Nicholas Affogato lay in his bed with the weight of the previous night resting heavily behind his eyes. It was 10:15 in the morning and his body was wrapped in a mangled mess, buried deep inside the sheets of his university issued Twin XL bed. The bedding, blue and plaid and purchased by his mother from Bed, Bath, and Beyond two days before the start of the semester, had grown stiff and uniquely aromatic from six weeks of unwashed teenaged hangover sweat. Fighting the weight of his tightly wound blanket fortress, Nick rolled over and faced the whitewashed cinderblock wall that touched the side of his bed. His pulsating eyes focused on the streaks of blue paint that bled through the faded white of the cinderblock wall.
“This room used to be blue”, Nick thought to himself as his grand insight to usher in the day.
Craning his head so far away from the wall that he felt a light “pop” in his neck, he looked back at the floating “Death Star” clock radio that his younger brother Sam had gotten him as a going away present. Realizing that he already missed the first 35 minutes of his “Intro to International Agreements” lecture, Nick resigned the rest of the day to being a wash. Flopping onto his back, he was overcome by the sharp smell of his roommate’s cheap spray-on deodorant. The air, thick with the consequences of his roommate’s attempt at practicing good hygiene was just enough of an assault on the senses to make the room spin. It was in fact the fine people at Axe Deodorant that got the spinning started but it was ultimately the vodka and Kool-Aid from the night before that kept them going. Although taking advantage of everything that a $40,000 a year education had to offer was not motivation enough to get out of bed, the fear of staining his sheets with fraternity punch was.
Ignoring the lingering feelings of guilt for letting his education pass him by, Nick dramatically lashed around to free himself from the blue plaid tomb. Flinging himself off the side, Nick momentarily forgot that his bed was lifted, as to allow him to fit his dresser and mini-fridge underneath, causing him to stumble the instant his feet hit the crunchy, crumb covered area rug. As the room continued to spin despite being upright and on firm ground, Nick made a mental note to drink more Gatorade and to take an extra tums before going to bed after a long night of partying. After briefly searching for a justification to excuse the hedonism of the night before, he landed almost comfortably on “Thirsty Thursday’s” just being a regular part of the campus culture and that he wasn’t the only one there having a good time. Before he could poke too many holes into that reasoning, a violent buzz came from Nick’s desk.
“Call me when you get the chance. Please. It is important.” It was the fifth of five unanswered texts from his mother, aptly named Teresa. Disregarding all five of her pleas, he tossed the phone onto his bed, losing it in the sea of blue printed crusty plaid sheets.
As Nick packed his bag with books that he would never read for classes he had no real plans of attending, he felt a heavy weight begin to fester in the bottom of his chest. Halfway between nausea and an evasive feeling of panic, the unfamiliar sensation began to bubble its way to the base of his skull. Fishing through his sheets, he grabbed his phone and stared at it as this novel sensation continued to travel throughout his body. His fingers stiffened around his phone and the bubbling had fill his head. Nick couldn’t understand why a simple phone call to the woman who had birthed him and raised him and loved him suddenly, and without any real warning, felt like even more of an insurmountable task than attending his morning lecture after a long night of partying. In a visceral haze, he typed out the message “In class. Call later.”
He stood next to his bed and stared down at his phone. His fingers turned white as he unwittingly held his phone in a vice-like grip. The bubbles in his brain began to dissolve and a quick burning rage took its place. Nick was angry at himself for not going to class. He was angry at himself for lying to the woman who loved him unconditionally. But more than anything else, Nick felt a deep anger towards the very same loving woman for sending a series of cryptic text messages instead of just being upfront with why she was trying to contact him.
Burying the cavalcade of emotion that was invading every corner of his mind, Nick decided that he needed to get out of his room as soon as possible. Still wearing the same t-shirt and jeans from the night before, he threw on the hoodie that was resting on the back of his desk chair, put on his headphones, and walked out the door, leaving the festering cloud of body-spray and angst behind.
