Letters, Chapter 1

Okay, so I haven't been as prolific as I'd hoped at writing new entries to the Blog. So...until the quarter ends and I have more time to write socially considerate columns/entries, this wannabee novelist might as well put some of his work out there. Guess I'll have to be me-centric until 4th quarter ends on June 18th.

The following is the first chapter from one of my (unfinished) novels, tentatively called Letters, a literary hybrid of Catch-22 and Animal House. Overall, I think it has potential to be an entertaining piece of satire, but I had trouble trying to figure out a climax for the book. It can't just be episode after episode of fraternity guys (who are all deliberate caricatures of stereotypes, except for Jack Johnson and John Sampson) doing wacky stuff. But that's not here nor there for now.

Without further digression, here's the opening of Letters:


One. LAMBERT’S DOOR

IT WAS A DIVINE MIRACLE, an act that could been brought to fruition by nothing less than the hand of God—or the most gifted fraternity man alive.

Even though Jack Johnson had blacked out and slept in the blonde’s room the night before, he had also managed to beercan Chad Lambert’s door.

Lambert was Social Chair of the Alpha Delta Tau fraternity. He blamed Jack (who currently held no position in the Alpha Delta Tau fraternity) for the vandalism of his door because Jack, who enjoyed having parties, had been out to sabotage Lambert the entire semester.

As Social Chair, Lambert’s responsibilities consisted of standing up during ADT chapter meetings and describing, in infallible detail, the party the ADT’s would not be having that week. With the Lambert at the helm of ADT social, there had not been a single party at the house the entire fall semester.

“I thought we were having a party this week,” Jack said to Lambert after a recent meeting, diappointed.

“Well, we’re not,” Lambert replied. “We were supposed to, but we’re not.”

“Why not?”

“Because the sorority didn’t pass it.”

“Why didn’t they pass it?”

“Goddammit, I’ve told you this a thousand times, Jack-Dick. Panhel National passed that rule. It’s screwing up everything.”

“What rule?”

“The rule that says sororities can’t party at a fraternity house if there’s any alcohol!”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That, or no more than twenty percent of the sorority can officially come over. And I can’t tell some girls not to show up, can I?”

Jack became pensive.

“Tell them they can show up unofficially,” he said after a few seconds.

Lambert furrowed his brow.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If they’re here unofficially, that means they can drink or do whatever they want. That way they won’t get in trouble because nobody will know they’re here. Officially.”

Whenever Lambert got frustrated, he grabbed the handles on the side of his head. He had thick, light-brown hair that undulated over his ears and jutted out to the sides like oversized, spiraling earmuffs. Some, including Jack, called this style frat wings. Lambert had frat handles. They were frat handles because Lambert clutched them rigidly, an action which aggrandized the perpetual agony on his face. Fretting over his schoolwork and planning social events (that never happened) deprived him of substantial spare time.

“Jack-Dick, you don’t know a damn thing,” Lambert said. “They can’t just come to a party unannounced. They have to pass it in their chapter meetings and document it.”

“I see.”

“And if they pass a party that’s obviously going to have alcohol, they get put on probation!”

“By who?”

“Their nationals. Duh!”

“What happens if they get put on probation by their nationals?”

“They won’t be able to have social functions!”

Jack was confused.

“But if they can’t have real social functions, why are they worried about getting put on probation?”

Lambert’s face turned crimson. Without answering, he stormed up the stairs to his bedroom.

Jack shrugged.

***

The ADT’s party the day before had been a complete and utter mistake. The culpability, however, did not fall on Lambert. It was a blunder on the part of Peter Goings, associate social chair, whose sole duty was providing Lambert no help whatsoever in not planning mixers. Kristy Dickerson, the Beta Sigma Gamma social chair, called Goings ten minutes before the ADT chapter meeting on Wednesday and asked if the ADT’s wanted to have a lazy afternoon that Friday. The Beta Gamms would be willing to cover half the bill, she exhorted.

Goings, a decisive associate social chair, formulated his response immediately.

