The Best Four Years of Adam Becker - 4. Freshman Year - Chapter 4

Erik was sitting cross-legged on my bed, as Tripp and I played Battlescar 3.

"I'm seriously going to kill him," he hissed, his eyes bulging with unadulterated rage. He was holding my pillow between his clenched fists, like he was going to strangle the feathers out of it. "I'm literally going to kill him."

He had finally torn up Barry's masking tape line in their room, after nearly a month of trying his best to respect it. Apparently--and I hadn’t been able to pry the full story out of Erik yet, because he was too angry to string sentences together without disfluencies like “I’m going to fucking kill him”--Erik’s clothes had crept too far to the other side of the room, and Barry had thrown each offending article into the bathroom garbage can last night. Erik spent the morning fishing them out underneath everyone's floss and condoms.

“Just go to the RA,” I told him, shooting Tripp, and ending the game. “He can’t touch your shit. That has to be written down somewhere, in something we signed.”

“I’m not going to the RA,” Erik snapped. “I’m not a little bitch.” He paused. “What would I even say? That my roommate is an agoraphobic teetotaller with no sense of personal space?”

“That he fucking threw your clothes away?”

“Whatever,” Erik said. “I’m not a bitch. I don’t need to go crying to our freaking RA to solve my problems.”

Tripp set the controller down on his desk, and leaned back in his desk chair, to face Erik. “Maybe we should just,” he said, “be nice to him. Invite him out, get him out of the room. He’s probably all pissy because he’s in there all day without any friends and takes it out on you.”

“That is by far the dumbest words every to drool out of your mouth, Cuthbert,” Erik said, a little too aggressively. He twisted my pillow into a tight spiral. “I'm not hanging out with him. Please. I'm in class all day, and polo all morning, and when I'm free, I just want to hang out with you guys."

Erik hadn’t been to class at all this week, and I was pretty sure his attendance record for polo wasn’t too much better. Still, I appreciated the sentiment. But not enough to not make fun of him.

"Aww," I mocked. “You luff us.”

He gagged theatrically, as he flipped me off.

"What are we doing tonight?" Tripp asked. "I'm telling you. We include him and he's going to be like, 'Wow, you guys rock. I'm so not going to throw away Erik's shit anymore.'"

"Sounds likely," I deadpanned.

“You guys are such cynics,” Tripp said. “I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes people need help coming out of their shell. He could be a really cool guy underneath it all.”

There was almost zero chance of Barry winding up being a “cool guy.” Adam Becker, yes. Barry Greenbaum, no. But I appreciated the nobility of Tripp’s statement.

“I mean, maybe,” I said, diplomatically, and Erik threw back his head in clear disgust with both of us.

“I’m telling you,” Tripp agreed. “But really, what are we doing tonight?"

"Delta Delta Rho has their anniversary party," I said. “Downtown. Sorority drunk bus.”

Tripp typed something. He was chatting with someone on AIM. "Michaela’s saying don't go to DDR."

"Why?" Erik asked, bitterly. "Too many hot chicks? Half-off drinks on Bourbon Street? That's the dream, dude. That’s why we all came to Tulane, isn’t it? I’m not listening to some cock tease like Michaela Birdrock.”

Erik’s calculated romantic intentions had given way to thinly-veiled bitterness, when it turned out Michaela was not going to happen. She was parasitically burrowed under his skin.

Tripp typed something again. "She says Iota Chi's doing something at T.J. Quill’s. Chris Baker invited her.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “We’re going to turn down fifty drunk sorority chicks to listen to Michaela bitch about her bruised thumb? To hang with a bunch of dudes at the bar we go to all the time?”

“I like Iota Chi,” Tripp said.

“I do too,” Erik said. “It’s not that. But they won’t suck you off at the end of the night like Delta Delta Rho will.” He smirked. “Well, maybe for you, Cuthbert, if you play your cards right.”

Tripp flipped him off, and I tried not to look too rattled by it. No, it was an innocent comment when it was directed at Tripp, who I was quite certain was straight. I was just glad he’d chosen Tripp to be on the receiving end of that little barb instead of me, because I knew I’d be chewing on it all night, agonizing over each of the unpalatable possibilities if he’d sent it my way.

“We should go to Iota Chi, though,” Tripp said. “It’s good to let them know we’re interested if we want to rush in the spring.”

"Puh-lease," Erik hissed, loosening his grip on my pillow and letting it untwist, as the topic shifted away from the hot-buttoned villains of Michaela and Barry. "We already get invited to all their shit. Haven’t you seen how this is done? They're jonesing for us."

Tripp and I exchanged knowing looks. We did not share Erik's blase attitude towards fraternity rush, that we were shoe-ins. At this point, we'd met maybe ten brothers--hardly the quorum needed for a bid. Tripp put more stock into bidding than I was--Southern, and all. I only wanted Iota Chi if Erik and Tripp got Iota Chi, so I wouldn't have to hang out with Barry on Friday nights when they went to do their exclusive pledge things.

Tripp typed something again. "She said she's not going to DDR, but won’t stop us.”

“That’s laced with judgment,” Erik said, shaking his head. “Both of you are so dense when it comes to girls. ‘I won’t stop you’ means, ‘You’d better stop yourself, or I’ll never forgive you.’”

“We should just go to Iota Chi anyway,” I said. “We always have fun with them.”

Erik did not appreciate that answer; he wrinkled his nose in frustration. “You guys are both pussy-whipped by Michaela Birdrock. So she’s hot. Who the fuck cares? When did we decide she was part of our plans all the time?”

“For me, it was the moment I saw that profile picture of her in a bikini,” Tripp smirked, tearing off a dangling piece of cuticle with his front teeth.

“And she did tell us about both parties tonight,” I added.

“Whatever,” Erik said. “Whatever. Let’s go downtown.”

“I'm going to Iota Chi. It’s at Quill’s and we can walk. Y’all can do whatever you want.”

“‘Do whatever you want,’” Erik mimicked. “You’re as bad as she is.” But he said nothing more. He was defeated--he had his arms folded and his face hung in bitter resignation.

Tripp was ready to twist the knife, just a little bit--I could see that malevolent glint in his smiling eyes. "Just because she won't suck you off doesn't mean we don’t want to hang out with her.”

“That’s not why I’m pissed,” Erik said, convincing no one, probably not even himself.

