Fraternity Page 10

  Best to approach Abby in person about needing a place to stay, because one way to get Abby to hang out, historically, was to pour some cocaine on a surface and offer her a casually improvised tube, such as a rolled bill, without actually verbally introducing the subject of cocaine. She looked on her phone to see if Abby had left any clues as to whether she was going anywhere or doing anything specific today. And in fact, as it happened, Abby’d tweeted that she was feeling fucked up and depressed about the election, and that she hoped to see a lot of people at the Pride Alliance meeting at five.

  The Pride Alliance meeting was happening at the Stonewall Center, in Crampton Hall. It was just for students, but Claire was a former student, and student-aged. Claire killed a couple hours at Share Coffee, drinking a hot chocolate and then a mocha, doing a follow-up bump in a stall, playing Warcraft on her laptop in the corner, trying to be quiet on the headset, still getting looks, and then bent her steps toward the university she’d once attended, the wide, rectangular towers with their fronts and backs vested in red brick, their sides bare concrete. Why had Massachusetts made its biggest college look like public housing? Wasn’t a college the opposite of a public-housing project?

  It wasn’t really winter yet. Still, a tree dripped a finger of cold water down her neck as she walked beneath it, following the bike path to campus. To stay in the high, she thought of the Xbox games she missed. She liked the Zelda rip-offs, like Darksiders, because they moved fast and because she felt bad for the heroes and heroines. They were always in a kill-or-be-killed situation, and you saw their backs, their little hardworking buttocks, the soles of their boots as they ran.

  She reached the Southwest Residential Area, where she swerved to avoid the stubborn patches of ice on the salted paths. It was the weirdest thing about the university: anyone could just saunter on in. She’d been to Boston, to visit a friend who’d run away there, and at Harvard it was the same deal. You could cross Harvard Yard, lie on it. How did anyone at Harvard know it wasn’t full of people like her? How did the students feel safe with the gates open, and no one asking what she was doing, why she was there?

  Crampton Hall was a long, four-story brick rectangle with yellow iron lozenges set in the railings as decorative accents. Claire walked into the Stonewall Center’s classroom precisely on time. A rainbow flag was pinned to the wall, and beside it hung a photo of gender nonconforming people marching six abreast down a street in New York. The chairs were fitted with small desks and wheels. Students sat at them and propelled them into a circle by walking their legs across the brick-colored carpet, or by pushing against the carpet with both legs at the same time, a kind of rowing. The rowers got into it, rolled their hips, made the desks glide.

  Abby hurried in late, sandwiched between two of her most narrow-minded and virginal-seeming friends. They were two of the friends Abby had named when she gave Claire a list of people who considered Claire bad news, counting them off on her fingers. They were looking directly at Claire with no expression, like that was supposed to frighten her or something. Claire admitted to herself that she found even the most awkward of the brains who constituted Abby’s social circle attractive. These two were both strong-looking, with thick legs and wide torsos, outfitted in pastel-colored winter clothing, like the posse that follows around a rapper. They were both wearing headbands! She laughed and crossed her legs, because she, Claire, was such a pointed contrast, merry and lithe, her eyes probably twinkling. She tried to twinkle them at Abby. Abby was wearing a gray hoodie that said PIONEER VALLEY LIGHT OPERA on it. She was pretending that Claire wasn’t there, that her friends weren’t gazing at Claire with consternation. She was sitting up straight with her hands on her knees and her chin in the air. To avoid meeting Claire’s eyes, she was studying the drop ceiling. The other students, oblivious to the war Claire was waging against Abby’s bodyguards, slumped in their chairs and clasped their hands behind their heads. Others sat cross-legged with their arms folded. One of the bodyguards stopped looking at Claire long enough to rub lotion on her hands. The other took a picture of the wind-whipped trees outside, pretending the trees were pretty, making awed sounds.

  Elizabeth from Saugus started the meeting by saying that this was the first place she’d felt comfortable crying since Trump was elected a few weeks ago. She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Daniela from Mattapan said that the joke among her friends was to bet on which one of them was going to get deported. Josh from Sterling had been called a faggot by kids on his street for the first time. Frank from East Longmeadow read aloud a Snapchat message from a kid he’d known in high school that said, Now you will have to stop cocksucking or die. Jasmine from Chicopee said that her friend’s little brother had chased a Muslim girl. Paula from Lee said that it was important, in this nightmare situation, for their community to stick together, no matter what.

  Claire tapped the side of her nose at Abby, which meant, Do you want to meet me in the bathroom? At first, Abby didn’t react. But then Claire did it again. She turned one nostril toward Abby and tapped it, and then she turned the other nostril toward Abby and tapped it, like the cancan except with nostrils. Abby started to break. She put her hands over her mouth. Then her hands parted, and she smiled in the way Claire loved most, like a scientist smiling at a bizarre creature she’d discovered under a microscope. Claire jerked her head toward the door. The bodyguards looked at Claire with drawn, furious faces. But Abby probably wasn’t going to ditch the meeting while everyone was getting emotional, Claire knew. She was too polite. That was part of Abby’s charm, the way she needed to be rescued from her own nature.

