My friends were surprised at how open and risqué I was with complete strangers. Diana and I were talking to somebody we had never met before, and she told us that she saw The Vagina Monologues. I asked her if there was any moaning, and she told me no. I replied, “That must have been the last time I saw vagina.” Diana started laughing uncontrollably while the girl just gave me a strange look.
After the holiday break, I noticed that Rich and Bruce were becoming good friends. I could never understand how the two of them had such a close friendship; they appeared to be polar opposites. Bruce never liked to drink, and Rich loved to go to parties, smoke weed, and drink. Every other word that came out of Rich’s mouth was “fuck.” He used it as an adjective, a noun, and a verb. He would refer to me as a “sick fuck” if I said something perverted, although he would openly talk about the anal sex that he was having with his girlfriend. Of course, he also used the word as a verb, especially describing how he liked to fuck.
Bruce was more of a loner and spent hours on his computer or playing his guitar. Sometimes he would even play the guitar when I was sleeping. Bruce also prided himself on once almost hacking into his school’s computer. SUNY Geneseo was known for being two-thirds female, and Rich could never really be friends with any girls he wasn’t dating. He had no respect for women. When his girlfriend from Long Island called, the most that he would talk to her would be for fifteen minutes because “That’s all I can take from that bitch.” In fact, a lot of women were known as “bitches” to Rich.
If ever Rich had somebody visiting or somebody new was on the floor, Bruce and Rich would call me to Rich’s room to meet them. One time we had a visitor named Bin, who was of Russian descent. I knew Rich wanted me to ask him strange questions as a joke. I asked Bin how many Russian girls he knew were shaved and whether it was socially acceptable to have threesomes. I knew Rich thought my questions were hysterical, but he knew that Bruce hated me and he didn’t want to say that he liked me. Bruce was so jealous. To please Bruce, every time Rich saw me, he would be nice to me at first but then would try to make fun of me to make Bruce laugh. He would usually make fun of my voice, my walk, or my lack of experience with girls. I tried to spend as little time in my room as possible, but it was hard after Diana and her friends decided they were going to pledge some sororities.
On March 1, 2002, the girls began their pledge program. At around six o’clock on Saturday night, the whole sorority would pick the girls up in their dorms, one by one. All of the sisters would be chanting and singing, telling the future pledges that they were looking for them. Denise also had to say good-bye to her new boyfriend because Rodney had decided to pledge a fraternity. I was so ecstatic to learn that I would barely be seeing him, but they were still together during his pledge period.
The fraternities also picked up their prospective pledges as a group, but everybody was quiet and lined up single file. The pledges were outside of their dorm rooms, and usually the fraternity pledge master would quietly look the pledge in the eye and point his fingers in the direction of where the pledge should go. All of the pledges, no matter what fraternity or sorority they were pledging, were extremely nervous. Final Bids was the name of the night where they were formally inducted as pledges. Everybody went out and got drunk—most until they threw up. Since most pledging programs were dry, it was the last night that the pledges could drink. One boy actually busted an eye vessel from throwing up too much.
The next morning at brunch, a girl approached me and asked if I missed the girls. “Well, isn’t that what they made lubricants for?” I responded. Even though I was being a wise-ass, I did miss the girls. The pledge program at all of the fraternities and sororities lasted six weeks, and every week the pledge program got more involved. In Renee’s and Diana’s sorority, the girls usually had to be up at a designated dining hall by eight, and then in between class, they had to go to the library for study hours. Plus, they weren’t allowed to walk alone. Every girl had to have an escort, and if the two saw one of their sisters, both of the girls had to stop and greet her. The greeting was a special ritual; at minimum it consisted of a hello, then the pledges would have to tell the sister everything they knew about her—her major, interests, hometown, and so on. Since there were over fifty girls in the sorority, Shannon, Diana, and her friends made flash cards.
The sorority Renee and Diana were pledging, the Betas, made their pledges walk two by two—one girl facing forward and the other walking backward. Walking backward was a punishment because one pledge didn’t see her pledge mistress walking behind her and failed to give her the proper greeting.
The girls’ dress was also controlled. They had to wear their pledge T-shirts usually three days a week, and then something that said “SUNY Geneseo” on it the rest of the week. Since the girls were pledging, I couldn’t sit with them at any meal. All of the pledge sisters had to eat meals together, and once when I saw the girls in the dining hall, they said that I couldn’t sit with them or make any jokes about what they were doing. Pledging was supposed to be taken seriously, and if any girl was seen wearing makeup, laughing, or having a good time, all of the girls would have to stand outside the sorority house and get yelled at by their pledge mistress, who was the director of the pledging process.
Another time I was talking with some of Rodney’s pledge brothers in the library. Rodney made a remark that I was a wuss, and he brought up the time he won our wrestling match. Rodney said to me, “I showed you who the boss was, right, son?” I replied, “The last I knew, Tony Danza was still the boss.” Some of the pledges started chuckling, but one of the pledge master’s spies saw them and made the pledges do an extra thirty push-ups because they were caught laughing in the library during study hours. As a result, the next day all of the pledges yelled at me like I did something wrong.