 

We all met Michaela and Jordan on Maple Street, in front of T.J. Quill’s, which had quickly become our favorite off-campus bar.

Charlie, who we considered more or less an expert on the cultural amenities of Uptown New Orleans because of his brother, did not share our enthusiasm--“It’s such a freshman bar,” he had said, dismissively, something he parroted from Brett Morton or Matt Rowen.

For my part, I didn’t entirely understand what was wrong with a group of freshmen going into a freshman bar, especially since the only Uptown bars that would let us in at eighteen were T.J. Quill’s and The Boot anyway. Bruno’s, across the street, that sophisticated bastion of upperclassmen celebration, was nineteen and over, which seemed chronologically so far away, and Veracruz, on the other corner, was twenty-one for guys, eighteen for girls, as we found out one night when we tried to meet Michaela and Jordan and the rest of their floor.

I didn’t mind Quill’s anyway. It was exactly what I had always anticipated from a college bar. It was magic, it was disgusting. The floors were sticky, the bar had some sort of unplaceable odor that permeated your clothes even the next morning, it was lit only by hazy neon beer signs.

Barry, Erik's roommate, was coming out with us, at Tripp’s insistence. Erik was not bothering to hide his bitterness. All the way to Maple Street, he was talking to Charlie and, the lesser of two evils, Michaela. Which left me, Jordan, and Tripp to force our way through stilted small talk with Barry.

By far the least interesting conversationalist I’d ever met. Even the most basic freshman expository questions were fielded with one-word answers. Where are you from? Delaware. How do you like it? S’okay.

Barry seemed at least a little enthusiastic about coming out with us. He had even borrowed one of Tripp’s polos for the occasion, which was a little snug on him but not too bad. He was trying.

Tripp, Erik, Charlie, and I were cool. Only dawned on me. It was a rush.

We got inside at around nine-thirty, so it wasn't too crowded. Tripp and Charlie went with Michaela to the bar, so she could lean over the bar with her low-cut dress, and get us all our drinks without being carded or having to tip.

Over by the pool table was Chris Baker, Matt Rowen, Tommy Pereira, and a fourth guy who I hadn’t met.

Who was really hot.

Chris quickly introduced him as Kevin Malley, who had been his freshman roommate last year. Sophomore year philosophy major.

“What are you thinking of doing with philosophy?” I asked him.

“Marry rich,” he replied, lazily.

Kevin was definitely hot enough to marry rich. He wasn’t Ken Doll like Erik or Matt Rowen, not the generic pretty boy. He was hot in a messy way--shaggy brown hair, day-old stubble--and striking blue eyes that seemed to lock you with quiet intensity. They were also extremely bloodshot; apparently he was the covert pot supplier to the greater Greek scene at Tulane.

“But you’re not in Iota Chi,” Erik asked him, slowly and suspiciously, as if there was some sort of reason Kevin hadn’t been invited into this rarified club.

"Nope," Kevin said. "I was rushing with all of them, but it just wasn't my scene. Such a big time commitment too, you know?"

"Kevin’s too busy pretending intramural soccer is a Division 1 sport," Chris told us, with a smile. “And that smoking pot is a major.”

“Soccer, the band, schoolwork, and two part-time jobs,” Kevin said breezily, counting off on his fingers. “You’re freaking lucky I have a social life.”

“As it were,” Baker replied.

Kevin smirked, then leaned across the table with his cue, to line up his shot. His sweater creeped up, exposing the top of his jeans. Low-rise jeans, waistband of boxer briefs, nice ass. I felt sleazy for looking at him like that, but of course I didn’t look away either.

Michaela, Tripp, and Charlie came back with our drinks. Michaela was there mostly for moral support; she only had one hand, since her one thumb was still wrapped and on a splint.

"Baby Baker!" Kevin exclaimed. "Good to see you again. Chris said you'd be coming."

"He doesn't like being called Baby Baker anymore," Chris warned. "He's--" He stood up straighter and his voice became airy and haughty, which sounded nothing like Charlie’s basso profundo. "--his own man now." He giggled at himself, though no one else did. I could see Charlie smoldering in brotherly resentment.

"Whatever," Morton replied, clapping Charlie on the shoulder. "You'll always be Baby Baker to us."

 

"Michaela broke up with Ken today," Jordan said, once the two of us had segregated off a little from the rest of the group, which tended to happen at some point most nights we all went out. "She doesn't want anyone to know.”

"Shit," I said. "I saw her change her profile picture." She used to have one of her and her boyfriend at the beach, standing in the surf with their arms around each other; she had changed it to one of me and Tripp lifting her up by the arms and dragging her down Broadway some two weeks ago, which Jordan had taken but found “crude.”

"Well, yeah," Jordan said. “They didn't have ‘In a Relationship With’ or anything, so she thought she was being discreet.”

"What happened?"

Jordan shrugged. "I don't know, really. She said it was mutual, but you never know. It's Michaela, I mean. She tells you what she wants the truth to be."

That was a little harsh, but not entirely unfounded. Besides, Jordan could read any of us better than we wanted her to.

"Don't tell anyone," Jordan told me. "Especially Erik."

"Why especially Erik?"

We both realized how dumb that question was, so I followed up with, “Fine, fine.” I paused. “How’s she taking it?”

“She’s okay,” Jordan said. “We got Creole Creamery, and she talked about everything she hated about him. Same old stuff.”

“Not Ben and Jerry’s?”

Jordan rolled her eyes. “We’re not crossing that bridge again. Did you know Maxie won’t make right turns anymore?”

“What a bitch!”

“Right?! She makes this grinding noise whenever you turn the wheel even a little to the right. Michaela’s dad said it was going to puncture the tire if we weren’t careful, so we stopped.”

“So you’ve been,” I said slowly, trying to piece this all together, “driving around for the last four days and only making lefts?”

Jordan thought for a second, then snickered, as if she hadn’t realized how incredibly stupid this sounded until I just said it out loud. “Well, you know, you can make a U-turn almost everywhere in the city. Any street with a neutral ground.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” I said, “but three lefts do.”

“Exactly.”

“Has Michaela driven the car yet?”

Jordan shook her head. “Did she ever? Her thumb. Apparently.”

“Well, it’s good she has you to be there for her. For the thumb and for Ken.”

“I’m no great asset,” Jordan replied. “Michaela’s easy because she only thinks everything’s a crisis, but it’s really not.”

