American Fraternity Man (76 page)

“All this other stuff?”

“And now, after this conversation, I know,” Jenn says. “She wasn’t lying.”

“Wasn’t lying? Who?”

“You really did, didn’t you?”

“I really did
what
? What are you talking about?”

But I know, don’t I? I know where she’s going next.

“I don’t want to fight,” I try. “This is not what I wanted.”

“Y
ou called because you were angry at me about the Facebook thing, but really you’re mad at yourself, aren’t you?” she says. “Guilty conscience. So tell me. Maria? Is it true?”

No defense.
No response. “What,” I say. “Maria.”

“I didn’t believe her email,” she says. “A freshman girl in New Mexico? But if it’s really true, then you know why we aren’t friends, why I want nothing to do with you. You’re not the man I thought I knew. You’re
my worst nightmare come true.”

Outside, a thin tree shakes and bends in the wind, one of its long bare branches reaching almost to the muddy ground in a blast of wind, then stretching back skyward as the trunk straightens and strengthens, then reaching down again in another gust…reaching, almost touching the ground. And I wonder if there’s a point at which the branch—or the tree trunk—will snap. Which will snap first.

*

Later in the night, while the rain continues
, I sit with a scattered group of Purdue fraternity brothers in the type of warm wooden living room that one would expect from a typical Hollywood “frat house” movie: deep brown leather couches; a pool table at one end of the room; wooden floors that, as you cross them, creak and smack like the sound of fingers flipping through stacks of cash, ghosts in the walls and in the spaces between; composite photos dating back to 1955 lining the hallways and leading to a long fireplace, above which hangs a painting of (what else) the house itself, the limestone castle illuminated by summer sunshine; a spiral staircase at the far end of the room, leading to the next two floors; a coat rack, too…a fucking carved, wooden
coat rack
! Everything you’d expect of a fraternity house that’s stood since 1948.

All is quiet tonight. The rain outside. T
he big-screen television at the front of the living room. All sounds like soft static, and many of the brothers stretch out on couches as though drugged. Some have opened textbooks, but they don’t appear to be reading or studying.

Into the silence, I say, “Anybody want to grab a beer with me?”

Around the room, all heads turn to regard me.

“It’s sort of quiet around here,” I say. “Anybody want to, like, just hit up a bar or something for an hour? Let off some steam?” Blank-faced stares. “You’ve got some good bars around here, right? Or, we don’t have to go to a bar. We could just go to Applebee’s or something. I need a drink. It’s so…” Stares. “Quiet.”

But now the stares seem to take me in from head to toe, from my mall-purchased shoes to my faded American Eagle jeans to my untucked long-sleeved t-shirt. “You’re a con-
sul
-tant, right?” one of them says, upper lip curled in this disgusted look like he just accidentally stumbled upon his parents naked.

“Just one beer,” I suggest. “Just half an hour? Anyone?”

But they all, one by one, shake their heads and then open their textbooks or type text messages on their phones or engage in some other low-energy activity simply to avoid eye contact. “We’ve got a mid-term tomorrow,” one of them says. “In Statics.”

All of you? What the hell is going on here? Why is everyone so concerned with textbooks and school and mid-terms, I want to ask. Just go out and relax.
Loosen up
!

*

And so I leave the house, leave them all to “studying,” and I head to a bar called “Brother’s” and sit at the bar and it’s busy, clusters of frat guys in backwards-turned baseball caps gathering under the wall-mounted televisions to watch college football, and I order a pitcher of Bud Lite and ask for three cups and turn to a couple of girls beside me. “Hey,” I say.

Both have been talking to one another conspiratorially, pressing lips to ears in order to be heard over the loud beat of…Ludacris? Or is it Lil Wayne? Or some other rapper I haven’t heard?
If you
are
what you say you
are
…a superstar…then have no feeee-arrrr
…Both are brunettes, also, wearing jeans and black shirts, and they turn to me in unison with faces bereft of amusement. “We’re talking,” one says.

“Sure,” I say and hold out the two cups. “Thought you might want a beer?”

She holds up her own cup, a lime-garnished cocktail that is by now mostly ice. “Already got a drink, so…”

“Looks empty,” I say. “You sure?”

The other girl leans forward, says, “We’ve got boyfriends.” And then they turn their barstools so that they’re no longer facing me, and they are speaking into one another’s ears again, their bodies barely registering any interruption.

Heavy ceiling fan. Mold breaking through.

The beer goes warm before I can finish it, the crowds of college students seeming to all stand at a distance from me, as if I’ve fallen into a crater and one false step might send any of them tumbling down here with me.