Mindlessly scrolling through Vine as he walked, Nick tried his best to evade the student body of Francis College. A small university hidden among the rolling hills of Western New York, the institution that Nick had called home for the past three months was as old as it was academically unremarkable. For better and for worse, it would rarely find itself in any publications and was often overshadowed by larger, more prestigious, and much more expensive colleges in the region. Most of the students that attended came from similar looking families from similar looking towns and had similar motivations for attending: Francis College had become infamous for their cakewalk examinations. It was often understood that if a student had a pulse and their family had a checkbook, a degree was guaranteed. Nicholas Michael Affogato, however, did not come from a family nor a town that looked like everyone else’s. With his olive skin and a last name that ended in a vowel, Nick would often joke with his friends from back home that his Italian ass from downstate was the closest thing to diversity that Francis College had ever seen.
The college itself only had about 2,000 students at that time, so the business of one was the business of many. Because of this, and because of his desire not to get pulled into a conversation with someone that he barely knew in order gossip about someone that he definitely didn’t know, Nick planned on sticking to the back staircases and the less central hallways on his way to the sparsely populated “Film, Art, and Music” library.
Despite his best efforts, Nick felt a firm tug on his backpack as he walked down the staircase of his dormitory. The yank, which caused him to fall backwards and up a couple of stairs, unceremoniously pulled him out of the mindless trance that the continuous stream of six second clips had put him in. Prior to the tug, Nick had managed to successfully escape all of the turmoil that had been drowning him in his cinderblock cave. Despite his frustration towards someone getting the drop on him, it did remind him of a simpler time when he played JV baseball and the way his teammates would use similarly juvenile tactics to get his attention. Nick turned around and looked up, half expecting and fully hoping to see Christopher, his friend from back home. Much to his disappointment, but not really to his surprise, it was Colin Perry, another pledge rushing Epsilon Pi Tau, standing over him.
“Headed to class?” Colin asked, hopping down a couple of steps, catching up to a freshly disoriented Nick.
“Huh? Oh. Nah. Student Union.” he responded, fully aware of his lie. He continued to walk and took off the earbuds that he had recently purchased from the CVS next to campus.
“Hey alright! Me too. I have an interview with DB there at 11.” Colin said with a sense of pride that managed to confuse and annoy Nick.
“Who?”
“Devin. Devin Brady.” he replied with an air of indignation that would have felt unwarranted or out of place anywhere outside of Francis College.
At that moment, Nick felt a vibration come from his pocket and that dreaded weight began to fester once again in his chest. “Sixth of six.”, he thought to himself.
“You can tag along and interview him too…if you haven’t already. I’m sure DB – uh Devin – wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh…no that’s alright. I already have one scheduled with him for next week. Plus, I really should catch up on some work today anyway.” Nick hoped that Colin wouldn’t have any follow up questions because he wasn’t sure how far he was willing to take these lies.
Another buzz burned against Nick’s thigh. “That’s seven.” The rage was traveling up and down his spine.
“Okay well just be sure you don’t fall behind on the interviews. They are really important, you know. Honestly, I was pretty hesitant about them too at first but now they’re my favorite part of rushing.” Colin said with a cool and condescending sharpness that made Nick want to punch him square between the eyes.
“Because you know,” Colin continued, “being in a brotherhood is about more than just going to parties. If we’re chosen, we will be brothers all of the time, not just the nighttime.” Colin stopped walking and looked at Nick, waiting for a response.
“Is this guy seriously waiting for a fucking applause right now?” Nick thought to himself.
Colin raised his hand forward with his index finger extended and his eyebrows lifted. Nick could tell that Colin was eager and ready to begin the second act of his inspirational fraternal monologue.
“Jesus Christ, man!” red flashed behind Nick’s eyes and Colin slowly put his finger down. The prospective brothers stared at each other for a second. In a fit of manufactured panic, Nick began rapidly patting down his front and back pockets.
“Ah shit, you know what? I think I left my student ID back in my room. Why don’t you go ahead without me and maybe we can meet up later so you can tell me how the interview went.”
Before Colin could respond, Nick turned around and ran up the stairs two steps at a time.
Hiding in the doorframe two floors up but one floor shy of where he actually lived, Nick waited for a few minutes. He didn’t want to go all the way back to his room and risk bumping into another overzealous WASP, but he also wanted to ensure that Colin wasn’t lingering in the front of the building practicing his Ted Talk on the virtues of brotherhood to anyone that would listen.
