Book One – Erosion
Chapter One:
Tucked Away in the Rolling Hills of Academia
Nicholas Affogato lay in his bed and trudged through a muddied mind in search of a single clear thought. An immense pressure pressed firmly on his forehead as that familiar weight of the previous night rested heavily behind his eyes. It was 10:15 in the morning and his body was wrapped in the twisted mass of sheets deep within his university issued Twin XL bed. The bedding, blue and plaid, was purchased by his mother just two weeks prior during a mad-dash trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond a couple of days before the start of the semester. Despite the fabric’s tender age, they had grown stiff and uniquely aromatic from continuous exposure to teenaged hangover sweat.
Fighting the weight of his tightly wound blanket fortress, Nick rolled over and faced the whitewashed cinderblock facade that touched the side of his bed. His pulsating eyes focused on the streaks of cerulean paint that bled through the faded white of the wall.
“This room used to be blue,” he finally managed to conjure as his grand insight to usher in the day.
Soft green eyes burned through dangling tendrils as they continued to stare at nothing. Nick was tall and despite his best efforts following his foray into independence, was in decent shape. His mangled and moppy chestnut hair was draped across his slick face. Much to his own dismay, he was a near splitting image of his father, Rudy, in his younger years. With strong southern Italian features and radiant olive oil skin, both he and his father possessed an ambiguity that they believed placed them outside the limitations of caucasian ethical responsibility. Although this attitude would ultimately shut more doors than it would open for Nick, it would be this perspective that allowed both father and son to be less afraid of the world outside of their insular community.
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 thirty-five minutes of his “Intro to International Agreements” lecture, Nick resigned the rest of the academic day to being a wash.
It was the third week of September 2014 and Nick was already an expert at avoiding his responsibilities. 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 may have been the fine people at Axe Deodorant that got the spins started, 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 enough motivation to get out of bed, the fear of staining his sheets with fraternity punch was.
Ignoring the emerging 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, which caused 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 Thursdays” 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 hostile 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 crusty sea of blue.
As Nick packed his bag with books that he would never read for classes he had no real plans of attending, he felt something heavy begin to fester in the bottom of his chest. Halfway between nausea and an evasive panic, this 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 response continued to travel throughout his body. His fingers stiffened around the glass brick and the bubbling had filled 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 felt like even more of an insurmountable task than attending his morning lecture. With great hesitation, he robotically typed out the message
“In class. Call later.”
He stood next to his bed and stared down at the screen. His fingers turned white as he unwittingly held his phone in a vice-like grip. That nervous fermentation in his brain began to dissipate 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 fiery anger towards the very same 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, doing his best to leave the festering cloud of body-spray and angst behind.
Mindlessly scrolling through Vine as he walked, Nick tried 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 few weeks 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 John 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 the Tri-State was the closest thing to diversity that Francis College had ever seen.
The Francis College campus was a mixture of a dozen academic buildings with a smattering of dormitories buried among them. During the initial stages of its ideation, the powers that be had a clear plan for the small, hillside learning institution. It was to be four academic buildings, two dorms, and a modest library, separated by a grand quadrangle lined with oak and mulberry trees. However, as the keys to the administration exchanged hands decade to decade, century to century, what was once a humble and logical campus design slowly transformed into a lawless clash of vision versus execution. This ultimately left Francis College lacking a clear architectural identity and any easy photo opportunities outside of the autumn months.
The college 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 to gossip about someone that he probably didn’t care about, 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 at covert travel, 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.
Even though he was frustrated that someone managed to get 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.
Now, unfortunately for Nick, and often anyone else that might cross his path, Colin Perry was one of those souls that possessed the rare combinations of traits in which he brought very little of substance to a conversation, was terrible at reading social cues, was terrified of being alone with his thoughts, and adored talking at people. Colin had all the makings of a successful member of upper middle management, which coincidentally was his destiny.
“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.
“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 shatter his button nose.
“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.
“What does this guy want from me? A goddamn applause or something?” Nick thought.
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!” A streak of fire 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 freshman, 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 were 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 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 exterior of the building that housed the Psych department itself was not unlike any other on campus, once inside 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 unless you had formally declared your intention to obtain a psych degree. Nick as a prospective International Relations major only ever hung out with either other international relations majors or frat boys that all had a profound library allergy. Consequently, he had a 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 on each side were two extremely loud printers that were rarely stocked with paper. 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 service hallway which led to the far rear corner of the AAPC. Opening the heavy fire door that hid the dark and unpainted hallway, Nick was enshrined in bright, fluorescent lights. Another rumor that followed the AAPC was that the dean of the Psych department at the time, in planning the remodel in the mid ‘80s, specifically ordered industrial strength lighting to test his hypothesis that luminosity impacted productivity among individuals 18-22. Any findings had yet to be published by the time Nick was enrolled.