I was going to point out how Michaela had been so poised after the accident, how Jordan had been the one to completely fall apart, but I figured that insight wouldn’t be especially valued at the moment.

“I mean,” Jordan continued, “she’ll cry. I’ll tell her to get over it, and she will, because it’s college and she’s beautiful and eighteen, and every other guy here is going to be beating down her door now that she’s on the market. Any girl who looks like Michaela has no reason to be unhappy.”

“Well,” I said. “I’m sure she still appreciates you being there. Even if it’s not a real crisis, she still needs someone to cry on.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, smiling, “occupational hazard of living with Michaela Birdrock.”

“Occupational hazard of being in a car with Jordan Fleischer, too.”

She grinned wider; I was glad we were at the point where we were able to make fun of it, because I hadn’t been sure. “I guess I’m supposed to offer to return the favor. Are you a crier?”’

“No,” I said, stiffening a bit. I wouldn’t call myself a crier, per se, but I did cry sometimes. But only when I was alone--there was something so uncomfortable about watching someone else cry. “I keep things bottled up until I explode.”

“Typical man,” she said, chewing on her straw. “What are we going to do with you?”

 

I was up at the bar with this Kevin Malley, reordering drinks. I’d gone to my share of bars in the few weeks I’d been at Tulane, but I was still skittish about going up to order. I kept thinking about the Bush twins and their fake ID and, sure, my dad was no George W. Bush, but the whole situation made me uncomfortable. Erik and Tripp ordered with, generally, minimal consequence, but I knew if I tried, a SWAT team would barrel inside the bar and wrestle me to the ground.

Kevin didn’t seem too concerned. He said he knew the bartenders anyway--presumably through his weed brokerage--so they’d give him the good pours and, of course, never card anyone with him.

“So, what’s the name of your band?” I asked him, as we waited for the bartender.

“Oh,” he grinned. “No. I’m not in a band--I’m in the band. Marching band. I play trumpet.”

Kevin in the powder blue uniform, walking in concentric circles with a trumpet in his mouth and a feathered hat on his head was tremendously less sexy than the picture I’d been painting in my head.

He didn’t sense my disappointment, probably because he didn’t realize this was some rudimentary flirting ritual from the Sentinelese tribe of Becker; his smile stayed put. “Yeah, I’m not nearly badass enough for anything north of the Tulane Fight Song.” The bartender came over; Kevin turned to him, then back to me. “What are you drinking, Becker?”

I looked at the icy remnants in my drink, an unappetizing beige, and stirred it a bit with my straw. “Screwdriver. Orange juice and vodka.”

“I’m getting you a gin and tonic,” he said. “You’ll love it.”

I made a face. I had no idea what gin tasted like, but someone had explained to me that it was made from leaves, which sounded unappetizing, and I knew how bitter tonic water was. Philip had warned me to stick with vodka.

“I think I’d rather stick to the evil I know.”

“Vodka is a freshman girl drink,” he advised.

Which maybe it was, but I’d only been drinking for a few weeks, and I certainly didn’t want to accidentally order something I had to throw away, have all of these frat guys roll their eyes in silent judgment at the dumb freshman who couldn’t put away a gin and tonic.

“Are you drinking a gin and tonic?” I asked, because I knew he wasn’t.

He bit his lip, and the corners of his mouth inched upwards into an amused smirk, as if he didn’t want to admit to anything. “Vodka-Red Bull.”

“Freshman girl,” I told him.

“Hey, this is a perfectly respectable drink. I needed caffeine with my booze after smoking, or I’d fall asleep on the pool table. I can go all night with these.” He paused for slightly too long, looked at me awkwardly. “Okay, well, it’s not all vodka that’s a freshman girl drink. It’s okay if you’re mixing it with something that’s not a fruit juice.”

“I don’t see why I have to conform to this liquor hegemony,” I said. He grinned at that. I hadn’t been expecting to make him smile. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you’re going to start the trend,” he said, sarcastically. “Shake up convention.”

“Sure,” I said. And, after a pause, I added, “Change the world, one screwdriver at a time.”

“And maybe we’ll just make fun of you,” he suggested, still smiling. He was a smart guy, clearly; he was enjoying this kind of repartee. “Frat guys gossip like fishwives.”

“You’re not a frat guy.”

“My friends are,” he said. “And believe-you-me, I can gossip up with the best of them.”

“Fine,” I said. “Get me a vodka-tonic. I’ll meet you halfway.”

He scoffed, still behind a smile, but then finally just said: “Deal.”

The bartender pointed to him; he rattled off our order, and then turned back to me.

“You know,” I added. “Tripp’s drinking a Sex on the Beach--”

“Are you guys ordering?” Barry asked, suddenly popping up between us like acne, waving a ten dollar bill with great enthusiasm right in our faces. “Can you get me a vodka-cranberry?”

I scowled at him for interloping this conversation, but Kevin took the money without commentary, and ordered three drinks from the bartender.

When he turned back around, he surveyed Barry for a few seconds, but his face didn’t betray any judgment. But I figured he was thinking the same thing all of us were: that this kid had no personality when he was sober, and an annoying one now that his guard was winding down.

Kevin wasn’t a fishwife, at least, his claims otherwise aside; he curled his lips into a warm smile and, chipperly, asked, “How are you liking Tulane?”

“S’okay,” Barry said.

“Come here a lot?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head theatrically. “No, no. First time. Is it your first time here too?”

“What, for me?” Kevin asked, arching his neck incredulously. He puffed out one disbelieving giggle. “No. Definitely not.”

“Oh,” Barry said. “How are you liking it though?”

“It’s a shitty bar,” Kevin said, as he collected our drinks off the bar, “but thirty-four ounces of booze for four dollars keeps me coming back.”

Barry shrugged. “It’s too loud.”

Kevin said nothing else. He handed Barry his drink first, then mine. As he passed my massive vodka-tonic over to me, he gave me another smirk and rolled his eyes. I was in the club, his orbit. And Barry was pointedly not in the club.

I knew it was incredibly catty to say that and feel awesome about that, but I’d been not in the club so many times that it was nice being on this end of the production, exchanging nonverbal judgment with the beautiful people as Barry barrelled through the conversation with the finesse of a baseball bat.

Kevin turned back to Barry, still with that pitying smile frozen on his face. Barry was smiling back. Poor idiot probably thought this conversation was going well.

