Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 21:22:05 -0400
From: jpm 770 <jpm770@gmail.com>
Subject: Joe College, Pt. 4

A couple of days after Christian Riis took his liver on a wild ride, I
found a thank-you card under our door.  Three twenty-dollar bills were
inside.  The note read:

Sam and Joe,

Thanks so much for everything you did on Saturday night.  It was more
than I could have expected from two strangers.  I'm incredibly
embarrassed about the whole thing and will make sure that it never
happens again.  Anyway, you guys were really cool about it, so I just
wanted to say thanks.  Maybe we'll hang out again under better
circumstances.

Sincerely,

Chris Riis

*    *    *

"Holy Christ," Sam said a few hours later, "this guy is a madman, but
how can you not love him?  Have you seen someone so apologetic for
getting drunk?"

"Some people drink to heighten the fun," I said.  "Chris Riis gets
drunk in order to apologize."

"The sixty bucks is classic," Sam said.  "We should use the money to
feed him liquor until he learns to do it right."

In Saturday night's tired confusion, neither of us thought to hunt up
Chris's room number in the campus directory, which might have been
just as well considering his volatility at the time.  I looked up his
phone number and dialed two floors up.

"Chris, it's Joe from Saturday, down on the fourth floor."

"Oh," he said.  "Hey man.  Look, I understand if you're pissed, and
I'm incredibly sorry-"

"Yeah buddy, we've figured that out," I said.  "Sam's sitting here
too, and while we really appreciate it, there's no way we're taking
your sixty bucks.  It's a nice gesture but this wasn't a big deal.
It's an unwritten rule that people step up when it gets messy.
There's no need to feel bad."

"But I do," he said.

And this carried on for awhile, and I won't recount it ad nauseum
because Chris's apologizing was every bit as melodramatic and boring
as you'd guess.

I ended the call, looked up his room number, and hopped up two flights
of stairs.  When he opened the door I held out the folded twenties.  I
thought he might react with shyness or indignity, but instead he
laughed.

"It just, like, makes me feel better to pay you guys something," Chris
said.  "It's like for services or whatever."

"There weren't any services," I said.  "Did your clothes clean up okay?"

"The jeans cleaned up and the shoes seem all right.  I threw the shirt
into the bathroom garbage."

I stepped into his room and looked around.  His roommate was out.
Photos were tacked to a corkboard over his desk: Chris in a tux with a
prom date, Chris posed with what looked like older siblings or
cousins, Chris with a woman likely to be his mother.  An organic
chemistry textbook sat on his desk.

"Seems like everybody who's taking it wants to go to med school," I
said.  "I've heard it's brutal."

"Tough to tell so far.  It's only been a week."

"Then you must be at least moderately genius because everybody else
already hates it.  I'm putting your three twenties into your orgo
book," I said, doing just that, "because Sam and I won't take it, even
though, honestly, it was super-generous."

"I mean, but it sounds like you guys probably saved me from getting arrested."

"We were exaggerating.  I guess you didn't drink in high school."

"Nah," he said.  "I was scared of getting caught and going to jail, or
at least chewed out pretty bad by my mom."

"That can't happen any more," I said, "so let's start living it up.
Sam or I will give you a call the next time something's cooking."

I told him about how my friends had to pull over the car three times
coming home from the Adirondacks due to my puking.  It wasn't
surprising that he hadn't been so drunk before (a lot of us were going
to extremes in that first month) but the intensity of his naivete and
embarrassment seemed peculiar.

I sat at his desk chair looking at those pictures of him.  It felt
nice being in his room and being in his company without anyone else
around; I just wanted to linger and draw him out.  So I asked about
his photos and listened to his explanations -- that he was the
youngest of five kids; he had a sister in her first year at the
university's medical school; his dad was an engineer who worked in the
design department at an office furniture company in the town where he
grew up.  He hadn't played high school sports but rowed, kayaked and
waterskiied during the summer at his family's cottage.  "I like
golfing but it pisses me off pretty hard," he said.  "My tennis is
decent."

"Personally, I despise golfing but my tennis is spectacular," I said.
"I've passed by courts all over campus.  Let's hang out and play
sometime."

When I stayed in his room for the next half-hour, it wasn't because I
wanted anything or was laying the groundwork for an epic seduction.
It felt good to make sustained eye contact with him; I looked at his
hands and thought about how nice it would be just to touch his
shoulder or something innocent like that.  Most people wanted to show
off their worldliness and their comfort with every kind of decadence.
Chris didn't pretend to be more experienced than he was.  It made me
like him even more.

Almost always, the best-looking people you meet in life are socially
confident (bordering on brash), catalysts for activity, prone to be
the centers of attention and often eager to jump into the spotlight.
Seriously, dude, can you think of many exceptions to that baseline?
There's an impatience and arrogance buried in all highly attractive
people, like they're accustomed to getting away with something.  Some
handle it more smoothly than others, but I feel like it's always
there.  This was especially true at colleges like the one I attended,
which were generally populated by bright people from comfortable
upbringings.  Chris countered all of that.  If anything, it seemed
like he was nervous in my company, scared of committing a misstep,
unclear of his place in the social order or the merits of his plans
and his interests.  It occurred to me that he was an endangered
species -- that coming into contact with cockier, sarcastic, obnoxious
guys like Sam Frost and I could change him for the worse.

