American Fraternity Man (70 page)

I should go back to grad school, they tell me. Consulting gives me an edge on the application process! And this was the plan all along for me, wasn’t it? they ask. To use my experience as an Educational Consultant to propel me into a career in student personnel?

“I don’t know,” I say.

“You don’t know? You don’t have a plan?”

“No, it’s not that,” I say. “I just wanted to work for my fraternity. That was why I took the job as a consultant. No grand ambitions. I loved my fraternity. So.”

“No grand ambitions?”

They all laugh softly, and I try to join in.

“What about afterward?” one of them asks.

“Afterward?” I say.

“After your consultant contract has expired?”

“I, um, want to keep working? No retirement plans yet.”

“Well, you’ll need solid references and a squeaky clean resume to get into
this
graduate program,” Lisa says, “but I’m sure you’ve got all of that.”

“In other words,” Todd says and play-elbows me, “kiss all the right asses, and don’t piss of
f the wrong people. It’s a small world, this field, and nobody gossips like CSP.”

“Right, ha,” I say.

“This
is
what you’re planning to do, right?” Lisa asks. “Grad school?”

All around me, all around me.

“Sure, that’s a goal.”

“Let’s get you in to see Dr. Vernon,” Todd says,
voice reverential. “He’s ready to receive you.”

*

And I’m led into a large office that feels more like a cave carved into the thick of a million-year-old tree, everything around me wooden. Mahogany desk, I think, with matching mahogany pencil holder and “outbox.” Mahogany bookshelf, mahogany end-table. Furniture so strong that a tornado couldn’t move it. Reminds me of Dr. Wigginton’s mountain cottage, but here the lines are contemporary, surfaces smooth, handles of steel.

Dr. Vernon, the Greek Advisor, sits behind his desk,
but when I walk into his office he continues staring out his floor-to-ceiling window at the crowds of students scattered on the wet pavement below, back to me. Slowly he turns his chair around, motioning with one thick hand for me to sit at the dark-cushioned wood chairs before his desk, his gold cuff links reflecting his lamplight like sparks on copper wires. He is better-dressed than every other Greek Advisor I’ve met so far, French-cuff shirt so starched that it doesn’t even bend or fold as he pulls a folder from the top drawer of his desk, slides it onto the desk’s surface to rest beside a couple hardcovers (the book on top is called
Generation X in the Job Market
by (surprise) Dr. Harold Vernon), and then he folds his hands before his face. “Charles Washington?” he asks.

“That’s me.” I sit.

“So good to finally meet you.” He examines my face, his eyes seeming to drift between colors as he squints, brown to hazel to bronze. His face seems heavy, skin dark and tough like one of those middle-aged Florida natives I’d sometimes see at the beach early in the morning, their entire days spent under the sunshine, 7 AM to 7 PM, bodies browned and weathered not from exhausting outdoor labor but instead from the simple desire to be beach bums…but this is northern Ohio, and Dr. Vernon is not spending his mornings on a beach towel on Lake Erie.

“Are you hung-over?” he asks.

“Me?” I pat my chest, my arms, ruffle my hair, checking to see how I put myself together this morning. “What do you mean? No.”

“I know how things get on the road,” he says, still squinting, perhaps trying to see beyond my eyes
and into my mind, trying to confirm or deny his suspicions. “Surrounded by college kids? Every chapter, a fridge full of beer? Parties. I’m sure it’s tough to stay sober and serious…girls everywhere, beer everywhere.”

“What? No.
” I start to stand again. “I must not’ve slept well. Did I forget to iron?”

“You have a guest room when you stay on this campus,” he says. “I hope you’d let us know if the accommodations are poor.”

“It’s a nice room. Just. A lot of time on the computer last night?”

“So you haven’t been drinking while you’ve been here?” he asks.

“No. I mean. What have you heard?”

For some reason, the world
around me no longer feels real. For some reason, it doesn’t feel as if I’m really here. In Bowling Green, in the mouth of a prehistoric tree, the world outside crackling to cold. Dr. Vernon squints harder and then finally leans back, fingers interlaced before him, and smiles like a tycoon. “I got you,” he says and laughs. Then holds out his hands in an I-couldn’t-resist pose. “I got you, Charles Washington.”

“Got me?” I smooth my pants.

“Only joking, young man. I’ve heard good things about you from my colleagues. Don’t worry. You don’t look a mess.”

“From your colleagues?” I sink back into my seat and let out a wispy laugh that sounds like a deflating air mattress. Hanging from the wall to my right is a plaque that reads, “For 20 Years of Distinguished Service at Bowling Green”: with twenty years of continuous employment, Dr. Vernon must be well-connected in the world of higher education and Greek Affairs. A small world, those GAs said. And Dr. Vernon’s colleagues? He probably knows—probably taught—many of the Greek Advisors I’ve met throughout the country. “Someone at this school?” I ask. “Or somewhere else?”

“My colleagues are everywhere,” he says. “All corners of the country. They say you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. That you truly care about the students you service.”

“This isn’t a joke, is it?”

“No, no. This is real. Forgive my sense of humor earlier, but this is real.” He opens the manila folder on his desk (they
always
have a folder or an envelope during meetings, always wet their finger and flip through pages of data and spreadsheets and photos and printed news stories, like criminal investigators attempting to scare a suspect in the interrogation room), and pauses on a printed email, laughing softly. “My colleagues also say you’re a bit—how do I say this?—unorthodox in your approach to consulting?”

