by Nathan Holic
“What?” I say, and the comment is so sudden that I can’t stop the next run of gas, and here on the porch in a world so silent that I can hear a car door shutting from some anonymous corner of town, I rip a fart.
Dr. Wigginton swirls his chili.
Maybe didn’t notice? “Walter LaFaber told me that you’d canceled your hotel. That you wanted to stay here.”
“He told you…” What had LaFaber told him?
“It is short notice, but I suppose I can make the accommodations.”
I just farted on the front porch of a multimillionaire Pennsylvania icon, but worse: he now think I am imposing on his summer home, that I just happened to drive four hours out of my way, that I’m some uncouth road-weary drifter who needs food and shelter before returning to a sun-beaten life of hitchhiking and odd jobs on old farms. Alumni visits are supposed to be opportunities to impress important people; I’m supposed to hand him my resume, talk to him about his connections, and he’s supposed to call me a Diamond Candidate and tell me that he’ll find me the best damn job he can when my NKE contract expires. “Well,” I say. “If that’s all right that I stay here?”
“Mmm,” he says.
“If you’ve got an extra bedroom, I mean.”
He swirls the chili. “You’ve seen the guest room. No trouble at all. Easy access to the bathroom, as well, if you need it.”
I rise from the chair. “I suppose I should grab my suitcase.”
“Ahh, there is another one,” he says. “I didn’t think it possible that you could stuff so much into a laptop case.”
“Oh. Right. Ha.”
“Might want to take a walk, too, Mr. Washington. Let it all out.”
“What?”
“When you come back, I’ll add a little vodka to the iced tea,” he says.
“No, no, I couldn’t—”
“It’s Saturday, Mr. Washington. Don’t tell me you’ve made other plans.”
Another new plan, then: stay the night with the creepy old man. But how would Jenn look at it? Maybe I can avoid the iced tea and the vodka? Pretend to go to sleep early, and maybe even sleep well, batteries re-charging, before I drive to Shippensburg tomorrow and start over again?
I pull my monstrous suitcase through the living room, its wheels leaving espresso-colored trails in the high carpeting, and I unpack on a tiny, twin-sized bed, its comforter smelling of a back-of-the-attic stack of sweaters. When I pull my toiletry bag out of the suitcase, a “Fun Nazi” business card flutters to the bed’s brown sheets.
“Tell me about this Facebook,” Dr. Wigginton says from the other room.
I scoop up the Fun Nazi card. “What?”
“The Facebook. The thing that the kids are all doing.”
I meet him back in the living room where he’s set up a surprisingly sleek laptop on the breakfast table. “You want to know what it is?” I ask. “Or you want to set up an account?”
“Both,” he says. “Come. Sit. Are you on the Facebook?”
“Not anymore.”
“Why not, Mr. Washington? From the articles I’ve seen, it looks delightful. All the youth and excitement, the photos.”
“Um.”
“Tell me. Sit, sit.”
And so I sit at the table with him, tell him about how it all started, a whisper of an idea as we EU students were spilling our lives into AIM messages, into daily quotes and photo albums and profile-page mp3 anthems on MySpace. It was something up north, “the Facebook,” an online yearbook at Harvard or Yale or somewhere, and it would never be as cool as MySpace. I mean, seriously. On MySpace, you could be friends with the Carver from Nip/Tuck; you could organize your top eight friends, give out the best spaces to the highest bidders, beers from bros and hook-ups from the ladies; you could be friends with Obie Trice, and you could hear the new T.I. joint via bulletin, the very second he released it. Facebook was just…it looked like a high school project. Just white and blue, no flexibility to the way you designed your page, no embedded songs to play as your profile’s soundtrack. And you could only be friends with other students at your school? Lame. What about your twenty-something friends without .edu emails? Facebook: kids’ stuff. But then, maybe 2004 or 2005, just like the national fraternities of years past, it spread from the Ivy Leagues to the state universities, and soon it was moving from computer to computer at Edison University, inescapable as a virus, and you started to realize that the things that had made MySpace so cool—the songs, users of all ages—actually made it extremely uncool. You didn’t want friend requests from 13-year-olds, from gay 40-year-old men; you didn’t want your computer to freeze from loading so many advertisements; you didn’t want to listen to someone’s profile song every time you clicked on their page to see if anyone had posted a new comment; for that matter, you didn’t want to have to click on someone’s profile to see if they’d written anything new. You wanted the status updates delivered to your screen. “Charles is…heading to the football game!” Boom: now everyone knew. “Charles is…pissed that we lost again!” Boom: now everyone knew. Okay, so “poking” was pretty lame, but Facebook was suddenly the thing, everywhere, a way of life. You organized your day around Facebook, kept track of silly observations throughout the day so that you could write funny status updates when you got home. You read more online articles now, simply because you wanted to share what you were reading. You saw yourself tagged in another girl’s photo album and you thought, “Damn. She knows me. She tagged me!” And you thought that meant something.
