The Freshmen - 53. Chapter 53

October 28, 2004

Weld Hall

Cambridge, MA

Will

“That went better than I thought it would,” Thor said to Nils and me.

“That wasn’t what I was expecting either,” I said, then turned to face Nils. “Dude, you were awesome.”

“Thanks,” he said, then looked down shyly. It was funny that Thor’s accent was normally pretty subtle, but when he was with Nils, his Minnesota-ness was much more obvious.

“Mom and Dad want me to hang out with them for a while and talk about my total gayness,” Thor said, making us laugh. “Maybe you can find a party to take Nils to.” That comment was addressed to me.

“I can do that,” I said, and pulled out my phone to text Niko.

“If you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to chill for a bit,” Nils said. “Been a long day.”

“That’s fine too,” I said. “Come on, I’ll show you to your palatial quarters for the night.” I led him into my room and showed him where Fab’s bed was. We just sort of stared at it, unsure of what to do. “Want something to drink?”

“Beer?” he asked, grinning. I went out and showed him how the kegerator worked and poured us each a beer.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said, then grabbed a joint I’d rolled when I was home.

“Now?” he asked.

I handed him the joint. “If you want to.”

“I definitely want to,” he said excitedly. We went down into the Yard and I led him to this place that was pretty secluded.

“I usually come here when I want to puff,” I said as I lit the joint. “You just have to be ready to run if security shows up.”

“I’m fast,” he said, and raised his eyes in a seductive way. This kid had gone from no charm to max charm in a second.

“Not too fast, I hope,” I said, using my sultriest voice. It was hilarious to see him swallow with that. “So Thor’s being gay didn’t surprise you?”

He shook his head. “Like I said, he was always with Schaef and it was obvious they were together. Plus a couple of years ago I snuck into their room and watched them.”

“Was it hot?” I asked curiously. I’d only gotten straight vibes from him before, but that might be changing.

“Not really,” he said. “I was just curious.”

“I can see that,” I said. When I was the age he probably was when he’d watched them, I’d have jumped at the chance to watch Darius fuck some chick.

“Did you think your parents would be okay with it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “They probably went through a brain cycle where they thought about how it would look to their friends, got freaked out about it, then realized that any people who have an issue with it aren’t worth worrying about.” That was too funny, and we were high, so we started cracking up. We finished the joint and started walking towards Weld.

“It’s nice out here,” he said.

“Dude, it’s fucking cold,” I said, glad I had on a heavy winter Moncler jacket.

“This isn’t shit,” he said, shaking his head at me. He was wearing a light North Face fleece jacket.

“I’m from California and it’s about 40 degrees,” I said. “That means it’s fucking cold.” He chuckled at what a weather pussy I was, then proceeded to tell me how absolutely frigid things were in Minnesota. “Sounds like hell.”

“You get used to it,” he said. “Plus there’s something about being in such cold weather and thriving in it. Me and my friends have a blast when it snows.” We were both very stoned.

“And you get to be this cool group that shuts out pussies like me who can’t handle it?” I taunted.

“Your words, not mine,” he replied, making me laugh.

“Thor’s been pretty freaked out about basically breaking up with Schaef,” I said, to see if I could get his perspective.

Nils shook his head again. “They were always a weird couple. It was like Schaef worshiped the ground that Thor walked on, but Thor was always aloof.”

“Why was Thor like that?” I asked.

“Because he didn’t want people to think he was gay, and Schaef was borderline out of the closet,” Nils said factually. “That’s why it was weird. When he was alone with Schaef, it was like they were lovers, but when they were out with other friends, it was like they were buds.”

“And you’re saying that Thor had to be the strong one to keep up the act,” I said.

“That’s what I’m saying,” he said. “It was kind of sad to see them together and know what a train wreck it was going to be.”

“Maybe now that Thor’s starting to exit his closet, things will be better between them,” I hypothesized.

Nils rolled his eyes at me. “I doubt it.” I looked at him, demanding an explanation with my eyes. “Thor is basically a jock at heart, and Schaef is more of an artist. They don’t really mesh all that well.”

“Jocks can be artists, dipshit,” I said. “Besides, Thor was really fucking hurting when they broke up.”

“That’s because he thought Schaef was his only option,” he said, acting like I was an idiot for not figuring that out.

“I don’t get it,” I said, because I didn’t.