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to call you back,” he said in his monotone.

Lambert was the only person Goings intended to inform about the call, but Tom Cassidy overheard it. Having received an average blowjob from Kristy Dickerson earlier that semester, Casidy decided to take matters into his own hands. So when Lambert stood up to begin his weekly speech, Cassidy interrupted and announced that the Beta Gamms had called and asked to have a lazy afternoon in two days. Every ADT brother—with the exception of Lambert, Goings and the dead pledge who had died in the house’s basement during a long-ago Hell Week—passed the motion.

Pledges, dead or alive, were not allowed to attend chapter meetings or vote, but the ADTs had decided to make the deceased pledge an Honorary Brother as a gesture of remembrance. Eventually it was also arranged for him to cohabitate with the goat the pledges would have to screw during Hell Week. The dead pledge had become so enamored with the goat that he did not require additional social interaction, so it was completely understandable when he sided with Lambert, who was seething in anger. After he accused Cassidy of assuming responsibility that wasn’t his to assume, Cassidy countered by yelling in his trademark Southern twang, “Goddammit, Lambert, heaven forbid you find out what loose poontang tastes like!,” which was followed by hysterical laughter. Humiliated, Lambert slumped down to his chair in defeat. The victory in Chapter only augmented the larger-than-life reputation of Tom Cassidy, who was rumored to have (at least) hooked up with (at least) one girl in every sorority. But despite his recurrent promiscuity, Cassidy was also known for using extensive precautions. He had encountered nothing more than two brief bouts of the clap by his twenty-first birthday.

Lazy afternoons consisted of renting out a local bar from about four to nine. During this time brothers drank, socialized with fraternity buddies, drank, said hi to any girls they knew in the sorority, drank, maybe mustered the audacity to meet new ones, drank, listened to the band hired to play, and drank. By the time the bar opened to other clientele, it was unusual for a brother to still possess normal coordination and visual acuity. If a brother successfully defrayed his vision and motor skills—and left with a girl—he was a hero of the event. The ADT’s knew they each had a legitimate shot at being heroic with the Beta Gamms, who were one of the most well-respected sororities among the fraternity community. They flouted conventional thinking about female etiquette with gusto, demonstrating a unique sense of self-confidence few young women had at such an early age. Which was to say their fondness for random acts of calculated promiscuity, at any time or place, preceded them, and much to their delight.

At eleven forty-five a.m. Jack, John Sampson and Craig Macleod each purchased a twelve-pack. By the time of their
fashionably late entrance at O’Boyle’s pub sometime around six, they had each drained their first twelve. O’Boyle’s had a Friday special on pitchers: three and a half dollars for domestics. Each finished one pitcher by seven and a second by eight. Jack was fairly sure they’d all started a third one. Less certain, however, than the fact he didn’t know the blonde’s name, and infinitely less certain than the fact he didn’t want to know it. Ever.

***

Lambert had been forced to make time that Saturday afternoon to chew Jack out about the beercanned door. He didn’t know Jack had been with the blonde last night, but he did know that Jack had single-handedly stacked all those beer cars, some of which still contained the pungent, foamy residue at the bottom that some people refused to drink, out of pure spite. Telling two pledges to get their asses over to the house had further muddled his already chaotic day.

Lambert marched across the second floor of the ADT house and pounded as hard as he could, making the fleshy mound of his palm explode in pain. This enraged him further, encouraging him to strike harder.

“Open the door, Johnson! I know why you’re so damn tired this afternoon! Open your goddamn door!”

Jack awoke with a start about the time I know why you’re so damn tired this afternoon! passed through the door’s cheap lumber and to his ears. How does he know why I’m tired? Jack wondered as he crawled out of bed. He wanted to remain under his covers, but knew Lambert would keep knocking all afternoon.

Jack lumbered across the room like a slow-motion replay and opened the door just as Lambert had drawn back his fist to pound a few more blows. Instinctively, Jack drew his arms over his stomach in defense; Jack was six feet tall, and at 5’6” Lambert would attack the body.