But then it had to go. Had to, because Facebook said more about me than even the most intense and introspective autobiography ever could.
This is not exactly what I tell Dr. Wigginton, my quick summary more of a generalized “This is how people felt about it,” nothing personal about myself, but he’s barely listening because he’s already setting up an account, off and running. Searching for and finding Nu Kappa Epsilon brothers throughout the state of Pennsylvania. “Oh, spectacular, what a fantastic way to maintain the bonds of brotherhood,” he says, and he clicks on their pictures and then it’s, “Oh, why can’t I leave a comment?” and he sips his vodka and iced tea and the boys in the pictures are shirtless at the pool and I say, “Looks like you got the hang of this” and slip away.
*
Later, I sit in my guest bedroom, laptop open on the brown desk, finishing reports while in the living room Dr. Wigginton sits remarkably upright in his recliner with the laptop open and his eyes wide, USA or TBS or some basic cable network in the background, the deep chimes of Law & Order scene transitions ringing as loud as a grandfather clock, a tall glass of iced tea and vodka on the end-table beside him.
Again and again, I tell him that I’ll join him once my work is finished.
Cell phone pressed to my ear, and—as usual—no one answering.
Four times I call Jenn. Voicemail, every time.
We have basic cell phones, a shared office plan for the three Educational Consultants that includes only limited text messaging (additional charges deducted straight from our paychecks). Unlimited anytime minutes, LaFaber told us, but our business is to be conducted over official emails on our provided laptops, and our cell phones are not to be all-purpose Batman-esque utility tools capable of full internet usage, GPS navigation, music storage, stereo-quality sound, or full-color movie and photo recording. We’re a non-profit, after all. So my personal cell phone sits back at the Lodge in Indianapolis, disconnected and useless.
“This is Jenn,” her voicemail recording goes, her voice sad-happy depending on the syllable, a mix of highs and lows: “I’m out right now, busy busy, so leave me a message and I’ll get right back to you. Love ya.”
Beep.
“Jenn,” I say, “it’s me again. It’s sometime around four, I think. You’re probably out at the pool? Or, wait. There was a football game today, wasn’t there? Anyhow. Made it safe to Kinston.” I whisper: “I need someone to talk to. Please.”
Hang up.
We’ve
talked only three times in the past week, despite my goal to call her twice daily. And for some reason, we now scrape for conversation, painful silences after she tells me about parties she’s been to, sorority events she’s helping out with. “Jackie got engaged, so we went out to celebrate,” she told me a week ago, and I pictured these five or six girls, seniors and best friends, going out to Macaroni Grill and ordering Caesar salads and chardonnay, all of them wearing skirts or dresses suitable for a wedding rehearsal dinner, but she said, “We got retarded down at Central. All I remember is dancing. I smelled like tequila this morning.”
I imagine Jenn in her short jean skirt, highlighted blonde hair wet with the sweat of close dancing, close bodies packed into Night Lights. And I wonder if the “Jenn Outlook” is now allowing her to see the bright side of a life without me.
This is our text-message conversation over the past week. I’ve got only 100 messages per month; that’s approximately 25 per week. Notice how the conversation abruptly ends:
Charles: Just saw the KD house at Pitt. Pretty spectacular.
Jenn: Thats cool.
Charles: Did I wake you up?
