Bryce

The Second Semester

Chapter 4 - Welcome Back Party

            The party at Sigma Alpha Tau fraternity was scheduled to begin at 9:30, but would not really get off the ground until after eleven o’clock.  By then, many students would be leaving the dance at the University Center, looking for other, less well supervised, venues for their Friday evening entertainment.  University officials no longer attempted to supervise these more private entertainments as long as laws were not being openly flaunted.  After all, the theory that the institution acted in loco parentis lost its legal standing when the age of majority was lowered from 21 to 18, and that was a long time prior to the birth of just about everyone in school these days.  Bryce and Damon arrived at the Sigma Alpha Tau house around eight o’clock at the request of Curtis Manning, just so he could have some brothers he could rely on to check out everything, making certain the place was ready.  Sure, that had been done earlier, but you never know what might have changed since the last run-through.

            Shortly before the first paying guest arrived, Bryce was walking across the large assembly room when he encountered a familiar figure.  “Hello, Jason.  Did you just get here?”

            “Yeah, just a little while ago,” Jason Todd answered.  “I was just thinking that, with a little advance warning, we could have live music here instead of the canned stuff,” the saxophonist added.

            “Don’t mention that to Curtis,” Bryce advised.  “He’s already nervous enough about getting everything just right.”

            Jason grinned.  “He really wants to be elected president, doesn’t he?”

            “Yeah, he does, but I think he wants to do a good job, too,” Bryce replied, just a little defensive about his friend.

            “Don’t get me wrong.  I like Curtis just fine.  I think I would be happier with him than any of the alternatives.  Which reminds me, you do remember what I said at the last dance last semester, don’t you?” Jason asked in a low voice.

            “Yes,” Bryce replied, equally quietly.

            “Can we talk about that some time?”

            “Sure.  You name it,” Bryce assured his fraternity brother.  Jason had indicated that he, too, was gay, but was hesitant to come out.

            “Maybe tomorrow, after everyone has sobered up,” Jason suggested with a faint smile.

            “I don’t intend to get plastered, but tomorrow is fine with me,” Bryce agreed.  “Say, maybe two o’clock.  Here?”

            “Two is fine.  Maybe not here,” Jason said, looking around.

            “My dorm room?” Bryce suggested next.

            “Yeah, that’ll do,” Jason agreed.

            “Clay Hall, room 312, two o’clock.  Oh, and Damon has the next room,” Bryce added, just to make certain Jason did not get the wrong impression about what he was willing to do to help.  “Maybe we should invite him as well.”

            “Maybe later,” Jason confirmed, “but not this first time, okay?”

            “Sure.  Your call,” Bryce agreed.

            Jason wandered off, probably still thinking about the benefits of live music over something piped in.  Only then did Bryce realize that he had not seen Damon in a while.  Seeing DuBois Kennedy, who had been Damon’s mentor last semester, he asked, “Have you seen Damon around?”

            DuBois smiled.  “Lost your boyfriend, have you?  I think I saw him leave about fifteen minutes ago.  Don’t tell me you two are splitting up?”

            “No way!  Just temporarily mislaid him, that’s all,” Bryce assured the other brother.

            He wandered over to the window looking out onto the street, wondering where Damon could have gotten to, when he had his answer.  Damon approached escorting Kitty Jansen, the girl with whom he had danced at parties last semester.  He was waiting as they came in the door.

            “Ah ha!  Two-timing me are you?” he accused Damon.

            “Cool it, Bro,” Damon responded.  “I got a text from this irate young lady accusing me of gross neglect for not inviting her to the party, so naturally I had to rescue the damsel in distress.”

            “Damon promised I would get to attend SAT parties if I danced with him,” Kitty asserted.

            “But Damon,” Bryce replied in a woe-begone tone, “you promised to dance with me.”

            “Boyfriend, I will dance with you.  But only a slow dance.  When it comes to the more energetic ones, no one beats Kitty.  I would hate to see you injure yourself trying some of those moves.  That’s not the kind of thing you can pick up in the gym,” Damon taunted his partner.

            Still playing along, Bryce stuck out his lower lip and pouted.  “Not good enough, am I?”

            Damon kissed him.

            Kitty laughed.  “You guys are so cute.”

