Holic
Nick is the next to come out of his trance. He saunters to LaFaber, and they engage in a firm handshake. No hug. “Good to see you. Is it casual day? Did I miss something?”
Nick wears a powder-blue polo, untucked, with his flat-front khakis. “UCLA game this weekend. Just wanted to show some Bruin blue. You know me, Walter.”
And then LaFaber’s gaze slips from Nick and finds me, and his smile shrinks as though I’ve sucked the energy from the room. “Charles Washington,” he says, and it’s a deep vibrating voice, the kind best suited as a voice-over in a horror movie trailer.
He walks toward me, Brock and Nick still standing together behind him but now engaged in their own private conversation, barely attentive to either of us. LaFaber’s clothes crackle in just the right way as he walks, perfect folds appearing and then disappearing with each new step, lobby’s lights lending no shadows over his face.
Charles Washington, on the other hand: I look like…well, like I always look in relation to Walter LaFaber. An amateur. I wasn’t able to iron the hanger crease out of my khakis this morning (haven’t worn them in weeks); my belt is scratched and old, a relic damaged during my travels; my hair has grown long and shaggy, and I shaved this morning in a sloppy hurry, nicking my neck four times.
“The consultant All-Star,” LaFaber says to me, inches away, sticking his hand out…and I grip it, shake. “You should see the evaluations we’ve been getting for you. Students and Greek Advisors alike.”
“I can’t imagine,” I say.
“We’ve got a lot of things to talk about, Charles.”
“Only good things, I hope?”
“Sure,” he says and slaps my shoulder. Then he adjusts his sleeves, adjusts his tie even though it’s perfect. Pulls it tighter, so his neck bulges out of his collar even more. His cheeks seem to have gone harder, too, shoulders grown larger. He’s breathing through his nostrils, bull-like. “Lots to talk about, you and me,” he says again. “For now, get settled at your desks, but get ready for the all-staff roundup. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
*
Soon thereafter, Dr. Simpson’s voice—that old, Southern, Dr. Phil voice, the one rich with experience—crackles over the office intercom, calls all staff to gather at the Cohen Conference Room. Without thinking, I rise from my chair at my empty cubicle, and I meet Nick at his cubicle, and the two of us meet Brock at his cubicle, and we weave our way through the mess of boxes and crates and stacks upon stacks of binders, and we walk to the conference room, interns also rising from their chairs and joining our march, and we look like an assembled Gangs of New York mob by the time we trudge through the main lobby and into the East Wing, filing eventually into the Cohen Memorial Conference Room. It was in this room that we consultants spent our summer training, learning the “in’s and out’s of Nu Kappa Epsilon,” learning how to facilitate workshops, learning every decimal point in the National Budget and the individual chapter fees and assessments. This was our training room, and I remember sitting at the boardroom table everyday, staring at my reflection in the thick glass tabletop, thinking I’ve made it, thinking Diamond Candidate, thinking I could be the next Walter LaFaber. Thinking, as I looked at several etched platinum plates underneath the glass—the names of our founders, the names of the first Headquarters staff—thinking that this was my first step to something great.
“Good morning, everyone,” Dr. Simpson says to the full staff of the National Headquarters gathered here in the boardroom, “and welcome back to our Road Warriors!” He stands at the head of the table, wearing his nicest navy suit and French-collar shirt, gold cuff links. I wonder how often he interacts with the undergraduate men who currently populate the NKE student chapters, if he even likes them, or if fraternity for him has become something so spreadsheet- and numbers-driven that he can’t even remember how he got swept up into it back in college. Dr. Simpson is smiling, blinding-white hairs matted on his scalp, and he begins a thunderous applause for the consultants, an applause immediately joined into by Walter LaFaber (who rises half out of his seat to put extra strength into each clap), by Dr. Simon Eckstein, by Janice Nevin, by the interns, by everyone.
