American Fraternity Man (34 page)

Can a group of frat stars be rehabilitated, transformed into a leadership group?
Three weeks ago, I believed I could accomplish the impossible. But now? The only realistic rehabilitation is elimination. Pull the weeds from the garden.

Anything suspicious, report it.

Yes, that’s it. Charles is on a mission.

*

I find all the materials I’ll need in my Explorer. I keep a plastic snap-shut box on the passenger-side floor, and inside the box I’ve assembled a file-system for each of the universities I’ll visit: manila folders stuffed with membership reports, financial data, chapter histories, disciplinary records, names, addresses, phone numbers, alumni contact info, fraternity house floor plans.

I take the Fun Nazi business card from its spot below the speedometer, tuck it into my shirt pocket. Pull the digital camera and the Housing Damage forms from the “office supplies” case in the back seat, red pen from the center console—and it’s the
hyperbolic red of the fake blood from the original
Dawn of the Dead
—and I head back inside the house, snap pictures everywhere, waiting until rooms are empty and brothers are in class so I’m not caught. Snap photos of the leaks in the basement, the keg taps in the cupboard, the over-filled dumpster, the unstable porch, bottles of Absinthe in one bedroom, marijuana posters, bongs under beds, anything, everything, more than 250 pictures, until I’m deleting the tame photos to make room for extra pictures of destroyed walls and—
jackpot
—a receipt on Neagle’s desk for two kegs.

I f
ill out all the forms with my red pen. Sign them, date them.

Rush Season, LaFaber said. And yes, here I am, working so quietly that Special Ops would be proud. Forms, forms, forms, until I’ve got a stack so thick that it bends the paperclip binding it together. This is how I spend my Monday, often retreating into my Explorer, an orderly place where no one will find me, and I sort through the evidence.

At dinner, Neagle sees me walking to my car, shouts from the porch: “Dinner?”

“Got a couple things to finish,” I say. And I’m back in the Explorer.

And even though he tells me later in the night that I can take his bed because he’s going to sleep at his girl’s place, I stay on the stiff couch.

*

Tuesday evening. Lists and lists of infractions. Digital photos of kegs stored in bedrooms, in closets, dirty shirts thrown sloppily over the taps. Bongs beside x-boxes. I’ve got it all. Written infractions like police reports, on the NKE standardized forms, the letterhead, official, signed, authenticated by the Educational Consultant, the Fun Nazi,
my name
fucking them:

This is a drinking club about to lose its charter. About to get evicted from its house.

Tuesday evening, safe in my Explorer, I dial
LaFaber at the National Headquarters, the final minutes of HQ business hours. He answers after one ring, knows it’s me from the Caller ID and says, “Charles, it is
great
to hear from you,” so quickly that I think he might have been speaking before he even picked up the phone.

“Why is it good to hear from me?” I ask.

“It’s always good to hear from you,” he says.

“Oh. Well,” I say, “thank you?”

“Anytime. What’s up?”

“I’m at Shippensburg right now, but you probably already knew that?”

“The reason for my good mood.”

“Shippensburg? Y
ou said this chapter was worthless.”

“It was,” LaFaber says. “Until
you
got there.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve done a hell of a job in two days, Charles. A hell of a job.”

“But I haven’t told you what I’ve done.”

“I just spoke with Donald Annbloom, their Housing Corporation President? We’re on the verge of some good things out there.”

“I don’t…know about this,” I say.

“Sometimes,” LaFaber says in his gritty halftime-speech voice, “when you’re on the ground, in the middle of combat, enemy fire all around you, it’s difficult to see that you’re actually winning the battle. That you’re winning the
war
.”

“I’m not sure that’s the case. I’ve got to tell you about some of the things I found here.
I mean, this chapter is about as bad as it gets.”

“Okay, okay,” LaFaber says, and I think he sighs. “Don’t say this over the phone.”

“Why not?”

“Liability, Charles. Did you write any of this information down? The bad stuff?”

“Yes,” I say. “
Yes
. I’ve got photos. I’ve got descriptions, forms. I’ve got everything but their charter.”

“Hmm,” LaFaber says.

“This place is a risk management
night
mare.”

“All written down?”

“Yes,” I say. Proudly, because I’ve done it. I’ve shed those old college clothes, the t-shirts and jeans, stepped one leg at a time into the pressed pants of professionalism. I am
exhausted
, but I did everything I could to fulfill our national mission. To the fucking letter.

“Okay, okay,” LaFaber says. “Let me tell you what Donald Annbloom told me. Our conversation. You realize the sacrifices that Housing Corporation has made
the last few years?”

“They’re in
debt. Finances look bad.”

“The Housing Corp—it’s just five alumni—they still have more than half a million to pay on the mortgage, Charles. This is big-time, you know. And that Ship chapter hasn’t had their house filled to capacity in ten years. That Housing Corp has accumulated so much debt…the alumni have sunk their personal finances into that structure.”

“They
can
sell the house,” I say.

“Charles. You’ve been staying in that disaster for two days—”

“Three.”

“Three days. Do you really think anyone would buy it? Especially in this economy?”

“Maybe. Another fraternity? One without a house.”

“That’s a dying Greek Community, Charles. Ship has closed five fraternity chapters in the past three years. There’s nobody
left
to buy it. And no National Fraternity is going to start a new chapter there. It’s not safe. It’s a financial sinkhole.”

“So are you saying that…
Wait, what are you saying?”