            “Cute!” Bryce protested.  “Did you say cute?”

            “Come on, Kitty.  Let me show you where to put your wraps, while Bryce calms down,” Damon said, escorting the blonde towards a side room set aside for such purposes.

            “Cute!” Bryce continued to complain.

            About that time, Curtis came around telling everyone to get to their assigned places.  It was 9:30, and the hordes would soon be descending on the SAT house for a night’s entertainment.  Bryce accordingly took his seat behind a small table by the door.  For the next two hours, he was the person checking identifications and taking money from non-member males.  As usual, the entrance fee was waived for females.  He had been at his post only ten or fifteen minutes when Mike Sandoval and David Simpson came along.

            “This is discrimination,” Mike grumbled.  “You let that previous couple in for one price, but David and I each have to pay.”

            “I know.  I know.  Life if not fair.  Discrimination is endemic.  And being gay sucks,” Bryce responded as he took their money.

            David broke out into uncontrollable giggles at that last comment.

            “You’d better get your boyfriend inside before he attracts a crowd,” Bryce told Mike with a big grin.  It was nice to have someone appreciate his jokes, even if they were lame.

            About a half hour later, a party of three approached.  There was a fairly large guy, with his arm around a girl, and a smaller guy who seemed to be hanging back.  As they approached the door, the girl said, “Oh, come on, Marc!  You’ll have fun!”  The smaller guy simply grunted.

            Bryce checked the student identifications of the three visitors.  The larger guy was a student named V. Kenneth Broussard, and he paid for both guys.  The girl was Annette Marie Rimbault.  When the slighter guy presented his student card, Bryce was surprised to find that he was the new student in his French class.  He had been so hidden behind his companions, and in such shadow, Bryce had not noticed before, but presenting his identification he was now in light.

            “Oh, hi,” Bryce said.  Hastily glancing at the card, he noted the fellow’s name as Marc A. Rimbault.  “Hi, Marc.  You’re in the same French class that I am, I believe.”

            “Uh, yeah.  I guess.”  Then, in a rush of confidence, “I wasn’t really paying much attention this morning.”

            “No problem.  First days are a bitch.  Maybe we can talk some later.  I’m not chained down here all night,” Bryce joked.

            “Yeah, sure,” Marc replied with a little more animation.

            About 11:30 Bryce was relieved at the door, and had some time to enjoy the party.  It would go on into the wee hours of the night, and then the late-coming brothers, like Jason Todd, would have the task of cleaning up the mess left behind.  But Bryce was now free to socialize.  As he told Jason, he did not intend to drink too much.  In fact, after his experiences during his junior year in high school, he has been very responsible about such things.  Never drunk, and no illicit drugs at all.  But he did want something to ‘take the chill off’ as he put it, after sitting by the door for two hours, so he found Damon behind the long table which functioned as a bar during parties.

            “My usual,” he ordered.

            Without asking, Damon began to prepare a Bourbon and Sprite.  For Bryce, he reached under the table and pulled out a bottle of Makers Mark©, whereas for anyone else he would have used a much cheaper brand.  “It’s a crime that you mix Sprite with this good whiskey,” Damon complained.

            “So, I like my drinks sweet, just like my boyfriends,” Bryce answered.

            “Sweet?” Damon queried.

            “Well, your date for the evening called me ‘cute’ a while ago.  I think ‘sweet’ and ‘cute’ go together just fine,” Bryce replied.  “By the way, what have you done with Kitty while you’re slaving behind the bar and making uncalled for comments on people’s orders?”

            “We had a couple of good dances earlier.  You might have heard the applause,” Damon confidently replied, breathing on his fingernails, “but I don’t keep her on a chain.  When I went to work, she hooked up with some other partners.  In fact, I believe I saw her going upstairs with Justin Barczak a little while ago.”

            “You’re awfully blasé about your date going upstairs with someone else,” Bryce commented.

            “And you are just being bitchy,” Damon responded.  “Kitty is my date only for dancing.  I get all the sex I need from some guy who has the room next to mine in the dorm.”

            Bryce immediately felt guilty and embarrassed.  “Sorry.  I guess I was being just what I dislike so much in others, jealous and catty.  I’ll make it up to you.”