Recoiling as the door opened before him, Lambert was awed by Jack Johnson’s appearance. Several hours removed from the temporary paradise provided by thirty-six straight hours of inebriation, he was an unshaven, pallid specimen, already looking ahead to the next time his unstable digestive tract wouldn’t shudder should it encounter more alcohol. His unkempt blonde hair stood crookedly in multiple spots, giving him an undignified assortment of horns. Shadowy bags loomed under his eyes, which were squinted together in aversion to the sunlight that shone into the hallway. A crease-shaped indentation, formed when Jack’s head had slipped off his pillow and nestled against the edge of his mattress, completed his aura of misery.

For a fleeting moment, the very sight of Jack eased Lambert’s rage. But the thought of the ragged asshole chuckling as he lined the door with an intricate array of beer cans prompted Lambert’s anger to return with a hellish vengeance.

“Jack-Dick, why the hell did you beercan my door last night?!”

Jack rubbed his abject eyes.

“Why did I…what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, shithead! You beercanned my door!”

“What is beercanning someone’s door, exactly?”

“You stacked a bunch of empty beer cans in front of my door!

Jack looked at Lambert incredulously. “Lambert, you’re not making any sense. The cans would fall backwards way before you got them to the top.”

“You put string across each row of cans so they don’t fall!”

“Huh?” Lambert said, spinning around.

“Then you duct-tape the string to the sides of the doorway!”

It was Sampson, calling from two doors down the hall.

“Whatever!” Lambert said, not seeming to care the previous comment came from a third party. “You fucked up my room, Jack-Dick!”

“Look, I didn’t stack beer cans in front of you door last night,” Jack said meekly.

“You’re so full of shit! No one else would waste so much time doing something so pointless!”

“Yeah they would,” Sampson called.

“Sampson did it,” Jack said. “He’s the one who tampered with your door.”

“Bullshit! Sampson was passed out!”

“No, you were passed out, Mary-Had-A-Little-Lambert!”

“See,” Jack said. “He just admitted it.”

“Sampson’s full of shit, just like you! God, I ought to make the pledges kidnap your ass!”

“What pledges?” asked Jack.

“The pledges coming over to clean my damn room!”

Rubbing his eyes, Jack sighed. “If the pledges are going to clean your room, why are you so ticked off?”

“Because I was going to the library to study! But when I went to take a shower I got a rinse of skunky beer instead! So I have to wait an eternity for those dipshits to get here before I can show them how to clean my room!”

Sampson laughed uproariously.

“You have to show them how to clean your room?” Jack asked.

“Uh, yeah! Pledges are fucking stupid!”

“That sellout Macleod was in on it, too!” Sampson called.

“Sure, Sampson! I’m sure the whole house was in on it except Johnson!” Lambert hissed. His eyes hadn’t deviated from Jack’s face for one second. “Nobody else around here would waste so much time on something so pointless!”

“We were bored!” Sampson called.

“They were bored,” Jack said. “I guess they didn’t get lucky with any Beta Gamm’s last night.”

“At least you fuckers had the chance to get ass! I have three exams this week!”

“You spend half your time chain-smoking,” Sampson shouted. “You don’t actually study that long.”

“You do chain-smoke quite often,” Jack said.

“How the fuck would you know?” Lambert replied. “How often do you hang out with me?”

“Not too often,” Jack said. “But whenever I see you studying in your room, you’re sitting on your couch with a cigarette—”

“Or a dip—” Sampson interjected.

“In your mouth,” Jack said.

Lambert grabbed the handles on the sides of his head and bowed.

Jack wished he hadn’t answered his door.

Sampson continued his torrent of laughter.

“Jack-Dick,” Lambert said, his face contorted with antipathy, “You just won’t let that election drop, will you? Ever since I beat out Cassidy you’ve hated my ass.”

“I don’t have a problem with you, Mary, uh, Lam—”

“Don’t call me that, all right? I hate that goddamn nickname.”

