“Good man, Mound,” Tug said.
The Mound was also an anchor on the Devon football team. Last year, he led the team with forty-eight tackles. He was not, however, destined to be remembered for gridiron heroics, but rather for an academic misadventure of sorts. During last year’s football season, Mound had taken Art History 101 because he heard it was a blow-off. Students were assigned to pick any artist that was well represented in the Devon Gallery of Art and write a paper about that artist’s stylistic evolution. Venturing to the gallery for the first time, Mound examined the small labels next to each painting with care and picked an artist who seemed prolific, who painted in many different styles, and whose career was extraordinarily long.
That artist’s name was “Circa.”
Mound’s teaching assistant handed the resulting paper back with Are you a moron? written in big red ink letters. That was it. Are you a moron. No grade. Apparently the F was understood.
Confused and seeking elucidation, the Mound made the mistake of showing the paper to his roommate, Jimbo, who was also in the class. Elucidation was not forthcoming. Jimbo promptly ran into the dining hall, laughing hysterically and wielding the paper for all to behold. One student wag pointed out, between fits of laughter, that if Mound had turned the same paper in as an ironic statement, he’d surely have scored an A.
The Mound was less amused.
Tug now barked some orders to some passing goats. Yes, this was a swell place, and it was going to be an epic evening.
The Beta Party
IT WAS TEN o’clock and guests would start trickling in any minute. The Mound lumbered to the door with his final list. Digger was upstairs making sure his hair was disheveled just so. Tug, being president, was making the rounds to see that everything was ready-set-go. In the bar area, one of the goats, a kid named Mark Snyder, was stirring a large vat of Beta Punch with a sawed-off lacrosse stick. A huge block of dry ice was floating in the middle, giving off smoke. Tug walked by and dipped in a red Solo cup, testing the batch. “Hmm.” He reached under the table and grabbed a handle of Popov, twisted open the cap, and emptied the contents into the vat. Testing the punch again, he pronounced it acceptable. (The recipe for Beta Punch was a closely held Beta secret, but for those in the know, it consisted of Natural Lite beer, frozen pink lemonade, and, of course, Popov. The brothers privately referred to it as “pink panty remover,” although Tug had to caution them never to call it that while using the university email system.) For those who preferred beer there were also kegs of Bud. They would be needed for the informal beer pong tournament.
Tug wandered into the den to survey the pong tables. Once, beer pong had involved real Ping-Pong tables and paddles, or so his father told him. Now they used double-length card tables and the object was simply to throw a Ping-Pong ball into one of your opponents’ cups before they could do the same to you. You drank when your opponents scored. The goats had set up two tables, complete with cups, filled pitchers, and extra balls. Billy Curtis, another senior, was supervising.
Billy was a legend for having pulled one of the great pranks in Beta history. When he was a sophomore, one of the goats named Joey Spears got really drunk and passed out on a downstairs couch, an opportunity no self-respecting Beta could let pass. Spears had this pathetic-looking mustache that had always gotten on Billy’s nerves, so, taking an electronic beard trimmer, Billy carefully trimmed the sides until Spears had a perfect toothbrush mustache. Billy then found some shoe polish and made the remaining whiskers jet-black. Joey now looked exactly like Adolf Hitler. This greatly amused the brothers, who gave the passed-out pledge a number of Sieg Heils before heading off for bed. The next morning, Joey overslept. Realizing he was late for class, he bolted out the door, skipping his normal shit, shower, and shave.
The resulting campus furor focused unwanted attention on Beta for more than a week. Milton Strauss, whose family had distant relatives in the camps, ordered the chapter to be suspended until discovering that Beta was still on suspension from the year before. He slapped on another two years. It was symbolic, since the fraternity operated outside the school’s legal authority. But Billy Curtis’s place in fraternity lore was cemented, as was Joey Spears’s, whose nickname from then on was, naturally, Der Führer.