*    *    *

Still, the only reason I went to that fraternity open house was
because Chris wanted to go, and turned whiny and needy about having
company.

This was a little more than a week after his rescue from oblivion, and
we'd hung out three times since then.  Two of those times were as
parts of a big group, and one was a slow Friday afternoon when the two
of us swatted tennis balls back and forth in the early-September
breeze.

Given his tentativeness about alcohol, it didn't make sense to me that
he'd want to join a frat.  Maybe it was the allure of  structure and
automatic friends.

"Dude," I told him, "I'll go for free beer and food, but there's no
way I'm actually going to rush.  That shit isn't my scene."

"Likewise," Sam said.  "I don't want to teabag some dude and then
clean up after a party just to carry a cigarettey sorority chick
through her swearing-in door."

"My older brother Tom was in a frat at Wisconsin," he said.  "Just
keep an open mind."

"No."

"I recommend the Florida boys," said Sam.  "This seems like their
scene.  Joey and I are men of the world, not frat-holes."

"Yeah, but I don't think the Florida boys would like this house,"
Chris said.  "They need a party house.  This one's, like, more well
rounded."

"That sounds like a euphemism for fucking nerdfest," I said.

"Don't worry, Christian.  We won't embarrass you," said Sam.

"*I* won't embarrass you," I said.  "Sam is a liability."

"I intend to lay a shit on their front porch," Sam said.  "That's not
embarrassing.  It's human."

As was becoming typical, Chris seemed confused, entertained and
intimidated by our remarks, but the next day at around five he showed
up at our room, hair combed and gelled, dressed in khakis and a
three-button shirt; Sam and I wore T-shirts and shorts.

Behind their house, the frat had set up a large grill; a couple of the
guys tended to burgers and hot dogs.  They'd set out cans of cheap
beer in big tubs of ice.  A couple guys tossed a football back and
forth.  We filled out name tags and exploited the beer situation.

If you've got moderately obnoxious instincts, you know what it's like
to have a couple of beers with a similarly disposed friend in a crowd
where you don't know anyone.  With a small edge fed by the beers,
everything seemed like an inside joke.  Sam and I facilitated weird,
possibly boring banter with strangers ("Personally, I think all of
DeNiro's best work was in 'Casino' and afterward," Sam said.  "Anyone
could do 'Taxi Driver.'") and made no secret of our ambivalence toward
the Greek system.  It was dickish behavior, I thought, but we weren't
doing harm, and it was still that early stage of the friendship when
one of us could make the other laugh without much effort.

In truth, the frat guys weren't horrible.  If I'd had any interest, I
might have considered rushing.  The brothers seemed smart and worldly
and put together, not the unshaven, cocky dickheads of my stereotypes.
 After a couple of hours -- as Sam and I became increasingly drunk --
I began to sense that they were selling their frat to me and Sam, not
attempting to test us out.  It wasn't going to persuade me, but it
always feels good to be courted.  I breathed in the cool air and
stretched my arms; I felt cocky and in my element.

"Chris looks so earnest," I said to Sam, pointing toward the back porch.

Chris Riis was talking to a couple of fraternity brothers, and from
his body language, I could see that he was trying to make a good
impression, as he smiled and nodded and reacted with enthusiasm.  I
felt another woozy boomlet of attraction toward Chris. It was fuzzy
and non-horny, the kind of impulse that made me want to do something
like hug him around the shoulders or something like that.  There was a
slight chub in my jeans, which I deflated with thoughts of Rodney
Dangerfield in "Back to School."

Around that time, Sam and I got into a rowdy, argumentative
conversation with a junior named Matt Canetti.  He was the
fraternity's treasurer; he grew up in Boston.  Somehow it involved
things like Iraq policy and Palestinians.

"There's nothing like three drunk assholes with zero first-hand
knowledge writing the cure for centuries of tension and slaughter,"
Matt Canetti said at one point.  "I want more beer."

"I need to fix genocide first," Sam said.

"I'm putting a stop to human trafficking!"

"You guys are a couple of obnoxious assholes," Matt said.  "You're in!"

"I withdraw from consideration," Sam said.

"We'll get you yet," Matt said.

Sam and I may have led on these guys solely for an evening of beers,
but Matt Canetti was smart and charismatic.  The fraternity's
get-to-know-you barbecue was scheduled to end at 8 p.m., and at 7:45,
Sam, Matt and I were sharing cigarettes on a decrepit couch set in the
back lawn.

"We'll be taking some of these beers with us, if you don't mind," I said.

"You only get to take those if you promise to pledge," Matt said.

"That's extremely flattering," Sam said, "but really, you're too good
for rubbish like us."

