Bryce

The Second Semester

Chapter 8 - A Busy Twenty-four Hours

            There seemed to be an awful lot of things going on, and Bryce was not at all confident he was up to snuff with all of them.  There were his classes, of course, but that seemed to be going fairly well, with no unexpected hitches.  But he had become embroiled in the controversies revolving around the GLBT Club, and even allowed himself to be elected to office in that organization, and felt completely out of his depths there.  In addition, he had promised to be available to several guys who seemed to want to talk, including David Simpson, Jason Todd, and now Marc Rimbault.  How did he let himself get involved so much, and so early in the semester?  And that was not even counting his involvement in his fraternity, Sigma Alpha Tau, where he had several good friends.  Most importantly, it was not counting his continuing relationship with his boyfriend, Damon Watson.  He certainly did not want that relationship to suffer because of his many other commitments.  He would have to check in frequently, to make certain things did not get away from him.

            Bryce soon discovered that being Secretary of the GLBT Club was not a once a month job.  He was expected to put in some time at the GLBT desk in the student union, just in case anyone came by asking for information or referral to someone who could help with a specific problem.  So, on Friday after leaving his English class, where he turned in his proposal for a term paper on Johnson’s take on the question of evil, Bryce was met by Gary Woodson, the Club President, who showed him the ropes as far as manning the desk was concerned.  There were a number of pamphlets available to hand out to enquirers, as well as numbers to be called for specific services.  Bryce noted that Father Miller, at the Newman Center, was listed as available for counseling to students having questions about Catholicism and homosexuality.  He had not been as unique last semester as he thought.  Gary also handed Bryce a handful of mail which he had retrieved from the campus post office, but informed him that henceforth it was his responsibility to check once each day for anything in the Club’s campus box.  He gave Bryce a slip of paper on which was written the Club’s campus box number and the combination.  He was to guard that carefully, as last year the Club’s mail box had been vandalized when some unauthorized person got a hold of the combination.  The same was true of the desk, which was the Club’s ‘office,’ its official presence on campus.  Bryce was given a key, which allowed him access to the various drawers, but told not to let that out of his possession, as, once again, the Club’s stationery and stacks of pamphlets had been vandalized in the past.  Bryce was surprised, and asked whether this harassment was constant.

            “It’s only a small minority who do things like that,” Gary replied, “but it is a nuisance.  Of course, we would have to actually catch someone in the process in order to do anything about it.  No, it does not happen every day.  Not even every week.  But it does happen, so be prepared.”

            Among the other mail, Bryce discovered a response from the office of the Vice-President for Student Affairs to the letter he had written, and Gary had signed, following the meeting on Tuesday.  It was a rather reluctant admission that the Club had not been involved in Monday’s disturbances, but a reference to the small margin by which the moderates prevailed showed that the Club remained a cause of concern to the Administration.  Looking this over, Gary decided there had to be a meeting of the Executive Committee (ExCom), i.e., the four officers and the three at-large members, on Saturday.  Bryce was given a list of the phone numbers and IM and e-mail addresses of the other members of the committee, and told to contact them.  It was also expected that the Administration would make an announcement concerning the futures of the demonstrators and their attackers later that day.  In this manner, Bryce discovered that there was much more to being Secretary than taking minutes once a month.

            Gary remained talking with Bryce during most of the eleven to twelve hour.  Not long after noon, Damon appeared bearing lunch, and spent the lunch hour with his boyfriend at the desk.  During that time, Jason Todd made a brief appearance, asking about another opportunity to talk.  Bryce agreed to meet with him on Saturday after his Club meeting and lunch.  That was his only “business” however, and for the remainder of the period he and Damon talked.  This was not a Friday when SAT had a party planned, so maybe they would have dinner at El Rincon Latino and then take in a party at one of the other fraternities.  Mike Sandoval came by briefly, to inform Bryce that he would make the GLBT ExCom meeting on Saturday morning.  He was not working that evening, as his fraternity was sponsoring a party.  His brother Kyle, under the guise of Carlos,  would take good care of them at the restaurant, but only if they promised to come to his party afterwards.  Thus it was agreed on the evening’s schedule.

            Damon left to assure their usual seats for himself and Bryce in Dr. Harris’s Biology lecture, while Bryce waited for his replacement at the desk.  At the very last minute, with Bryce already in jacket and gloves, Larry Guthrie came running up, apologizing with some elaborate story.  Bryce simply handed him the desk key and ran for his class, sliding into his seat only seconds after the professor began.  Damon looked more annoyed with him than did Dr. Harris, but all Bryce could do was shrug his shoulders and get out his notebook.  After that, the class was without incident.

