American Fraternity Man

by Nathan Holic

  For our very survival, LaFaber told me, we—the national fraternities—cannot allow ourselves to be perceived as “drinking clubs” or as the fraternities of pop culture; we are not Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds. We have re-branded ourselves. We are leadership organizations. “At NKE,” he said, “we provide our members with more programming and more opportunities for personal and professional growth than any other youth organization in America, Boy Scouts included. You have the chance to be a role model to thousands of young men,” and LaFaber paused to let that sink in. “You let an opportunity like that slip away and you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

  And I was sold: there was nothing I wanted more than to prove everyone wrong about fraternity life, and in the process prove that I am everything that the textbooks and newspaper reports claim that ambitious young people in America should be: adept with technology, great at problem-solving, armed with a sense of humor and a disdain for the old Gen-X apathy and unrelenting sarcasm. That’s right: we were not a horde of Facebook-addicted zombies, but instead the smart and savvy youth who would change the world. That was me, that was me!

  Walter LaFaber believed it already. Soon, so would everyone else.

  As an Educational Consultant, my contract would run just a single year, but here was the bonus: career options were sure to blossom afterwards. I would sacrifice salary now, but after I finished consulting I could get a job at any university, LaFaber said. In college administrations, in student personnel or recruiting, in fundraising and alumni outreach. And he couldn’t even count the number of consultants who had impressed our most influential alumni, who had been offered big-time jobs on the day that their Educational Consultant contracts ended. “This is a job for people who want to work, not for climbers who just want to use it for their own selfish purposes,” LaFaber said. “But trust me when I say that it will pay off.”

  I wouldn’t need to beg my father for a job in Cypress Falls.

  I wouldn’t even need to leave the fraternity behind. I took the challenge. I accepted.

  *

  So this—role model, diamond candidate, saving the world—is what I told my father on the afternoon of my Senior Send-Off. I told him about the mission, to develop the socially responsible leaders of tomorrow. I told him that I’d be starting in two weeks, but man, I was born for this. I told him that I wanted a job that meant something, but I wasn’t an idiot, either; I would start investing my money, too, since I’d be receiving my first real-world salary; I’d be smart, shrewd, just like he’d always been, and this was my first step toward a financially secure future. I spoke so quickly and with such intensity that—at one point—I even had an out-of-body experience, looking down at myself as I recited the speech I’d prepared.

  My father waited patiently for me to finish, his fingers pressed to his temple with increasing pressure, as though a migraine was hatching in the space between brain and skull, growing in strength, growing, and when I finally stopped speaking he said “Hold on, hold on. You’re thinking about investments? Now?”

  “I’ll be making a salary. I want to start thinking about a house.”

  “How much is this job paying you?”

  “Not much in base salary, but it’s a traveling position,” I said. “And the Headquarters owns a dorm in Indianapolis, so I don’t have to worry about rent or utilities. I live free, and I make money.”

  “How much?”

  “Well, like I said, the salary isn’t impressive.”

  “Numbers, Charles. Specifics.”

  “Twelve thousand.”

  “Twelve thousand?”

  “But that’s not including per diem. And all gas is reimbursed. So.”

  “So you took a poverty-level job?”

  “No, listen,” I said. “I’ve got no expenses. That’s the thing.”

  “How can they get away with paying you that? Even for a non-profit, that’s criminal.”

  “But I’ll have a job lined up afterward, see,” I said. “It’s a networking thing. It’ll pay off. That’s the, um, real value of the position.”

  “So you’re using this job as a springboard?” he asked, hopeful.

  “No, that’s not it. I believe in this—”

  “And in the meantime, you’ve still got car payments.”

  “Right. But that’s…you know?”

  “And your student loan payments will be coming.”

  “Starting soon, sure. Six months, I think?”

  “Any other debt?”