"We are rubbish," I said, mimicking Sam's accent.

We confessed to Matt how we were persuaded to attend the party.  Matt
waved Chris over.  We stayed past midnight, during which we became
extremely drunk and undertook impassioned arguments about everything
from quarterback controversies to history's greatest rock albums to
The Godfather, Part II, and left promising Matt Canetti that we'd keep
an open mind.

*    *    *

"What's up, Joe.  This is Matt Canetti.  We were hanging out a few
nights back over at the house.  I know that you and Sam feel reluctant
about the whole process, and I can certainly respect that, but I just
wanted to let you know that you guys made an extremely good impression
on everybody here, and we think you both -- you and Sam, and also your
friend Chris, too -- would be a good match, in case you're interested.
 We're having a smaller party this Thursday.  All off the books --
unsanctioned, whatever -- and we're asking over a few guys that came
out to the barbecue.  Anyway, you and your crew were at the top of the
list, so I'm giving each of you a buzz to see how that sounds.  Feel
free to give me a call back if you think you can make it, or just give
me a call back to shoot the shit if you want.  Hope everything's going
well, man, and I'll catch you later."

*    *    *

From:    Matt Canetti
To:         Joe C.
Date:      September 8, 11:48 p.m.
Re:          Thursday Night

Hey Joe --

Don't know if you got my voicemail from yesterday, but we'll be having
another party over at the house tomorrow night.  You and Sam and Chris
should definitely swing by if you can make it.  It'll be pretty laid
back, but we'll make sure that there's a good supply, and I think the
sorority across the street's going to come hang out for awhile.  If
you can't make it, maybe you could grab lunch with a couple of us on
Friday?



From:     Christian Riis
To:          Joe C.; Sam Frost
Date:  September 9, 12:05 a.m.
Re:        Party

You guys get Matt's e-mail/voicemail?  Wanna go?



From:     Sam Frost
To:         Christian Riis; Joe C.
Date:     September 9, 12:13 a.m.
Re:Re:     Party

One minute you're getting invited to an awesome-sounding "invitation
only" party with sorority chicks and free booze.

The next, you're getting cornholed while you teabag the guy whose
floor you're scrubbing.

Matt Canetti seems like a great guy, but I'll be making my exit before
they start the full press.  You guys should go and have fun.



From:    Joe C.
To:        Sam Frost; Christian Riis
Date:     September 9, 12:29 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:    Party

Yeah, Chris, I think I'm with Sam.

Matt was great, but there's a lot of other stuff I'd rather do with my
time.  Plus, the idea of calling strangers your brother still seems
like a communist cult to me.

You should definitely go, though; as far as frats can be, they seemed
great.  Tell Matt Canetti that I said hey.



From:    Christian Riis
To:        Joe C.; Sam Frost
Date:    September 9, 12:34 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:Re:    Party

Are you guys fucking serious?  Seriously?  You're not going?

This is fucking ridiculous.  At worst, you can get free beer and talk
shit with Matt again.

You know there are a lot of guys who'd sacrifice a nut to get
recruited this way, right?



From:    Sam Frost
To:        Christian Riis; Joe C.
Date:    September 9, 12:55 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:    Party

Let them be the kings of one-nut fraternities!

Honestly, Chris, it's nothing personal (either toward you, or the
organization) it's just not the activity I want.  I was direct with
you about this before we went over to their house -- as, I believe,
was Joseph.  You should definitely go and have fun.  Don't let my
cynicism hold you back!  (In this or anything else!)



From:    Joe C.
To:        Matt Canetti
Date:    September 9, 1:37 a.m.
Re:Re:    Thursday Night

Hey Matt --

First, let me say how much I enjoyed hanging out with you on Monday.
You were hilarious and smart and a ton of fun, and like I think I said
when we left on Monday, it was just like hanging out with my friends
back home.

On the other hand, like I said before, I'm not really interested in
pledging, partly because of the time commitment and partly because I'm
not sure I'd be a great fit for that kind of group right now.  It's
definitely nothing personal to you or the house -- I just want to be
up front about it and not lead anybody on.

And you were right -- Wilson's class on Shakespeare is fucking
TREMENDOUS.  I went to the lecture yesterday and am going to act
before the drop/add date.  I won't be your pretend brother, but I owe
you for the suggestion.



From:     Matt Canetti
To:        Joe C.
Date:    September 9, 2:46 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:    Thursday Night

Aw, man.

I won't pretend that I'm not disappointed, but I respect your
position.  You and Sam were very up front ("extremely blunt about
teabagging" also works) about your reluctance, so this doesn't come as
a huge surprise.  I was hopeful that maybe we could change your mind.
In the end, though, it really would suck if you pledged and then
dropped out halfway through.  You know what's best for you and I'd
hate to say something construed as high pressure, and then have it not
work out.

Let me just reiterate that everyone here liked you a lot.  If you have
any second thoughts, feel free to drop me a line -- about the frat or
anything else.

Take care, man.