“We look forward to hearing everything you have to report back to the National Fraternity,” Dr. Simpson says. “Fraternity is a special institution, and it is you three—not any of us in this office—who maintain the fine tradition and the fine vision set forth in 1910.”
Applause again.
And then Dr. Simpson is talking about the grand tradition of Nu Kappa Epsilon National Fraternity, about the many men who have come before us, about the legends whose names we view under the glass tabletop. And it goes on like this for the duration of the catch-all meeting, eloquent welcomes from each of the staff members, aggrandizing the mission of the fraternity and the “necessary work” of the consultants. “Brothers,” Dr. Simpson says as the meeting comes to a close, “You have done more to preserve our national family than you even know.”
But then the day gets more serious.
*
“I want the slackers and the trouble-makers gone,” LaFaber says in our 10:15 AM Group EC Meeting, and he refuses to sit, palms pressed against the boardroom table, the entire surface shaking as it absorbs the weight of his anger. Here in the conference room, it’s just the three of us and LaFaber, and I try to make myself comfortable in one of the padded leather chairs, but every time LaFaber speaks I flinch.
“Procedure be damned,” he says. “I. Want. Them. Gone. I want the under-performing chapters closed,” he says. “I want the drugs and the alcohol purged. I want a world without hazing. This is our mission, gentlemen, changing the culture one chapter at a time.”
There—that single word slipped into the middle of his speech—did you catch it? One second he’s saying “trouble-makers,” and the next it’s “under-performing.” How easily he conflates “dangerous” with “unprofitable.”
And now LaFaber smiles, more sinister than joyful. “So. Would the three of you like the good news first, or the bad news?”
“Good news,” Nick says.
“Good news,” LaFaber confirms. And he pushes up from the table, stands tall and holds out his hand as if prompting me to rise and take a bow. “First and foremost, we owe a special thanks to Charles Washington, who did his part at the University of Illinois this semester, expelling some trouble-makers from the brotherhood. Just one closure this semester, and Charles handled it brilliantly.”
Brock claps like a madman, slips his fingers into his mouth and lets loose a glass-shattering whistle that the interns can likely hear in the west wing. For a moment, I actually do smile, actually do feel like I accomplished something. “Thanks,” I say.
“We’ll talk about the other trouble-makers in a minute,” LaFaber says. “But here’s the positive news.” And it’s a moment that I’ve known was coming ever since my visit to Grant Farmor’s office at Purdue. “We are returning to the University of Illinois,” LaFaber says, “re-colonizing, changing the culture by starting over from scratch. And listen, it won’t happen in four or five years, as is typically the case, but next semester.” Unprecedented, he says, and the next five minutes is a speech that I could have written one week ago. According to LaFaber, the alumni Housing Corporation couldn’t handle an empty house—a financial drain—for five long years, and they’d opened negotiations to sell it…thus making an eventual NKE return to the Illinois campus impossible. Something had to be done. And fortunately, LaFaber says, a godsend opportunity appeared out of nowhere. An interest group. And this is where the speech veers from the predictable.
LaFaber tells us that a young man at the University of Illinois, the son of a Chicago stock broker and Nu Kappa Epsilon alumnus, heard of the chapter closure, and after speaking with his father about the way the chapter used to be (“before the party,” LaFaber says…but does a group of men become hopeless overnight?), he rounded up twenty other young men on campus in an effort to resurrect the chapter. An interest group, read
y to pick up the pieces and form a new NKE chapter and move into the house as early as next Fall.
Brock and Nick are both on the edge of their seats. For them, this is exciting. A brand-new fraternity chapter! Godsend! Saving the Illinois house!
“So what’s the process?” Nick asks.
“We meet with the interest group and coordinate a full-scale colonization,” LaFaber says, and he describes each step in detail. First, the National Headquarters sends two Educational Consultants to visit the interest group; the consultants interview the students, making sure they are “men of character”; then the consultants coordinate a leadership retreat for the interest group, and the “interest group” becomes a “colony.” Finally, the Headquarters stations a single consultant with the colony for a full semester; this consultant assists the men with recruitment and groundwork, helps them to meet the requirements necessary to earn a charter by the end of Spring so that the “colony” can be recognized as a “chapter.”