Jenn: Sort of.
Charles: Sorry. Will call later.
(later)
Charles: U there? I called twice.
Jenn: At the mall with Tonya.
Charles: Awesome. Big sale at Express this week.
Jenn: ???
Charles: I keep getting emails about it. Buy 1 get 1 free stuff.
Jenn: Sometimes I wonder about you.
Charles: At least I’m not getting emails from bed bath and beyond!
Jenn: Gotta love discounted cookware.
Charles: Will u call me when u leave?
(later)
Charles: Eating promanti bros sandwich. U would love it.
Jenn: ???
Charles: I left u a voicemail.
Jenn: At the movies.
Charles: I'm using up all my texts. Call when u get out. Any time.
I hide awhile longer in the brown guest bedroom, thinking about Jenn and Night Lights and short skirts and all of those bodies, all of that energy. But I can’t hide forever: Dr. Wigginton pokes his head through the guest bedroom doorway sometime after 6 PM, still wearing his blazer and looking so over-layered with clothing, so hot and stuffy that I feel uncomfortable in my khakis and polo.
“I get the feeling you’re avoiding me.” Voice sounding as if he’s finished three vodka-iced teas, even took a short nap. He knocks on the wall with his knuckles. Then traces the door handle with his index finger, round and round and finally pushing in the latch on the door’s side.
“I just thought that you fell asleep,” I say.
“Well. Maybe.” He laughs his burly laugh. “In any case, it’s dinner time, young man.”
“Okay. Give me a second to save my reports.” I close my laptop, but he doesn’t move away, just watches as I unplug and slide the computer back into its leather case.
“We’re meeting a few other alumni,” he says.
“We’re going out?”
“Oh certainly, certainly. It is a Saturday night, Charles. Could be a late night, too. And you didn’t join me for a drink this afternoon, so…”
“Oh, I just thought…I don’t know what I thought.”
“If you can handle an older crowd, that is. If you can keep up.”
“No problem.”
“There will be a few State College alumni, like myself, and a few who drive from Pittsburgh. We have alumni outings once a month, you understand, to stay fresh as advisors, to renew those bonds”—he clasps his hands together like links in a chain—“those bonds of fraternal friendship. You can give us the updates from Headquarters, let us know what we—ahem—we distinguished alumni can do for the National Fraternity.” Something about the way he says all of this…his over-emphasized grandeur, his Charlton Heston voice, like he’s in a 1960s Biblical Epic…so dramatic that it feels staged…but thankfully, the drinks have at least smoothed away any unfriendliness. “We meet at a restaurant down the road called The River Bend. It’s not Florida, but they have some great seafood. Some great lake trout.”
“I can give it a shot.”
So new plan, again: dinner with alumni. No sleep till…when? But maybe there is some promise for my day once again? Maybe this visit will go the way I’d hoped? Maybe the others will be better than Wigginton.
*
After Dr. Wigginton tells me that we’re going to dinner, I spend thirty minutes in the bathroom getting ready, as much time alone as I possibly can. I close my eyes in the shower, press my head against the slippery wall, and…I think I fall asleep for a moment, standing up. “Everything all right in there?” Dr. Wigginton asks from the hallway.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, perfect.”
“Do you need towels?”
“No, I’ve got my own.”
“Soap?”
“I’m—” does he really think I’d take a shower without soap?—“I’m fine.”
“I have extra socks if you need them,” he says, and when I don’t answer, I assume he’ll walk away. But when I step out of the bathroom, dressed once again in khakis and a Nu Kappa Epsilon polo, the standard business casual we’re required to wear during alumni visits, Dr. Wigginton stands there, stares me up and down. “Is this the shirt you’re wearing?” he asks.
“Just a Headquarters polo,” I say.
“Mmm.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“We’re going out to dinner, Charles. Not one of your alcohol workshops.”
“You think I should change?”
“I would suggest it,” Dr. Wigginton says. “Strongly suggest it.”
“Most of my shirts are dirty. It’s not always easy to find a laundromat.”
“Find something. You’ll make everyone uncomfortable, dressed like a damn Fun Nazi.”