“Stop whining,” Sampson called in a mock Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

“Sorry. Look, I don’t hate you, Lambert,” Jack said. “The only problem I have is that we never have parties anymore, and I’m not the only person around here who wants to have—”

“How many times do I have to tell you?! I try to have parties. The girls vote them down!”

“How far in advance do you ask them?”

“I don’t know! I don’t keep track of stupid shit like that!”

“See, you should ask them a few weeks in advance. Maybe if you did that they’d vote yes, and—”

“You don’t ever hear a word I tell you, Jack-Dick! Girls aren’t allowed to have parties at fraternity houses anymore! What part of that don’t you fucking understand?!”

“Lambert, don’t other fraternities still have parties at their houses? With girls in sororities?”

Lambert became uncharacteristically speechless.

“Don’t they?” Jack repeated.

“Yeah, some do—”

“Then why can’t we?”

Lambert glared at Jack. “Look, even if I did ask them way in advance like you’re saying, I don’t want to risk getting a sorority in trouble, all right? Do you realize what that would do to our reputation? No one would want to mix with us anymore.”

“But if you don’t ask until the day before, they’ll think we’re snobs,” Jack explained. “Nobody else thinks they can just call them up last minute. You’re looking at this from a fallacious perspective, Lambert—”

“Fallacious perspective? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jack groaned. “I’m just saying that if you gave them more time, we’d probably have a better reputation—”

“What reputation?” Sampson hollered. “That would mean girls knew we exist!”

“Look, if you and Cassidy think you can do better as social chairs, why don’t you run at the next election?” Lambert said. "Then you can prove how bad I sucked at my job.”

“It’s not a job,” Jack said. “It’s a fraternity position.”

“Fuck you!” Lambert yelled. “I don’t have time for your shit.” Lambert turned away, but then spun back around.
Jack’s relief, which had risen at the indication of Lambert leaving, proved short-lived.

“And by the way, if you go near my room again I really will have the pledges kidnap your ass some night. You’ll wake up with your balls duct-taped to one of the skank sororities’ front porches!” He marched back down the hallway, slamming his formerly beercanned door.

Jack then walked to Sampson’s room, where his grinning friend was watching the closing scenes of Braveheart.

“Why are you awake at this ungodly hour on a Saturday?” Jack asked.

“I wanted to be up when Lambert discovered his surprise, so I picked the best long movie I had to keep me awake,” Sampson said.

“Why is he convinced I defaced his door?”

“You did.”

“Did I not hear you admit to it?”

“I was fucking with him. Like Mary said, I had better things to do.”

Delirium was turning Jack’s body inside out. “There was no way I could have beercanned his door, if that’s what you call it.”

Grinning venomously, Sampson said, “You can confess to me. I promise I won’t rat you out.”

“Look, there’s just no way I could’ve put beer cans in front of Lambert’s door.”

“You blacked out last night, right?”

“So?”

“So how do you know you didn’t beercan his door after you blacked out? You can’t prove you didn’t.”

Jack could feel his mind moldering. “Sampson, it’s just impossible, okay?”

“How is it impossible? Were you not here or something?”

“No, as you undoubtedly noticed while you were—”

Sampson roared with derisive, triumphant laughter.

Jack arched his head in the air in disgust. After everything he’d been through on the way back home that morning, he’d wasted it all when put under the pressure of one of Sampson’s infamous interrogations. The guy’s ancestors were probably Inquisitors.

“I knew it! So, where did you sleep last night, exactly? And with who? Better yet, with what?” Sampson said with glee.

Having absorbed as much prodding as his mind could withstand, Jack told Sampson about the blonde. Howling in near-orgasmic delight, Sampson slapped Jack hard on the back.

“Dear God, the things you do when left unattended, Jack-Dick.”

“No, I was attended, all right.”

“You perverted bastard.” Sampson then let fly a stentorian yawn that proved eerily contagious. Even Macleod yawned, awaking temporarily from his slumber in the room beside Sampson’s.

