Stanley was a short, trim young man with a black crew cut. I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Stanley. Please, don’t kick my ass.” I turned to Wilfred. “You know, I finally got a chance to meet Ma Red. She’s a pretty interesting woman. I think she’s a New-Earth Creationist.”
“What?” Wilfred said, leaning closer to me.
“You know, someone that believes the Earth’s only about fifteen thousand years old. Noah and the bible. All that jazz.”
Wilfred squinted at me. “Victor, are you stupid?” He ripped the cup from my hands and cut the line to the keg, pumping the tap vigorously, “Sorry gentlemen. Victor needs a drink more worse than everybody. He’s talking religion and science at the same time.” He handed over the cold plastic cup. “There you are, my friend.”
I took a long drink, with the scent, watching white foam vanish into yellow and tasting the cheep beer’s bitterness.
He watched me lower the cup. “There, that will cure your insanity. You think too much. If you turn off your brain, then you’ll enjoy life more. We’re all going to die anyways. And what are you going to do? You going to save the world, Victor?”
“Wait,” I said, taking another drink. “I object to that. How do you know I can’t save the world? Or at least have some vital role in making the world a better place? We all matter, Will.”
Wilfred’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the one thing I don’t like about you. Every time we get drunk, you try to make me get into some big philosophical debate. Why can’t we talk about sports? You like any sports, Victor?”
“Nope.”
“You’re a strange one, buddy,” Wilfred said and shuffled off to talk with another group.
“He’s a philosopher, Stanley,” Rex said, looking to the pledge and pointing my direction. “Do you know what that means?”
“No,” Stanley said.
“It means: don’t do like Victor did and take two philosophy classes your freshman year or you’ll wind up thinking you’re smarter than everybody.” Rex took a drink. “I bet you can’t tell our new pledge, Stanley, here, what our founder’s five cardinal virtues are.”
“Why don’t I tell him Plato’s four cardinal virtues? Those are a little more time-tested and less derivative.”
“You see,” Rex said, grinning, looking to the others. “He doesn’t even remember them.”
“I remember,” I said, opening my hand to count them out on my fingers. “Mirth. Prudence. Earnestness. Piety, and Vigilance.”
Rex smiled. “Tergo Haec, my brothers! Our Latin, fraternal motto: From Behind this Emblem, Dwellith the Glory! Given to us by our founder, Howard Taffield Scoby in this—!” he raised a thin, leatherbound book, “this, my brother’s: Scoby’s Fieldguide to Immaculate Manhood. And what, Victor Hastings, do Scoby’s five cardinal virtues teach us?”
“Well, not a whole lot, so far as I’ve observed.”
“Cover this one’s ears,” Rex pointed at Stanley, “We’ve got a heathen among us.”
Stanley chuckled.
“I just don’t believe in lists, that’s all.”
Chris Dubnicek walked up from behind and slapped my shoulder. “Who doesn’t believe in lists?”
“This one,” Rex said, pointing to me.
Chris took a drink. “That’s bullshit. As long as I’m vice president of this house, everyone is going to believe in lists. What lists are we talking about?”
“Shut-up, Chris. Go find another torn-up shirt to wear. This is serious.”
Chris pointed to the rived seam of his hooded sweatshirt. “This is fashion.” He looked around. “Something some of the guys in this house might want to look into.”
“Sure, we’ll look into having enough money to buy clothes that are ready to fall apart.” Rex turned to me and beckoned, “Victor, step into my office for a second.” We walked off by ourselves and Rex threw his arm around me. I joined in this gesture with my arm and we took turns drinking and listening. “Victor, you got a lot of potential. Don’t think that I don’t appreciate different ideas. I like them. I need them, Victor. They excite me! But in order for people to meet their potential they have to trust someone who’s been there before. I’m a junior, Victor, you’re a sophomore, I can help you. But you don’t trust anyone. When I look back on my high school years, what a fucking nerd I was, all the opportunities I missed, it makes me so mad. I had three older brothers. Three, Victor! All football players for Tennessee State now. And not a one of them tried to give me the slightest bit of advice. Even if they would have, I’m not sure I would of listened. That’s why my job is so hard. I know that I can’t complain about not having good role models if I don’t try my best to be one myself. So I’m trying to help you, Victor. Do you know I spent ten minutes before I went to sleep last night—I spent it thinking how I could help you reach your potential? It’s true, Victor. Ten minutes, trying to figure out how I can help you. If I can’t help people, then I’m no leader. You’ve got things going for you that you just need to figure out how to use. You’ve got the gift of gab, so why are you always locking yourself away in your room.”