“We should go to a strip club,” Barry suggested, veering in the other direction. I couldn’t tell if he actually wanted to go to a strip club or if he thought it was just cool to want to go to one, but he second-guessed himself with a sheepish addendum: “Or something.”

That’s when Kevin, for all the niceties he had really been trying out, just gave up. “Well, cool, man,” he said, as he wandered back over towards the pool table, abandoning me back on Barry’s side of the curtain.

“I like this bar,” Barry announced.

 

"Barry," Erik slurred, coming up between me and Tripp, throwing his arms around our shoulders, "still sucks. I don't care.”

"Yeah, well,” Tripp said, noncommittally, considering this collegiate pygmalion was his brainchild. "He was--" His voice trailed off, because he didn’t really have any rebuttal to add. “He’s trying. He was talking to Adam and Kevin earlier, you know?”

“It was exhilarating conversation, too,” I deadpanned, and Erik drunk-cackled at that, rocked me and Tripp side to side.

Barry was standing a few feet from Jordan, Brett Morton, Kevin Malley, and Michaela, straining his neck to listen to their conversation as if he was at all part of it, contributing nothing.

I wondered if I had gotten lucky at Tulane. Gotten lucky that I met Erik and Tripp and Michaela and Iota Chi--lucky that I had somehow tricked my way into a social ecosystem that I didn’t belong in high school That, in some twisted way, I would’ve been Barry had I made just a few tiny decisions differently without even realizing.

Or maybe I was projecting, and he really was just an awkward asshole who put down masking tape in the middle of his dorm room to make a questionable point about cleanliness. There was that.

"He sucks," Erik said again, rocking the three of us back and forth. "Bad idea to bring him out. Tell Tripp I hate him.”

“Tell him yourself,” I replied.

Erik turned to Tripp. “I hate him.”

“I know,” Tripp said, shaking his head with final resignation. “He sucks.”

“I was right,” Erik said, face fluorescent with drunken glee. “I was right, I was right.”

“You suck,” Tripp replied, bitterly. “I hate you.”

Chris Baker appeared behind Erik with a fresh drink. His eyes were glossy, and his cheeks had gotten rosy, something that only happened, I noticed, when he was completely bombed. “Tripp, that guy sucks.”

"Thank you!" Erik agreed, too loudly.

“I know he sucks,” Tripp replied. “I was trying to be nice. Sorry everyone else is a sack of shit without a soul.”

“I’d die if I got stuck with a shitty roommate,” Baker continued, ignoring Tripp. “I got Kevin. Kevin’s great.”

“Where do you guys live this year?” Erik asked.

“He's not my roommate anymore. He lives off-campus--I’m in Mayer this year with Morton." He swiveled his glassy eyes across the bar. "Where'd Charlie-the-Baby-Baker go?"

Charlie. Where had Charlie gone? He’d left a while ago, I thought. Two or three drinks ago, and we were drinking big drinks. I did remember him leaving. Or, no, did he even come with us?

"He had some friends at the Zeta house," Tripp replied.

Oh, right. I did remember that. Vaguely.

“They probably had a gang rape scheduled for tonight, or something,” Erik offered.

Chris gave a polite but disdainful grin, rolled his head back on his neck. "I swear to God, if that fucker goes Zeta, I'm going to fucking..." His empty threat trailed off, and he instead fixated on the pool table, where Kevin Malley had just sunk the eight ball. “I got next!” he said, his face twisting back into cognizant behavior. He looked at me, pointed. “How are you at pool, Becker?”

“Worse than I am at beer pong,” I told him.

"Useless fuck," he slurred, sloppy grin on his face. "Fontenot?"

Erik squinted up at him, studied him for a moment. "I'm awesome, bra."

Chris looked at me for confirmation; I scrunched my nose, shook my head.

"Lies," Chris accused Erik. “Lying liar. You probably don’t practice beer pong either.”

Erik gave a quick double take, but then looked away and tried to not appear especially concerned. But he was, a little bit--I could tell. Guilt over his frequent cutting of water polo practices. He tried to find his straw with his mouth, sucking air like a fish until he stumbled upon it, and drained the bit of booze left at the bottom of the cup.

"Let me grab another," Erik announced, in better spirits, crushing the plastic cup between his fingers. "You want another one, Adult Baker?”

"Naw," Chris replied, holding up his drink to show how far he had left to go. “Maybe later.”

“Shots!” Erik suggested, nodding vigorously. Even drunk, especially drunk, shots seemed to me like the world's worst idea, but Erik took off towards the bar by himself anyway. I hoped he wasn’t getting us shots. I was tottering on the edge of rational drunk; I was keenly aware that shots would toss me over the rest of the way into lobotomized incoherence and, though I did aspire to make it there at some point, it was too early in the night for that.

“Is he getting shots?” Chris asked me, his voice dropping so I could barely hear it in the crowded bar. “I meant, like, later later.”

“Who knows,” I said.

He sighed loudly, craned his neck to see what Erik was up to, but he was still lingering at the bar, boredly waving his twenty.

"So," Chris said, still watching Erik from across the bar. "Birdrock is single, did you hear?"

"No," I lied. "What happened?"

"She's single, that's all," Chris said. He paused, opened his mouth twice before he started talking, like he was trying to phrase the next bit as delicately as possible: "I think she wants your dick.” I wondered what alternatives he had thrown out, in his drunken haze.

I wasn’t anticipating that exceptionally awkward from anyone, especially Chris Baker who, at this point, had never discussed anything explicit about sex. For my part, I gave the appropriate nods in agreement when it came to so-and-so is hot, and so-and-so wants to bone, but I’d mostly been content to fly under the sexual radar.

Michaela, wanting me. No. We were friends, surely, but what would a girl like Michaela want with me, even if i was the kind of guy who wanted something with her? She was beautiful, I was flounder.

Across the bar, she was slurring words at Brett Morton and using a frowning Jordan’s shoulder for ballast. Didn’t seem the least bit concerned about my whereabouts. We’d wound up in the same group during this game of musical conversations with the Iota Chi guys, but otherwise she was busy monopolizing the time of everyone else.

No. “We're just friends,” I told him.

"No, no," he said. "I think she is, though. All seriousness. I know Birdy-Birdrock like my own hand.”