Most of the different missions that the fraternities made their pledges embark on were bizarre and degrading. One night all of the pledges had to steal a squeegee from a gas station, find a vibrator, walk to all of the sorority houses in their underwear, and get at least one sister from each of the ten sororities to sign the pledge’s underwear. If the pledge got more than one signature, it was considered bonus points. One pledge was so ambitious that he had a sorority sister actually sign his penis.
Some other fraternity missions that the pledges had to complete involved carrying a balloon around for one day without popping it. Another time the pledges couldn’t speak for one whole day, and many times the pledges had to run across campus as a group. One time a sorority made all of its pledge sisters get naked, and then a group of fraternity brothers walked around and stared at them. If a girl had some fat or extra skin in a certain place, the brother would circle it with a marker.
All of the fraternities and sororities completely isolated their pledges from any contact with the outside world. If a pledge had a screen name, which all of them did, the pledge master would put it on their buddy list. If the pledge was caught talking online, the whole pledge class would be punished. Most of the pledges got around this by inventing new screen names. All of the pledges, regardless of their fraternity or sorority, weren’t allowed to go to the school gymnasium, and one fraternity told a pledge that he wasn’t allowed to attend church.
By the end of the six-week period, all of the pledges, both the guys and the girls, looked disgusting. The grease in Diana’s and Renee’s hair was extremely visible, as the seventeen girls only had half an hour a day to shower and there was only one shower they could use in the sorority house. Sleeping was another activity the pledges were deprived of. In Kaitlin and Shannon’s sorority, during the first few weeks the girls were allowed to sleep four to five hours a night the first few weeks. During the last week, Shannon and Kaitlin averaged only forty-five minutes of sleep a night.
Even though every pledge had to go to the library every night for three hours of study time, most of the girls’ grades took a sharp decline. Shannon, who had a 3.4 grade point average her first semester, barely ha
d a 3.2 the following semester and she was taking one less course than she was first semester. Kaitlin and Diana, who both had grade point averages around 3.0, started getting Ds in some of their classes. Renee’s grade point average went from a 2.7 to a 2.2.
Even though most of the pledges would never want to relive the pledging process again, the days after they stopped pledging, they were lavished with flowers, jackets, and praise. All of the girls said that it was totally worthwhile—the constant yelling, the lack of food, the sleep deprivation. Any Greek attending Geneseo did have a social advantage. There was a rumor that anybody who played a varsity sport or wore Greek letters was granted instant admission to the bars in town, regardless of his or her age. However, not all underage Greeks and athletes got into the bars; it was just a somewhat-true myth.
The main reason why so many people joined fraternities and sororities was for acceptance and safety. Many freshmen struggle to adapt to living away from home; they miss having a clique or any form of stability, and a fraternity or sorority gives them both instantly.
The secrecy of the Greek system attracts members as well. Since many of the pledges were still teenagers when they joined, having secret rituals and secret ceremonies about which they weren’t even allowed to tell their parents was exciting and made them feel accepted and special.
Many of the students I talked to at Geneseo felt pressured to pledge a fraternity or sorority. They had sisters, fathers, mothers, and brothers who were members of fraternities and sororities, and they felt that they had to uphold tradition. Many of the students were also cliquish. If most of the student’s friends were pledging and he or she didn’t pledge, who would be left to go out with, eat meals with, or hang out with?
The last reason why students at Geneseo became involved in the Greek system was because they just liked to have fun and being Greek was the ultimate fun on campus. For guys, fraternity house parties provided plenty of girls; for girls, it provided an opportunity for friends, dating, and acceptance. Some people in life just need to be a part of a formal organization to feel accepted.
I did get lonelier the less time I saw my friends. The second weekend in March, Bruce decided to go home and see a friend who was in the hospital. To make that possible, Bruce’s parents drove a total of sixteen hours—the time it took to drive Bruce to and from SUNY Geneseo. However, the real reason Bruce went home was to see his girlfriend.
Since Rich and Bruce usually hosted a radio show together, I wanted to stop by and see how Rich acted without Bruce around. During the first semester, I liked Rich, but I had this inner suspicion that Bruce was telling Rich to avoid me. I took the radio show as a great opportunity to see what exactly was going on.
Even though it was snowing, I still walked the fifteen minutes across town to the radio station. Rich was there and seemed apathetic that I showed up, but he never asked me why I decided to come out. The main topic of our conversation, as always, had something to do with girls or my sex life (or lack thereof). Rich blamed my celibate lifestyle on the way I acted; I was just too silly, he said. At the time, I never thought it was disconcerting that Rich cared so much about my personal business; I just wanted his approval. It didn’t matter that I had a bunch of other friends; the fact that there was a group of people who disliked me was motivation enough for me to want to change to be accepted. However, Rich’s relationship with his girlfriend, Emily, was very odd. She visited only once during the year in college that they were together. They had all their romantic meals at the dining halls, and Rich was nice enough to let his girlfriend use his meal passes. He also told us that he told his girlfriend that she was hot enough to be in Playboy, but then he admitted that he was lying.