  Vanessa from Easthampton said she’d thought this was a safe country to be in, but now? She frowned and kneaded her eyelids with her thumbs. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  Josh from Sterling said that he didn’t know, maybe they should have a dance party. This was not a serious suggestion. But then Frank played a song on his phone. It went: I live in the hood / Where fuckboi don’t come. Frank and Josh started to dance. One by one, the students rose from their chairs and joined them. Eventually, the bodyguards stood and danced with Abby, exercising their limbs without pattern or rhythm. But even the students who could follow the beat, like Abby, danced in quotes. Did students dance in quotes the world over? Claire hadn’t when she was a student here, she didn’t think. At any rate, Claire saw that she was an infinitely better dancer than everyone else at the meeting, so she danced. She danced like someone having sex with a little person, and some of the students copied her, dancing like people having sex with little people. She danced like someone being tased, and some of the students danced like people being tased. She danced like someone who’d drunk poison, staggering in place, and some of the students danced like people who’d drunk poison, and, finally, doing the poisoned dance, some of them stopped dancing in quotes and dance danced.

  As the song faded, Claire dashed between the bodyguards and put her mouth to Abby’s ear. The weather had made Abby’s hair smell like the rabbit Claire had owned in elementary school. “What are you doing tonight?” Claire asked.

  “I’m worried about you,” Abby said.

  Claire nodded. She waited for her answer.

  Abby whispered in her ear, so that the bodyguards wouldn’t hear. “I’m going to the Campus Progressives thing at seven.”

  * * *

  At the Labor Center, where Campus Progressives convened, there were chairs with small desks attached to them, as in Crampton Hall, but here the chairs had no wheels. In order to arrange them into a circle, people lifted them into the air. There were wood-laminate bookshelves with cranks on their sides, and if you turned the cranks they trundled in one direction or the other, depending on which way you turned. Claire had done a tiny bump off an upright piano in one of the practice rooms in the Fine Arts Center, and now it was funny to crash one shelf into its neighbor, draw it back, and crash it again, in slow motion. After she did this a couple times, she noticed a sheet of paper taped to the door on whi
ch someone had written, in capitals: CAMPUS PROGRESSIVES, PLEASE DOWNLOAD SIGNAL TO RECEIVE COMMUNICATIONS. THIS MEANS YOU! Abby entered without her entourage shortly after Claire had downloaded Signal. Claire wanted to lift her into the air, like a desk. She patted the chair next to hers, and Abby sat in it.

  “Hey,” said Abby, and waved, as if Claire were a fellow progressive who wasn’t in love with her and trying to sleep in her house.

  “Have you downloaded Signal on your phone yet?” Claire asked.

  Abby nodded. “Yeah, it’s got a pretty good reputation for privacy. It’s recommended by Edward Snowden.”

  Let’s go to your apartment, Claire signaled Abby.

  Abby didn’t acknowledge Claire’s proposal in real life. In reply, she signaled back an emoji of a video-game controller.

  Not just to play Xbox I promise I actually want to hang out with you, Claire signaled, and sent Abby a list of things she wanted to do with her in bed. Signal, a tool of dissidents, its screen trimmed in periwinkle blue, made sexting feel life-affirming and brave, like masturbating on the toilet at work.

  Abby coughed. “It looks like they’re getting started,” she said aloud.

  Sure enough, the other people in the circle had begun to introduce themselves. Scott said he’d predicted it would just be the diehards tonight, since everyone was about to go home and eat cranberry sauce, and that he was personally wowed by the turnout. John said it was time to strike while the iron was hot, he’d never seen people so pumped, even though it was a nightmare come to life.

  Abby, Claire signaled, if I go to the bathroom now, and you follow me there after a second, no one will think it’s weird. We’ll just get a little bit high. It helps you concentrate when people are being boring.

  Jasmine said that if ever there was a time for activism, it was now.

  Abby. Claire tapped rapidly with her thumbs, her phone on her desk. Don’t you think maybe if you just do a couple of small lines, then you are going to be an excellent activist for the rest of the meeting and beyond? Abby had her phone on her lap, but she was still reading Claire’s messages, peering down at the screen of the Signal app when a message lit it up.

  Henry raised his hand. “I’m sorry to speak out of turn,” he said. “But I think it’s time to start talking about what we could do just at a regional level. What one could do is interesting, regionally, because the university is half the population of the town, nine months of the year, and there’s a lot of momentum behind the idea of sanctuary areas. Could we, in effect, have a local secession? I don’t mean the use of force. Just, what if we focus our activism on local races? We could make this one town where we control the police, the schools. I mean it’s funny, but could a collection of people with our views actually take over? Say, this is one place, in this shit show of a country we’re living in, where hope is still alive? I mean, what could we do if we had the entire town council, or whatever it is? Maybe we could make it so that the cops were actually on our side here.”

  Most of Henry’s head was shaved, but there was a brain of hair on top. He was small, rosy-cheeked, pockmarked. His jeans fit as if dryer fresh. After he’d spoken, he folded his arms and looked at his shoes. Claire applauded, followed by almost every other person in the room, even as some shook their heads.

  Claire signaled Abby, That guy is kind of cool. Wrong word? Actually moron?