We did get along well. And, obviously, Michaela Birdrock was stunningly attractive, but for me it was more of an anthropological appreciation. Like loving a Jackson Pollock in the museum, but not wanting it over your sofa.

But, regardless, I couldn’t get a girl like her in a million years.

Still.

Well, the thought was intriguing, in theory.

I must’ve smiled at that, because Chris Baker stuck his index finger in my face and squealed, “Ahh! There it is!”

“We're just friends,” I said again, trying not to look across the bar at Michaela Birdrock--though did it matter? She wasn’t looking at me.

I was trying not to smile. I didn’t think I was smiling, but Chris Baker seemed to think so. Chris Baker was being relentless.

"Eh, eh, eh," grinned Chris, punching me on the shoulder. “Git some.”

I rolled my eyes, gave him a polite spoonful of laughter. “Come on, man. She doesn’t want me.”

He grabbed the back of my head, pulled my ear to his mouth, and dropped his voice to an almost inaudible whisper. “I know when a girl’s not interested,” he managed, his breath thick with booze, his voice heavy and halting. He was spilling his drink, too. I watched his straw wash out onto the floor in a Niagara of rum and coke. “Believe me. She’s not not interested.”

And then he let me go.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I did not want to push this topic anymore. The thought of Michaela and me was an interesting one, but I was heading down treacherous waters here.

Case in point, his next question: “If you could hook up with any girl, who would it be?”

“Sarah Bernard,” I said, instinctively, and I didn’t know why I hadn’t gone for a more mainstream choice like Jessica Simpson or Scarlett Johansen.

But I did think about Sarah Bernard, every so often, especially when I was drunk. She came to Harrington my sophomore year, her freshman year, and immediately took the crown as the prettiest girl in Speech and Debate. Not that there was very stiff competition. But damn, when I met her, I really did love her. Or thought I loved her. Or at least thought there was a tiny part of me that might be straight, might be okay after all. And I finally, long after we became friends, told her how I felt, and I think I finally, crushingly understood right then and there what I was destined to be, as I watched her stuttering her rejection and apology.

Well, I’d mentioned her a few times to Tripp and Erik, anyway, when they started toeing similar territory, coloring a bit outside the lines when it came to the facts. Sarah Bernard and I had never been together, but I’d heard enough stories from Philip, from Erik, to improvise a chick in high school her broke my heart. And she had broken my heart, in her own way.

“Girl from high school?” he clarified.

I nodded. “Yeah, friend of mine that I dated for a little bit. Beautiful girl. Smart. Whole deal. I was just so crazy about her, but it didn’t work out. You know, high school shit.”

High school shit. I felt dirty, somehow, for reducing a girl like Sarah Bernard to those three words, but I said nothing more on the topic.

Luckily, Baker didn’t either; he pursed his lips, nodded in approval, slapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll have to find you a girl here. If you’re an Iota Chi, it’ll be easy.”

Because Chris Baker was the expert on women.

I didn’t necessarily want to be part of Iota Chi at this point, but I was very cognizant of the fact that Erik, Tripp, Charlie, Justin--everyone I knew, had gotten close to over the last few weeks--did and, knowing how great they were, were on some sort of short list. And I could just imagine what would happen, when their names were called and mine wasn’t. Everything washed away in the instant. My closest friends out with their new friends, seeing me only occasionally when we passed each other on the way to the bathroom, looking at me with revile and, worse, pity, having discovered that I wasn’t as good as they were, that even our brief friendship was Adam Becker hitting sevens for a whole semester.

“Maybe,” I said, diplomatically.

“Good. Now go nail Birdrock.”

“Only because you asked nicely,” I said, finally.

“There you go,” he said, slinging his arm around my neck. I appreciated that. Relieved, almost, that I was still in the club. “I don’t like talking to freshmen. They all blow.”

I clutched my heart with mock despair. “Words hurt, Christopher.”

“No, not you,” he said, earnestly, removing his arm, looking frustrated with himself that he wasn’t eloquent by this portion of the evening. Not that he ever was. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

It was a touching display of affection. Chris Baker did not strike me as a guy especially public with his feelings. I knew it was the liquor talking--had either of us even seen the other one sober?--but it was nice for a fraternity guy to tell you he liked being around you.

“Like,” he continued, “I have to meet all of these freshmen and I don’t want to, because I can’t talk to any of them. And I’m sure they’re all nice, but, you know?” He lowered his voice. "Do you know Ben Revis?"

I shook my head.

“Will Connors?”

Shook my head again.

“Eddie Darien?”

Nope.

“And, shit, that kid with the freckles?”

Maybe? “Justin Ryan?” I asked. "Charlie's roommate?"

“Not him,” Baker replied. "The other one. Damn it. Is Justin rushing?"

“No. He said so.”

"You’re useless," he said, shaking his head. "I don’t know. They're in our book of possible rushees. And I'm really awful at this whole rushing thing. I don't really like people, you know?"

"Sure you do," I said, trying to be reassuring, because he really was uniquely terrible at rushing strangers, but we were rushees, weren’t we? And he was good around us. “You were, like, the first guy we met at Iota Chi. We like you. You’re talking to me right now.”

"Yeah, well, you were Charlie's friends," he said, bitterly. “I just can’t go up to a group of people and start talking. I'm used to, like, having a couple of good friends and just not giving a shit about anyone else. And college isn’t wired that way.” He paused, shook his head. “No, it is sometimes. I have a few good friends here. Morton, Rowen, Malley. And a shit ton of drinking buddies, which is cool. That's why I'm in a fraternity. But I know I won't talk to any of them after graduation, like, at all.”

“Maybe it’s your sales pitch,” I suggested, and he snorted out laughter at that one.

“Naw, bro,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder again. “Iota Chi is awesome. I don’t mean it like that. It’s just, how many people can you keep in touch with when it’s all gone?”

I was maybe five percent of my way through college. He was maybe 30%. There was so much time left, for both of us, and I didn’t like his insinuations. I thought about Grant Prendergast, who I’d been friends with since seventh grade, and how I’d talked to him once in the last few weeks. Was that the inevitable outcome? You meet people, you lose people, you’re done?

I didn’t like to be so pessimistic.

“You have three years,” I told him. “You have plenty of time.”

"Yeah, I know," he said. "It just sucks making friends and knowing you'll all be wherever in a couple years.” He shook his head, exasperated. “Listen to us.”