Another time when I was in Rich’s room, I saw a newspaper article about how Rosie O’Donnell came out as a lesbian and would no longer be hosting her own daytime talk show. Many people encouraged O’Donnell to admit that she was gay, but others discouraged it. When he saw the photo, Rich asked me, “Would you fuck Rosie O’Donnell in her ass?” Looking back, I can’t believe that I wanted to be friends with somebody who was so strange. Asking if somebody would have anal sex with Rosie O’Donnell was a conversation starter for Rich, just like a normal person saying, “How are your classes?” or “Did you go out last weekend?” According to Rich, everybody was like him and all the boys he knew were having anal sex with their girlfriends. He just made wild assumptions about people.
After the girls I was friends with started pledging, my mother could sense that I was lonelier. She was a little disappointed since I had been so happy at college and she was hoping that I was able to overcome my mental illness. That is what I thought too, up until March 15.
Friday, March 15, 2002, started out as any ordinary day. I went to classes, then to my work-study job, and was lying down to rest shortly after seven o’clock. Suddenly, I felt the white presence strike and heard a voice in my mind again. It had been months since I felt that I was communicating with anybody telepathically. March 15 marked the one-year anniversary of when I began hearing Eric’s voice in my mind. On March 15, 2002, I didn’t think that I was talking to Eric, Carmine, or any of my other high school classmates. This time I was convinced that I was talking telepathically to Rich.
In my mind, I heard Rich laughing, then suddenly I asked him in our minds if he believed in God. Rich said he did, definitely. About ten minutes later, the voice left me. Shortly after the voice disappeared, the phone started ringing. Bruce, who was on his computer at the time, said, “I bet that’s for you.” I picked up the phone, and there was a dial tone; somebody had just hung up. That night, I went out with Denise and some other people on my floor. I didn’t think about what had happened in my mind.
The following Monday, I once again heard Rich’s voice in my mind. Rich should have been at American Politics, so in my mind I asked why wasn’t he in class. Rich replied, calling me a “stalker.” The voice I heard lasted a shorter amount of time than it had on Friday night.
The next night, I was at the campus delicatessen a few minutes before closing when I saw Rich. I didn’t want to tell Rich that I thought we were having a telepathic conversation, so I kept the conversation simple. Since Rich’s screen name started with “Strider,” I jokingly asked him if his girlfriend’s screen name was “Rider.” Rich wasn’t amused, but he wasn’t angry.
In fact, the next three consecutive days I saw Rich near the campus deli. We always made some small talk. At the first run-in, I complained to Rich about having three tests in the same week; later, I was surprised when he remembered and asked how the tests went. Still, I didn’t even think about asking Rich if anything strange had been happening in his mind.
The following Friday, March 22, 2002, I went home to Albany for spring break. I didn’t go to Cancun or Florida or any of those places, since most college students I knew didn’t have the money to take trips like the ones on MTV or the movie The Real Cancun. Since Randy, my friend from high school, was attending college locally, I got to spend time with him. It was refreshing to have another male around, instead of being the only guy in a group of girls.
One night Randy invited me to go along to the local bars, coffeehouses, and music clubs to distribute demos that his band had made. One of Randy’s band members was his best friend, Kyle, who was as religious as Randy and was even homeschooled because his parents thought public school had too many temptations.
After Randy and I dropped off CD’s, we later went to a psychic and found a package of horny goat weed in a convenience store. I told the psychic about the car that would drive by my house late at night and park outside the driveway; it had started happening again during my spring break. I asked who it was or why the person was doing this. Just like most cheap psychics, the woman knew nothing. After that, I asked Randy if he knew the driver, but Randy said he knew nothing about it. I knew that Randy knew more; he would just never tell me. I decided to change the subject, and we speculated if using horny goat weed would make a girl want to hav
e sex with somebody.
The week after spring break was quiet for me. Diana and Shannon were still pledging, but I did receive an invitation to go out partying both weekend nights. For the first time ever, I actually got up on the bar and started slapping some drunken girl’s ass—something I had never done before. But on Saturday, I heard Rich’s voice in my mind again. I was in the laundry room finishing up a wash when I heard Rich’s laugh. I remember walking up the steps, thinking that I might have heard something in the basement instead. I kept telling myself, “I’m sure after I walk upstairs and fold all of my clothes, the voice will disappear.” It didn’t, and every night until the end of the semester, I would feel that I was communicating with Rich through our minds.
On one of the first occasions that the two of us communicated telepathically, I asked Rich why he would write so many strange e-mails. We talked about how Rich wrote me nasty e-mails saying that I was weird and that I should go back to the psychiatric ward where I came from. I would frequently e-mail Rich content that was just as strange. One of the e-mails I sent actually had the subject line, “oh that vagina.” Rich told me that at first he thought it was pornography and was going to delete it.
Up until college, I was always just a quiet kid. In high school I got a reputation more from what Eric said about me than what I actually did, so my e-mails were a way for me to show a new side of myself. I knew Rich thought they were funny, but he was mean afterward. He would constantly call me a “freak,” “pathetic,” or “weird.” The sad thing was that I still wanted to be his friend regardless.
CHAPTER 6
OOPS, IT HAPPENED AGAIN
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Missing the Big Picture Page 12