From:    Joe C.
To:        Matt Canetti
Date:    September 9, 2:49 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:Re:    Thursday Night

Wow, you're up late.



From:    Matt Canetti
To:        Joe C.
Date:    September 9, 2:51 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:    Thursday Night

You too, chief.  Now shut the fuck up and get some sleep.



From:    Joe C.
To:        Matt Canetti
Date:    September 9, 2:58 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:    Thursday Night

Your abusive rhetoric is a large part of why I need to pursue
interests other than your frat.

Your rhetoric, and the ritual goat-fucking initiation.

Anyway, seriously, I had a great time hanging out with you and am
flattered that your reached out again.



From:    Matt Canetti
To:        Joe C.
Date:    September 9, 3:11 a.m.
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:    Thursday Night

Look, as I told you before, there isn't a goat-fucking initiation.
It's exclusively sheep-fucking around here.  Plus, it's a sacred frat
sheep, so everybody feels consecrated afterwards.

Sweet dreams, buddy.

*    *    *

That Thursday night, when he might have been at that
special-invitation fraternity party, Chris Riis showed up at our dorm
room with the sixty bucks I returned to him.

"Dude, why didn't you go?" I said.

"When you and Sam backed out it started to seem less fun," he said.
"I thought it might be cool to go through it with a couple of other
people.  Otherwise it's just another thing to do, you know?"

He suggested we use the money to buy some alcohol and hang out.  Sam
had joined a club soccer team and was out at a practice.  I put the
money in my pocket.  Chris and I put on backpacks and headed out to a
liquor store, where I loitered outside hoping to find an eager-looking
upperclassman or graduate student to buy for us.  Back in high school
the demographic for alcohol purchasers was sketchy and lowlife -- guys
in their 30s or 40s outside gas stations and strip malls; guys who
looked like they'd stab you or rob you, who were always at risk of
just stealing your money -- but I was learning in college that the
buyers tended to have the personality of mischievous older brothers.
A week before Sam had found an enthusiastic law student who acted like
he wanted to come hang out in our dorm -- he wouldn't shut up about
his nostalgia for freshman year at fucking Emory -- and wrote down his
e-mail in case Sam wanted future purchases.

This was some seriously high-risk activity for Christian Riis, as if
he'd gone alone to the Bronx to search for whores and heroin.
Eventually we found someone.  We packed our backpacks heavy with beer
cans and a bottle of Jack Daniels and went back to the dorm, where we
gathered five or six others in the spare, spartan room I shared with
Sam and got to the business of hard drinking.

It was another ugly night.  Sam got back to the room at about ten,
sweaty and tired.  We drank shots of Jack out of Solo cups.
Cross-legged on the floor, we told stories about drinking, sex and the
injuries suffered and damage left in high school.  Later that night
there was a mooning on a dare (no one of interest) and a flashing of
breasts, and I had to run down the hall to the communal bathroom first
for fear of puking and then for actual puking.  At around 2:30 a.m.
people danced to "Mmm-Bop" by Hanson.  If Chris was bitter and sorry
that his fraternity aspirations didn't shake out, he didn't dwell on
it.

*    *    *

There were a couple of places on campus where I always felt like I
could disappear into a crowd, engulfed by the size and anonymity of
the school.  One was the computing center: vast and impersonal, row
after row of new computers, hundreds of them under a high ceiling and
huge skylights, in a room open 24 hours, always crushed in a dry panic
and deliberation, pink noise and coffee smells and mouse clicks and
eyestrain.  It was always crowded but never loud.  If I saw someone I
knew, we exchanged quick nods and went back to whatever we were doing.

I ended up in a 300-level Shakespeare class, which began with the
recommendation of Matt Canetti.  I'd always liked my English and
history classes better than math and science, and when I checked out
that Shakespeare class for the first time, it lit a fire for me.  My
A.P. scores and a sign-off from the encouraging, animated professor
were all it took.  The semester's first paper was due at the end of
the month.  Slightly intimidated by the upper-level regimen, I brought
my Riverside Shakespeare to the computing center and decided to put in
a good night's work on my first serious college paper.

After a couple hours of moderate productivity I signed into IM.  Andy
Trafford immediately messaged me.

We hadn't spoken on the phone since he landed in Berkeley and I
settled into the Midwest.  Still, all of my horniness seemed to start
with him.  I'd jerked off a few times thinking about Chris Riis --
mostly jerking to Chris's face, but also from some imaginations
growing from my glimpse of his body on the night he'd stayed over --
but more often my masturbation always came back to Andy Trafford.

Andy and I were more than a month apart by then, but it suddenly
seemed like an amazing and fortunate indulgence that I'd spent the
previous summer swapping blow jobs and making out with such a hot, fun
guy.

ANDY:  What are you up to right now?
ME:  Working on a paper.
In the computer center.
ANDY:  I miss your cock.

I looked around to see whether anyone could read this.  It seemed like
I was safe, but to be sure, I glared angrily, as if I were looking for
a fight, in hopes of scaring off any prospective busybodies.  I
shifted in my seat to take pressure off the boner that suddenly broke
inside my jeans.