And what might he have heard to lead him to this conclusion? I think the worst: Buenos Noches and El Sombrero, cans of Tecate at student meetings, destructed jeans purchased at a New Mexico shopping mall, worn at night in Juarez, worn the next day on a flight to Fresno, worn during every chapter visit while my khaki slacks and silver-black suit remain packed. There is an image in my mind
of Charles Washington sleeping until 11 AM at the University of Delaware, legs spilling over the armrest of the living room couch, shoes still on my feet from the night before. Unorthodox? A stolen charter in the backseat of my Explorer, an artifact I was proud of saving from that Illinois chapter house but now can’t admit to anyone that I’ve taken because I never should have gone back the next morning.

“Unorthodox, what does that even mean?” I ask.

“You have a Facebook page, I’m told,” he says. “I’ve never heard of a consultant friend-requesting the chapter presidents.”

“You
know about that?”

“I hear everything.”

For weeks, I used the Van Wilder image as my profile picture…probably the reason it took Maria so long to find me, to confirm the page as mine…and although late last night—shaking from a 64-ounce gas station fountain drink I’d finished in fifteen minutes—I changed my privacy settings, there are dozens of images that Dr. Vernon could have found, that all of these Greek Advisors could have found, that even Walter LaFaber could have found in the stupid interval between re-activation and privacy protection, if only they’d searched my name and clicked my page. What have they seen? Hell if I know.

“Who doesn’t have a
Facebook page these days?” I ask finally.

“
This takes some getting used to, these new mediums,” he says, leans back again. “Five years ago, I thought it was strange when a consultant would text the chapter president to schedule a visit. Five years before that, I thought it odd when consultants set up AOL instant messaging accounts to interact. What’s unorthodox now will be mainstream in months. A good topic for graduate research. But in the meantime, be careful with it. The more knowledge you have, the greater your responsibility.”

“You’re right,” I say, and now I’m thinking of the wall post I received from Sam Anderson early this morning: “Hey, dude, gotta talk about that hazing thing.” I’d been—what had I been doing?—
trying to type the report for New Mexico State, that’s right, stuck after only one awkward paragraph, and I hadn’t noticed Sam’s comment for several hours. Later, I deleted it, but still: the comment was there for anyone to see.
That hazing thing
.

“Have you ever thought of continuing in this profession?” Dr. Vernon asks.

“Consulting?”

“
Higher education,” he says. “Student personnel. A career in anything from Greek Life to Residence Life. Bowling Green has an excellent program, you know? What’s your degree?”

“Organizational
Communication.”

“W
onderfully vague,” Dr. Vernon says. “Perfect for grad school. With your experience, you could make a tremendous Greek Advisor.”

Usually, the campus Greek Advisor is some kid fresh out of
grad school who takes the job with high hopes and endless energy, until fraternity and sorority undergraduates begin ignoring or disregarding him even while he works weekends, late nights, organizing programs for the Greek community, compiling reports for various deans and student-life administrators. Then, twelve months later, the kid will be job-hunting with such panic that you’d think the Greek Advisor office was set to explode. Very rarely is the position as prestigious as Dr. Vernon’s appears to be. Very rarely do they write books. A career as a Greek Advisor? That can’t be what my life has led to: Fun Nazi at a desk? “Something to shoot for,” I say.

“You don’t look excited.”

I shake my head, still my twitching eyelid. “Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t be a climber.”

“No apology necessary.” He leans forwa
rd, face intense with curiosity or offense, eyes going amber, hands still folded before him, dark skin etched with age but not worry. “Are you familiar with our programs here at Bowling Green?” he asks.

“The students told me about them.”

“They’re all very exciting to
us
, you know? Even if
you
don’t care.”

“No, I didn’t mean—”

“Simply put, we offer our students more programming than any other Greek Life office in the nation,” he says, voice hypnotic as Walter LaFaber’s…and then he lists off the names and goals of alcohol awareness workshops coordinated by this office; he lists academic success workshops, scholarships specifically for Greek students, recruitment conclaves, leadership conclaves, and I hear the words “conclave” and “symposium” and “convocation” and “conference” and “workshop” and “retreat” used so often that I try to keep a mental tally but eventually lose track. The office and its graduate assistants plan Diversity Pot Luck Dinners and Faculty Luncheons, resume-building sessions and study skills presentations, Greek-wide service events, Greek-wide “Unity” barbecues. And as Dr. Vernon speaks, I get the feeling that he has this entire boilerplate speech memorized for the benefit of traveling consultants and school administrators; it slides out of his mouth as easily as the Alphabet Song.

“Yeah, that’s a lot of programs,” I say.

“You still don’t seem impressed. This is the pinnacle, Mr. Washington. This is what
you
do, but to the
next level
.”

“No
, I’m properly impressed. It really sounds like a lot of programs.”

He grins again
. “We’re catering to the Millennials.” He taps his fingertips together.

“The Millennial Generation.” I rub my temples.

“Absolutely,” he says, his hand sliding a few inches to the left to tap one of the books on his desk, a thick hardcover published by Yale University Press. “We are the undisputed experts on Millennial Generation research.”

“Sounds like a big deal.”

“You can say that again,” he says, and—just to be a smart-ass—I almost do, but once again he’s off and running: “Parents are programming their kids from an early age, you see: team sports, foreign language lessons. Once they get into high school, kids are taking AP classes in their
sophomore
year. I read recently of a student entering UVA with 72 credit hours! College enrollments are at their highest levels ever. These are high achievers. All of these students we see around us, these Millennials, their generation has the greatest potential
ever
, is what we hope. A Hero Generation, capable of changing the world.”

I think of Sam Anderson at New Mexico State, of students standing on a chair in the center of a dark room. I think of Adam Duke at Illinois, his big-screen TV and six-pack of Anchor Steam. I think of Bradley Camden in the empty kitchen, tossing a McDonalds wrapper into a trashcan full of McDonalds wrappers. I think of Pittsburgh, the stain on the ceiling fan. I think of my own Senior Send-Off, the lonely boy standing on the curb while the Night Patrol rolled up.