*
Twenty minutes later, we’re driving. Or, rather, he is driving. Buckled back in a passenger seat for the first time in weeks, helpless, I silently criticize Dr. Wigginton’s every maneuver, every decision, pressing my foot against a phantom brake pedal, grabbing the “oh shit” handles and bracing myself when the car jerks unexpectedly, leaning far to the left as though my weight disbursement might effect a smoother turn. You stopped too long at a stoplight, I think. Use your turn signal, I think. Conversation rarely veers from fraternity life, from discussion of national policies or my observations of student behavior, and only once do I manage to squirm out of that subject to ask: “So what sort of work do you do now? Are you, like, fully retired?”
“Oh certainly, certainly.” He turns the heat higher.
“So you have no responsibilities with Morton & Sons, anymore?” I ask. “Do you still talk to anyone there?”
“I’ve rid my life of the stress, young man. Now, I work for the fraternity. I’m doing that which has always been closest to my heart.”
Sky fades from blue to orange to post-sunset purple. Car snaking through thirty or forty minutes of winding 25-mile-per-hour backroads, finally winding up at a hilltop restaurant overlooking the same interstate I traveled earlier today. Beyond the interstate, in the distance: a dark circular lake, broken in the center by shimmering, white-capped rapids, thin and barely-visible branches of a river shooting off in several directions. We pull into the chunky dirt parking lot, Wigginton’s car bouncing high and low in the potholes. The restaurant, The River Bend, is the type of place that screams “corporate,” the type of restaurant with a gigantic sign and bright, flashing neon logo so extravagant that it simply cannot have been produced by some Mom and Pop with entrepreneurial ambitions. Mountain-home façade, piles of firewood on either side of a stone walkway leading to heavy oak doors. The River Bend could be a repainted Cracker Barrel or Smokey Bones.
Inside the restaurant, a plump teenaged hostess in corduroys and maroon polo leads us to a back-corner table so ultra-lacquered that my drink (water with lemon) slides across in a collected puddle of
condensation, as if pulled by an under-the-table magnet. We sit alone for fifteen minutes, Dr. Wigginton asking me if this isn’t just the most fantastic restaurant ever, and I try not to answer honestly. “Try some homemade apple pie,” read the placemats. “Try a Smirnoff and Tonic with Coke and Lime!” read the table-tents.
Eventually, after we finish a basket of cornbread, two other alumni join us. They walk together, these two, but one clearly leads and the other follows sheepishly.
Ben Jameson, the leader, is in his mid-thirties, wears cargo shorts and an “Ed-Tex” polo with no undershirt (nipples poking out in the restaurant’s A/C), and hails from the University of Pittsburgh. He speaks in frustrated tones about his wife and kids back home. “Little Matt’s been reading Dr. Seuss lately,” Ben says. Amazingly, despite his age, despite his degree and his ten years of work experience following graduation, despite the fact that his hair is thinning and his muscle has softened to a fatherly flab, he has the same fuck the world tone to his voice as the undergraduates at Pittsburgh. “Kid walks around the house constantly, reading out loud,” he says. “One fish, two fish. Go dog go. Whatever. Drives you cra-zy. Trying to watch Sportscenter, and the kid’s standing in front of the TV saying Go! Dog! Go!, listen to me, listen to me, and what am I supposed to do? I can’t ignore him.”
The other alumnus, the follower, is skinnier, bald with hairy arms, smiles nervously in agreement with everything Ben says. His name is Anthony, also a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. Both men serve as alumni advisors for Pittsburgh, and both—as advisors—are responsible for helping the Pittsburgh undergrads to enforce financial policies and chapter bylaws.
“I need to get fucking hammered tonight,” Ben says. “Hammered.”
Anthony looks down at the table and coughs a chuckle.
“Don’t worry, doc,” Ben says to Dr. Wigginton. “Anthony drove us. He’s my DD.”
“Oh certainly, certainly,” Dr. Wigginton says.
“Where’d our waitress go?” Ben asks. “Little cutie, wasn’t she?”
But who knows? Maybe they just go to the chapter house to play pool, drink Rolling Rock, and watch football.