  “Minor credit card stuff,” I said, but I didn’t tell him about the thousands of dollars in debt I’d racked up during my Senior year, from the Alumni Ball to my Spring Break cruise to the ridiculous tab for this Senior Send-Off party. I’d wanted this to be a classy event; I was president, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. No cheap beer, no kegs, no bottom-shelf bottles of turpentine-tasting liquor. No, we’d have Stoli’s of all varieties, the whipped cream and the coffee and the blueberry flavors, Kahlua, Captain Morgan’s, Tanqueray, Miller Lite by the—no, Heineken by the case…an ice-cold selection of mixers…cigars…catered barbecue, a custom cake…all of which I’d purchase with my own money. Everyone knew that I had a Real World job now, after all. The chapter had given me a sparing budget for food and decorations, but I’d max out my credit cards to make this a Senior Send-Off to be remembered. At the time, maybe I was hoping that the cost of the liquor would be reimbursed by some pass-the-hat contribution, but the semester was technically over. No more chapter meetings. No way to make an announcement that I could use a little help. And really, I wanted everyone to believe that this one was on me, no biggie. I was drunk with generosity. Afterwards, a few brothers dropped me ten or fifteen bucks as a courtesy, but I still had a debt so large that it didn’t feel real.

  “What’s left to invest, then?” my father asked.

  “I’ll save. And, like, this job is about more than money, too.”

  “So you said. You’re using it to get a different job.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be helping people.”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “The Compassion Boom.”

  I told him that I didn’t know what that meant.

  “It’s what all the kids are doing, isn’t it?” he asked. “Taking jobs at not-for-profits. Sticking their middle fingers up at Wall Street? As if you’re somehow bettering yourself by taking a smaller salary?”

  “Well, isn’t that a good thing?”

  “There are so many non-profits,” my father said, finally tired of the conversation. “If you’re so intent on some save-the-world job, why don’t you go to medical school? Join Doctors Without Borders? Anything. Why a fraternity?”

  It was a non-profit, but my sacrifice wasn’t big enough? At that moment, I could have said something about his job: where was the humanity in running a real estate speculation business, buying and leveling old Florida land? How many new developments were necessary, how many new fountains and entry gates and zero-plot-line yards, how many more Spanish-tiled roofs? His entire business, built on unaffordable homes whose owners now probably faced foreclosure, land deals that saw shopping centers intrude upon quiet communities, and I was the one who was doing something that didn’t matter?

  But I only said: “I believe in this, okay? Jobs aren’t just about making money.”

  He sighed. “Okay. Just remember. You’re on your own now, you understand?” And he gripped my shoulder, without hostility but also without encouragement, his few gray hairs seeming to shine in his thick black scalp like the white-hot embers beneath the spent logs of a bonfire. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to sound condescending or helpful. “You’re a college grad. You support yourself now, job or no job. That’s the life of a professional.”

  I told him that I understood, that I was set for success. “They wanted me. They called me a Diamond Candidate.”

  “You might have fooled them into thinking you’re someone else,” he said, “but I know the real you.”

  “I
can do this,” I said. “You’re wrong about me.”

  And that’s when the conversation died and I led him back to the front door, and he drove back across town to unpack at the hotel and wait an hour or two while my mother finished at the spa and then showered and dressed for the Senior Send-Off dinner buffet.

  The wine bottle wound up back in his car, in a cooler, leaving me to wonder if he’d brought the wine to my Senior Send-Off as a gift, if he’d even intended to open it, or if he just wanted to present it so that he could take it back and tell me that I wasn’t responsible enough for it. Was it even possible to convince my father that I was anything but a toga-clad Bluto, shotgunning PBR cans, fireballing hard liquor like Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds? And if it wasn’t possible to convince him, how could I convince anyone else?

  The night hadn’t even started, but already it felt desperate.

  CHAPTER THREE: The Jenn Outlook.

  Sometime after my father left the house, and sometime before the first flood of parents poured through the front door, Jenn stopped by to help me put the finishing touches on the living room, the bar, and the back courtyard. Everything had been thought-out. The house was a showroom of fraternity accolades: photo albums on the wicker end tables opened to display brothers whose parents had RSVP’d, the handsome Complete History of Nu Kappa Epsilon National Fraternity on the long coffee table, several Marathon pledge manuals scattered about like magazines at a doctor’s office, just in case some mother or father got curious about our policies, what their sons had been through as pledges. We had nothing to hide. We were fraternity re-defined, and the parents—in reading—would be left mouths agape by the nobility of it all.