Nick paused for a moment and closed his eyes. The weight in his chest started to feel lighter and the pangs of anger in his spine was slowly evaporating. He slid his hand into his pocket to check the two additional texts from his mother.
Looking down at his phone, Nick chuckled to himself in a moment of embarrassed mania. The first text was from the university reminding him to get his flu shot. The second was from his younger sister, Gianna, who, given the quantity of emoticons unintelligibly strung together, texted him by mistake. He grinned as he smashed his fingers across his keyboard, sending her a series of emoticons that would hopefully mean nothing to her in return.
Feeling better and realizing that Colin was probably lecturing DB about brotherhood in the Student Union by then, he remembered that it was actually Peter Flannery, a brother in EPT, who had introduced him to the FAM Library. Nick spent the next few moments of his brief respite in the third-floor doorframe thinking of a place on campus that really would be populated with unfamiliar faces. Nick strategically landed on nursing his hangover in the Psychology department.
Although the building that housed the Psych department itself was not unlike any other on campus, it possessed an unsettling aura that came from over sixty years of rumors about inhumane experiments conducted on the locals surrounding the college passed down by each passing generation of FC students. Consequently, Nick’s entire freshman hall was instructed during orientation by his RA, Adam Thomas, a lanky and spiteful sophomore, that it was bad luck to study in the Psych department. More practically, however, Nick realized that as a prospective International Relations major who only ever hung out with either other international relations majors or frat boys that all had a profound library allergy, he had pretty good chance of finding solace among the future head-shrinks of America.
Avoiding the major arteries of the small campus, Nick made it to the Abbott-Ascott Psychology Center, which was really more of a lounge than a center and could be found on the fourth floor of one of the main academic buildings in the middle of campus. The AAPC had recently been remodeled and was decorated with a handful of vinyl couches and hard plastic stools haphazardly placed around the large rectangular space. The focal point of the lounge was a long, white high-top table dressed with a few outdated computers and two extremely loud printers that rarely had paper on each side. Along the perimeter, there were doors that protected the small offices that protected the faculty members of the Psych department.
Nick walked out of the back stairwell that connected to the back hallway which led to the very back of the AAPC. Opening the heavy fire door that hid the dark and unpainted service hallway, Nick was enshrined in bright, fluorescent lights. Another rumor that followed the AAPC was that the dean of the Psych department, in planning the remodel, specifically ordered industrial strength lighting to test his hypothesis that luminosity impacted productivity among individuals 18-22.
Dramatically throwing his bag onto the ground, Nick collapsed onto one of the vinyl couches. He looked up at the newly installed white foam tiles on the ceiling, and his mind began to wander. He stared at the rows of little holes punched into each tile. His eyes traced the lines that separated each tile and followed them from wall to wall. As the dots began to merge among the lines, Nick’s mind blurred with them. All of the emotions that he could not understand began to vanish and the rage that had been making his chest feel tight began to soften. As he swam away from the world that he didn’t feel equipped handle, Nick embraced his new white-tile universe. Things were simple there. Things were quiet.
Just as he approached a state even better than sleep, the vibration in Nick’s pocket heaved him out of his tranquil void. Having learned his lesson just twenty minutes earlier, he reached for his phone not with cavernous apprehension but with the familiar attitude that he possessed the thousands of times before – mindlessly.
The cause of the pocket buzz, this time, was an email from Gregory Mead, his academic advisor. Professor Mead was a fixture in the English department. In an attempt to shape the careers of future generations, and to cover the cost of his second divorce, he took on the role of advisor and mentor the day Nixon resigned; a fact he was always quick to share. Mead was in fact ancient, but he was affable, he was approachable to criminally self-absorbed. Nick once told his father that he heard that Mead came with the property when Francis College bought the land from farmers in the 1860’s because even the cows were sick of listening to him talk about his new book, which coincidentally always happened to be just six months away from being published.
Resigning himself to do at least one academically produce thing that day, Nick opened Mead’s email.
