Chapter Six: First of one, many like the others
As we trailed down the sidewalk, a black pickup truck locked its brakes and screeched to a halt in front of us. Cliff ran up to the driver’s side, a big smile grew on his face and he screamed, “Get in!” We hopped in the unlined bed and held tight as he peeled out down the street and left a cloud of dust behind.
In less than two minutes we took a sharp corner, pulled in the rhododendron lined stone driveway and right into a spot as we ran over an orange traffic cone. We spilled over the sides as the driver slammed his door and almost knocked me down.
The stocky driver looked at me with glazed eyes and drunk rosy cheeks and said, “Hey there chief haven’t seen you before, I’m Charles but my friends call me C.C. If you’re cool you can call me that too.” He turned and escorted us to the side door of an enormous Tudor style mansion and hollered, “Entrée” as his baggy green gym shorts almost fell to his ankles as he walked in. I was waiting for him to crow like a rooster, a slow rooster, a rooster who had tutors.
We followed like good little sheep and stomped our way up the narrow twisting stairwell to the living room that was a converted ballroom. The forest green painted walls were burdened with giant paddles and pictures of the brothers dating from the founding of the chapter.
The ego gallery had an exquisite parquet floor but was covered with checkered throw rugs and a couple of brown leather couches ravaged by four free roaming mutts. Fur and bits of yellow foam ripped from the couch cushions was strewn across the wood floors. I couldn’t be sure but either one of the dogs or one of the frat brothers left a puddle near the front bay window.
The house smelled of piss and burnt sugar.
All I could think about was “Animal House”. Roger and Cliff took off to the kitchen with Charles.
A keg in a red plastic barrel in the middle of the room was a beacon with a sleeve of blue cups covering the tap. Tim went to the kitchen. He came back with a smile on his face.
“It’s free but better not get comfortable with that,” he said as he raised his left eyebrow.
We made beelines straight to the keg and loaded up. I yawned and George’s left eyebrow raised. I went to sit down on the couch that smelled least of wet dog and had the fewest wounds bleeding yellow foam. The others decided to rest their legs and sat down before the flood of uninhibited students crashed through.
I spun my guitar string ring.
“What is with the ‘You can call me C.C. if you are cool’ bit?” I asked George.
“Don’t sweat it. He does that with every freshman he thinks might rush. C.C. stands for Crazy Charles. Probably gave it to himself,” George said.
Tim interjected, “No man, listen. I saw him drop his pants at a rugby party last year. He whipped out his Johnson right in the middle of the party he started pissing full stream as he walked out the door. I heard some other shit too about Betties but they could be stories made up by his brothers.”
I spun to George and said, “If that is all it takes to be called crazy at this school then I should be institutionalized by the end of next month.”
George chuckled, “Right on bro, you conquer this Looney bin.” Dr. Dre started playing in the background.
By the time most of the guests arrived and “the Chronic” had finished. We had eight beers each and the universe had bisected into two overlapping images. Every girl that walked in was what George called “Fuckable”.
We compatriots partook of the cheap beer and claimed our space on the couches as the party formed around us like choppy animation from a kid’s flip book. Accept for urgent sprints to the huge tile bathroom swimming with mildew, we were secure in our drunken world vibrating white noise.
It reached one-thirty in the morning and I tried to convince the guys to start heading back.
“No dude, it gets better as it gets later. Plus there’s still a full barrel left,” Tim said.
So I let it be and just watched people. Some girls noticed me gazing and waved. One girl broke ranks and walked over as her slinky black skirt clung to her hips and with a quick upward flip her hair fell down in waves. She twitched her pixie nose like a cat that sniffed a pile of flour on the floor as she sat down next to me.
The couch below her sunk to the floor. She held her beer aloft, not one drop spilled, as she bounced to a stop. Her smooth legs crossed and she tugged on her platinum hoop earring with her free hand. She rotated her impressive chest towards me and as her gossamer white blouse settled to fit her snug with a hug.
I was about to burst and hid my excitement by placing my right forearm over my crotch. Her hand went down by her side and she sighed. I retreated a bit.
“Are you okay? Your eyes are half closed and you’re not talking to anyone else but these two bozos. Look at them. Hello George, Tim, are you two corrupting this poor boy?” she said.
She called me boy, what was I in kindergarten? From that statement, I knew she was not coming over to hit on me.
“Oh, I’m Erin and what’s your name?”
“Do you really want to know or did you come over here to make me quit looking at you?” I asked.
Erin glanced away, then turned back, and said, “Of course I want to know your name. I came over here to talk to you and not these buffoons. So what’s your name?”