Trusting the beer pong to be in good hands, Tug continued his rounds, making his way to the living room to check on the music. RoofRaza looked busy arranging his equipment and testing the sound. “Hey, RoofRaza!” Rufus pulled his Beats off one ear. “Ready for liftoff?”
“You know it, bra.”
* * *
Rufus put his Beats back on, his thoughts tonight more focused on personal ambition than the progressive struggle. Those thoughts might have smacked of capitalist predation had they not been so, well, cool. He’d been doing some research and the top EDM stars, guys like Diplo and Zedd, were making 500K a gig. Half a mil. Once upon a time the Beatles made a mere sixty grand at Shea Stadium. He looked it up. The goddamn Beatles. Now guys were making that in about fifteen minutes. And these dudes (they were exclusively male, something that might have given Rufus pause, but RoofRaza didn’t give it a second thought) hardly had any mouths to feed. They traveled light. Touring dinosaurs like U2 and Springsteen had crews of fifty, even a hundred, but the top EDM jocks would only have a couple of guys, max.
This summer, Rufus had mixed an EDM track that he called “I Want to Love You,” which sampled Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing).” He posted it on Spotify and it went viral with over half a million streams. It had him dreaming big. Playing to frat boy assholes for a few hundred bucks was a start.
He surveyed his equipment, which he’d spent the whole summer before last saving up for from his job at an Amazon Fulfillment Center near his home. (Red didn’t like that, arguing that Amazon drove local merchants out of business. Rufus didn’t disagree, but where else was he going to make the scratch? And besides, that was before he came to Devon and got, you know, woke.)
On the table was a Pioneer DDJ-SX2 Performance Controller, today’s digital equivalent of two side-by-side turntables. That was where the magic happened. It was fed by his laptop, on which he had over seven thousand MP3s. To either side of the table were Mackie Thump15 thousand-watt loudspeakers that would blow the room away. Above him was a GigBAR, a horizontal bar on a tripod from which hung various lighting effects, including strobes and lasers. EDM shows were about all the senses, not just sound. Below the table was a Hurricane 700 fog machine, which Rufus could control with a foot pedal. Lastly, there was his mic, through which he would exhort the crowd to greater and greater heights. All this was connected with a tangle of black cables.
He tested the sound to his satisfaction, being particularly pleased with the giant, driving base. His plan was to play a mix of popular tracks as well as his own creations.
* * *
Partygoers had started arriving in earnest, with the Mound checking his guest list diligently. The list was primarily friends, although Mound was instructed to magically find the names of any hot girls. Someone laughed and shouted, “Hey, Mound, where’s your toga?” Mound had once mistakenly worn a fitted contour sheet to a toga party, which lent the impression of a beluga whale.
An hour or so in, he could no longer live with the others getting drunk without him, so he handed the job off to a hapless goat. Even more than football, even more than befouling transgender bathrooms, drinking was Mound’s core competency. It was said he could drink an entire case of beer in one sitting, and one of his favorite tricks was betting he could chug a whole pitcher before someone could name all ten Devon houses. That one was a consistent moneymaker.
* * *
Over at Fellinghams, the evening was off to a slow start. Lulu, India, Shelley, and five of the boys were pre-gaming, only at Fellinghams it was “cocktailing.” With the changing of the seasons, Pimm’s had gradually fallen out of favor. Most of the women were watching calories, so Tito’s and soda with a splash of cranberry was the standar
d. The men favored Stella or Scotch. Win tried to stock the bar with Laphroaig, since Prince Charles, in a rare royal endorsement, had once proclaimed it the “finest whiskey.” Regrettably, it was too expensive to drink in the manner of most college students, and truth be told, few of them had the palate for it. “Tastes like liquid dirt,” said one member when Win was out of the room. They settled on Dewar’s, an acceptable alternative despite its pedestrian use of several malts.
Lulu was drinking heavily, licking her wounds. She hadn’t told anyone about the incident in Professor Russell’s office, nor would she. There was nothing to gain from it. Sure, she’d been aggressive, but no one had ever turned her down like that, let alone heaved her unceremoniously onto the floor. Not even the ones with girlfriends.