Us. It wasn’t an us, in the technical sense, as much as him--I wasn’t so maudlin. “Yeah, man,” I told him. “You’re, like, the most depressing rusher on campus. ‘Rush Iota Chi. It’s not bad while it lasts.’”

He giggled at that. “I know, right? Shit. Don’t tell Morton. He’ll ban me from talking to freshmen again.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s a good thing, huh?”

I grinned. “I’ll say.”

He raised his cup to his mouth, seemed to notice only now that he didn’t have a straw, and took a long sip. And he was staring out at Barry, who was shrouded in the corner alone, checking his phone. He let out a little giggle. "Who told Erik to bring the weirdo?"

 

It was about two-thirty in the morning by the time we left T.J. Quills, and headed over to The Boot on Zimpel and Broadway.

The Boot never really picked up until about two o’clock--Boot O’Clock--when it was invaded by the onslaught of Tulane students. By now it was pretty crowded--people at their nightly worst, stumbling past the bouncer, mostly fake IDs clutched in their sweaty hands. The Boot was the closest bar to Tulane, a long maroon stucco building with French doors to the sidewalk, surrounded on three sides by campus, an alcoholic splinter Tulane hadn’t been able to shut down or buy out.

We were standing in line. Jordan was reading the neon sign in the window--a green cowboy boot and the words, “The Boot Bar & Grill: Open ‘Til 6am.”

“Is The Boot really open until six?” she asked.

Brett Morton, who was leaning against the wall behind Jordan, his stiff arm just an inch from the back of her neck, threatening to wrap around her shoulders, shrugged. “No one makes it to six,” he said. “If you’re up for that late of a night, you’ll hit The Palms at three-thirty and then Snake and Jake’s at five.”

“Fascinating,” Jordan said. She had had one drink, per usual, but they were thirty-four ounces so she was a little bit tipsy--I could tell by her slackened posture and her red cheeks and her drooping eyes, though she tried her best to betray nothing else, speaking with the same authoritative opinions she always did. “I’m going to head back.”

Brett checked his watch, then looked back up at the rest of us. “Everyone else is still on for The Boot, right?”

There was a grumble of affirmation.

“I am not,” Jordan continued, pointedly, arms folded, as we waited in line. “So could someone walk us home?”

“Not us,” Michaela clarified. She was checking her face with Jordan’s compact, and had been for the last few minutes. I wasn’t sure what she intended to do--she was clearly in no position to apply any makeup by this point of the night and, judging by the size of her purse, didn’t have any on her person anyway.

“Fine,” Jordan said, grabbing back the compact punitively, and then dropping it into her unzipped purse. “Just me.”

“Your dorm is right there,” Erik told her, pointing far across the quad, where J.L. House loomed in the distance. “We can literally watch you the whole way.”

Jordan narrowed her eyes, looked back again at J.L., then back to all of us.

“I can walk you,” Barry said, his words melted and slurring--we were all drunk; he was drunker than the rest of us. “I want to head back.”

“Thank you,” Jordan told him, making sure we all received the glares she thought we all deserved for our lack of chivalry.

We murmured our goodbyes, and then set out across the quad, over towards J.L.

“Better him than me,” Brett said, taking advantage of Jordan’s departure to spread into the space she’d occupied against the wall. “She’s a cute girl but it’s only two-thirty.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Michaela said, swatting at him dismissively. “She’s lame. If she can’t keep up, she can’t keep up, right?”

 

It was my first time in The Boot, even though I’d passed by a number of times. It was about what I expected--a long bar along the back wall, wood panelling, a floor made of irregular triangular tiles in brown, black, and white that looked like shattered glass. It was almost pitch black, aside from the neon lights over the bar, but it was packed: a mountain range of people, swaying to the pulsing music.

I would’ve gone right to the bar, but we were following the Iota Chi brothers, who were beelining towards the elevated wooden platform on the far-right side of the bar. There were three dingy booths--in one of them was Paul Pryce, Pagliacci, the lumberjack I had met at the first party, along with Rob Winslow. They were sitting with two drunk girls, who screamed out their names but were inaudible over the music and I wasn’t sober enough to remember anyway.

“Made it?” Pagliacci asked Brett, as he stood up. “And brought freshmen?”

“Yeah,” Brett said. He pointed to us each individually. “Becker, Callender, and Fontenot.”

“And replacement begins in earnest,” he told us, shaking our hands. “Every year, it gets earlier. No one can wait to haul us out the door and replace us with the fresh blood of youthful insouciance.”

“Are you a senior?” Erik asked.

Paul Pryce shook his head. “Sophomore.”

“We’re not rushing,” Brett interrupted, in a way that sounded very technical and scripted, like a politician who hadn’t announced a presidential run, “just getting to know people.”

Pagliacci rolled his eyes. “Uh huh. Did you see Malley out tonight? I need to buy some stuff and he wasn’t picking up his phone.”

Chris Baker, made eye contact with me and gave me a lopsided, sheepish smile. He mouthed: “Weed,” as if I hadn’t figured that out.

“Just stop by his place later,” Brett said. “1162 Lowerline.”

“Can’t,” he said, looking at his watch. “I have to go on RA duty at three.”

“He’s going to meet the DMV at Bruno’s, I think,” Morton said.

“The fucking DMV,” Paul Pryce said, shaking his head in disgust. “Why doesn’t he just bone Veronica already, and save us all the fucking drama?”

“Okay!” Chris Baker interrupted, flying dramatically into the conversation. “I need a drink.”

 

“Who,” said Erik, “is that, with Tripp?”

I. Did not know. I squinted through the dark crowd, and Tripp was leaning against the pillar in the middle of the dance floor--which was a structural necessity for his drunk-ass self, but also made him look nonchalant which was never a word I’d use to describe Tripp Callender--and he was talking to some girl.

I wanted to say she was cute, but I really couldn’t tell from far away, and I wasn’t really perfect with judging faces when I was that drunk anyway. But she wasn’t fat, at the very least, and Tripp hadn’t gotten any action yet.

“Come on,” Erik said, tugging on my arm. “We have to talk to her friends.”

“What?” I said, looking back around at Michaela, Chris Baker, and Brett Morton. “Why?”

Erik hung his head back in disgusted disbelief with me. “Because her friends will try to pull her away from the conversation, you fucking moron. No girl will let some asshole at The Boot just swoop in and hit on her friend, so we have to give him time to close the deal. Haven’t you ever wingmanned?”