            From Biology, Bryce made his way to Filson Hall and his History lecture with Dr. Dickinson.  By this time, they had made their way from the death of Queen Anne in August of 1714 to the arrival in England for the first time in his life on 18 September of Georg Ludwig, Herzog von Braunschweig und Lueneburg, called the Elector of Hanover, the nearest Protestant heir under the Act of Settlement, although this involved passing over more than 50 Catholics more closely related to the late Queen.  Over a year later, on 23 December 1715, the Jacobite contender for the crown, James Francis Edward Stuart, landed in Scotland, but disagreements among his supporters resulted in an unsuccessful campaign.  James retired to the continent, eventually to the Palazzo Muti in Rome, while his rival, King George, secured the Protestant Succession.

            In addition to finding the material exciting, Bryce had another reason for attendance at this class.  Here, too, as in English, it was time to turn in his proposed term paper topic.  In an effort to get as much advantage from being in both this class and the Johnson class in English, Bryce proposed a topic related to Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).  In this case, he proposed a comparative study of the two chief figures in the Church of England during the Hanoverian period, Johnson, the stout defender of the high church Anglicans, and John Wesley (1703-1791), the most influential figure in the Evangelical movement.

            After class, it was time for the first meeting of the History study group.  Bryce had been assigned the responsibility for getting the group organized again this semester.  Dr. Dickinson’s tests, it appeared, would all be on Mondays this term, but the Thursday slot claimed last semester was not available as far as Bryce was concerned, as the English study group had pre-empted them.  No one wanted to meet on a Friday evening, which was usually regarded as party time on campus.  Bryce discovered, however, that the room in which their class met was free for the remainder of the day on Fridays, and so had, with Dr. Dickinson’s help, reserved it for a period of three hours, from three to six, giving them a place and a more or less acceptable time for their meetings.  In addition to Bryce himself, there were many carry-overs from last semester, including Jack Datillo, his fraternity brother, Ashley Potts, and Derek Walker, who barely managed to scrape by last semester.  Kathy Hunter, who had been in class but not in the study group last semester, indicated an interest in joining them this term.  And, of course, there was Marc Rimbault, the new guy, whose relationship with Bryce was anything but clear.

            From the moment he re-entered the room following their break after class, Marc seemed determined to get Bryce’s goat.  There were snide comments, such as expecting a crucifix on the wall in any classroom where Bryce was involved.  When they decided to discuss the Uprising of the Fifteen, Marc noted that Bryce would naturally side with the Catholic Stuarts.  When discussing the personality of James Francis Edward, the “Old Pretender,” Bryce noted that most accounts describe him as delicate, and it was his health which delayed his appearance in Scotland in 1715.  Marc responded that his poor health was probably a result of being raised in a convent atmosphere.  At first, Bryce attempted to pass these comments off as a joke, but when they continued, he simply ignored them.  He did not feel that he should use his authority as organizer to shut Marc up, as his comments were mostly directed at Bryce personally.  This kind of snipping continued for over an hour, until the first break they took, allowing those who wished to visit the restrooms or grab a coke from a vending machine.

            Out in the corridor, Marc suddenly found himself slammed up against a wall.  “Hey!  What the fuck?”

            “That’s what we want to know,” Jack Datillo said into his face.  “Ever since you walked into the room you’ve been giving off with the little put downs aimed at Bryce.  Maybe you don’t know it yet, since you weren’t here last semester, but Bryce is the one who got this study group started.  We owe him a lot.  He contributes a lot more than he gets out of it, I’m sure.  Now, just what’s your beef with Bryce?”

            “I find his altar boy attitude sickening.  Everything is related to his fucking Catholic religion.  Like who gives a fuck if the king is Catholic or not?” Marc replied, attempting unsuccessfully to free himself from Jack’s grasp.

            “You weren’t around last semester, when a whole lot of people gave a fuck.  Didn’t you do any background reading?  But it seems to me you’re the one who is constantly bringing up the Catholic side of things, not Bryce.  We all know Bryce is Catholic, and that’s not a problem for any of us.  What is it with you?”

            “He’s just so damned sure of himself,” Marc replied.