            “I’m sure I can think of some way,” Damon said with a leer.

            Bryce leaned across the table, and kissed Damon lightly on the cheek.

            “I remember voting to allow you guys to dance together, but I don’t remember anything about kissing,” a voice surprised them from behind.

            Spinning around, a red-faced Bryce encountered a grinning Curtis.  Relieved, but still a little chagrined, he recovered sufficiently to respond, “Sure, it was in the fine print.  Didn’t you read the entire motion before voting on it?”

            “Seriously,” Curtis asked, “any negative repercussions for you guys so far?”

            “No.  But then not everyone is keeping an eagle eye on us, like someone I could mention.  Besides, I just got off door duty.  Haven’t had much time to get into trouble yet,” Bryce replied.

            “How about you, Damon?”

            “No problems.  I just started bar duty a couple of minutes ago,” the black brother said.

            “Okay.  If anything comes up, let me know,” Curtis insisted.

            “Sure,” Bryce assured him.  “And, Curtis, relax a little.  Everything is going fine.”

            Curtis gave him a grateful smile.

            As Damon was otherwise occupied, Bryce mingled for a while, passing a few words with first this, then that brother or guest.  After about half an hour, it occurred to him that he had not seen Marc Rimbault anywhere, so he began keeping an eye out for him.  Not long after, in one of the smaller rooms, he noticed Marc sitting alone, leafing through a magazine.  Bryce walked up to him.

            “Hi,” he said.

            Marc looked up with a forbidding mien, but then his face cleared.  “Oh, hi.  I thought you had forgotten me.”

            “Just got off door duty, and then got a drink,” Bryce explained, indicating his glass.  “Aren’t you drinking?” he asked, seeing nothing nearby.

            “My sister doesn’t like it when I drink.  She said I’m the designated driver, which is nonsense, as we walked over here,” Marc replied.

            “Are you the only guy in the entire world who does everything his sister tells him?” Bryce enquired.

            Marc finally smiled.  “Shit!  Where’s the bar?”

            “This way,” Bryce steered him back towards the proper location and Damon.

            “What are you having?” Marc asked.

            “Bourbon and Sprite,” Bryce replied.  “I know,” he responded to the look Marc gave him, “but I’m the one drinking it, and I like that combination.”

            They reached the bar, and Bryce introduced Marc to Damon.  “Marc is in my French class, and he’s having a rough time this evening, so I think he deserves a bit of my special cache,” he told the bartender.

            Damon grinned, and reached under the table, bringing out the Makers.  He gave Marc an enquiring look.

            “Not Sprite,” Marc replied.  “Diet Coke.”

            Bryce laughed as Damon poured.  “Just as bad,” he proclaimed.

            “Not quite,” Marc grinned back at him.

            The two moved off, as others were approaching the bar.  They found a couple of chairs in a quieter room.  Quieter than the main assembly room, but not really quiet at all.  After trying to carry on a conversation, and having to shout, Bryce said, “This is ridiculous.  Come with me.”  He led Marc to the basement lounge, where DuBois Kennedy had taken him and Damon when they first toured the house.  There, they found three brothers watching a sports competition on the television, which was not turned up all that loud so as not to attract unwanted attention.  Bryce and Marc settled to one side, where they could talk without yelling.

            Over the next hour, they shared a great deal about each other, just getting acquainted, beginning with the French course.  Yes, Marc could converse in French, so they did, just in case anyone else was listening, but Bryce noted a different accent.  Enquiries about that led to the history of the Rimbault family in condensed form.

            “Ever heard of Fort Vincennes?” Marc asked.

            “Not that I can recall right off,” Bryce replied.

            “French foundation in what is now Indiana.  Passed into British hands in 1763.  Captured by George Rogers Clark in 1779 during the American Revolution.  The French there did not like the British, and so joined the American cause.  Formed their own militia unit.  One of those militiamen was Henri Rimbault, my ancestor.  His son moved from Vincennes to Portland, now a part of Louisville, but when that area got swamped by Irish laborers come to work on the canal in the 1820s and 30s, my people moved again, this time to Louisiana.  St. Martinville.  Heard of Evangeline?”