“What are you talking about, Rex?”
“You do. Remember how you said you won that contest against your new trainees in that Omaha Steaks—you know—the telemarketing class. You didn’t mess around. You picked up that telephone and jumped right in there. You suckered some old woman into buying a freezer full of gourmet steaks she didn’t even need and won that contest! You got that free, socket wrench set!”
“And I felt guilty for it later.”
“See! Right there, you lost focus. You’re feelings aren’t always what’s important—it’s your abilities. You have the ability to persuade and you can use it for good or for evil.”
“Good or evil?” I took a drink. “Isn’t that a little over the top?”
Rex drank. “Victor, look over your shoulder, tell me what you see.”
“Ah, some young men?”
“Clowns. Most young men are clowns. Like my roommate, Dubnicek. He’s not exactly the ideal Pro Consul, Victor. But, you—you, Victor. The pledges and underclassmen—they all look up to you. If you work hard. You could make a great Pro Consul, maybe even a Consul.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking another drink. “Or maybe I could skip that and do something even more important than leading a fraternity.”
Rex looked at me, half hurt, half surprised. “Victor Hastings: just like last year—always the personification of ambition.”
“Perfectionism,” Drake corrected.
We took our arms off each other.
“What?” Rex asked.
Drake took a drink. “Let me explain something to you boys,” he said as if he was glowing gold and ten feet tall. “Stanley, your parents got divorced at an early age, right?”
“Hey, take it easy on the pledge,” Dubnicek cut in.
“And he’s a black belt, fashion model. Victor over here, he never lets a hair out of place. He’s a frat-boy/engineer/track-team walk-on. It’s perfectionism. A parent leaves early on and you spend the rest of your life trying to be perfect so no one abandons you ever again.”
“Victor—?” Michael asked.
My arm had dropped and I was spilling beer over the cement. “Sorry,” I apologized to someone.
“Cut it out, Drake,” Rex said. “That last black eye’s barely healed up.” He turned back to the others, yelling, raising arms and mug, “I can’t let any of you let yourselves down!” They cheered. The CD changer played a Johnny Cash song: Ring of Fire. I grabbed the keg’s black spigot and poured myself another cold brimming cup. I drank. The knot of my thoughts tightened in my head. There were worries around the perimeter. I drank and my skin flushed as the black sea of grandeur enveloped, filling lungs and I smirked. Everything was impressive. I was impressive. The world was huge. I was part of it. I needed to find some people to impress, but I was stuck in a tug-of-war between mystic introversion and the desire to show-off like a vaudevillian. So I stood there an
d smiled and listened to Mr. Cash and the anecdotes of others, waiting for someone to address me.
“Victor,” Wilfred said.
“Yep.”
“Why don’t you ever talk about your parents?”
“I have two dads. Like the TV show.”
“I have two dads, too,” Wilfred said. “But you don’t see me getting all the quiet times.”
“What? My real dad lives in Iowa. He’s a lawyer.”
“Didn’t you say once that he got in a bar fight?”
“Nope,” I lied. “You must be crazy or something.”
The music grew louder, house music, with heavy bass.
“Somebody,” Wilfred said. He took a drink. He was wobbling. “Somebody said you virgin.”
“Untrue,” I said. I looked around to see if anyone was watching.
“I broke a man’s foot once with my face,” Stanley said. He drank. “It was sad.”
“The Broncos are better than Cowboys. Cowboys win too much,” Budge said.
“I knew a Bronco,” Tag said.
“The horse?” Drake asked.
“No. No, man—wait; yes!”