Of course I’d never wingmanned. Grant Prendergast was not the sort of friend that I caught myself with in these sort of situations. I didn’t think Grant was gay or anything, but we hadn’t talked about women ever, let alone gone pursuing one of them. Even for most of junior year when he was dating Pragita Sen--the moderate-looking extemporaneous speaker who was carried more by an enchanting, melodic Indian accent than skill--he never talked about anything romantic, just the movies they saw or when they were going to White Flint Mall.

But I wasn’t about to talk about Grant and Pragita Sen, so I just nodded and said, “Yeah, makes sense.”

Erik took off towards Tripp and the girl, and I just followed him, because what else could I do? I had no idea what I was supposed to talk about to two strange girls at The Boot, with the pulsating music and the fact the room had spun into a tie-dye of color by this point.

We got there. The girl Tripp was after was pretty cute--some brunette with a nice figure. Her friends were just alright.

Erik came up with some suave gambit, and me and the two girls laughed, but I was otherwise superfluous from that point forward. I kept trying to make eyes at Michaela or Brett or Chris, to pry me out of this situation, but they were too far away, the bar too loud.

So I just pounded my drink and mumbled something about having to get another one, as Erik sent me nasty looks but continued the jovial conversation.

Did I need another drink. Hell yeah, why not.

“Vodka-tonic,” I said, trying to enunciate as soberly as possible, as much as I could in my drunkenness this late in the evening. They weren’t carding, it seemed like, but I didn’t have a wristband so I didn’t want to push it.

Michaela appeared over my shoulder. “Want to get me one?” she asked, her voice husky and tired. “Just one more.”

“Okay,” I said. My eyes suddenly felt heavy, fluttering shut despite my best attempts to lookbold. “Palms after?”

“Bed after?” she asked, with a big, inviting grin. “One more, then walk me home.”

 

“No, I don’t mind,” I said to Michaela, as we poured out of The Boot and onto the sidewalk. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she slurred. She had bold hands folded on my shoulder, was using them as some sort of pillow, which made it tough to walk. Her thumb-related complaining drained to about nothing after this amount of alcohol.

And we were passing The Boot’s pizza window, and it smelled delicious, and I had the sudden pangs of late-night hunger.

"No," she said, eyeing the long,snaky line of drunk Tulane students eagerly awaiting their late-night snack. "I eat too much late-night pizza. I'm going to get all fat like Jordan."

That was cold, which she must’ve noticed because her face crinkled apologetically.

"No, no," she amended. "I love Jordan."

I didn't voice an opinion, because I didn't want to begin to unravel the sisterly dysfunction that had already inhabited Michaela and Jordan's six-week-long relationship. It wasn’t my place and, even if it was, there didn’t seem to be too many winning arguments I could make other than the gentle validation of their frustrations as they popped up.

My phone vibrated, and I fished it out of my pocket. From Tripp: “I might need the room later, okay?”

I didn’t respond. I was thinking--and okay, this was only because I was drunk--but I was thinking of what Chris Baker had divulged, also drunk, that Michaela Birdrock wanted me.

Somehow, this seemed like a workable idea.

Not because I wanted a woman but because Tripp was about to bang some girl in our room and Erik was always bringing some girl back, and I was falling behind. Somehow. Assuming there was a mental leaderboard. At zero, I’d become pitied or gossiped about, suspected as likely gay, and I didn’t want to be any of those things.

“I had sex with Michaela,” I could say. Or no, I couldn’t have sex with Michaela Birdrock. “I made out with Michaela.” Better?

Whatever, I wanted to march triumphantly back into my room tomorrow morning at wipe the smug look off Erik’s beautiful face and tell him I did something with Michaela Birdrock.

Did stuff. I wasn’t thinking ahead far enough to figure out what I’d do, or how I’d do it, but I figured I’d just ride with the moment. And, drunk, that seemed a completely suitable course of action.

I really don't know what I was expecting to happen.

There was almost no way Michaela was into me. I had to caution myself, right then. That Chris Baker was a drunk idiot, that Michaela was so far out of my league that we were barely even in the same biological kingdom.

No. And I was gay--what the hell was I thinking.

She immediately linked arms with me as we dragged each other across the quad. We had done that a hundred times. Sometimes she'd link arms with Erik, sometimes with Tripp, but usually with me.

"So," I said, because I suddenly felt like I had no idea what I was supposed to talk about, even though this girl was my friend. “Did you have fun tonight?”

My voice was stuttering, breathy and shrill, from all the booze, and I hated when I sounded like that. I felt like I sounded a little gay when I was drunk, and no one had confirmed that sentiment, but I felt like I did.

"Fuck that guy," Michaela hissed, apropos of nothing.

I thought about who she was talking about. Tripp. Chris Baker. Erik. Me?

No, I couldn’t even venture any sort of guess as to what Michaela was late-night blaming in the newly uncovered recesses of her liquid mind.

"Who are we talking about now?"

"Ken." She paused. "Well, and Jordan and Chris too, because I know they told you everything they know already.”

I didn't know quite what to say. We walked a few more paces across the quad. J.L. was lit up, stately and elegant in its red brick, some hundred feet in front of us. We were moving slowly because she had, for all intents and purposes, stopped walking, and I was dragging her like she was a hundred pounds of luggage.

"You were right all along,” she continued. “He was made by Mattel.”

I didn't remember saying that, but it sounded comical and fairly astute, so I quietly let her put those words in my mouth.

"I hate that everyone saw us together,” she continued, “and thought we were some vapid couple that couldn't do anything. I have layers, don’t I?”

"Yeah, of course you have layers," I told her. We had stopped moving; she leaned an elbow on my shoulder, drilling into my skin like she was digging to China, but I didn’t say anything--I just tried to squirm away as delicately as I could. “I mean, you're super deep. Onion, right here."

She moved her elbow a little bit to the right, to someplace slightly less excruciating, and I resumed my dragging. "Did you know," she said slowly, "that someone tried to call me Michael-uh tonight?"

"What?"

"Michael-uh," she repeated. "Like, who the fuck would pronounce Michaela Michael-uh? Muh-kay-la.”