Macleod was a sellout. He and Sampson both took a solemn oath to stay awake until Lambert emerged from his room that morning, no matter how long they had to wait. So they’d decided to watch Braveheart. But shortly after William Wallace slit the throat of his fiancé’s murderer, Macleod announced he was going to the bathroom and didn’t return. After another fifteen minutes Sampson went next door to Macleod’s and discovered his room was locked.

“You cunt of a sellout!” Sampson screamed as he wailed on Macleod’s door with his fist. “You swore you were going to stay awake! (BAMBAMBAM) You’re letting your countrymen down, Macleod! I wish William Wallace was here to hunt your ass down like the other traitors!” (BAMBAMBAM) Waking Macleod prematurely was hopeless, however, and no one was more aware of this than Sampson. If Macleod went to bed with a clear conscience he slept long and deep, and nothing short of committing murder, let alone reneging on a vow to stay up and witness Lambert’s misfortune, could encroach on Macleod’s conscience. Therefore he slept long and deep each night and day, and would do the same until he managed to kill something with a life more precious than that of squirrels, which he routinely shot out of nearby trees with his pellet gun.

Macleod, whose hangover was as bellicose as Jack’s, took one look at his alarm clock and lapsed back into his impregnable sleep. Under his breath, Sampson cursed Macleod’s name.

“And I ought to beat the hell out of him for passing out.”

“What?” said Jack.

“Nothing. That asshole Macleod crawled back to his lair before Mary discovered his surprise.” He shot a fiendish smile at Jack again. “I guess he’s not the only one who got a nasty surprise this morning.”

“Yeah, and I’m not sure whose was nastier,” Jack replied, grimacing.

“So I’m guessing this morning’s vixen is a keeper, right?”

“I doubt She’d like that very much.” Jack turned away, suddenly appearing downtrodden.

Sampson shook his head in mock despondence. “Get over it, Jack-Dick. It’s been two weeks. She's not calling back.”

“Whatever. Don’t you think She’d be less than impressed if She found out I hooked up with somebody else?”

“I don’t think She’d give a shit.”

“Why not?”

“Because She’s probably had more than one cock since you.”

“You’re so reassuring."

Sampson chuckled. "Actually, I'm wrong. That would mean She actually got a dose of your cock."

"Thanks." Jack yawned. "Have you talked to Her recently?” He did not make eye contact with Sampson.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I called Her the day after and never got a call back. But I’m not freaking out about it.”

“Aren’t you the Hemingway Hero,” Jack said.

“What?”

“You let nothing rattle you. You’re as stoic as a rock.”

“Thanks.”

Jack stared into the air, bemused by something much more profound than the narrow, squiggly crack in Sampson’s ceiling, which Sampson claimed resulted from a particularly frisky romp in the room above his. Its occupant was Tom Cassidy.

“Do you ever wonder what the two of them have said about the two of us?” Jack said.

“I couldn’t care less,” Sampson replied. “Why would you even think about it?”

“I can’t help it. Especially because they’re good friends and we’re good friends.”

“I hate your ass.”

“Likewise. But seriously, wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall and hear what they say?”

“I think it’s best you don’t know what She says about you. It might scar you for life.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jack said. He turned around even more and gazed out Sampson’s window.

“I wonder what She’s doing tonight,” Jack said.

“Jesus, you know what She’s doing tonight, Jack-Dick,” Sampson replied. “She’ll end up going downtown with Her.”

Jack nodded. “So you’re not interested in Her anymore?”

Sampson looked at Jack suspiciously. “That matters because?”

“I’m curious, that’s all. I set you up with Her, remember?”

“No, She set me up with Her.”

“Oh yeah,” Jack acknowledged. “That’s right.”

“And the only reason you want to know about Her is because you want an ‘in’ with Her roommate.”

“No, I was just curious if you two were still talking.”

“You’re full of shit, Jack-Dick.”

“You’re more pleasant than usual this morning,” Jack said. “Are you hungover?”

“No. I’m just exhausted ‘cause I’ve been up all night drinking.”

Sampson was a huge Family Guy fan.