“Thor was in the closet and didn’t think he’d be able to find someone else to be gay with,” Nils said. “Giving up Schaef was basically giving up his only hope of happiness.” I was impressed with what a sage he was.

“You are so profound,” I said. “And you are also very stoned.”

“True that,” he said, and we had to stop and laugh about that for a bit.

As soon as we started walking again, we restarted our prior conversation. “I can totally see that,” I said, as the mystery that was Thor started to line up. “We hooked up and it got weird pretty fast.”

“You did?” he asked curiously.

“Fuck yeah,” I said. “Your brother is a fucking stud.”

He laughed. “So how did it get weird?” I told him about me and Thor, then me and Fab and Thor, then Fab and Thor, while he just nodded and asked the occasional question. “See, it’s just what I told you.”

“How so?” I asked, because I was fucked up and I wanted to make sure I had some clarity.

“He lost Schaef, the only guy he could really be himself with. He found you, but you have a boyfriend, who is a TV star by the way,” he said.

“He will be,” I agreed.

“Then he found Fab and figured that he would be the guy who would make this all okay, who would let him live in the closet and still be happy,” Nils said. “When Fab blew him off, then you did, it must have really shattered his world.”

“It must have,” I agreed. “The problem is that the only way not to do that to him was for me or Fab to totally live a lie and confine ourselves to being just with him. Neither one of us can do that.”

“Slut,” he said, cracking me up.

“There are really good things about being a slut,” I said in my seductive voice again. He frowned at me. “Don’t you ever go out with sluts?”

“No, I usually go out with chicks I can take home to meet my parents,” he said in annoyance.

“I’m assuming that as hot as you are, you’re not a virgin,” I taunted.

“Fuck you,” he said. “I’ve gotten laid a bunch of times.” I knew he was full of shit and he was in the single digits, but I didn’t call him on it.

“Was it good?” I asked.

“Well yeah,” he said, then became thoughtful. “What’s your point?”

“When I first got with Travis, he was a little freaked out because I had a massive body count and he’d only been with a few people,” I said. He looked at me curiously. “When I taught him how to be an animal in bed, he wasn’t upset about it at all.”

He laughed at that, so much that we had to stop walking again. “I see your point. I guess I need to spend time with the hoes.”

“If you can’t pull that off in high school, you can definitely pull that off in college,” I said. “Let’s go back before I turn into a fucking block of ice.”

“I’m just getting you in shape so you can go skiing,” he said.

“Dude, I am decent at skiing, but I’m really good at snowboarding,” I bragged.

“Right,” he said skeptically.

“The thing I’m best at is surfing, and snowboarding isn’t that much different,” I told him.

“I can see that,” he mused. “I’ll have to try surfing sometime.”

“Come out and visit this summer,” I offered. “You’ll have a blast.” That was our cue to swap cell phone numbers.

We went back to the room, pretty much stoned off our asses, and I was surprised to find a bunch of people there. “Shoots!” Niko said, already well on his way to getting wasted.

“Niko!” I said and hugged him in a friendly way. “Nils needs to meet hot college girls.”

“Dude, you are in the right place,” he said a little quieter, and gestured towards Marie’s party girl friends.

“I’m going to go introduce myself,” he said. We watched him make a quick stop at the bar to get shots, then take them over to the girls.

“Not a bad start,” Niko said, commenting on his game. “We’ll try to keep it quiet enough to not piss off Stuart.”

“I think that we should do our best, and if his panties get in a wad, let him bitch and moan about it,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll really be able to fuck up our lives, and he sure as fuck won’t want to do it over parents’ weekend.”

“True that!” he said, and went off to party. I wandered over to see Marie.

“Hey there,” I said cheerfully, and got a frown in return. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ll talk later,” she said.

“Let’s talk now,” I said, almost a demand. “Let me show you to my room.” I said that last sentence in a sexy way.

“Dude, you had your chance for that a long time ago and blew the opportunity,” she joked, making us both laugh our asses off. We stopped to get fresh drinks then went back to my room and closed the door. “Stef did an amazing job.”

“He did,” I agreed. Her suite was nowhere near as cool as ours. It was like the main room had been turned into five study cubicles, with a small area with a couch and a chair aimed at a TV. I cynically thought that Claire had used me as an excuse to call off that contest, but maybe she’d already realized that Stef would beat her. “Shit, even Scotty would probably have let Stef blow him, that’s how good of a job he did.”