ME:  Likewise.  I'm rubber, you're glue.
Still no action, huh?
ANDY:  Sadly no.
Was just looking at some pictures of you.  Party pictures, beach
pictures.  G-rated, etc.
ME:  Christ, I hope the only pictures of me are G-rated.
ANDY: Ha.
Yeah.  You're probably safe.
Anyway, I forgot how fucking hot you are.  It got me kinda worked up.
ME:  Well, I'm in the computer center here.  Tons of people around.
ANDY: I know.  Sorry, sorry ...
This is bad IM form on my part.
ME:  Ha.
Nah.
I'm loving this.  I'll be thinking about it the next time I'm, uh, alone.
I know exactly what you're saying.  Just don't want to say too much here.
I'm already, uh, hurting here a little.
If you catch my drift.
Plus.
Need to keep myself concentrated on this paper I'm writing.
ANDY:  What's it about?
ME:  Richard II and Henry IV.  Which are actually awesome.
Hotspur!
ANDY:  Uh ...
I wish I could hotspur with you so hard.
ME:  You know how much I hate "LOL."
But that just made me LOL.
ANDY:  I'll, like, hotspur all over your chest.
ME:  Sweet Jesus.
You're brutal.
Fuck I wish I wasn't in public right now.
We're going to have to stop this, like, immediately or there'll be a
huge disaster in the making.
Although I'm just realizing how absolutely nerdish the undertone is.
ANDY:  HA!
Like it'd be anything less.

We jumped topics, back to our high school friends, our classes, and
sports.  My face was sweating; I was waiting for my hard-on to die, as
I sat almost doubled over at the keyboard.  If anybody was watching me
they'd think I was having serious G.I. tract issues, but the computing
center was the kind of place where nuclear war would not disrupt the
flow of thesis statements, J-STOR searching and coding projects.

After about twenty minutes I ended the conversation with Andy, and
with it, my painful, defeated, drawn-down erection.  I left the
Riverside Shakespeare on my chair and got up to stretch my legs.  It
was 11 p.m.  I walked to the hallway's Coke machines and considered a
drink when I felt a light smack at my shoulder blades.

It was Matt Canetti.  More than two weeks had passed since our first
and only meeting and I hadn't thought about him much.  I guess I
figured that my decision to skip out on the frat precluded us from
hanging out.  It was nice running into him; maybe I'd missed him
without realizing it.  Judging from the smile on his face, he was glad
to see me too.

"I was sitting there working on this reaction paper for Levinson's
class on Chinese politics," Matt said, "which is awesome and which you
should definitely take someday.  But anyway, I was sitting there and I
glanced up and saw you with this kind of lumbering gait walking down
the aisle, so I waved but you missed it completely.  You looked lost
in thought."

"I'm always lost in thought," I said.

"How's it been?  Formal pledging starts tomorrow!  You've got, like,
nine hours to change your mind."

"Yeah, right," I said.  "What, so I could get woken up with some dude
throwing ice water or dog feces on my face?"

"You watch too much Dateline NBC," Matt said.  "But yeah, I'm not
going to try to sell you on the frat.  Honestly?  Between us?"  He
shrugged.  "There are a lot of great guys there and you always have
somebody to do stuff with, so that's great.  But if you're unhappy
with a lot of structure, you'd hate it.  I lived in the house last
year but now that I'm off campus I realize what a pain in the ass the
whole thing is.  Just between us.  Don't repeat."

"No worries.  I won't fuck up your street cred as a pretend brother."

He asked what I was working on.  I told him.  "Shit, you've got a full
week to finish it," Matt said.  "I'll even edit it if you want.  I
write beautiful papers.  What do you say we call it a night.  I'm
going to be about another half-hour on my own reaction paper.  If I
e-mail you when I'm done, do you feel like hanging out and grabbing
some beers?  There's a place where I know a waitress.  She'll serve us
if she's there."

Forty-five minutes later, Matt Canetti and I sat across each other in
a smoky campus institution with a pitcher of Canadian beer.  The
restaurant served cheap pitchers and stayed open until 3 a.m.  I'd
already been there several times, but never to drink.  In the booth
across the aisle a lesbian-looking grad student was reading Hannah
Arendt while she chainsmoked over coffee and eggs.  A loud group
played cards in the window.  Everyone was equally in place.

The waitress Matt knew was an attractive, big-titted blond who wore a
tight T-shirt and shorts even though it was in the fifties outside.
She hugged Matt and gave him a peck on the cheek.  "I'll make sure you
guys get taken care of," she said, rubbing his shoulder.

"She's pretty hot," I said.

"Yeah, she is, isn't she?"

"You guys ever hooked up?"

"Nah," Matt said, "although she's hooked up with a couple friends of
mine.  She's great, though.  Grew up from outside D.C.   Total
sweetheart."

"And not, like, bad-looking, either."