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 to handle, Nick embraced his new white-tile universe. Things were simple there. Things were quiet.
Nick descended into a state even better than sleep. After some time, 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 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 and he was approachable, if not criminally self-absorbed. Nick once told his old friend Christopher that he heard that Mead came with the property when Francis College bought the land from farmers in the 1860’s. He regurgitated the joke that back then even the cows were sick of listening to Mead 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 productive 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 pre-major intention is rapidly approaching. I am sure that this is a very exciting time for you. In order for you to declare an intention, 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 for you to dust off the old reading glasses. It’s true what they say, at Francis College you really have to want to get a degree in international relations in order to get a degree in international relations. But hey, there’s always Civics. Anyhow, I digress.
Action plan. As soon as possible.
Since this is my 40th year of undergraduate advising, 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 deadline, 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. Once he really started drinking, Peter was really skilled in that way, getting people to do what he wanted, regardless of whether they were interested in doing it or not.
Peter stood over Nick, with his back hunched forward, his hands clasped together over his belt, and a calm smile on his face.
“Oh damn, 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.
“Listen. 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 to some watered down sense of loyalty to omerta, which had been ingrained in him since birth however, but still wanting to make a positive impression on one of the few older brothers that seemed to take a shine to him, Nick said, “Oh like you’re one to talk! You were still convincing 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.
“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,” Peter offered up in a way that balanced on informative but braggadocious.
“I didn’t even know you could do that. Well, hey, I hope the meeting helps.” Nick was suddenly flooded with feelings of inadequacy. Here he was barely hanging on with an inability to declare a single major and Peter Flannery was setting himself up for two.
It quickly became very difficult for him to hide behind his hangover.
“Just don’t try and convince the faculty advisor to dare you to do a keg stand,” Nick followed up, joking in a way that was too loud for comfort. Despite his best efforts, the misplaced resentment still seeped through and turned the joke sour.
Peter flashed an instinctual and inscrutable smile. Nick sat quietly for an eternal moment.
“So, if not psych, then why accounting?” Nick followed up for the third time, hoping that expressing interest could override his error.
Peter, well versed in the art of talking about himself 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 dryly.
“No but actually my dad is an accountant, and he has his own 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 Affogato?” 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 his early years in Emerson, a small industrial city hidden among the ashes deep in the Empire state. He described his favorite memories from his childhood and detailed all of the trouble he got in before moving to a small town in Ohio. 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. He wasn’t sure if this sadness was because Peter had abandoned his idyllic slice of Americana or if it was for some other reason. He couldn’t bring himself to ask.
After a while, he stopped taking notes on what Peter was saying altogether and eventually it was his turn to converse about himself, something Nick rarely welcomed. At first, he talked about his hometown, Kings Coast, New Jersey, before transitioning into the topic of his family. He reminisced about how despite his brother being a year and a half younger than him and the two not really looking very much alike, growing up people always used to think that the Affogato boys were twins. Nick smiled as he described Sam’s kind heart and his brother’s ability to unapologetically be himself, even if sometimes to his own detriment.
He went into detail about how at just fourteen, Gianna was wise beyond her years in a way that both impressed and intimidated him. He explained that even though she was nearly six years his junior, in recent months she had started to assume a role that was more akin to an older sibling. This didn’t really bother him. Peter nodded politely as Nick told him about Gianna’s love for old movies and about her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of anything random.
He went on to share stories of life on the baseball team, and he detailed what felt like a bygone era. Before he knew it, Nick had been talking for twenty-five minutes straight and was describing 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. Growing up behind the cement curtain of Manhattan, Nick was fascinated by the concept of a small city in New York. And yet, Peter described a place that felt so similar, but still 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 John Affogato, you better be calling to tell me that you dropped your phone in the river and that’s why you’ve been ignoring me all day.”
Teresa was as loud as she was loving. Much to the bewilderment of nearly every person in her life, she often equated volume with anything from affection to frustration to concern to joy.
“No Ma, I’ve just been busy. I’m sorry. Class just ended. 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 was curious 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 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. So you tell me 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 inhaled the can of beer and crushed it in a single, sweeping motion.
He wiped his mouth. “Okay I’m sure you’ve seen that. But I bet you’ve never seen two beers disappear.”
And repeated the “trick”.
Tyler stared at the young pledge for a moment, stunned.
“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 an 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.