She laughed. “I’m not seeing that, but you never know.”

“Stef doesn’t have problems hooking up with college dudes,” I said playfully. “Just ask Fab.” We laughed some more.

“What Stef did, flying Fab’s mom out to see him, was amazing,” she said.

“It reminded me to try to be more sensitive to the needs of my friends and then do nice things for them,” I said, worried that I hadn’t done that.

“You’re such an ass,” she said, shaking her head. “You always do that. That’s why you’re so popular.”

“You mean it’s not my big dick and all of my millions?” I asked, pretending to be shocked.

“It is not,” she said, then seemed to get a bit glum.

“So what’s bothering you?” I asked.

“My mother,” she said, and sighed.

“She bothers me too,” I said, to try to ease the tension, but just got a dirty look instead.

“She and your father had a massive argument on the flight out here,” Marie said. “She is so pissed off she can’t even see straight.” That made me really nervous, because Marie wasn’t a big fan of my father. I so did not want to get into a proxy argument with her.

“I haven’t heard anything about that,” I said. “I mean, we’ve been pretty busy since they got here.”

“I was lucky enough to have some time alone with her so I got to hear her rant,” she said.

“She hasn’t so much as looked at me,” I noted. “Not that I’ve behaved any differently.”

“Your father, who was backed up by Stef and Grand, basically told her she was being an asshole for how she was treating you,” she said. “They all but demanded that she apologize to you.”

“Fuck,” I said, and shook my head. “I hate it when my conflicts and issues cause these big family problems.”

“That’s why it never happens,” she said sarcastically, but that had annoyed me and she got that, so she smiled to soften it. “They told her that she’d basically jumped into the middle of your relationship with Jeremy and tried to tell you what to do. You usually get annoyed when people do that.”

“All of those things that you said are true,” I said, smiling slightly to acknowledge how incredibly touchy I was about defending my independence.

“So this afternoon when she was touring my room she pulled me aside and ranted about you, your father, and to a lesser degree Grand and Stef,” she said.

“Are you mad at me about this?” I asked nervously, because I wondered where this whole conversation was going.

“No I’m not mad at you,” she snapped. “I’m mad at her.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because she’s acting like I did when I was pissed at you, and it’s just as stupid for her to do it as it was for me,” she spat.

I gauged her mood and decided to take a risk. “You think she wants me to fuck her?” She tried not to smile but couldn’t help it.

“You are an ass,” she said. I nodded but smiled at her. “She fucked up and she won’t admit it, and she won’t apologize.”

“You know, that was a really tough time for you, and for us, but since we got through that whole crucible, you really don’t do that anymore,” I said. She looked at me, her expression telling me she didn’t believe me. “You posture and joke about how perfect you are, but now when you fuck up, you admit it and say you’re sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said, and grabbed my hand in an affectionate way. “She doesn’t get that, and she’s being stubborn as fuck, so that ended up in our having an argument that wasn’t too unlike the one she had with your father.”

“The weird thing is that she’s all focused on how things were said, while what bothers me most is what was said,” I told her. “I really thought she’d have my back. I thought I could count on her.”

“And she sold you down the river,” she said sympathetically. I nodded but felt a tear in my eye, and when it fell down my cheek Marie wiped it away in a loving way.

“I can see why you’d be pissed off,” I said.

“No shit. I have to deal with her whining about how badly everyone is treating her, and the fact that my father is fucking girls who are almost my age,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

“Does John know about all of this?” I asked.

“He knows, but he’s so focused on his band he’s not letting it bother him,” she said.

“I wonder if that wouldn’t be a good plan for us,” I suggested. “We’re both fucking busy here. Maybe if we just left her alone for a bit, she’d have the space to figure things out.”

“Well since I’m not on speaking terms with either of my parents, that’s going to be pretty fucking easy for me,” she said.

“I can so relate to where you are at,” I said, shaking my head at what a complete dumbass my father could be. “I feel bad even saying that, because with my dad I couldn’t be that passive.”

“No, you’d have to fight World War III to make things right,” she said. “Why isn’t that the way I should handle this?”

“Because your mother and my father are completely different people,” I said. She nodded. “Plus she’s going to have to make the same journey that Jeremy is making.”