He must have known where she was going—she couldn’t have been more obvious, and she could feel him responding to her. How dare he humiliate her, especially after what she’d done for him! He’d be nailed to a cross right now if it weren’t for her. Fortunately, the semester was ending in a few days, and her final paper was in, so she wouldn’t have to see him again in class. For now, best just to self-medicate, which tonight took the form of several Tito’s and sodas.
“Enough of this trifling badinage,” Win said with a dismissive wave of his hand. It was almost eleven o’clock, and the crew was growing restless. “Surely there is amusement to be had. This sybarite wishes to be entertained.”
Lulu remembered an email about something, or was it a Facebook message? She took out her phone, scrolling through emails … who was that from again? Not finding it, she searched her emails for the word party, which produced 472 results. The most recent was from a Bryce Little. She remembered vaguely they’d met once or twice in the city. She hadn’t even realized he was at Devon. The email read:
Hey, Lulu. Pumped ur here @ DU! We’re having a thing (party!) next Friday at Beta. Come by. Should be chill.
-Bryce
P.S. I put u on the list.
The most compelling of invitations it was not, and Bryce had the patois of a ninth grader, but still, options were limited. “I have something. There’s a party at some fraternity.”
“All those silly frat boys?” Win sniffed. “Their lips move when they read.”
Lulu wondered absently if Win was gay.
“You have a better plan, scepter boy?” Shelley asked. “It’s only eleven, and I don’t want to go to Gino’s.”
“Very well, then,” Win replied. “We shall officially slum it. I enjoin you all to breathe from your mouths for the remainder of the evening.”
India bowed out, claiming no interest, which left Lulu, Shelley, and the five boys. They walked the few minutes over to Beta, which was one of a row of midcentury shingled homes behind the sprawling Patterson Gym complex.
Lulu, fueled with Tito’s, kept circling back to her humiliation, sprawled on the floor of Ephraim Russell’s office. She needed something else to think about. Sidling up to Shelley, she said, “So, I’ve been dying to tell someone.”
“Do tell, then.”
“I mean, it’s not a big deal or anything, but next month, or maybe the month after”—Lulu paused for effect—“I’m getting the cover of OTA.” Lulu had hinted as much through all her social channels, but maybe Shelley had missed it. Surely she would have said something.
“Holy shit, really?” Shelley well understood the importance of an OTA cover.
“Yuuuup.”
“Fabulous news! You’ve already done the shoot?”
“Oh, yes, it was such a hoot. They put us in some killer outfits. In fact, shum of them may have made their way back with me.” Lulu was starting to slur her words.
“You took them?”
“No, of corsh not! Well, maybe a little. Mostly it was swag, but maybe a bit extra. Maybe a little Dolce and Gabbana.”
“So you stole something. You scamp!”
“It’s not schtealing, that’s such an ugly word. They want you to have stuff because you don’t get paid, you know, and it’s not like they don’t get it all for free…” Why were they talking about this and not, you know, the cover?
“I happen to know Wendy Faircloth. She and my mother have lunch the first Thursday of every month at Le Bilboquet. Just so you know, she’s pretty particular about things…”
“Oh, don’t be silly.”
“Look, honey, I don’t care either way. I’m happy for you.”
At that, they had arrived at Beta, discovering a knot of people outside the door, all clamoring to gain entry.
With Mound off somewhere else, likely on his twelfth beer, a freshman from the squash team now manned the door, clutching his list. His diminutive presence did not have the same effect as Mound’s massive girth. Lulu wedged to the front of the crowd.
“Name?” asked the goat.
“Lulu Harrish.”
The goat examined his list. “Uh, yeah, you’re good.” Lulu motioned to the others, who’d hung back inconspicuously. They tried to follow her in.
“Uh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you all on the list?” asked the goat, not at all sure of himself.
“I’m sure we are,” Win said.
“Names?”
“We’re from the Society of Fellingham.” It came out fellium.
“The what?”
