American Fraternity Man (74 page)

Heard about me.
Again
? All of these advisors: do they just spend their days instant messaging one another? I’m about to throw my hands in the air, about to toss my laptop bag across the room.
You know
everything
, don’t you
?
So why don’t
you fill out my reports, and let’s just call it a motherfucking day
!

But Grant
leans forward, lowers his voice: “I mean, you closed the Illinois chapter.”

“Illinois?”

“For that keg party? You walked inside and closed that chapter, right? I heard about it.” When I nod, he leans back a little in his cheap creaking chair, and he says, “Oh man, that takes some serious…” hushed tone “…serious
balls,
brother.” Hands miming the act of holding some serious balls, face pure delight, as if he doesn’t get the opportunity to use the word “balls” nearly enough. He seems like the sort who would also jump at the opportunity to pantomime masturbation if we were talking about someone he considered a jerk-off.

“That wasn’t exactly the way it happened,” I say.

“That’s a wild campus, my man,” he says. “Usually, when I hear about chapter closures, it’s always sort of…” Leans forward again, whispers: “Always sort of
pussy
-ish, you know? An email that says ‘Oh, by the way, your chapter is closed.’” Leans back, mimes the ball-holding again. “Nobody goes
into
a chapter house, pistol drawn, and lays down the law. You’ve got a reputation as, like, some kind of cowboy. Let the legend build, brother. Let it grow.”

“I tried to
save
that group,” I say. “That’s what happened.”

“Some chapters are beyond saving. You either get it or you don’t, you know?”

“That’s what they say.”

“In any case, it’s better this way.”

“I suppose.”

He looks at me with squinted eyes,
like some unspoken dialogue is now taking place. He pats his thinning hair, makes it cover a bright spot on his scalp. “You don’t think it’s better?”

“The house is empty, trashed,” I say. “The kids were evicted in the first month of the semester. Doesn’t seem like it worked out for anyone.”

“Incidental casualties. If what we’re hearing is true.”

“What you’re hearing? Is there something I’m missing?”

“There’s been rumblings from Illinois…?” he says, squinting hard, perhaps gauging me, what I know, what I don’t. Hands spread out across his desk.

“Rumblings?”

“Rumblings. You really haven’t heard? Come on, brother-man.”

“Good or bad
news?”

“Both,” he says. “I’m friends with a grad assistant over in Cham-bana. Did our undergraduate together at Iowa.
He told me about…” And he looks around, like someone is spying on him through the wall vents or from under his crumbling green desk…“Nu Kappa Epsilon’s interest group.”

“An interest group
?”

“An
interest
group,” he says, closes his freckled hands into fists. “You know? An interest group?” When I give no response, he finally divulges: “Haven’t done any colonizations yet? Still new to the game? There are two different ways that a national fraternity can start a chapter on a campus. The first way, you’re probably familiar with.” He gives me a prompting look, stretches one hand out, palm facing me.

“
National colonization,” I say.

“At Purdue, we allow one
national fraternity to colonize each Spring. Generally, a chapter that closed down a few years ago, and we re-colonize to keep the old alumni happy.”

“I thought we already had a colonization
deal with Illinois. Five years from now, after all the evicted brothers graduate.”

“That’s what most universities prefer,” he says. “But every now and then, you
get a group of non-affiliated students on campus who want to start their own fraternity. Like, let’s just say you’re some sophomore, and you start thinking how cool it might be to get your friends together and start a fraternity from scratch.”

“How does that relate to Nike?”

He grins and leans forward, and for a moment he looks like a little boy trapped in his father’s suit, a little boy cursed with thinning hair and the early effects of old age on his skin. As he shakes his head, I picture him in a sandbox, on a baseball diamond, on a bicycle. He doesn’t look old enough for this position, for a desk, for these clothes or that hair or those wrinkles, but here he is. Educating
me
.

“When
a new fraternity forms, they usually declare themselves a ‘local’ fraternity, some combination of letters that doesn’t exist on a national level. We’ve had this happen at Purdue…they’ll call themselves something ridiculous, like Tappa Kegga Miller. Those fraternities don’t last long. They collapse after football season. If a group is serious, it’ll ask a national fraternity to be their sponsor. The plot of the original
Revenge of the Nerds
, the white-boys asking the all-black Tri-Lambs to be their sponsor? Anyway, this is what we call an ‘interest group,’ and rumor has it that you’ve got an interest group at Illinois petitioning the Nu Kappa Epsilon Headquarters to become a colony. And it’s causing an uproar in the fraternity community there.”

“Only a
month
after we closed the old chapter?” I ask.

And again, his face cracks into childish delight as he recalls his conversations with graduate assistant friends from the University of Illinois; “rumor has it,” he says twice, thrice, then twice more, and “word around the grapevine,” and “word on the street,” and the cherry: “from what they’re saying on the inside…”
Uproar
, he says with red cheeks.
Uproar
! The Lambda Chi Alpha Executive Director had assurances from the university that they’d be the next fraternity to colonize at Illinois, and now this NKE interest group has thrown off the entire expansion schedule. And the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity house on campus, vacant for the past four years (thousands of dollars sucked out of the alumni Housing Corporation bank account on a monthly basis), will remain vacant
even longer
because
Nu Kappa Epsilon
has an interest group forming.
An interest group
! Ready to move back into the house immediately and replenish the bank account. Illegal maneuvering, clandestine deals! Oh, the conflict between national fraternities, where millions of dollars are now at stake, he says. This is the big-boy leagues, he says. Getting things done!