  A number of people spoke at once about what it might look like if progressives established local rule. In Claire’s attempt to catch everything, she found it hard to follow any given thread to its end. This was the problem with cocaine. She heard: state cops, horticulture, revolutionary, education major. They had so many ideas about how the future version of the town could be that it was as if they were already living in it.

  “We need an antihegemonic song,” a guy said.

  “Are there even antihegemonic songs?” another guy asked.

  “‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World,’” Abby said.

  Oh, fuck, Abby! Fucking Abby! She was so funny, and now Claire was fairly sure she knew what antihegemonic meant. To have that voice in your head for the rest of your life!

  There was a tap on her shoulder. It was Jasmine. Her face was close to Claire’s, and she was making her expression gentle. “I’m so sorry to have to ask this,” she said. “But, since we have security rules here, to protect people’s privacy, and you’re texting a lot while people are talking, which is actually making some people uncomfortable, and I’ve never seen you here before today, I have to ask you: Are you part of the university community?”

  Claire laughed. She turned to Abby and said, with her face, Can you believe this shit? But Abby was quiet. She hung her head and blinked at the fake-wood plane of her desk. The other people in the room were still talking about the practicalities of a de facto secession.

  It was kind of adorable that they thought she might expose their plan to turn Amherst into a country. If she wanted to, she could say that she’d once been a student here, but that she’d lost her financial aid because she’d failed some classes. That would make Jasmine shut up. But when she imagined saying that—in essence pleading, Don’t be mean to me, I’m so fucked, you’re so privileged, please let me be a part of your awesome revolution—she felt what was left of her buzz turn into hatred. How was she supposed to seduce Abby if Abby had to watch her roll over on her back and show her throat?

  “Sorry,” Claire said. “I didn’t mean to make anybody uncomfortable.” She picked up her backpack and walked out, wiping her nose so as not to have to look at anyone. It was possible, she thought, that Abby was watching her with longing and admiration. But if Abby was looking at the wall, embarrassed to be associated with her, she didn’t want to know.

  * * *

  It was now truly cold outside. The streetlight by the duck pond lit a fringe of ice and within the fringe a lip of semisolid white. Another problem with coke was the stretch when you wanted to die. Her backpack was heavy. It was purple because she’d picked it out in tenth grade, and the main zipper had lost its tab so that now there was only a stud that had to be coaxed along the teeth. She slouched into the wind, her hands in her jacket pockets. The wind plucked a goose feather from a tear in the jacket’s arm, around the edges of the X of tape, and the feather twirled into the dark. Another feather nosed its way out of the tear, bit by bit, until the upper half of the feather’s spine was exposed and whipped against the jacket’s skin, and finally this feather, too, broke free and twirled away. It was time to call home. Or no, not yet.

  Because here was an enormous crèche. The house was a symmetrical wooden colonial, three stories tall, with a columned facade that shed chips of brown paint. Letters from the ancient world were nailed to the portico’s triangular face. Three boys conferred between the columns, beneath the letters, gazing down at one of their phones, the phone candling their faces. All the windows were lit, and silhouettes lurched across the golden squares. She had never sold coke at this particular fraternity, but she’d had some luck with a couple of others. What she really needed was a place to crash. That just wasn’t the way to put it, at first.

  On her way up the steps of the portico, she asked the boys if they might know anybody who might want some cocaine.

  The rightmost of the three boys, a towering athlete, laughed and clapped, his clapping muted by mittens. “Hello, random badass,” he said.

  “Damn,” agreed the pudgy guy in the middle, who held the phone and wore a runner’s headband on his shaved head. “You are an honest person,” he told Claire.

  “I’m serious, though,” she said.

  The boys looked at each other. The leftmost, whose curly hair sprung from beneath a beanie, stroked his chin. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d see if there’s this one kid in front of the PlayStation. Little guy. He looks like…” He struggled for words.

  “Oh yeah,” said the athlete. “Kyle. He’s cool. His hair is cool. And this time of night, he’ll be at the PlayStation, most def. This is what
he does.” With great precision, without cruelty, he impersonated the flailing of a gamer, mashing the buttons of an invisible controller, bending his torso all the way to one side, whipping it all the way to the other, and back to the middle again.

  “That’s actually really helpful,” she said. “Thanks.”

  They parted to make way for her, and she walked between them, across the porch and through the front door, which was propped open with an Oakley sunglasses case. She made her way through a dark, narrow foyer, upsetting a snow shovel before she passed into the living room, big, bright, and medieval, with high ceilings.

  The walls were covered in woolly banners: the disembodied head of the Patriots, with its tricorn hat; the golden wheel of the Bruins; the leprechaun of the Celtics, twirling a ball and leaning on his knobby spike of a cane. There were two more bros drinking beer on a couch in the corner, listening to Madlib, and, as promised, a small, wiry bro playing PS4, cross-legged before a screen. Claire sat on her knees beside him and learned that he was in fact Kyle. His Delta pledge name, he added, was Wagon Wheel, because he was good at singing “Wagon Wheel.” Right now, Claire noticed, he was showing a fair amount of skill at Bloodborne.