“The Fellium Society!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything about—”
“Look, what’s your name?” asked Lulu of the doorman.
“Uh, Goat Number Nine.” He had strict instructions to refer to himself that way until pledging was over.
“Well, listen, Mr. Nine—thasha strange name, by the way—there’s reshiprocity, understand me?”
“There certainly isn’t!” objected Win, horrified.
“Well, I don’t see—”
“Who’s your commanding offisher, Nine?”
“My what?”
“Who’s in bloody charge?” interjected Shelley.
“If you mean the brother in charge of the list, that would be brother Mound. He’s inside.”
Win decided to jump in. “My good man, please entreat this Mound person—”
Lulu raised her hand. “Shut up, Win.” She brought them here, she would get them in. “Look, Nine. He was shapossed to put us all on the list, not just me. Bryce Little said so,” she said, making it up as she went. “So if you’ll excuse us, we’ll go shtraighten it out with him ourselves. You’re cute, by the way.” With that, Lulu and the others marched past.
Torn whether to abandon his post and go after them, Goat Number Nine decided the girl was hot, so he’d let it go. Plus, if he abandoned his post, the twenty or so other people who were there would all rush in. He hoped he was doing the right thing or else he’d soon be doing push-ups in a pool of spilled beer.
For Lulu, getting into parties where her invitation status was ambiguous was a practiced skill, but one she wouldn’t need much longer. With the OTA cover she’d be on every list from New York to L.A. Just another month or so …
* * *
“How’s everybody doin’ tonight?!” cried Rufus into his mic. The crowd roared its approval. The party was hitting its peak. “I am the RoofRaza, yo, and you can stream my tunes on Spotify and follow me on Instagram!” More roars. He spun up his signature track, “I Want to Love You,” and the crowd responded again. Did they know the song? He bounced up and down, feeding off the crowd’s energy. A quick decibel-level check on an app on his phone: 107 dB. Perfect.
The crowd, fueled by Popov and hormones, took on a life of its own, swelling and receding with the music like a single organism. Strobes and lasers alternated from the GigBAR, firing shots of colored light into the fog-shrouded room. The crowd shouted his song’s words, which repeated over and over.
“Love you! Love you!”
* * *
Lulu and Shelley soon found themselves in a spirited game of beer pong. Lulu hated beer, but every time she threw a ball into one of the little cups, people went
crazy, so what the hell. Time seemed to skip forward and she found herself midconversation with some frat boy. She couldn’t recall the conversation actually beginning.
“So Digger is wasted and hooks up with the chick, right? Spends the night, does his thing, and then tries to make like Casper the next morning. The chick wakes up and says, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Gotta squash game,’ he says. Squash! Digger’s never seen a squash court. Then, outta nowhere, this chick says, ‘You don’t remember my name, do you?’ ‘Of course I know your name,’ he says. ‘So what is it?’ she says. Then Digger gets all defensive-like. ‘I can’t believe you don’t think I know your name.’ ‘Then say it,’ she says. ‘Say my name.’ This goes back and forth for a while and finally his hand is forced. ‘Carmen,’ he says, and then she says, ‘It’s Miranda, you asshole! He was just coherent enough the night before to know he’d better come up with a mnemonic, which he remembers, but then he realizes it only gave him a fifty-fifty shot! She starts throwing shit at him and he runs out of there. How classic is that?”
Another skip forward. The boy is gone, and she’s followed the music into the crowded living room, which had been converted into a rave with strobe lights and fog. The bass pounded through the floorboards and up her spine. Closing her eyes, she raised her arms and started dancing in place, giving herself to the sound and light and alcohol. People were colliding and spinning, losing themselves to their more basic drives.
She became vaguely aware that someone was dancing with her. Win. He had been following her around way too much lately. Then his hands were on her hips, and before she could object, his mouth was on hers. It tasted like stale booze and years of dental neglect. She gave him a forceful shove and he banged into some other partygoers.
“What the hell was that?” he screamed over the music. He actually looked offended.
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