And Grant Farmor relishes every gossipy syllable he spills; he’s no longer a child in a sandbox; now he has the excited eye twinkle of a 19-year-old headed off to the bar with his new fake ID. Gossip gossip gossip, as though this is still college he’s talking about—who hooked up with whom last night, and when’s the next big party, and who got a boob job, and who talked shit about Danny. This is the same conversation, conducted in the same way as if he was still the Vice President for his undergraduate fraternity at Iowa.

But I also realize: this kid’s got a job. A real job. An office. And a solid career ahead of him after he finishes what will likely be a two-year stint as a Greek Advisor. He’s going places, using this position to go somewhere. And what have I got?

“I’m sure you’ll have everything lined up if you apply for grad schools, but if you need a letter of rec., let me know.” Twirls again. “It’s a small world, higher education, but you got to know the right people.”

“Kiss the right asses, don’t piss off the wrong people, that’s what everyone tells me.”

“You’re a fraternity consultant, after all. Natural transition
into Collegiate Student Personnel.”

“That’s what Dr. Vernon told me,” I say.

“Dr. Vernon,” he says and chuckles. “Good old Doc Vernon.”

“He told me to apply for Bowling Green’s program.”

“You’d do well,” he says. “Good head on your shoulders.”

“Just wait till you get to know me.”

“Ha.” He twirls in his chair. “Really, though. Consider it. It’s fun to work with students, help them to realize their potential and all that.”

“I do that right now,” I say.

“Yep. And you met Dr. Vernon already, so…looks like you got your bases covered.” And he laughs, has an in-joke grin on his face. Knocks on the table. Nods. Takes a beer-chug-sized gulp of his coffee.

“
What’s so funny?” I ask.

“Dr. Vernon?
Dude’s a quack,” Grant says. And now he’s pointing at the surface of his desk, finger making a dull thump with each impact, and it seems that the coffee is forcing him to constantly move, constantly keep his hands busy. “Don’t get me wrong. I got mad respect for him, but let’s get realistic, you know? All the learning laboratory stuff. Come on.”

“He seemed to have a good thing going,” I say.

“People worship the guy,” he says. Hands swirling. “But it’s all because he publishes a few articles, a couple books, gets a bunch of grant money.”

“That’s a big deal, though. Right? He had a lot of research.”

“Research, right. The stuff he’s doing on campus? Psssh. Dude has been there forever. Who works as a Greek Advisor that long and doesn’t get a better job offer, you know? Shit, talk to
anyone
who works there, and they’ll give you the inside scoop: head-in-the-clouds theory, you know, all these programs and symposiums and what-not. None of it really accomplishes anything. Just gives him material to write more journal articles.”

“I didn’t get that impression,” I say. “He seemed—I don’t know—honest. Like he saw through all the head-in-the-clouds stuff. I don’t see honesty very often.”

“Talk to the grad students. When they first start the program, they love Dr. Vernon, think he’s a celebrity or something. By the time they’re done? Hate his guts. Makes everyone work 60, 70 hours a week on all this B.S. programming.” Shaking his head, shuffling papers. “The way I see it, it’s people like you and me doing the real work, am I right?”

*

The next day, during the lazy hours of an early Thursday afternoon at Purdue, rain crashing against the roof of the fraternity house and turning the tall windows of the chapter library into dark smears,
I’m again scrolling through Jenn’s Facebook page to examine each change she’s made in the last few weeks.

Her profile picture is new, it seems, a photo taken late at night, Jenn standing in a parking lot with her friend Tina, both of them wearing sparkling black shirts with low neck-lines, matching white skirts, ready to head inside some bar. Jenn smiles at the camera, her body turned at
such an angle that much of her face is in shadow, one arm hidden behind Tina; over her other shoulder she carries a golden Louis Vuitton purse, has it pushed out toward the camera as if displaying it. It’s an accessory I’ve never seen her carry before, this purse, a designer label she never seemed to care about. In fact, when I suggested buying her an LV purse for her birthday, she scoffed. “Don’t spend that kind of money, Charles. That’s such a waste. People who buy that crap are insecure.” But here it is. Here she is. Not wearing the same thrift-store vintage t-shirts she used to wear, not the same tight gray jeans and black cloth headband, the contrast to the super-serious Princess look of her sorority sisters. There’s no longer any corniness in her clothes, no longer a feeling that she will not be absorbed or consumed by the cynical world around her. And the smile. Shadowed, dark, mischievous, happy but not “Jenn Outlook” happy.

There are three new photo albums uploaded, also: “Homecoming,” “Out with the Girls,” and “Single and Mingling!” We haven’t spoken in weeks, so Jenn is long past the days of an “It’s complicated” relationship status. She is “Single,” and she wants the world to know.

Outside, the rain slashes at the windows with greater violence.

I click on the “Single and Mingling!” album.

I expect the worst, don’t know why I’m even doing this, and so I’m rightfully rewarded with punishment. Pictures of Jenn with college guys of all shapes and sizes: sitting on barstools with a spiky-haired blonde boy, taking shots with a kid in a Boston Red Sox hat, smooching the cheek of a Kappa Sigma fraternity brother, on the dance floor in a purple dress at some fraternity formal. Some of the guys are easily recognizable for me, faces glimpsed in hallways and classrooms and intramural baseball diamonds in a past life that no longer feels like it really happened. Others are strangers. These are the ones that hurt; these are the ones that show me how little I know about her.

In one photo, she holds a box of SQWorms, the sickeningly sweet gummy candy that would always surface from the depths of her purse late at night when we were drunk. She is holding the box, but she is not eating them. She is alone, also. This is the sort of photo in which I used to appear, nuclear-green SQWorm in my own hand, and the sugary strands would
be hanging from both our mouths and our faces would be crackling with laughter.

I smooth my pants, search for an older photo album—“House Party with Charles”—and hope that it will make me feel different. But even this isn’t what I expected. It’s an album full of photos taken at my Senior Send-Off.