American Fraternity Man (5 page)

By now, Jenn was sitting on my lap.

Then she was facing me, kissing me, the rest of the world fading out.

“This is exciting, isn’t it?” she asked.

I slid my hand up her bare back, let it rest on the strap of her bikini top.

“Not just
this
,” she said, meaning the hot tub, “but all of it. You’ll graduate soon.”

“That’s exciting?” I asked.

“Moving on to something new,” she said. “We have the whole world in front of us, you know? We can do anything.”

Suddenly, on
the other end of the hot tub, one of the girls slipped underwater. There was a splash, a scream, then a spread-out seaweedy mass of blonde hair beneath the bubbles, and when she emerged, there was no more fabulous make-up; it was another face entirely that we saw, the glittery blues and blacks and reds all mixed up, hair in her eyes, hair in her mouth, and she said “Shit!” and then she was out of the hot tub, and Edwin was following her and saying “Sorry, sorry! The dance is over, though. We’re just going back to the room anyway!” And then the whole hot tub crowd was dispersing, the other girls—terrified that they might be next—hopping out of the water and grabbing towels, the guys shrugging and surrendering. The party was over, and I picked up the now-empty cooler and followed Jenn back to the room and we ripped off our swimsuits and it was supposed to be amazing sex because we’d all paid so much for the Alumni Ball and for the rooms at the country club’s historic hotel, but truth be told, we were still rubber-muscled and saturated to the bone with chlorine, and I was so drunk that I barely remember much of it. I just remember her face when she said “We can do anything,” this look in her eyes like she believed in me, and it made me believe in myself, and I knew at that moment that I had to win the job with the National Fraternity because it had given me
all of this
, it had caused so many people to believe in me for the first time, almost like I’d truly been born again during my freshman-year initiation ceremony, during that symbolic ritual of death and rebirth as a Nu Kappa Epsilon man.

The next afternoon,
the National Fraternity Headquarters flew me to Indianapolis for a weekend interview, introduced me to their strategic plan, stressing what fraternity
should
be: a learning laboratory to mold socially responsible citizens. As an Educational Consultant, I could be a “road warrior” on the “front lines” at America’s universities, battling the fraternity stereotype, building the ideal leadership organization.

The Executive Director of Nu Kappa Epsilon—Dr. Jim Simpson, Delta Chapter, ’68, a University of North Carolina graduate with a tobacco road accent so slow and soothing that everything he said sounded like a thought-out compliment—told me that I was a “Diamond Candidate.” President of my chapter, Vice President of Student Government, Cum Laude. He shook his head respectfully, whistled.
Diamond Candidate
. “This is the next step,” he said. “A job that means something. Protecting one of our nation’s most sacred institutions. None of that selfish Wall Street nonsense that got us into the mess we’re in now.”

And when I interviewed with Walter LaFaber, the Director of Chapter Operations at the Headquarters, a man I’d seen on the cover of nearly every leadership magazine in the country…a man who commands over $5,000 per speaking engagement…the man who would be my boss and mentor…he put his hand on my shoulder and said that I reminded him of, well,
himself
. “I look at you,” LaFaber said, his low voice a combination of linebacker grit and motivational speaker energy, “and I see a man ready to make a difference in the world.”

I’m not even sure I saw that in myself. But as soon as he said it, I
wanted
to.

I wanted to be the Diamond Candidate they’d claimed that I was. I wanted to be the “Marathon Man,” the hand-drawn diagram in our pledge books that represents everything the National Fraternity wants to build its members to be:

For our very survival, LaFaber told me, we—the national fraternities—cannot allow ourselves to be perceived as “drinking clubs” or as the fraternities of pop culture; we are not
Animal House
or
Revenge of the Nerds
. We have re-branded ourselves. We are
leadership
organizations. “At NKE,” he said, “we provide our members with more programming and more opportunities for personal and professional growth than any other youth organization in America, Boy Scouts included. You have the chance to be a role model to
thousands
of young men,” and LaFaber paused to let that sink in. “You let an opportunity like that slip away and you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

And I was sold: there was nothing I wanted more than to prove everyone wrong about fraternity life, and in the process prove that
I
am everything that the textbooks and newspaper reports claim that ambitious young people in America
should
be: adept with technology, great at problem-solving, armed with a sense of humor and a disdain for the old Gen-X apathy and unrelenting sarcasm. That’s right: we were
not
a horde of Facebook-addicted zombies, but instead the smart and savvy youth who would change the world. That was me, that was
me
!

Walter LaFaber believed it already. Soon, so would everyone else.

As an Educational Consultant, my contract would run just a single year, but here was the bonus: career options were sure to blossom afterwards. I would sacrifice salary now, but after I finished consulting I could get a job at any university, LaFaber said. In college administrations, in student personnel or recruiting, in fundraising and alumni outreach. And he couldn’t even count the number of consultants who had impressed our most influential alumni, who had been offered big-time jobs on the day that their Educational Consultant contracts ended. “This is a job for people who want to
work
, not for climbers who just want to use it for their own selfish purposes,” LaFaber said. “But trust me when I say that it will pay off.”

I wouldn’t need to beg my father for a job in Cypress Falls.