I had no idea where she was going with this, but drunk Michaela was never the most linear storyteller. I assumed she was, at least, firmly beyond the layers conversation, which I appreciated, because

When we got to Josephine Louise House, she unlatched herself from my arm, which had gone numb sometime during the walk, and began fumbling in her purse for her keycard.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked.

Oh, God, I suddenly felt so turned off by the remote possibility. Breasts. Vagina. Foreign objects that had no business near anyone else.

Still, the walk of shame across Newcomb Quad from the all-girls dorm, telling the world I hooked up with Michaela Birdrock, would be legendary, even if I wasn’t physically predisposed to that sort of thing.

No. I’d sneak one kiss, one delicate, delicious kiss on the brick steps in front of J.L. and then I’d back away. I’d say, “Look, you’re a friend of mine, and I don’t want to ruin that. And you’re beautiful but I think we should just stay friends.” Or something less cheesy, more poignant. I was drunk. I wasn’t feeling eloquent. But we’d kiss, I’d give her the most gentle brush off I could, and I’d sit down at Bruff the next morning with Erik and Tripp and Charlie and Justin and say, “You’ll never guess what happened last night.”

She sensed my trepidation: “Not, like, sex, God,” Michaela gasped, my extended, awkward silence letting her mind finally catch up to mine, she only just now considering that horrific possibility she could have accidentally implied. "Gross."

Gross. Of course I would be gross to her, and suddenly, whatever half-assed, bizarre fantasy I had somehow constructed in my head had been ripped away from me with swift, violent cruelty.

Regardless of anything, an incredibly hot girl insisting that sex with you disgusted her very essence? Psychologically pulverizing, but what was I really thinking, when she looked like she did and I looked like I did.

"No, no, I didn't mean gross like you're gross," she backpedaled, as fast as she could. She clutched her forehead and sighed, to underscore that she was drunk-babbling and I shouldn’t take anything too literal--too late for that sort of thing. "Just like, us, gross. You’re, like, one of my best friends."

"Yeah," I said slowly, trying to map out an appropriate response that didn’t make me look gay or hopeless, which was tough because I was both of those things and, even more problematic, wasted beyond the bounds of convincing stagecraft. So I just cranked on the cheapest smile I could, given the context, and made it into a joke. "Yeah, I wasn't really planning on having sex with you either, if that's all right. But someone certainly thinks highly of herself."

She giggled, smacked me on the shoulder. "I just like talking. Stay until Jordan gets back.”

I wondered if she realized that Jordan had gone home about two hours before us, was probably long asleep, would probably throw rocks at my head if I woke her up at four-fifteen in the morning to drunk-chat with Michaela.

But no, I didn’t want to go up anyway. I was bruised with embarrassment, and no amount of pandering compliments from the comfort of the friend zone was going to help with that. Even though I didn’t actually want her.

"All the same," I said, "I really should head back. Let’s grab food though. Text me when you’re up.”

"Done," she said. She leaned over, kissed me on the cheek. "Goodnight, Becker.”

 

Tripp wasn’t in our room when I got back, and I figured that if I went to sleep as fast as I could, he’d give up on the whole thing by the time he got home. It was about four-thirty, and the sky was still dark but no longer jet black, threatening to explode with light at any minute. I could hear the first anemic cries of birds outside the window.

I turned off the lights, I stripped down to my underwear, and I enveloped myself in the warm jersey sheets and memory foam that never disappointed me. And I lied there for what seemed like forever, my eyes blinking wildly, watching the popcorn ceiling stay motionless.

I was fixating on the situation, but I really didn’t need to be. I didn’t want her. I knew I didn’t want her. I never even considered wanting her until Chris Baker put those idiotic thoughts into my head--and I was gay; I could never actually want her like that. I’d been perfectly content with a hand, Sean Cody, and the memories of Patrick ManFind--happy enough admiring the likes of Kevin Malley and Matt Rowen from afar.

And sure, no one knew about me--they probably all thought I was some sort of pathetic virgin. Which was better, obviously, but not ideal. I wondered if, at some point, I was going to have to take some girl home. Maybe just have her suck me off--I figured I could handle that, if I closed my eyes and didn’t reciprocate.

I texted Sarah Bernard: “God, I miss you so much,” and hit send. It seemed like less of a creepy, unnecessary eruption of emotion in my drunken state, but even so I had the inkling that I’d probably regret that kind of rash action in the morning.

I heard keys and the door swung open.

“Shh, shh,” went Tripp, stumbling in with the girl from The Boot with all the finesse of a police raid. “I think he’s asleep.” He paused, leaned over me. I shut my eyes. “Becker? Becker?”

I did not want to leave my bed, and I figured that Tripp, drunk and hard up as he was, would make me leave. And Erik was still at The Boot, Justin was long asleep, Charlie was out with Zeta. Nowhere else to go but the hallway, the lounge, sit there in the middle of the night and try not to fall asleep so I wouldn’t get written up.

No, I wanted my bed. My sheets, my foam. I kept my eyes closed and hoped they’d go away, or go break into one of the vacant rooms on the seventh floor that people used for sex periodically.

But they did not. My eyes were still closed, but I heard the creaking of Tripp and this girl sitting down on the bed. Tripp muttered something, she giggled politely, and then they were kissing.

I slowly creaked my eyes open. They weren’t paying any attention to me, and the room was so dark that all I could see, by this point, were the two silhouettes on top of the bed, hands woven together, lips on lips, listening to the box spring groan and the gentle slurping of aerobic kissing.

This I had not predicted.

I couldn’t see what they were doing, really, through the dark. Hands, everywhere. It was like a blind person listening to them. A zipper. Someone’s zipper. His zipper, must’ve been, because then her slurping got more glottal; her shadow had its face down in his lap now.

Tripp let out an involuntary moan, then I saw his head dart in my direction. I lied, absolutely frozen, and he went back to this girl.

I felt very anxious suddenly, not just because I didn’t belong there but because of what was doing. Some random girl--that wasn’t Tripp.

The shadows spun--she was on the bottom. I heard the distinct sound of a condom wrapper tearing, and then they were off. I kept my eyes closed but they were just one splotch of black against the cinder block wall by this point anyway. I could hear her muffled moaning, Tripp’s whispered shushing, and they finally hit a rhythm, like Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, “Je t’aime… moi non plus,” except it didn’t quite last the full three minute song. They finished, and then there was some whispering and some post-coital giggling for a minute or so, and then she got dressed and she was gone.