“When I was young,” Mickey said. “I dreamed I’d be Superman. Nobody ever dreams Batman. Cause of the utility belt. Can’t everything be in that belt, man. Then I woke up and I’m here. Here I am. Things change. Now there’s books. And who knows. After that, there might be something else.”
“No!” Tag said.
“Hey, man. There might be.”
Wilfred stumbled back into our circle. His head bounced like a clucking chicken.
“Are you alright, Wilfred?” Dubnicek asked.
“The things,” Wilfred said, clucking his head and shuffling his shower sandals, “the things that are inside my stomach, they—they need to be outside my stomach. Or I’m going to die right here, man.” He fell into a three-point stance on his feet and palm and vomited before us with that sloshing sound of a rising water pale before the green flow and yellow chunks splashed on the dark wet cement. He dry-heaved, humping the air in his three-point stance and he lifted his free hand to show us the thumbs-up. We cheered.
Rex rushed before Wilfred and cried out with bravado, “How about a round of ‘Hail, Oh Hail Thee Alphas.’”
We cheered.
“Ohhhh!—we’ll serve with mirth and prudence,” Rex bellowed, blue neck veins bulging. He looked around. “You fuckers aren’t singing!”
“Wait!” Chris said. “Are we singing the Sober or the Drunk version?”
“The Drunk!” Rex said. “The Drunk version—the Drunk.”
I watched, in curiosity, holding my half-empty cup as they all heartily rejoined:
“Ohhhh!—we’ll serve with mirth and prudence
‘Till moon falls in the sea
And truer men than Alphas
Thine globe shall never see
For Scobey slew the deer stag
And stuffed it in his cab
Without his thought-wrought Field-guide
We’d welsh, graft, thieve and stab!
Hail, oh hail thee Alphas,
We’ll run our father’s shops
And if the farmers grimace
We’ll poison all them crops!
Haaaaaay!”
After that, members started to head upstairs to their rooms to prepare for bed and grumble among themselves. I headed up also, opening my room door to find the red light blinking on my answering machine. It was my highjumping coach, Coach Klak.
“Ah… Hello, this message is for Victor Hastings. I apologize for the late call but we’re on the road to Florida and things are a little crazy at the moment. Victor, I spoke with the trainers and they told me that your back injury wasn’t really improving toward the end this last spring semester. Now, your PR is 6’6” and jumpers need to go about 6’10” to be competitive. I’ve enjoyed having you on the team last year but we need to ask ourselves if within the history of your whole life it’s going to be worth it for you to keep doing this to your back. We’re going to have to ask that you resign the team. Call my secretary and she’ll help you setup an exit physical.”
I pounded the answering machine with the bottom of my fist but it began to replay so I pounded again. “Drunk,” I admitted to myself and collapsed onto the futon.
CHAPTER FOUR
OUR PAL, INTERNET
A couple weeks later we had a Rush barbeque on the back patio with burgers and hotdogs. This was to recruit pledges for the spring semester. It was a nice cool day, sipping pop, clenching a paper plate, the first of the auburn leaves falling. I divided time between chatting with sorority girls in their sweat-shirts and jeans and pony tails and pretending to be interested in the hopes and dreams of freshman guys from the dorms.
With the barbecue complete, I went upstairs to be alone.
Since I had the room to myself, rules had been growing from necessity. I didn’t go online to search-out new women until eleven at night, when I had finished homework. Eleven began to arrive later each night (something wrong with the clocks), so I made it 10:30, because I owed it to myself for the increased focus I had had on my homework.
Girlfriends seemed to be in short supply that semester at our house, except for Chris Dubnicek. Chris and Erin Masters were starting to drift toward each other from within their comingling groups of friends. Male and female fingers brushing on campus sidewalks of bright autumn days, auburn leaves fluttering and spinning as they helped each other carry textbooks, his hands hovering near her brunette hair, sniggering passing through our shared-wall at their favorite reality show.
Envy sent a needle stitching my stomach lining with that awakening feeling of momentary dislocation.
