She’d been smart, he added, not to go public. No need to recant public statements she’d never made in the first place. She just had to straighten things out with the administration.
Lulu knew that where the public was concerned, the truth no longer mattered. She had observed her followers carefully these three weeks, and she’d realized the narrative was everything. The Crawl was now bigger than a single incident, one that may or may not have occurred. It was about something larger. Media requests were piling up. She no longer needed the likes of Yolanda Perez or Martika Malik-Adams.
* * *
“This is worse than I thought,” said Stern. “The poor girl clearly has PTSD. She’s repressing. The only way she’s found to express what she’s really feeling is by crawling and screaming. I’ve seen a lot of trauma but I’ve never seen a case like this. The girl needs serious therapy. It’s heartbreaking.”
“I smell a rat,” replied Martika, flexing her fists repeatedly.
“What do you mean?”
“I think that bastard Russell got to her. I think she’s being threatened.”
Stern thought about this. “We can’t discount the possibility. And it may not even have been an overt threat. The power imbalance of their relationship is such that she may feel implicitly threatened, and he may have exploited that. Predators don’t always resort to a single playbook.”
“The fact is, she didn’t report this for months. I think she was frightened to death.”
“You may be right.”
“I know I’m right.” That several professors had called as character references for Russell, including Sophie Blue Feather and that dinosaur Fred Hallowell, did not alter Martika’s thinking. She knew predators could often be charming. She got up to signal it was time for Stern to leave her office. “I meet with Russell on Thursday, and I will get to the bottom of this. I can assure you that.”
Martika briefly wondered whether she’d been premature in leaking Russell’s name to the Daily, but decided it didn’t matter.
Fucking Fucks
EVERY TUESDAY, the Betas gathered for a meeting to deal with fraternity matters, such things as setting annual dues or deciding whether vomiting off the second-floor balcony was an acceptable activity. The brothers hated these meetings because it was the only time all week when no alcohol was permitted. This had the salutary effect of keeping meetings remarkably short.
Tug herded the brothers into the common room. Most had been in the pong room, where they were playing Splat, a traditional Beta pastime in which brothers scored points by hocking loogies to the ceiling and then catching them in their mouths when they eventually succumbed to gravity.
Tug called the meeting to order. He waved the latest Devon Daily in the air. “My brothers. We have a serious problem. We are under assault.” He began reading.
Devon Daily
April 8
Panel Proposes to Crack Down on Fraternities
A committee of professors and administrators convened by President Milton Strauss has recommended sweeping reforms that call into question the future of the fraternity system at Devon. While most fraternities are off campus and not themselves within legal reach of the university, the Committee on Fraternal Life at Devon is recommending a series of moves it feels will diminish the appeal that fraternities hold for some undergraduates. Among the recommendations up for consideration is to prohibit fraternity members from holding leadership positions on campus such as sports captaincies, club chairs, or editorships. Further, the panel suggests that Devon decline to provide fraternity members with recommendations for prestigious scholarships such as the Rhodes or Marshall.
These potential steps come after a well-publicized racial incident earlier this year at the Beta Psi house. Further, Devon officials cited various studies that suggest sexual violence is endemic in the Greek system. “Recent events on campus have focused the nation’s attention on rape culture, and it is simply not an option to sit on the sidelines and do nothing,” said Professor Martha Geddes, a member of the panel.
A spokesman for Milton Strauss said that the administration would review the committee’s recommendations in the coming weeks.
Tug lowered the paper as the brothers booed and howled. “Well, that blows,” said Mound.
“As usual, brother Mound is a font of insight and brevity,” Tug said. “Strauss appears to be serious about this.”
“Guy’s a total nob,” Finn Belcher said, an observation that met with much agreement.
“Complete asshat,” offered a junior named Pudge.
“All true, but our clarity around this does not solve the problem.”
“This is all because of that stupid bitch crawling around campus every night,” Billy Curtis said.
“But seriously, what the fuck did we do?” asked Pudge. “It was that English prof, what’s-his-name.”
“Russell, I think. They are using the whole thing to take us down. They’ve been looking for a way for years,” Tug said. “Russell, Lulu Harris—it’s all just an excuse. Bryce, don’t you know this chick?”
“Yeah, kinda. She’s a social type that I used to see around the city when I was at Collegiate, and the next thing I know she’s Lena fucking Dunham. She came to our party in December, but she blew me off as soon as she got here. She was pretty hammered. Think she might have hooked up.”
“Oh, I know she hooked up,” said Finn. “Right on that couch.”
Mound was on the couch. He looked down at it and made a snorting noise that most interpreted as a chuckle.
“She was with that asshole from the PSA,” continued Finn. “The one with the dreadlocks. I happened to come down the stairs really late and saw them on the couch. Almost forgot cuz I was so wasted.”
“That commie douche got laid here? Only we’re supposed to get laid here,” said Digger.
“Fuckin’ A,” said Mound. I am in agreement.
“Well, I say this bitch is full of shit and is messing with the wrong fraternity,” said Digger.
The brothers growled at that and pounded their hands on tables.