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“Jeremy knows that I’m his gatekeeper, and that until he and I are good, he’s going to have a tough time getting everyone else to forgive him,” I said. “That’s why he’s working so hard to suck up to me.”

“You don’t think he’s sincere, and that he’s a changed person?” she asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “I think that inside he’s the same self-absorbed bitchy diva that he’s always been. The drugs have just given him a bigger filter so he thinks before he says stupid shit.”

“That’s not what everyone else thinks,” she challenged, just to get me to share my thoughts.

“That’s why I’ve been so adamant about this deal with your mother’s jumping into the middle of things because they don’t know him like I do,” I said bitterly. “Right now, I’m trying to get him to understand that he has used up all of his chits with me, and that if he wants us to be good again, he is going to have to rein in his fucking bitchiness and treat me, and Darius, better. This isn’t about whether he’s changed or not.”

“You’re redefining your relationship with him,” she concluded.

“I am,” I agreed. “That’s why I’m being such a pain in the ass about this, and that’s why even when he flies up here and begs me to forgive him, it’s not enough.”

“What’s it going to take?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but I’ll know when it happens,” I said. She gave me a weird look. “We’re making progress. When he opened that door at Terminal 5, I was the one who walked over and argued with those airport assholes. I reminded him how I have always had his back.”

“And it points out to him what he’s giving up by being a total douche,” she concluded.

I nodded. “It’s like the drugs that he’s taking that make him more rational are just a big shield, and I have to make sure that I get through that before we’re cool again.”

“You know, a month ago you were at the point where you didn’t even think that was likely,” she pointed out.

“We were,” I agreed. “We’re making progress.”

“I get that, I just wish my mother and Grandmaman could understand that.”

“So do I,” I said. Before we could continue our conversation, the door flew open abruptly and a pretty drunk Nils dragged a pretty drunk Caley in behind him. “We were just leaving.”

“Uh…” Nils said nervously. Caley looked embarrassed.

“See you,” Marie said, and we were out of the door before they could respond. We went far enough away that they couldn’t hear us, then started laughing our asses off.

 

October 29, 2004

The Science Building, Lecture Hall B

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Will

“Where do you want to sit?” I asked Stef. He eyed the wood-paneled lecture hall with its green seats with a hint of disdain, then picked a spot about halfway up.

“This is a large room,” he observed unnecessarily.

“It’s a big class,” I said. “Usually there are close to 400 people here.”

“I hope we are not all taking up too much space,” he said with concern, glancing at Grand, my father, and Tom.

“You are fine,” Thor said in a reassuring way. He’d been in a really good mood today, but we hadn’t had a chance to talk about how his convo with his parents went. “Everyone wants you to be here.”

Stef glanced around and noticed that almost all of the eyes in the room were focused on him. “Well that is quite flattering,” he said happily, because he liked fawning attention. There were still some students who hadn’t figured out that it was important to come to class, so the room was normally a little empty, but today it was packed, because those truant students had mostly decided to show up, and because there were also a bunch of parents here.

Our professor walked into the room and scanned the people arrayed before him. I thought he’d be impressed, overwhelmed, or even intimidated, but he was as calm as he always was. It dawned on me that he’d been at Harvard for a while, and that this was nothing new for him. “Our topic today is the Efficient Market Hypothesis, or EMH as we like to call it,” he said. I pulled out my notepad and started taking notes.

The professor’s attitude while he was presenting the topic suggested that he was a big fan of EMH. He explained how the core principle of EMH was that investors were rational. That seemed to be a stretch, since to me most people seemed completely fucked up, but in a weird way he answered my unspoken question by explaining that the majority of investors were institutional, like money managers and the like, and they would probably view financial transactions in a more logical way. He then talked about the criteria for markets to be efficient, and stated that based on that, US and western markets seemed to meet those conditions. His conclusion in all of this was that, since the markets were efficient, it was impossible to beat them, so basically people should just invest in index mutual funds. I was focused on taking notes and pondering this EMH thing when the professor paused, and I felt Stef standing up. I looked at my father, who just smirked, so I relaxed and decided to enjoy the moment. “I wonder if I may ask a question,” Stef asked courteously.

“I am more than happy to entertain any questions you may have, but I ask that you introduce yourself before you pose them,” the professor said politely. I was surprised that he didn’t know who Stef was.

