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."