Erin had a big account with MySpace: drunken photos with scantly-clad, perma-smile girlfriends, male and female friends grabbing her breasts and kissing her on her lips and cheeks—typical photo-op antics for that and many sites but these were of high ascetic value. She looked mature and alluring in her highschool pics, lying along a downtown canal’s green park bench at dusk in a low-cut, green blouse and jeans. Her images had intriguing suction but I stopped myself from downloading because I knew her in real life.
Rex became famous for exclaiming at the dinner tables, “You perverts need real women.” And we would laugh.
Just once, our House Mother, Ma Red, retorted, “When I was young, someone whispered the word pervert: you couldn’t find a job. Once a word breaks-down, there’s no cure.”
My computer seemed to be handling the perversion okay. Except, sometimes the cursor disappeared (though, perhaps from a pirated, beta-version OS) but, mostly, programs and webpages took minutes loading instead of the instantaneous screen flickering of a chaste hard drive.
As the computer slowed, I attempted going through directories to delete spyware and executables that had snuck through attached to video clips. This lacked a noticeable effect; however, I did manage to permanently delete an essential directory, thereby stalling-out my machine at its black DOS screen upon boot-up. The help of the tech-savvy was enlisted. I purchased a new hard drive at eighty dollars expense. As it turned out, in the two years I had owned the computer, my motherboard had become obsolete, so a newer, a fancier socket-filled green wafer board was also required. My stepbrother, Bill, was gracious enough to ship an extra board of his at his own expense. I waited a week for this to arrive, then swapped-out all the hardware and read the four-point font instruction pamphlets of non-native authors until they lost all conceivable meaning. I employed guess-and-check, removing and installing minute plastic pin jumpers with tweezers to change hardware configurations. I disconnected and reconnected hardware repeatedly, before loading the OS and the software. In all, it spanned several weeks. And all the while I felt a hand tugging my shoulder. Not Jack London’s John Barley-Corn of alcoholism, but something different—a new addiction—a John Cyber-Corn, maybe. It spurred me. It made the tweezing of the minute plastic jumpers with shaky hand and the reading of four-point pamphlets
all the more urgent.
In the middle of all this, Erin hit me with a text: ‘Can we go to that one place?’
And then minutes later: ‘Sorry… wrong number.’
I was pretty stressed so I fired back: ‘How can you wrong-number a text you temptress!’
But—here’s the thing—she wasn’t even being a temptress.
Was I doing all this stuff with the Internet just to avoid how I felt about her? How did I feel about her? And—and! I was getting more and more stressed out and I started having crazier and crazier thoughts that I could only attribute to this Internet obsession.
It hit me that with the strife of impoverished countries and with the boldness of my family’s European sea-farers, with the immigrants, the plainsmen sweating nights in sod-houses and the lay workers toiling patiently leading up to this instant, maybe this instant shouldn’t be spent at a cold, flat screen with life’s warm and human treasures so near my unworthy grasp.
I went into Wilfred’s room to talk to him:
“Wilfred, man…”
“What?” he asked.
“IT’S A MACHINE! NOT A WOMAN!” I yelled and paced. “We all plug ourselves into these machines to do something so very, very intimate. It’s inhuman. We’re all becoming inhuman. Cocaine—heroin—LSD—ecstasy—all the most dangerous drugs are static—they never change. Their results are horrible, but they can be predicted. The Internet is always changing. And we trust it with our libidos? the most fundamental force of our souls? I’m a coward. I’m running away from how I feel about Erin Masters—from how I feel about women. I’m a mess…”
His eyes lit with a brilliant idea, “We’ll have a gentleman’s bet. Whoever can go the longest without doing it will be the winner!”
“The…Victor?” I asked, pantingly.
“No. The winner,” he said. Only pride would be at stake. This seemed to me an obligatory contest since Wilfred was not known for his willpower and I believed my study habits had led people to view me as disciplined.
Everyone in the house quickly learned about the bet and they sided with Wilfred. They snuck into my room to bring up new webpages on my computer, which I then closed and yelled, “Nice try!” to the resulting hallway snickering.
Growing Up Wired Page 3