“One consultant stays with the group for a full semester?” Nick asks. “No traveling?” Right now he is imagining himself as the lone consultant assigned to the Illinois colony. Brock took this job to be a sheriff: to clean up the fraternity world and punish the bad guys. Nick, on the other hand, relishes the chance to work with students on a one-on-one basis, to coach, to provide guidance, to help them realize themselves in the same way that he did. “God, that’s a dream opportunity,” he says.
“If we invest enough time and resources at the start,” LaFaber says,” then this will be a mission-oriented chapter. A chapter that gets it…forever.”
“When does this start?” Nick asks.
“Spring,” LaFaber says.
“Who goes?”
“We’ll talk specifics this afternoon, in our one-on-ones,” LaFaber says, and his hard cheeks barely move to accommodate the folds of skin as he smiles. “But don’t forget. I’ve got some bad news, also.”
“Excellent!” Brock says and licks his lips, perhaps anticipating a dirtier, grimier discussion. He slaps the table. “Let’s get down to business!”
Nick already had a pack of cigarettes out, was probably looking forward to a quick break, but now he replaces the pack in his pocket.
“We only closed one chapter so far this semester,” LaFaber says, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few more teetering on the edge.” LaFaber opens a manila envelope and slips out four sheets of paper; he distributes them around the table, keeping one for himself, a solemn act with the feel of ritual. “This is the procedure for a National Review,” LaFaber says, and he sits erect, holding the paper perfectly straight before him, willing us through his silence to appreciate this paper, to regard it as we might a war memo detailing a coming invasion. Even the thin scar on his forehead seems to have faded, its color smoothing from seashell white to a flesh tone indistinguishable from his skin. He straightens his sheet so that the text must be perfectly level before him, not even the slightest angle, no.
“The National Fraternity Headquarters has a number of disciplinary tools at our disposal,” he continues. “We can suspend a chapter or revoke its charter, if we feel that we have enough evidence of Sacred Law infractions. Sometimes this is the best way to go, especially when the chapter poses a threat”—and LaFaber looks in my direction and nods, perhaps indicating Illinois…or maybe New Mexico State? “But we also have the power to conduct a National Review if the circumstances are more complicated. To conduct a formal investigation, formal interviews, and to make a recommendation better suited to the nuances of the situation. We can still choose to suspend or close the chapter, of course, but we can also choose to expel individual trouble-makers, or to—”
“Re-org,” I say.
“Correct,” LaFaber says. “We can conduct a ‘re-organization,’ hand-picking the members we keep, and purging the rest. Working intensively with the remaining members to create a changed chapter.”
“Illinois went through a re-org just a few years ago,” I say. “Never recovered.”
“It’s a risky proposition. Expensive. And in the end, the re-orgs can create zombie chapters. We might keep ten brothers, and expel fifty. At that point, those ‘keepers’ might not have much motivation to continue the fraternity, and so it becomes a lurching, living death.”
I scan the document, the lists of different punishments, the “questions to consider,” the copy/pasted Sacred Laws giving the Director of Chapter Operations the authority to make any decisions he deems necessary, and finally I come to a section on the page that reads, “Chapters Scheduled For National Review.” And, of course, I see the words “New Mexico State University: Hazing Violations,” and I sink a bit in my seat, suck in my breath, cross my legs, uncross them. There are five or six other chapters listed (“Eastern Washington: Low Membership Numbers,” and “Baylor University: Continued Failure to Meet GPA Minimum”) before I finally see “Edison University: Hazing,” and then it is no longer mere discomfort: suddenly I cannot breathe. Brock, on the opposite side of the table, stares down at his sheet with squinted eyes, fingers stroking his chin. And Nick looks at LaFaber, not at the paper, with a look that says either “I don’t understand” or “I understand and am amused.”