Matt fished a pack of cigarettes out of his backpack and dropped them
on the table.

"You shouldn't smoke," Matt said, lighting up.  "It's god-awful.
Ignore it while you still can.  I went running a couple days ago and I
felt like shit before I hit a mile.  A mile used to be nothing."

I took one out of the pack and lit it.  "I don't want to make you
divulge any secret frat brother shit, but I was kind of curious why
you thought that Sam and I came across well.  It sort of surprised me.
 I thought we were kind of being assholes."

"It was, like, very funny and clever, though.  You have a pretty
entertaining rapport.  I can't believe that you just met."

"Yeah, it was a lucky assignment, I guess."

"You were just fun to be around," Matt said.  "I don't think it was
anything more than that.  Plus, you didn't really act like freshmen.
"

"Some random sorority chicks said that right when I started."

"Like, compare you guys to your buddy Chris.  Great guy, but a little
nervous, a little tentative.  I acted more like Chris myself.  Most
people feel a little overwhelmed at first.  They're trying to find a
place to fit in.  You seem pretty comfortable just throwing yourself
out there but it's not like you think you're the motherfucking man and
people should shut up and pay attention."  Matt already had finished
his glass of beer.  He poured another.  "Fuck it, man.  Let's stop
talking about my lame frat.  I'm going through a little burnout there,
and this isn't me trying to recruit you."

"Actually, I do think I'm the motherfucking man," I said, "and I like
it when everybody shuts up and pays attention."

And I especially liked it when Matt Canetti shut up and paid attention.

Matt might have been slightly shy of six feet.  He had a skinny frame
but worked out enough that the muscles of his forearms flexed when he
gestured with his hands, which he did often and intensely, as he
emphasized and underscored every minor point of discussion.  His
Italian last name backed up a medium, even tan that looked like
artfully stained wood.  He had dark brown eyes that seemed intense --
even intimidating -- when he locked down on a stare.  It was like his
eyes were pressed deep behind his browline.  Matt Canetti had an
intense stare, and when he focused in on you, there was no doubt that
you had his full attention.

He appeared to spend a lot of energy on his hair.  It was
conscientiously cut, styled with a flat iron, and carefully gelled
into sharp peaks that spiked from the front of his hair.

I thought his face was incredibly handsome, long and skinny, full of
corners.  His angularity contrasted to the way that Christian Riis
struck me as beautiful and Andy Trafford seemed cursed with benign,
dimpled cuteness.  His nose's proportion to his face was a little
large to be traditionally attractive, but it looked strong and angled,
as if a sculptor had dropped the corner of a perfectly cut isosceles
triangle onto his face.  He had high cheekbones and a thin jaw line.
His lips were thin, too, but when he smiled they spread out long.  It
reminded me of how some of my friends said my smile took up half my
face.  A small scar cut into the top of his cheek.  It was, again, the
kind of thing that was not conventionally attractive, yet on Matt it
was sort of captivating.  (He later explained to me how the scar
happened.  When he was in fourth grade he was climbing a chain-link
fence and a raw end dug deep into the top of his cheek.  As Matt
explained it, he was lucky that the resulting scar was so
non-intrusive.)  Everything about him seemed to express a focus and
intensity.  When his attention hit, it was all on me.  Matt Canetti
didn't disguise how hard he listened and thought.

He also had the hottest neck I've ever seen on a dude.  I know that
sounds weird, so please allow me to explain.  It was like his neck was
a fully formed organism of its own.  His Adam's apple bulged from the
middle of his throat.  That might remind you of Ichabod Crane and
shit, but really, that Adam's apple on Matt Canetti was expressive.
You could see its ridges when he swallowed and when he leaned back.
It was huge, and, I thought, beautiful.  The muscles and tendons in
his neck jumped out at you.  There was a vein or an artery that pulsed
slightly when he leaned back and was at ease; I could study his neck
just below his ear and see that blood vessel beat in and out, like he
inherited the gene of a great-looking frog along the way.

There was also the issue of his ears.  He had large ears, and the
angle was a little more intrusive than the angle for a typical white
male adult.  Once you got past his angular nose; and his small,
courageous scar; and his protruding, inhaling Adam's apple; and his
intense, fiery eyes; and his thin, clean lips -- once you got past all
of those weirdly hot, pulse-pushing characteristics, you realized that
an underappreciated quality of Matt Canetti's bonerworthiness was his
ears.  I kind of wanted to fuck his ears.

While Matt and I worked through the first pitcher, and then a second,
I gave the kind of detailed explanation of where I grew up and how I
ended up at our school.  There was a lot of bragging included.  I knew
that, but I was eager to impress him -- even if superficially -- with
my smarts.

"Yeah, I came here over Penn, too," he said, "and Duke, which was fun
but still a little off.  It was kind of like all of preppy New Jersey
got planted in North Carolina.  I've never met anyone who turned down
Dartmouth to come here, but we're so different from Dartmouth.  Like
choosing between a peach and a big, bloody, messy piece of steak.
They don't interchange."  He lit another cigarette.  "I don't mean to
be too much of a cheerleader, but there really is something about this
school that connects to a certain personality type.  It's difficult if
you're a wallflower, but if you can throw yourself into the mix,
you'll do really well."