“Well, technically,” Tug said, “she hasn’t said a word about us, but she’s definitely the catalyst here.”
“Same difference,” said Digger.
All in the room knew that President Strauss’s proposals would effectively end Beta Psi and every other fraternity at Devon. A particularly sore point was the ban on captaincies. Beta had no fewer than three current sports captains. Those positions were résumé burnishers, frequently leading to positions on Wall Street and elsewhere through a well-established network. Tug himself had a job lined up as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley. The Mound, well, he was working on it.
“Does anyone have any ideas?” Tug asked.
The room fell silent. The meeting had been longer than usual, and a keg waited in the next room as soon as they were done. Solving for their very existence tomorrow had to be weighed against drinking today, and it was a close call.
“Jimbo,” said Tug. “You’re the sergeant at arms. That’s kind of like being a lawyer. Any suggestions?”
Jimbo looked startled, like the kid who just got called on who hadn’t done his homework. The sergeant at arms was mostly responsible for handing down drinking penalties, so what did he know? “Uh…”
Joey Spears, he of Hitler fame, raised his hand, bailing Jimbo out.
“Der Führer wishes to speak,” Tug said.
“Sieg Heil!” yelled everyone, as was the custom.
“What if we did something for, you know, the community. Some charity bullshit. Then, you know, told people about it.”
“Excellent thinking. The older alums who come here and get hammered after football games tell me Betas did that kind of stuff once. What could we do? Ideas?”
More silence and blank stares. Mound gazed with longing toward the keg in the next room. It was silver and shiny.
At last one of the sophomores spoke up. “We could go to a hospital and, like, hang out wit
h sick kids…”
The brothers thought about this before Mound, breaking his mind meld with the keg, said, “I hate fucking hospitals. That idea sucks.”
Everyone quickly agreed with this assessment, relieved they didn’t have to pretend otherwise.
“How ’bout we do the big brother thing?” someone else suggested.
“That’s a good thought,” Tug said, “but I’m afraid we need to make a quick impression. We couldn’t gear that up fast enough.”
“What about we clean up all that goddamn chalk!” offered Digger.
Everyone laughed, knowing full well what a Category 5 shitstorm that would create.
Mound had had enough. He silenced the room with a single pound of his fist to the table. Raising his impressive girth up off the couch and stabbing the air with a beefy finger, he said, “How ’bout we tell all those fucking fucks to go fuck themselves!”
Everyone rose as one to their feet and cheered, “Mound! Mound!”
Tug, after briefly marveling at Mound’s ability to use fuck as an adjective, noun, and verb in the same sentence, tried his best to yell over the crowd. “Guys, I don’t think we can blow this off!”
Someone changed the chant. “Fucking fucks! Fucking fucks!”
Seeing it was hopeless, Tug cried, “We have a motion to tell those fucking fucks to go fuck themselves. All those in favor!”
“Aye!”
“The motion is carried!”
“Fucking fucks! Fucking fucks!”
Tug threw in the towel on the meeting. The brothers were a crazed mob now, a single organism descending on the glistening keg in the next room.
The Tribunal
EPH SUPPOSED THIS was what purgatory was like, assuming he believed in such things. He’d been told to stay off campus grounds while his case was being “processed.” This left him hanging out in his small apartment most of the time. He tried reading some Melville—Billy Budd—but found himself reading the same lines over and over, his thoughts constantly drifting to his current plight. When the walls closed in, he’d go for a ride on his new bike. He and D’Arcy went to the movies once or twice when she had time. Sometimes she spent the night.
One afternoon he looked himself up on Rate My Professor. He knew he probably shouldn’t, but morbid curiosity got the best of him. His rating was now an almost-unheard-of 1.6. Over four thousand people had rated his classes. Doing a quick calculation in his head, he guessed he’d had no more than eight hundred students in all his classes since starting at Devon.
At a local newsstand he saw last week’s New York magazine had Lulu Harris on the cover. “The New Face of Feminism,” it said. Against his better judgment, he forked over five bucks and took the magazine home. The article featured extensive quotes from a Woman’s Studies professor from Reed College named Tonya Washington.
“One sees the self-abnegation, the pathos, in this brave young woman’s eyes as she gives up her body in the name of a movement that she herself started. We feel her agony as every inch of this mostly silent drama plays out in front of us. The silence is broken by a lonely, cathartic scream, only to have the cycle play out again. Lulu Harris is a cry for all those whose voices have gone unheard for so long.”
As he read on, Eph’s heart sank when he saw his name.
While Ms. Harris has never explicitly stated the reasons for her protest, or even the cause it represents, many on the Devon campus believe they are tied to a professor named Ephraim Russell, who is currently facing Title IX charges thought to involve allegations from Harris.
The press had been calling his apartment and sending him emails almost constantly. He knew better than to engage. His sister, Ellie, even called, but Eph wouldn’t answer. He was mortified that word of all this might have spread to Ashley.