“This looks like the first good Rush the chapter has had in ten years,” LaFaber says. “Thirty new pledges, they’re
saying. They can
fill
that house. Their president—this James Neagle—actually set up a payment plan with Annbloom to start chipping away at the debt. That’s
your
influence, Charles.”

“I found kegs in the house,” I say. “Kegs!”

“Yes. That is a serious infraction.”

“You should
see
some of the things I’ve documented. I’ll send you the photos.”

“Listen, Charles,” LaFaber says. “This is great. This work you did is great. I don’t want to understate that. But you’ve got to understand when I say that we can
mold
this chapter. Our business is to
develop
socially responsible leaders, not just cut our ties when things are tough. They’re with us. They’re on the verge. What we’ve done is shift their attitude. That’s the tough part for a higher-ed professional.”

“Kegs,” I say. “Their attitude?”

“You haven’t sent me any of those photos or documents yet, have you?”

“No.”

“I need you to delete them, Charles.”

“Delete…you’re kidding me.”

“We can work with them, Charles. They’re with us.”

“All the work I did,” I say. “Work with
them
?”

S
ilence from the other end; Walter LaFaber can be as excruciatingly patient as a first-grade teacher, holding his thoughts, thinking or waiting for someone else to speak, but silence makes me uneasy. So much blank space, and I want to fill it. While driving the highway the past few weeks, past open fields extending so far into the distance that they go hazy, I kept picturing some sort of commercial development, progress, in all of that blank space. Right now, it’s just grass. Just tree stumps. Certainly something must be better than
blank space
! And so I keep talking, telling LaFaber how I had to sneak around to take pictures, how I had to investigate, spy, and this was such a dangerous operation because
what if they found out
? And we can’t just give up now. It’s not fair to anyone, not fair to me.

“You have to realize,” LaFaber says, so patient, “that this isn’t about you.”

“I know that.”

“This is about something much larger than you.”

“I know. It’s just that we’ve got all of this evidence.”

Silence again.

“This is about a national organization,” LaFaber says. “This is a business. Millions of dollars are on the line, Charles.”

“What these guys are doing is
not
good, though. It’s dangerous. We’re trying to prevent another Sandor lawsuit, right?”

“I appreciate the work you’ve done, Charles
. But I need you to keep something in mind. Nu Kappa Epsilon isn’t your run-of-the-mill business, your FedEx or Starbucks.”

“I know that,” I say. “We’re
values
-based.”

“Yes. And tell me again where our money comes from?”

“Alumni. Our foundation. Student dues.”

“Correct. Our money comes directly from those we are supposed to discipline. When we close our chapters, we shut off our income. We have no money for the programs, the workshops, the consultants, the Headquarters, all that helps us to keep our focus on values and leadership development. We live and die with the students.”

Silence, and I’m supposed to be understanding and accepting Walter LaFaber’s viewpoint, but I fill the blank space by saying, “This just doesn’t
feel
right.”

“This isn’t about you,” he says again.

*

Here in Neagle’s bedroom on Tuesday night, as I twirl the Fun Nazi card around and around in my hands, I’m surrounded by tacked-up
Maxim
centerfolds and covers. During dinner last night, Neagle told me that
Maxim
just started shipping magazines to the house a few months ago. More subscriptions than there were members in the house. So many magazines. So the guys cut them apart, plastered them to walls. In the bathrooms here at Shippensburg, there are tall stacks of sticky magazines. Wet pages, ink-smeared covers. In Neagle’s bedroom, Christina Aguilera receives a full wall. The same photos, over and over again. Christina in a thong. Christina in the pool, with a beach ball.

Fun Nazi card tw
irling, twirling, corners bent now.

I’m trying to think of Jenn, but I’m afraid to call her. We keep missing one another, and I’m afraid that another phone call will mean another message. Here in Neagle’s bedroom, alone, models staring at me from every wall, liquor bottles staring at me from the top shelf of his door-less closet. Neagle’s room is the prototype for frat star bedrooms…
Neagle
is the prototype frat star. And now a new generation of frat stars will assimilate into Ship after Rush.

At Edison, the university co-owned the fraternity houses with our alumni donors
; we obeyed the rules, feared the reach of the National Headquarters. But there is no reach, is there? Flipping the Fun Nazi card, staring at the typed title, flipping it again, staring at the blank back.

Two doorways down, 50 Cent is playing again. “You can find me in the club,” 50 is spitting, lazy-hip, “I’m into havin’ sex, I ain’t into makin’ love—”

And I don’t hear barbells this time. Only laughter. Conversation.
There is no reach
, I’m thinking, and I know they’re drinking over in that bedroom, clinking Bud Lite bottles, talking about college football and some sorority girl’s Facebook photos, and I want to change out of my khakis—in college, I
never
wore khaki pants, how fucking
old
they make you feel—and over there, the song changes from 50 Cent to Miley Cyrus, and she’s telling them that there’s a Party in the USA, and she’s nodding her head like yeah, and they’re laughing cause they’re listening to Miley Cyrus and why not?, it’s funny, and Miley is talking about how the Britney song was on, the Britney song was on, and I’m thinking of the CD in my car, Britney asking me, “Don’t you know that you’re
toxic
?” and I’m thinking, yeah, if this isn’t about
me
, then I don’t have to model some strict Code of Conduct, and I’m standing up, stretching, tossing the business card onto my suitcase, creeping to Neagle’s bedroom door, entering the hallway—