I was drunk by then.  It was the first time I'd ever drank in a bar.
I felt privileged and worldly for that.  For awhile we talked about
where we grew up.  Matt was from Boston, where his father was an
architect and his mom was a high school principal.  "Brookline!" he
said.  "Kinda toward BC.  Do you know Boston?"

"Nah," I said.  "I think of Boston as New York's weaker, retarded
little brother."

"Jesus, you're a little bastard," Matt said.  "Boston is what New York
could be if New York had a soul."

"New York's got more soul on a random block in Queens than Boston has
on all of its cheap, contrived Freedom Trail," I said.

"Stop, like, trying to make me kill you," Matt said.  "You have a lot
of promise.  It'd be horrible if I destroyed you."

"Using what?" I said.  "Larry Bird, pilgrims bobble-heads and chowdah?"

"If you're going to insult a city, at least come up with original
stereotypes," Matt said.  "That's so tired even Jay Leno would think
it's lame."

That's how we fought for awhile.

Our pretty waitress came back.  She sat next to Matt; she put her arm
over his shoulder.  "It's kind of crazy tonight," she said.  "I was
going to steal one of your cigarettes but it's probably not a good
idea right now."

"Jackie, this is Joe," Matt said.  "Joe's a freshman from New York.
He was going to pledge but it turns out he's kind of a pussy."

She put out her hand, and we shook.  "I'd ignore him," she said to me.
 "Stay away from his fraternity and be your own person."

"Oh, really?" Matt said.  "That's not the way you talked before."

"I was trying to be polite," she said, "very much unlike you.  Calling
new friends a pussy and all that.  You're so fucking rude sometimes."

They were pretty affectionate in how they touched each other.  She
kept an arm on his shoulder; she touched his hair a couple of times.
Because I was drunk I let my mind flip to a brief image of them
hooking up; of Jackie taking Matt Canetti's dick out of his fly.  That
thinking would take me in a bad direction, so I snapped my posture to
sit up straight and watched the TV over the bar instead.

Shortly thereafter Jackie went back to work.  Feeling solidly drunk,
sensing that hanging out with people like Matt and Jackie was giving
me an opening to an upperclassman world of bars and apartment parties
instead of sitting in the dorm, I kept trying to needle Matt.

"She seems to dig you pretty hard," I said.

"Ha," he said, "yeah, we can be pretty friendly like that."

"You should, like, jump at that," I said.  "She's pretty fucking hot.
Got a fun personality."

"I know!" Matt said.  "She's pretty cool."

"And obviously digs you."

"Well, it's complicated," Matt said.  "It's kind of politically
difficult.  There are a lot of considerations involved.  I guess it's
not really my style."  He was fidgety.  For the first time since I'd
met him, Matt wasn't subjecting me to a studied, confident, almost
confrontational eye contact.  It didn't feel like he was daring me.
"You know, I don't like to mention this to people unless I've known
them for awhile, but I'm actually gay," Matt said, "so when Jackie and
I sort of flirt with each other it's all pretty benign.  It doesn't
mean anything."

The first lyrics of "Beast of Burden" played on the jukebox as he said this.

It was the detail that stuck out to me, since for the preceding year
or two I'd been obsessed with that song.  I don't remember what Matt's
face looked like when he told me, but that song could carry me back to
that moment immediately.  I'd almost preemptively interrupted Matt to
comment on my fixation with that song except that his demeanor had
rapidly turned and I was curious to hear where he was headed.

So I was fixating on "Best of Burden" as Matt Canetti's new
information changed the light behind my eyelids.

"Really?" I said.  "Interesting."

"If you were pledging I would've waited a long time to mention it.  I
don't like people to know until they're hip to my personality.  I
don't want them to just think of me as just a gay guy."

"I guess I never would have guessed," I said.  "It wouldn't have
occurred to me."

"I know, right?"

"So why'd you mention it?"

"Well, I'm sort of fucking wasted, so like what's the hell.  We don't
know each other so either this freaks you out or it doesn't, and if it
freaks you out, what's the consequence?  Basically, 'Oh well.'  Plus,
while I don't want people to think of me as just a gay guy, I don't
want to lie to them about who I am," he said.  "You're talking to me
about hooking up with chicks and whatever.  I don't want to deceive
anyone."

"Aw, shit, man, I didn't mean to put you in that position," I said.
"I was just kind of shooting the shit.  Sorry-"

"Nah, nah," he said.  "Shut up.  It's not that big of a deal to me
unless it is to you, and I could've played coy if I wanted.  Don't
sweat it."

For a couple seconds I didn't say anything, just turned up and looked
at highlights on TV.  Matt focused on his beer.  I was doing
everything I could to keep calm and play cool, but really, my mind
turned backflips.  I was so reserved that Matt might've even thought I
was a homophobic bastard of some kind.