“I would be happy to,” Stef said. “I am Stefan Schluter.” I had expected the professor to be surprised, but he wasn’t. I realized then that he knew very well who Stef was, but he’d had Stef introduce himself so the others in the room would know who he was as well.

“Welcome, Mr. Schluter,” the professor said in a friendly way. “I’m sorry I did not recognize you. And what is your question?”

“You mentioned that the core foundation of EMH is that investors are rational, and I have not found that to be the case, even among institutional investors,” Stef began. “Further, if the markets were as efficient as EMH makes them seem, how would you explain market bubbles?”

“The premise is that markets can get out of whack over the short term, but they will ultimately correct themselves,” he responded.

“I think that those who lost their money in the dot-bomb crash would not find that reassuring,” he said with a slight smile. “It seems that a theory that cannot explain such large market corrections is not very valid.”

“That is why it is only a hypothesis,” the professor said with a grin. “The good thing is that they are relatively rare.”

“Are they?” Stef challenged. “There have been several in the last twenty years, although they were not as bad as the tech market crash. That happened only three years ago, and there is a new bubble already developing.” That comment caused considerable murmuring among the crowd.

“At least for the benefit of my own portfolio, please enlighten me as to this latest bubble,” the professor asked.

“It would be my pleasure,” Stef said. “The housing market.”

“The housing market?” the professor asked. “It has been performing quite well, very well in fact.”

“And by the end of this decade, it will come crashing down in a crisis worse than the dot.bomb bubble,” Stef said confidently.

“Can you explain that?” one of the students asked Stef.

“I can,” Stef said, smiling at the guy who’d asked him the question. “There are already signs of an inflated market, and as you said, good returns are part of that equation. What is perhaps not as obvious is that this boom is being fueled by mortgages that are poorly underwritten, without the stringent qualifications that have been required in the past. People can merely state what their income is without having to prove it, for example.”

“I was not aware that issue was widespread,” the professor observed.

“It is not, but the number of mortgages that are written that way is accelerating at a very fast rate,” Stef said. “That is why it is not so visible yet.”

“But housing prices have never gone down,” one parent near the back objected.

“They have gone down, but that was usually in isolated geographic segments,” Stef noted. “Allow me to pose a question. Is it normal for new single-family houses to be purchased and then immediately rented out?”

“John Goldblum,” a man closer to the front said as he stood up. “I’m in real estate, and that almost never happens. Rentals are almost exclusively older homes. The only case where new properties are built and rented are apartments.”

“Yet we recently have been involved in the development of a subdivision in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, and at least 15% of those homes were purchased then immediately rented out,” Stef said. There was silence in the room as everyone contemplated that.

“I must thank all of you, but especially you, Mr. Schluter, for sharing your thoughts,” the professor said. I looked at my watch and noticed that our time was up, and he was ending the class.

“It was my pleasure,” Stef said, then was taken aback when everyone applauded him.

“You were amazing,” I said to him as everyone got up.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I think that you should go down and make sure that the professor did not take your evisceration of EMH badly and will thus not take it out on Will,” Grand joked.

We exited the row and had to stop constantly as students and parents stopped Stef to compliment him or to ask him questions. It took us ten minutes to get down to the podium and see the professor. “Mr. Schluter, thank you so much for attending class and sharing your insights.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “My partner spent his career in the academic world, and he wanted to make sure you took no offense from my comments, or if you did, you did not take it out on our grandson.” He said that in a playful way, and got smiles from everyone. I was also aware that by saying that, he had singled me out to this professor. I hoped that ended up being a good thing.

“JP Crampton,” Grand said, introducing himself. “My field is history.”

“And you spent most of your career at Stanford, if I am not mistaken?” the professor asked.

“I am flattered that you know that,” Grand said. Their discussion briefly evolved into an overview of Grand’s works, and the end result of this session was that Stef promised to come back and speak to the class again, and he invited the professor to join him and Grand for dinner when they did.

“By the way, your grandson is one of the brightest students in my class,” he told them, which was incredibly flattering, especially since we hadn’t even had midterms yet. “And unusually enough, he always attends class.”

“I have found that is one of the most important contributors to academic success,” Grand said in a stuffy way.

“Thank you, sir,” I said politely. We left the building, with me feeling pretty good about that lecture. It had definitely gotten me positive notice from the professor, and it would probably make me more popular with the other students.