I wouldn’t even need to leave the fraternity behind. I took the challenge. I accepted.

*

So this—role model, diamond candidate, saving the world—is what I told my father on the afternoon of my Senior Send-Off. I told him about the mission, to develop the socially responsible leaders of tomorrow. I told him that I’d be starting in two weeks, but man, I was born for this. I told him that I wanted a job that meant something, but I wasn’t an idiot, either; I would start investing my money, too, since I’d be receiving my first real-world salary; I’d be smart, shrewd, just like he’d always been, and this was my first step toward a financially secure future. I spoke so quickly and with such intensity that—at one point—I even had an out-of-body experience, looking down at myself as I recited the speech I’d prepared.

My father waited patiently for me to finish, his fingers pressed to his temple with increasing pressure, as though a migraine was hatching in the space between brain and skull, growing in strength, growing, and when I finally stopped
speaking he said “Hold on, hold on. You’re thinking about
investments
? Now?”

“I’ll be making a salary. I want to start thinking about a house.”

“How much is this job paying you?”

“Not much in base salary, but it’s a traveling position,” I said. “And the Headquarters owns a dorm in Indianapolis, so I don’t have to worry about rent or utilities. I live free, and I make money.”

“How much?”

“Well, like I said, the salary isn’t impressive.”

“Numbers, Charles. Specifics.”

“Twelve thousand.”

“Twelve thousand?”

“But that’s not including per diem. And all gas is reimbursed. So.”

“So you took a poverty-level job?”

“No, listen,” I said. “I’ve got no expenses. That’s the thing.”

“How can they get away with paying you that? Even for a non-profit, that’s criminal.”

“But I’ll have a job lined up afterward, see,” I said. “It’s a networking thing. It’ll pay off. That’s the, um, real value of the position.”

“So you’re using this job as a springboard?” he asked, hopeful.

“No, that’s not it. I believe in this—”

“And in the meantime, you’ve still got car payments.”

“Right. But that’s…you know?”

“And your student loan payments will be coming.”

“Starting soon, sure. Six months, I think?”

“Any other debt?”

“Minor credit card stuff,” I said, but I didn’t tell him about the thousands of dollars in debt I’d racked up during my Senior year, from the Alumni Ball to my Spring Break cruise to the ridiculous tab for this Senior Send-Off party.
I’d wanted this to be a classy event; I was president, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. No cheap beer, no kegs, no bottom-shelf bottles of turpentine-tasting liquor. No, we’d have Stoli’s of all varieties, the whipped cream and the coffee and the blueberry flavors, Kahlua, Captain Morgan’s, Tanqueray, Miller Lite by the—no,
Heineken
by the case…an ice-cold selection of mixers…cigars…catered barbecue, a custom cake…all of which I’d purchase with my own money. Everyone knew that I had a Real World job now, after all. The chapter had given me a sparing budget for food and decorations, but I’d max out my credit cards to make this a Senior Send-Off to be remembered. At the time, maybe I was hoping that the cost of the liquor would be reimbursed by some pass-the-hat contribution, but the semester was technically over. No more chapter meetings. No way to make an announcement that I could use a little help. And really, I wanted everyone to believe that this one was on me, no biggie. I was drunk with generosity. Afterwards, a few brothers dropped me ten or fifteen bucks as a courtesy, but I still had a debt so large that it didn’t feel real.

“What’s left to invest, then?” my father asked.

“I’ll save. And, like, this job is about more than money, too.”

“So you said. You’re using it to get a different job.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll be helping people.”

“Oh yes,” he said. “The Compassion Boom.”

I told him that I didn’t know what that meant.

“It’s what all the kids are doing, isn’t it?” he asked. “Taking jobs at not-for-profits. Sticking their middle fingers up at Wall Street? As if you’re somehow bettering yourself by taking a smaller salary?”

“Well, isn’t that a good thing?”

“There are so many non-profits,” my father said, finally tired of the conversation. “If you’re so intent on some save-the-world job, why don’t you go to medical school? Join Doctors Without Borders? Anything. Why a
fraternity
?”

It was a non-profit, but my sacrifice wasn’t big enough? At that moment, I could have said something about
his
job: where was the humanity in running a real estate speculation business, buying and leveling old Florida land? How many new developments were necessary, how many new fountains and entry gates and zero-plot-line yards, how many more Spanish-tiled roofs? His entire business, built on unaffordable homes whose owners now probably faced foreclosure, land deals that saw shopping centers intrude upon quiet communities, and
I
was the one who was doing something that
didn’t matter
?

But
I only said: “I believe in this, okay? Jobs aren’t just about making money.”

He sighed. “Okay. Just remember. You’re on your own now, you understand?” And he gripped my shoulder, without hostility but also without encouragement, his few gray hairs seeming to shine in his thick black scalp like the white-hot embers beneath the spent logs of a bonfire. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to sound condescending or helpful. “You’re a college grad
. You support yourself now, job or no job. That’s the life of a professional.”

I told him that I understood, that I was set for success. “They
wanted
me. They called me a Diamond Candidate.”

“You might have fooled them into thinking you’re someone else,” he said, “but I know the
real
you.”