RE: Undergraduate Declaration of Major Deadline
Affogato,
As you have likely deduced from my other emails, which I have no doubt you graciously ignored, the university’s deadline for freshman and freshwoman to declare their major is rapidly approaching. I am sure that this is a very exciting time for you. In order for you to declare a major, you need to send me your academic action plan. Now correct me if I’m wrong but your goal is to join the lofty ranks of all the builders of international relationships that have come before you. Don’t forget that in order to obtain an International Relations degree, you are obligated to take at least two semesters of a foreign language and one semester of advanced writing. I suppose it is time to dust off the old reading glasses. It’s true what they say, you really have to want to a degree in international relations in order to get a degree in international relations at Francis College. But hey, there’s always Civics. Anyhow, I digress.
Action plan. As soon as possible.
Since this is my 40th year doing major declarations, let’s make this one special.
Mead.
Reading it three times over, Nick tried to decode what Mead meant in his little rant at the end of the email. Unsure if he was implying that Nick was too smart or too dumb to continue down his academic path, he scrutinized every word of the message sent from a man that he wasn’t totally sure he even respected. The old bastard didn’t even bother to include the actual major declaration date, after all. Just as Nick was letting his imposter syndrome make life decisions for him, he heard a familiar voice trying to get his attention.
“I’m sorry sir, you either need to be studying in this space or you’re going to have to leave.”
He turned around and looked back behind the couch. Much to his surprise, it was Peter Flannery, the very same EPT brother that had introduced him to his previously planned destination. Peter was tall and pale and intimidated by most of the spaces he occupied. Consequently, Peter was more likely to be found hiding in a library than hanging around the cafeteria or the student union. However, often to Nick’s amusement, once Peter either got comfortable enough with a person, or more commonly, the moment a drop of alcohol touched his lips, he was a wealth of dirty jokes and borderline deranged pranks. In fact, on bid-night, which was the biannual event in which interested young men would become interested young pledges in EPT, Peter managed to tell a joke so demented and foul that it made one of the most timid pledges to fall on the ground in a fit of laughter. And that was after just half of a cup of jungle juice. By the time Peter finished off his fourth cup that night, he managed to corral the entire Sigma Gamma pledge class into completing a naked mile.
Peter stood over Nick, with his back hunched forward, his hands clasped together over his belt, and a calm smile on his face.
“Oh shit, I didn’t know FC hired Slenderman to patrol the Psych department.”, Nick replied, grinning.
Peter extended his long leg and stepped over the couch. Throwing his backpack next to Nick, he sat on one of the hard plastic stools that was placed across from him.
Feigning gravity in what he was about to say, Peter leaned forward and put his finger in Nick’s face.
“You joke, but Slenderman fucks hard, and he fucks often.” Laughing at his own joke, Peter leaned back in the stool, stretched his arms backwards, and cracked his neck, “So how’s it going today? I’m impressed to see you out in the wild this early, especially after last night.”
Pausing for a moment to realize the rarity of someone actually asking him how he was doing, Nick felt the sudden urge to share all of the thoughts and feelings that he had been torturing himself with all day.
Adhering code of Omerta which had been ingrained in him since birth however, Nick simply said, “Oh like you’re one to talk! You were still asking people to dare you to do a keg stand as I was leaving. But yeah, I’m doing pretty good today. Just trying to work on my action plan for Mead.”
“Dude, I’m so jealous you have Mead as an advisor. That guy is hilarious. I have him for my Women in Lit class and he doesn’t hold back.” Peter said, excitedly. “You’re going to major in IR, right?”
Nick froze for a moment as the bubbles began to form at the base of his skull. For the second time that day, he found himself entering a visceral haze. Absent any clear thoughts, he felt his mouth forming the words “Civics, actually. They say it’s much more useful if you want to go into politics.”
“‘They?’ Who the fuck is ‘they’?” Nick thought to himself.
“Oh, nice man. I didn’t know you wanted to get into politics.”
He didn’t.
“I remember how stressful the school tries to make major declaration. That’s why I’m still undeclared, pure spite. Although, I am leaning towards either psych or accounting. That’s actually why I’m in the AAPC, today. I have a meeting with one of the faculty advisors.”
“I didn’t even know you could do that. Well, hey, I hope the meeting helps.” Nick was suddenly flooded with feelings of inadequacy suddenly. It quickly became very difficult for him to hide behind his hangover.
“Just don’t ask the faculty advisor to dare you to do a keg stand.” Despite his best efforts, the misplaced resentment still seeped through and turned the joke sour.
Peter flashed an instinctual smile and Nick sat quietly for an eternal moment.