Eventually, I said, "How's this go over in your fraternity?  Does anybody know?"

"I mean, we're not the kind of place that does bro shows or dudes
voyeuring or open gang bangs.  There are a couple of places that have
reputations for that kind of weird, homoerotic shit.  It'd probably be
a problem there, which is ironic considering how repressed-gay all
that shit is.  Basically, second semester of my freshman year, I went
to the outgoing president and told him this about me.  He's a great
guy, starting at Chicago Law next fall, seemed to take a kind of
interest in my life.  Anyway, he didn't really miss a beat, was kind
of like, 'Nothing's happened that's made you uncomfortable, right?
Nobody's said anything derogatory?', and I was kinda, 'No, I don't
think anybody knows.  I just wanted to see if you thought it would go
over okay or if maybe I should de-activate.'  He said no way, that
everybody'd be cool with it.  And they have been.

"When I lived in the house last year, I made sure to have a roommate
with a serious girlfriend.  He spent about half his nights at her
house.  We were in the same pledge class and knew each other well so I
was confident he wouldn't be weirded out, and he wasn't.  So all of
that's been fine.  People have been really cool about it.  At least to
my face.  It seems like a lot of fraternities have one or two openly
gay guys now, which I think is very different from ten or even five
years ago.  It's good PR with the administration and sometimes with
nationals, depending on the culture.  Plus, hot girls love gay guys.
I'd like to think that I've helped facilitate a couple connections for
my buddies that might not have happened otherwise.

"I mean, a lot of it's just a personality thing.  If I were some
flaming guy who hated sports and loved fashion design, trying to hook
up with my frat brothers, waving a rainbow flag, super-sensitive about
getting ripped on, this never would have worked.  It's kind of like
anything.  People seem pretty surprised when I say I'm gay, but I've
got gay friends who think I'm a moron for being in a fraternity.  It's
kind of fun keeping people off balance.

"In any event," Matt said, "we should stop talking about my stupid
frat and my boring gayness.  They're non-issues.  Just thought I'd
mention it so that if we hang out you wouldn't get too thrown if you
learned about it down the road."

"Nah, man," I said.  "It's not really any of my business, but I'm
kinda flattered that you were comfortable telling me."

"Well, you know, despite being a Yankees-loving pussy, you don't seem
like a completely retarded douchebag," he said.  "My liking dudes is
just one of those things, so there's no point making a big deal about
it.  Let's go back to why your geography opinions are ridiculously
dumb."

*    *    *

Dude, I played it so cool.

When Matt told me he was gay I didn't even miss a beat.  I didn't show
any reaction.  I hadn't said anything that would have led him to guess
I was in the same situation.

Why didn't I tell him?  For one thing I was so surprised that I
couldn't compose myself to give an explanation.  My head was too far
gone to say anything personal.

For another, I felt like I didn't even have the vocabulary or
background to tell him.  Talking to people about that stuff, it would
never have occurred to me.  Despite my time with Andy and all the fun
we'd had together, I hadn't quite found an approach that made sense
even to myself.  I never would've used the word "gay."  I might've
said that I was "sorta into guys" for that I "dug dudes," but I never
would've handled it as smoothly as Matt.

When we parted ways that night -- slapping hands at an intersection
sometime after two a.m. -- I felt exhausted and exhilarated.  I didn't
even walk straight back to the dorm.  Instead I wandered around the
center of campus for another twenty minutes attempting to decompress
and think through what he'd just told me.

Even though we hadn't done anything physical, it felt like more of the
world had just opened up to me than it had with all the stuff I did
with Andy Trafford.  Matt Canetti was a socially confident,
smart-as-hell, gregarious frat guy.  If he hadn't confessed himself, I
never would have guessed at his sexuality.  He was openly gay but
didn't have any of the qualities I associated with that word.  It
wasn't even that I was so attracted to him -- which I was; which I had
been almost from the moment he approached me and Sam at that barbecue
-- as much as he seemed to me like he'd unlocked a new secret to the
world.  I was 18; he was only 20; but Matt Canetti felt heroic to me,
like a guide or a role model.

I felt exhausted, like I'd just sat through a long exam, and felt
confident that I was getting an A.

The center of campus was desolate except or an occasional grad student
leaving the library and the bicyclists who brushed past.  I sat on the
cold steps of the main research library and pulled out my cell phone.
 For two or three minutes, I looked at Andy Trafford's name before I
hit the dial button.

When he picked up, he was laughing loudly.  "One second, Joe," he
said.  "I'm hanging out with my roommate.  Gimme a second to run
outside."

I heard his feet hit a stairwell and a door slam shut as he stepped
out into what I imagined as a crisp, cool Northern California evening.

"Dude," I croaked softly, "you'll never believe what I just heard."

Andy listened patiently to my long, digressive report.

"Joey, dude," he said, following a pause.  "I don't know if you're
right, or whether he actually might've been hitting on you, but you
really need to cash in on this ticket."