After I pay my tab at the bar, I consider driving back to the Purdue chapter house, consider whether they’ll still be awake—it’s past 2 AM, but this is a fraternity house—and consider what they’ll see when I ring the doorbell and ask to be let back inside:

Or:

When I pull into the parking lot, the lights on the limestone castle’s first floor are all dark; the second floor seems alive, soft music seeping from one room, lamplights in three windows and blacklights in a couple others. I park, leave the Britney CD on low volume, “Toxic” again the soundtrack as I stare through my windshield at a fraternity house.

I know what they’
ll see.

I’
ll walk to the front door, and when they answer the ringing bell (and who will hear, who will answer?), there I will stand, shifting from foot to foot. Dark blue jeans with holes in the knees. EU windbreaker over a black graphic tee: an Express t-shirt I bought last week, the screen-printed image of some sort of winged creature snarling in the center, an angel maybe?, feathery wings consuming the entirety of the shirt’s front and sharpening as they wrap around the back. A pissed-off angel. Beer spilled onto the white graphic. The smell of cigarette smoke so heavy on my clothes that I feel encased in a gray cloud. Rain water matting my hair, two-day stubble on my cheeks, and have I brushed my teeth since yesterday morning? I don’t know anymore.

Oh,
I know what they’ll see.

This
is what has been printed on the blank side of the business card, and I can’t let anyone see me, not like this.

So I stay in my Explorer
, waiting for another car to pull in. “I’m on a ride,” Britney is singing, and if someone parks and walks to the front door and opens up (“You’re toxic”) then I will jump out, catch up (“I’m slipping under”) mumble something about how lucky I am that we both arrived at the same time (“Don’t you know that you’re toxic?”) and slip inside and slip to my guest room and no one else will notice. Things will work out: the Etiquette Dinner, the bathroom at New Mexico State. Things will work out.

But I’m alone in the parking lot for a long time, the rain and wind
breathing strong bursts, and at some point, that long tree branch in the fraternity house front yard—bending for the last several days, bending in the gusting wind—splinters and collapses to the ground.

*

I’m awoken early in the morning by someone tapping on my passenger-side door. The car is still grumbling, heat still blowing, and I’ve been sleeping in the driver’s seat for the last several hours.

“You okay in there?” I hear.

“Huh? Fuck,” I say, and try to stretch forward, slip back against the seat.

“You the consultant?” At the window is a youthful Jeff Goldblum lookalike, dark hair and glasses and inquisitive eyes, palms pressed to the glass, face just centimeters from leaving a nose print. “Shit, it’s the
consultant
in there. He’s sleeping in his car.”

“No,” I say. “No. I’m…ugh…I’m fine.”

I force myself to lean as far forward as possible—stretch—and there are pains in my neck and back that are brand-new to me, spots on my body that have never before registered a moment’s thought now aching with the sharpness of just-purchased dress shoes worn for a long and heel-scraping walk.

And then there’s another face at the window. Bryan O’Reilly: chapter president. Boston Celtics sweatshirt
, beanie pulled over his shaved head. “You want to, like, go inside?”

“Yes,” I say. “I do need to.”

The clock reads 7:04 AM.

“Well hurry up
. We’re already late for class,” Bryan says.

I shut off the car. Not sure how much strain I put on the battery. Open the door, shiver in the early-morning cold, slump out onto the pavement. “Glad you guys have early classes,” I say and rub my eyes. “I…I didn’t want to wake anyone up
last night.”

“Shouldn’t have gone out to the bar by yourself,” Bryan says.

“You sleep out here all night?” Goldblum asks. “Fuck.”

I nod and we walk through the front yard, the fallen leaves and dead grass and broken branches and mud. There is no wind right now, but still the cold feels as if it is finding new ways to penetrate me. Shouldn’t have worn jeans with knee-holes.

“Everyone’s got early classes,” Golblum says. “Only time they offer some of the engineering pre-reqs.”

“That sucks,” I say and wipe my nose with the sleeve of my windbreaker.

“You look like shit,” Bryan says. “But at least you’re up for breakfast.”

“Breakfast?”

“You missed breakfast the last couple days,” he says, opens the front door, and straight ahead, there in the dining room where I’ve eaten lunch and dinner with the chapter throughout my visit here at Purdue University, are twenty or thirty fraternity brothers at the long cafeteria-style tables, trays before them, bowls of cereal, cups of orange juice, plates of toaster-friendly waffles or Po
p-Tarts. They turn, they see me, a collection of heads swiveling in unison.