“So, if not psych, then why accounting?” Nick asked hoping that expressing interest could override his error.
Peter, well versed in the art of moving past an awkward encounter, smirked, and responded “I want to get good at embezzlement. Like really good. I want to be the reverse Robin Hood and steal from the poor.”
Never missing the opportunity to laugh at his own joke, Peter chuckled to himself.
“No but actually my dad is an accountant, and he has his own little office back home.” Peter continued, “I think it has always been a dream of his for me to go into business with him, although he’d never admit it.”
Finding more success in asking questions than in making jokes, Nick asked, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked. Where is home for you?”
“Ah trying to squeeze in a quick interview before my meeting, huh?” Peter replied with a wide, toothy smile.
“Well, I was actually planning on stealing your identity later but hey, two birds one stone, am I right?”
They both laughed and Peter told him to take out his notebook so Nick could write down all of his answers, a requirement for all of the brother interviews. Peter proceeded to tell him all about Emerson, a small industrial town hidden among the ashes deep in Empire state. He described his favorite memories from his childhood and detailed all of the trouble he got in before coming to Francis College. He talked about his first love who subsequently became his first heartbreak. He showed Nick a picture of his girlfriend who was working at a nail salon back home. Peter described his family and reminisced fondly about the Sunday cookouts that his neighbors used to host every week during the summer. Nick couldn’t help but detect a tone of sadness in Peter’s voice when discussing the life, he had left behind in Emerson. He wasn’t sure if this sadness was because Peter had left his idyllic small town or if it was the reason. He was too afraid to ask.
After a while, Nick stopped taking notes on what Peter was saying altogether and eventually it was his turn to talk about himself, something Nick rarely welcomed. He talked about his siblings, Sam and Gianna, and he talked about his parents, Teresa and Rudy. He described life on the baseball team, and he shared stories of what felt like a bygone era. Before he knew it, Nick had been talking for fifteen minutes straight and was detailing the life of a person he felt like he no longer knew.
Nick and Peter would talk for another hour until it was time for the elder EPT brother to discuss his future with an underpaid and overworked faculty member of the Psychology department. Nick thanked him and Peter made a joke about sending him an invoice for his time.
Shifting his body to lay down on the vinyl couch, Nick thought more about Emerson. Peter described a place that was felt so similar to his hometown, yet it sounded like a completely different world from what he had ever experienced. Feeling energized, he took out his phone.
No new messages.
He scrolled through Vine for a few seconds, but Nick soon realized that he wasn’t looking for a hollow experience. He sat upright and called his mother.
Despite feeling an energized sentimentality for the life, he left behind his heartbeat faster with every passing dial tone of the telephone call.
“Nicholas Michael Affogato, you better be calling to tell me that you dropped your phone in the river and that’s why you’ve been ignoring all of my texts.”
Teresa was as loud as she was loving. Much to the bewilderment of every person in her life, however, she equated volume with love and concern and frustration and joy.
“No Ma, I’ve just been busy. I’m sorry. What’s up? How is everything?” Nick had to consciously fight the instinct to match her intensity, otherwise he would run the risk of scaring the perpetually placid psychology professors.
“I’m a goddamn mess, Nicky. That’s how I’m doing. Your brother has me worried sick and God forbid if your father has anything useful to say. Have you talked to him lately?”
“Who? Dad or Sam?”
“Don’t be cute with me. Your brother. Have you talked to your brother?” Nick could feel his mother’s exasperated hand resting on her forehead through the phone.
“Nobody’s being cute, Ma. No, I haven’t talked to Sam. I think he texted me on Tuesday. Why does he have ‘you worried sick’, exactly?” Nick shifted in his seat. He was starting to get frustrated.
“Tuesday. Great. Phenomenal. I don’t know. He just hasn’t been himself lately. You know your brother, he’s such a sweet boy but he’s been so quiet lately. And then there was that whole performance with your father last night…What kind of brother ignores a text for three days?”
Nick wanted about what had happened the night before but the unresolved anger from earlier that day had returned in a flash.
“I’m sorry but have you been blowing up my phone all day just to tell me how shitty of a brother I am? I texted Gianna today, does that matter to you at all? And what about how I’m doing? Why don’t I ever get a ‘how are you, son? Oh, we miss you so much, son.’”