  I’d even worked with our Web Chairman to create “Parents’ Guide to NKE” brochures, which Jenn and I had printed at the local copy shop and which she was now arranging in the foyer on an information table, and then skillfully leaving on random chairs inside and outside to make it seem as if the brochures had already been picked up and perused by other parents. The brochures were a wonder, a revelation conjured by Jenn: “The parents are a captive audience, Charles,” she said, “so here’s your chance to get your message out there.” It was impossible to read one and not feel as if your son had made the best decision of his life: there were GPA statistics, a list of awards, blurbs about our alcohol workshops, run-downs of our Habitat For Humanity projects, a thank-you letter from Charles Washington on one inside flap.

  As we walked through the house, Jenn helped me spot things I barely even saw anymore: a gash in one chair (“Move it over here, so the table hides the rip,” she said), a long stain in the tile grout that almost looked like blood. “Give me the bleach,” she said. “You’re dressed already. I haven’t showered yet, so I’ll scrub it out.”

  She found bubblegum under tables, chiseled it off with a flat-head screwdriver. The nicer the house became, the more nervous I got. Certainly there would be one thing I’d miss, one thing made all the more glaring for the surrounding spotlessness. An extension cord I hadn’t properly hid under a rug, maybe, and some mother would trip and break her neck and—

  “You worry too much,” Jenn said.

  “You never get a second chance to make a last impression,” I said. “This is it, Jenn. Last fraternity event. This is how they’ll remember me.”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said. “Everyone’s gonna have a great time.” She looked toward the bar, the liquor store of bottles, and shook her head. “I mean, how could they not?”

  The Jenn Outlook, we called this: an unfazeable optimism that seemed to always silence any doubts. Whether we were worried about making a movie’s showtime, or burning burgers on the grill at DeLaney Park, or stressed about a Research Methods exam, Jenn would speak a single sentence and make our worries or complaints feel groundless.

  “Are your parents in town yet?” she asked.

  “My father already stopped by,” I said.

  “Where was I?”

  “This was, like, twenty minutes before you came over. My mother was at the spa, so he was just stopping by to drop off some—” I paused. “He just wanted to hang out.”

  “Did he like it?”

  “Did he like what?”

  “The bar, the house, all this work you did. He’s gotta be excited, right?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Did you tell him about the job?”

  “I did.”

  “I bet he was crazy-excited for you, wasn’t he?” she said. “I told you not to worry.”

  I opened the Kahlua, sniffed inside and breathed deeply, dropped a few ice cubes into a rocks glass and set about making a White Russian. There were two options here: I could tell her the truth, and for once be honest about my imperfect life, or I could do the same thing I always did and convince her that Charles Washington’s life was as happy and flawless as the feed on an average Facebook page. “Crazy-excited,” I said. “He was proud that I was doing something I believed in.”

  “I told you,” Jenn said. “I told you.”

  *

  In late Fall at EU, when Dead Week hits and the semester’s end comes into view, we drag the lawn furniture out of the fraternity house living room and onto (appropriately) our front lawn. We drag televisions outside, too, and we drink and watch college football; sometimes we grill hamburgers and set up lawn chairs on the grass and—if it’s still sunny in December, which it usually is—kiddy pools, and we invite sorority girls over. We sit outside in the sunshine while the rest of the country is shivering in front of fireplaces, and we post pictures of ourselves (shirtless, arms around girls in bikinis) to Facebook so that all our friends up north can scream at the injustice of it all.

  That was how I first met Jenn, actually. On a Thursday afternoon when nearly everyone had stopped studying for the day, a pack of Kappa Deltas strolled up our front walkway wearing thin t-shirts under which the bright straps of bikini tops were visible. If anyone still had a textbook open, this was the cue to shut it.