“Edison University?” Nick asks, eyes suddenly sad.
Blood filling my head, and is this a joke? Is this retribution? Karma? Edison University?
And it’s twenty or thirty seconds before I can look back up, and LaFaber is staring at me as if he just asked a question and is now waiting for my response. He still pinches his paper, still hasn’t changed his stolid expression. But no one says another word to me; no one mentions my home chapter or the circumstances that forced them onto the page.
“Each of you will be assigned a National Review,” LaFaber says. “Some of the reviews can be conducted via conference call, and we simply have alumni volunteers take care of them. Eastern Washington, for instance. No need to fly all the way out there just to lecture them about low numbers. For others, we’ll book plane tickets this afternoon after our one-on-one meetings, and you’ll be leaving in the morning.”
I stare at the glass tabletop. “C. Anthony Croke,” reads the nameplate under my reflection. Who the fuck was this guy? Would he want this boardroom, this nameplate, this table, these National Review sheets, this casual discussion amongst graduates of eliminating the fraternity chapters to which young men belong?
“I want the trouble-makers gone,” LaFaber says, “and gentlemen: it’s bad news that we’ve got to conduct these hearings, but I couldn’t be more delighted to know that you’re on top of it, and that we’re gonna change the culture.”
Change the culture. Right.
“Come on, say it,” LaFaber says. “I want to hear that you still believe. Say it.”
*
Next up: my one-on-one meeting with Walter LaFaber.
And his office is the sort of open and impersonal room befitting an ultra-successful guru at the top of his game. Dr. Vernon’s office at Bowling Green glimmered like an expensive symbol of professional achievement, but it was also warm despite its opulence. LaFaber’s office, on the other hand, is a cold beacon of modernity: a glass coffee table supported by a silver frame (Fortune and Architectural Digest magazines spread across the top, along with copies of How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Band of Brothers), two stiff black visitor chairs teetering on thin silver legs, a triangular throw-rug the color of arctic water, and a black wire-frame bookshelf lined with alumni magazines from dozens of schools, with long rows of psychology and leadership journals (all with the same blank white spine, a message to outsiders that there is dense text inside, that there will be no attempt to entertain the idiot masses with colors and photos). On the walls: only two metal-framed pictures, one of which is the College Chronicle depicting LaFaber on its front cover, and the other a photograph of LaFaber shaking hands with Dick Cheney at some gala or banquet. Otherwise, the walls are an untouched industrial gray, blinds pulled down over the single
window on the far wall.
When I step inside and take a seat at one of the visitor’s chairs, I squirm and try to get comfortable but find it impossible to do so.
“Good to see you this morning, Charles,” he says, delighted by my discomfort. “Sleep well?”
“Not really. But I’m used to bad sleep.”
“I always sleep well,” he says, “when I know I’ve worked hard.”
I smooth my pants, cough.
LaFaber’s desk is a sweeping L-shaped, glass-topped unit, a mesh steel wall attached to the front to shield visitors from viewing his legs. For some reason, it makes me feel like I’ve been detained.
“Is that what we’re here to talk about?” I ask. “Last night’s sleep?”
“You used to be so much friendlier. Has road life has hardened you?” The scar on his forehead is shining brighter now, like the red “ready” light that blinks on when the oven has pre-heated. The scar tells me that he’s just getting started, that the past ten weeks on the road was nothing: today he’s got plans that will put all of that to shame. He knows what I want, too, doesn’t he? He knows that he’s got me in his pocket. “Down to brass tacks, then” LaFaber says, staring at me with a numb but patient expression. “You want to know why Edison University made the list.”
“It crossed my mind,” I say.
“Nobody knows about this,” LaFaber says. “Not your alumni, not your administrators. Not even Brock, and he’s set to visit Edison University in the Spring. The only people that know about this are the officers of your chapter, who have been told that they’ll receive a visit from a couple national representatives tomorrow.”
“So what happened?”