            “Longfellow poem?  Sure,” Bryce replied.

            “I was thinking of the person, not the poem,” Marc said.

            “I didn’t know there was a real person behind the poem,” Bryce admitted.

            “Everyone in St. Martinville knows about her.  She’s buried there.  Damn British again.  Expulsion of the Acadians.  Mid eighteenth century, the British were persecuting the French in Acadia, what is now Nova Scotia in Canada, trying to force us to conform to the Church of England.  They met a lot of resistance, so simply expelled the people.  Broke up families.  Stuffed people in ships just like in the African slave trade.  A lot of the Acadians ended up in Louisiana, which was French territory at the time.  I’m Cajun, which is dialect for Acadian.”

            “Fascinating,” Bryce admitted.  “I’m studying history, and, in fact, this semester I’m in a class on eighteenth century Britain.  Maybe I can use this for a paper or something.”

            “Is that the class called Hanoverian Britain taught by Dr. Dickinson?” Marc asked.

            “Yeah.  How’d you guess?”

            “I was there for the first class this afternoon, but I don’t recall seeing you there,” Marc accused him.

            Bryce grinned.  “I’m Dr. Dickinson’s advisee.  I went by to see him on Wednesday, and he told me he would not be around today, and gave me the handouts early.”

            “Oh, teacher’s pet, eh?”

            “Only as long as I pull my load,” Bryce responded.  “By the way, some of us had a study group last semester.  It seemed to help on the exams.  Interested?”

            “Yeah, sure.  When do you meet?” Marc asked.

            “Well, it’s not organized yet.  I guess I really should have shown up today to find out who else might be interested.  But I’ll get on that on Monday.  You weren’t in the Stuart Period class last semester, and, come to think of it, not in the French class either,” Bryce noted.

            “Nor any other on this campus.  My dad’s company relocated him over the holidays, and, since I was not very happy where I was before, I came along.  Thought I’d try out U of C,” Marc elucidated.

            “That explains it,” Bryce acknowledged.  “You don’t seem any more popular in the French class than I am.”

            Marc laughed ruefully.  “As soon as some of those snobs heard my accent, they shut me out entirely.  St. Martinville is not good enough for them.  It has to be Paris.”

            “I heard them speak all last semester,” Bryce confided to his new friend.  “Believe me, some of them would never be understood in Paris.”

            “You’ve been to Paris?” Marc enviously enquired.

            “Yeah.  Once.  Between freshman and sophomore year in high school.  Family vacation,” he told the other guy.

            “Now I’m jealous.  We just get moved around to places like Houston and Topeka and Dubuque.  Nothing wrong with those places, but they’re not Paris,” Marc commented.

            “Don’t give up.  Someday you’ll make it,” Bryce encouraged him.

            “Ah ha!  There you are!” Damon said, standing before them with his hands on his hips.

            “Oh, hi, Damon.  I thought you were working the bar,” Bryce said.

            “I was, but I was not condemned to life.  My stint ended nearly twenty minutes ago, and I have been looking for you ever since.  We were supposed to meet next to the portrait of our noble founder for the next dance,” Damon proclaimed.

            “Oh, Geez!  I lost track of the time,” Bryce apologized.

            “Obviously.  Get your ass in gear, Boyfriend.”

            “Dance?  Boyfriend?” Marc queried, looking confused.

            “Sorry, Marc.  I guess we never got around to that side of me.  I hope it doesn’t put you off, but I’m gay, and Damon is my boyfriend,” Bryce asserted.

            “Damn straight!” Damon proclaimed, then looked confused.  That did not seem the right way to phrase it under the circumstances.

            Marc said nothing, but just sat there staring.

            “Um, see you later ... I hope,” Bryce said, as he departed with Damon.

            Bryce danced a slow dance with Damon, at which time Mike Sandoval and David Simpson joined them.  There were a few unfriendly comments, but nothing serious in the way of a reaction from the party-goers.  A little later, Damon again danced with Kitty, and put on such a spectacular show that everyone cleared the way for them and clapped and shouted their approval.  But Marc did not make an appearance anywhere Bryce was located for the remainder of the night.  He learned later that his sister and her date escorted an inebriated Marc out of the building a couple of hours after Bryce last saw him.