  That Thursday, Jenn and I wound up sitting side-by-side on chaise lounges, and we spent hours drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and discussing our favorite Seinfeld episodes, learning one another’s childhoods through sitcom. Every time I saw the “Magic Loogie” episode, for instance, I remembered breaking my arm during a Little League game, spending my first night in a cast on the family room couch, eating pizza and watching Seinfeld reruns; I’d video-taped the Magic Loogie episode for some reason, and my father paused the tape again and again to explain the JFK references. Jenn would always remember the Soup Nazi episode because her parents had held a family conference after that specific show to tell Jenn and her sister that they’d all be moving from Dallas to Tampa, that her father was quitting his life as a truck driver so they could have stability. Even now, long after the sting of divorce has faded, Jenn told me that she still jokes with her older sister and says “No soup for you!” whenever discussing the buzzkill of trips back home for holidays.

  We moved from Seinfeld to Saturday Night Live. Then Friends to Futurama. And holy shit, a sorority girl who watched Futurama? And The Simpsons? And could recite quotes from The Monster Squad and The Goonies as easily as most of her sisters could recite lines from Dirty Dancing? Who was this girl? We spent hours on those lawn chairs, following personal pop culture histories and getting lost in memory the same as if we were tumbling down into internet hyperlink loops, unsure where we started and how we’d wound up where we did, hours and hours of conversation so natural it shouldn’t have been possible, and then—like any fantasy—she was gone, and the next day I wondered if she’d existed at all.

  But just days later, Jenn’s sorority organized an end-of-the-semester “Grab-A-Date,” one of those affairs where each girl wakes up to learn that she has just 24 hours to find a date at some undisclosed venue: sometimes it’s a beach bar, other times a bowling alley or even a movie theater. At the zero hour, desperate because she’d only heard about the Grab-A-Date with fifteen minutes to spare, Jenn rushed to the N
KE house and asked everyone where she could find someone named Charles, the guy she’d met on the lawn days before. “Charles. Do you mean the Charles Washington?” one of my brothers asked. I was the Vice President of NKE at the time (pegged as president when elections rolled around next term), and the VP of ESG. My brothers jokingly called me “MOC,” man on campus. “Didn’t realize you were such a hot commodity,” Jenn said when Edwin led her to my second-floor bedroom.

  And that night at the Grab-A-Date, it didn’t matter that I’d realized—at the start of the semester—that my Organizational Communication program was so vague I had no idea what I’d be doing after graduation. It didn’t matter that I’d hated my internships. It didn’t matter, because I entertained Jenn with story after story of my nearly three years of EU exploits, and she loved this exciting persona, the Man on Campus, a Charles Washington who seemed to have it all together. Hell, I loved him too.

  *

  That was a persona, of course, and what I soon learned was this: there is only one Jenn, no façades, no deceptions, no performances. Just Jenn. Overwhelmingly optimistic, a little whacky, but only one Jenn, a girl who dances between two worlds and who—if you didn’t know her—you might think is two different people.

  There is Jenn who dances in the world of Kappa Delta, a girl who belongs to a sorority and attends Grab-A-Dates, who spends afternoons at Greek N Things putting together Big Sis – Lil Sis paddles, “Fam 34” paddles, painting the F, the A, the M, in the colors of KD. Jenn dancing in sundresses of fuschia during Rush Week, singing the sorority songs. Jenn dancing at semi-formals, at date functions to tiki bars, at hayride socials…She dances in the sorority house living room when the girls gather late-night in pajamas for chick flicks and re-enact full scenes from Clueless or 13 Going on 30, Centerstage or Showgirls; she’s fine with all of that. She dances at formals, too, in gowns that glide glistening over her body’s curves, effortless though the dresses take forever to apply just right. She dances to every song at formals, the slow and serious—“On Bended Knee” and “Back to One” and “When Can I See You Again?” —and the freaky grindy hot-sex songs—Trick Daddy and Usher and maybe Snoop or 50 Cent. She dances with the other KDs when the just the girls! songs come on—“We are Family” and “I’m Every Woman”—and stays on the dance floor during the slapstick playlist—“YMCA” and “ABC,” and sometimes even “Tubthumper” or “99 Red Balloons”: every song, she’s out of her seat, her hands in the air even when Outkast doesn’t tell her to, dancing like a woman who’s let her hair down even when it’s still trapped in the stranglehold of pins and sticky-solid hairspray. She dances with her sorority girls, so in love with this brand of womanhood that you’d think there would be no energy left to dance elsewhere, but she does.