I took a deep breath and hesitantly said, “My name is Joaquin Theodore Shepherd Chandler.”
“Joaquin’s different. What is it?” Erin asked.
“It is Hebrew, or some Spanish derivative, I think. I think it was Jesus Christ’s grandfather’s name on his mother’s side, but I’m not Christian, Jewish or that religious,” I said unsure of what to say next.
“That’s cool, I’m not Christian, Jewish or that religious either,” she said.
The white rim of my cup came to my lips.
“So you seem to be all right, but you guys look spent,” she said.
As soon as she looked over to her group of friends, a roar penetrated the jumbled noise of the party. Five frat brothers flew out of the kitchen and ran out the front door like a flock of birds. A bottle shattered on the side of the house.
The party exited the house as one giant mass and a large circle formed on the front lawn. There were the five frat brothers and some other guys that looked vaguely familiar beginning to tussle. I asked who they were to George and he said, “Those are Gamma Brothers they’re fighting. Happens all the time.”
A wrestling match took place on the patchy front yard and none of the guys knew how to fight. They just tackled, tumbled and hit each other without locked wrists.
A balding frat brother yelled, “Fuck em up! Fuck em up!”
The rolling around in the red dirt was about to stop on its own as the police turned the corner lights flashing, sirens off. George told me the cops probably came because a neighbor called in a noise complaint.
We lurched around back and hid behind the house. The party ended with police walking through the house with flashlights glaring even though the house was lit up like midday. Five seniors, wearing their ripped button down plaid shirts, were escorted out to the police cruisers to get citations.
It was a stone drunk surreal moment, but since no one was arrested we scurried off toward campus making sure to concentrate as we walked so not to appear wasted.
I was polluted. My toes dragged across the grainy cement sidewalks and confusion filled me as to why there was a fight. There was no clear evidence of instigation so I turned to Tim and asked, “Why in the hell did those guys brawl?” With one eye open and a crooked smile Tim said, “I’m surprised no one told you. You see the Gammas don’t like the Sigmas because of some fight over a chick years ago. Ever since, fights almost every weekend.”
George jumped in and said, “It’s like that around here. Little shit. It never stops. I don’t know how frats work at other schools but I heard it’s different. Here most of them are like white boy street gangs where they try to uphold some honor code or bullshit like that. They’re just belo
ngers. Get use to it. This campus is a warped man.”
Ten minutes later, after slipping on the dew that formed on the thick Kentucky Blue Grass of the quad, we make it to our brick dorm on the lower hillside. Only George had a key card ID and it took five swipes to unlock the heavy fire door. We stumbled up the stairs to the second story and on the landing stood our RA Jack in a white robe.
Jack polished the lenses of his wire rimmed glasses. Jack’s reed thin arms were crossed like loose ropes as he nervously tapped his bare left foot. Through my buzz, his face cringed but everything was distorted. His paternal concern was in full swing and I waited for a sermon considering he was the son of a Pastor.
“Joaquin, you’re under age and shouldn’t be drinking,” Jack said.
“Who do you think you are my mother?” I said with one eye closed.
Jack’s face wrinkled up and his chin tilted up.
“Well, I’m not your mother but as long as you live in this dorm your welfare is my concern. It’s after two in the morning and you three probably woke up the whole building. I’m going to get the complaints tomorrow,” he said.
The sound of his trembling voice made us laugh and Jack pivoted around and his feet slapped the tiles as he left.
Tim grabbed his crotch and raced off to the bathroom. A piercing, “Oh shit” echoed into the hall. George and I got cigarettes from the vending machine in the main lounge downstairs and then made our way back to our halls’ lounge. We walked through the door-less doorway, by the three thick windows and flipped on the lights.
George clicked on the old TV attached to the brick wall and it flickered to life. Old Saturday Night Live episodes from the eighties came on the basic cable and we high-fived. I sat below the TV on a yellow leather chair and George spread out on the tan couch next to the free standing brass ashtray and lit a smoke.
I woke up to find myself alone and smacked my lips to discover a thick foam coating my mouth. The shuffle to my room was shaky and I got my big red cup. Slow as rain falling down a frozen window, I drudged to the water fountain and filled the cup and headed back to my dark room and my creaky bed.
Sleep couldn’t be denied.
My eyelids slid open to see the red digits of the clock state a harsh one fifteen PM. Missing lunch and not seeing anyone familiar around the hall, I stayed in my room and thought about the first true party night. I wasn’t sure I could handle the drinking but nothing would keep me from seeing that girl Elyssa again even if it killed me.