Eventually, Eph gave in to a combination of curiosity and sheer boredom. Throwing on a hoodie, he went to see the Crawl for himself. There was some risk, he knew, but it was dark and he drew the hood well over his face. He was confident no one would recognize him.
The cherry blossoms had bloomed and the scent of lilac was in the air. Devon had emerged from its winter hibernation. He decided to approach Mathers discreetly from a perpendicular walk. Rounding the corner, he was astonished by the scene unfolding before him. Along the colorfully chalked path, hundreds of people walked in procession behind Lulu Harris like medieval flagellants. Many of the women wore duct tape over their mouths, and a few wore hijabs, which he didn’t quite understand. Others had signs that said highly unpleasant things about him and Milton Strauss. A typical one said:
Russell + Strauss = Devon Rape Culture!
Dozens more lined either side of the walk, with more than a few filming the procession on their phones. Those videos would be on YouTube within hours, he knew. Some were probably livestreaming already. The media were there as well.
One of the reporters, followed by a cameraman, approached Lulu and thrust a microphone into her face. “Ms. Harris, can you tell us why you’re out here every night? What happened to you?”
Lulu, as usual, appeared to be in a trance and gave no response. Another student intervened. Eph recognized him as one of those who had sabotaged Eph’s class, the one with the red dreadlocks. “No questions, my man—back off!” he yelled. Several female students wearing T-shirts from the Womyn’s Collective went over and shoved him out of the way, seemingly more upset with their fellow crawler than the reporter. That was curious, Eph thought. If Lulu noticed any of this internecine drama, it wasn’t clear.
When the marchers came to Dudley Street, they formed a human alley, blocking traffic until Lulu could safely cross. Traffic backed up for several blocks. There was a considerable police presence, too, as well as campus security. They were assisting with traffic control.
Eph followed along cautiously, head down. At Duffy, Lulu stood and screamed. As usual, it was the only sound she made the entire time, save for the scraping of her iron ball. The long and tortured scream was done on a single breath, leaving little doubt among observers that it welled up from a deeply personal place. It was loud enough to echo off the other buildings in East Quad. When the last sound of it died away, the assembled crowd responded in kind, making for an enormous roar. Then Lulu disappeared inside.
Eph felt like he’d just witnessed some sort of atavistic ritual. How had he gotten mixed up in all this?
As the crowd disbursed, one couple walked in his direction. A flash of recognition came over the girl’s face. “Hey…”
Eph realized he’d been standing there a bit too long. He turned and walked briskly toward the nearest gate.
“That’s him.”
Eph broke into a jog.
“That’s him … the rapist!”
As others turned to look, Eph broke into a run and disappeared out onto the street.
* * *
Two days later, Eph was back on campus, staring across Bingham Plaza. It was finally time to meet the Title IX people. He wore a blazer and tie and a baseball cap lowered over much of his face in case anyone noticed him. For insurance, he had a lightweight Columbia jacket with the collar pulled up. The hearing was in Stockbridge, but a phalanx of demonstrators were camped outside the entrance. Someone must have tipped them off. Giving the demonstrators a wide berth, he walked around behind Stockbridge looking for another way in. He found a door in the back but it was locked. Taking out his phone, he dialed D’Arcy. Luckily, she answered right away and came down to let him in.
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this,” she said.
“Hey, another day, another hearing. I might get good at this.”
“I’m going to talk to Milton.”
“Don’t. It won’t make a difference, and you’ll just get yourself in trouble. But did I mention I love you for offering?”
“Well, come on, then. I’ll show you where it is.” D’Arcy led him to a small, windowless conference room in the basement. They seemed to be sending a different message this time. There, he found tha
t once again Dean Malik-Adams held his fate in her hands. She and two other women sat across the table.
“We meet again, Professor,” said Martika.
“Dean.” Eph took a seat. He had been specifically told he had to come alone—no counsel. He had reluctantly called a lawyer at D’Arcy’s urging, someone who had been involved with several Title IX cases. The lawyer told him that counsel wouldn’t be allowed into the process but he was happy to give (paid) advice from a distance, and even happier to be Eph’s plaintiff lawyer when he sued Devon later, the idea of which Eph found horrifying. He demurred.
“You’ll come around,” the lawyer had said.
“This is a convening of the Devon University Title IX Tribunal,” said the dean, wasting no time. “To my right is Stephanie Coughlin, who will act as counsel to the university in this matter. To my left is Linda Gomez, who will act as stenographer.” Linda Gomez was Eph’s old friend from last time. He could swear she was giving him the stink eye.
“Excuse me. A question, if I may. Where is the rest of the tribunal? If Ms. Coughlin is counsel, and Ms. Gomez is the stenographer, that just leaves … you.”
“That’s correct.”
“So where is everyone else?”
“I am the tribunal, Professor Russell.”
“Just you?” That lawyer warned him it might be the case, but Eph had found it difficult to believe that the university would put his professional future in the hands of a single person.
“The majority of Title IX cases are adjudicated by a single person; it’s well within the federal guidelines. It’s a question of efficiency.”
“Will there be an investigation? How does this process establish facts?”
Campusland: A Novel Page 25