Teresa was silent. That was Nick’s first sign that he should stop talking.
Nick stood up and started pacing around the AAPC. That was the second sign.
“Maybe Sam has been quiet lately because you’re not asking him how’s he’s doing either. Maybe Ma, just maybe, he’s out there having a life and doesn’t feel the need to include you in it. Christ knows that’s what I’m trying to do. Or you know what? Maybe he’s just fucking depressed? But you wouldn’t know that, would you?”
Nick felt his voice echo and realized that he had yelled his way back to the stairwell. He paused and waited for his mother to respond.
She said nothing.
“Look, Ma, I…” but his voice trailed off. Nick didn’t really feel like apologizing. He didn’t want to take back anything that he had said, at least not at that moment.
“I’ve gotta go. I stepped out of class to call you really quickly. I should be free after you guys finish dinner. I’ll call you then.”
Teresa continued to say nothing and hung up the phone. Nick walked back to the vinyl couch but bumped into one of the computers resting on the high-top tables. Grabbing one of the monitors with both hands, he picked it up and threw it right on the ground. One by one, the office doors of the faculty members opened, and a sea of bald and grey heads popped out. Before anyone had the chance to really figure out what had happened, Nick snatched his belongings and left the AAPC.
Needing a place to cool down from both his own emotions and from campus security, Nick went straight to the EPT house which was located in the very back of the fraternity quad. The smallest of all the frat houses, the Epicenter as it was known by some, was just two stories, had white peeling paint all around, and should have probably been torn down in the 90’s. To get in during the day, the fraternity bylaws required a special knock that had been long since forgotten.
Looking over his shoulder to keep an eye out for the campus security that really wasn’t looking for him, Nick gave a quick knock on the rotting door. From the inside he heard a faint “That’s not the special knock!”, a running joke that nobody ever thought was funny but that everybody made at least once.
Nick gave another quick knock, this time much louder.
Tyler Newton, the vice-president of EPT answered, gave Nick a quick glance from head-to-toe and said, “Sorry, miss, the sorority mixer isn’t until 10”, closing the door quickly.
Nick stuck his foot into the doorframe quickly and chuckled “Ah come on Newton, is that any way to treat the future president of EPT?”
“Oh, she’s got ambition! Alright, you may enter.” Tyler Newton was wearing pajama bottoms with a tank top despite it being November and the Epicenter not having heat. He walked with Nick to the living room and sat down in a folding chair and turned all of his attention to the television, which at 1:15 in the afternoon on a Friday was playing Maury, a fraternity favorite.
“Do you want a beer or anything?” Tyler asked, gesturing at an open box of Natural Light that was sitting in the corner.
Nick thought about what a warm beer would probably do to him and politely declined, sitting down on the discolored felt couch in front of the television. He felt that familiar buzz in his pocket. It was a text from his father, Rudy.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just got out of class.”
“The next time you think about calling your mother just to make her cry, don’t. This isn’t what I’m paying for you to learn at that so-called college. Weak men make women cry. What kind of a man makes their mother cry?”
Nick sat and stared at his phone for a second. The weight in his chest that he had been carrying with him all day transformed into a pit in his stomach. The bubbles at the base of his skull quickly felt like they were about to turn into tears. Nick took a deep breath and stood up.
He walked over to the case of beer in the corner and grabbed one. “Hey Newton, I bet you’ve never seen a beer disappear.”
Before Tyler could respond, Nick chugged the whole beer.
He wiped his mouth. “Okay I’m sure you’ve seen that. But I bet you’ve never seen two beers disappear.” And drank the second.
“Oh, so it’s going to be that kind of afternoon, say no more!” Tyler jumped out of his chair and disappeared for a few seconds and emerged with a handle of Svedka.
Nick and Tyler proceeded to drink together until some more brothers funneled in as the afternoon classes wrapped up and by 4pm, the fraternity was throwing and impromptu party. For the rest of the night, Nick did not feel the weight in his chest or the pit in his stomach. The bubbling had subsided, and the tears seemed to evaporate. That night, Nick tried to reclaim the feelings he had discovered in the tranquil, white-foam tile universe of his own creation. And with every drink he got a little closer. But like every other time he had tried before, blackness found him first.