            “Well, whatever it is, it seems to be something personal between you and Bryce.  We can’t have your stupid comments distracting us from the material every couple of minutes.  Remember, this is a voluntary study group.  You have no right to attend.  If it gets to the point where your pettiness becomes a problem for the rest of us, we’ll just vote you out of the group.  If you want to do some studying about the course, fine, but if you’re just here to take potshots at Bryce, then don’t come back,” Jack made his intentions clear.

            About that time, Bryce stuck his head out the door.  “Hey, guys!  Ready to start up again?”

            A much subdued Marc took his place among the others.  Bryce later commented that he did not know what made the difference, but the atmosphere was much better in the second portion of that day’s session than in the first.

            Following the study session, Bryce reconnected with Damon back at the dorm, and the two made their way downtown to the Sandoval family restaurant, El Rincon Latino.  They were pleased when Isobel Sandoval recognized them and informed them that Mike had called to reserve a table for them.  Sometimes on a Friday evening it got crowded, and a little “in” with the management came in handy.  No sooner were they seated than Mike’s younger brother appeared at their side.

            “Buenos tardes, señores.  ¿Como estan los amigos de mi hermoso?

            “Tam bien, Carlos,” Bryce replied, “and that about exhausts my supply of Spanish.”

            Kyle turned to Damon, and continued in Spanish, “You’re not doing a very good job of acculturating your partner.  I suggest that we communicate only in Spanish this evening.”

            Damon got a big grin across his face.  “Excellent idea!  He’s been getting entirely too full of himself lately, so we need to knock him down a notch or two.”

            “What would the gentlemen like to drink?” Kyle/Carlos asked.

            “I’ll have a coke,” Damon said.  Turning to Bryce, he began babbling in Spanish, and making hand gestures indicating drinking.”

            “Oh, I get it,” Bryce sighed.  “Only Spanish, eh?”

            “Si, si!” Damon replied.

            “I guess I’ll have coke, too,” Bryce conceded, which Damon then translated into Spanish for Carlos.

            The real surprise came after Carlos left to fill their drink order.  Damon refused to switch back into English, insisting on speaking only Spanish and making gestures.  That continued throughout their meal, with Carlos and Damon exchanging lengthy comments, and Bryce limited to si or no.  He got his revenge, however, when it came time to pay the bill.  Damon was so accustomed to Bryce paying for everything by this time, that it had not occurred to him to consider how that would be handled in Spanish.  When Carlos presented him with the bill, he just looked at it and announced, “no comprendo.”  None of the Spanish explanations or gestures moved him in the least, so finally, Carlos and Damon gave each other a disgusted look, and Carlos carefully explained in English for the Gringo that he was expected to pay the bill.  Despite this concession the two conspirators seemed very pleased with themselves, with Carlos telling Damon to be sure to inform his brother Miguel of the experiment.

            They arrived at the fraternity house where Mike Sandoval and his partner, David Simpson, were members after a good deal of mutual complaining and joking back and forth.  At the door, they encountered David checking IDs and collecting entrance fees from non-members.  Bryce poneyed up for both of them, but informed David that he had better became fluent in Spanish if he wanted his relationship with Mike to flourish.  “These Hispanophiles sneak up on you when you’re not looking,” he informed a mystified David, and then walked in without explanation.  Damon shrugged his shoulders.  “Some problem only intellectuals have, I guess,” he murmured as he followed his boyfriend in.

            Inside, the two found many friends and acquaintances, including Kitty Jansen and Caroline Koehler, who came together as, they said, they could not count on their escorts, which caused both Bryce and Damon to blush and apologize for their thoughtlessness.  Caroline immediately began to inform Bryce of the upcoming attractions being offered by the School of Music, and, when she had temporarily exhausted that topic, quizzed him on whether he had kept up with his karate over the Christmas break.  “You looked pretty pathetic on Tuesday, you know.  I hope we don’t have to start all over from the beginning.”

            While this was going on, Damon found an opportunity to inform both Kitty and Mike about the torment he and Mike’s brother had put Bryce through at dinner.  Being honest, he admitted it had faltered when it came to paying, but the scheme greatly amused them all through the meal.  These three gathered up Bryce and Caroline, and began speaking in Spanish.  Bryce gave Damon a very hard look, but the others were laughing so hard at having finally found something Bryce wasn’t able to get around that he gave in any joined in the laughter.  That allowed the others to have their joke, but prevented it from consuming the entire evening.

            Part of the way through the evening, David Simpson approached Bryce.  “You remember the talk we had back when the semester was getting started?” he began.

            “You mean about your terrible experiences at Christmas?  I hope things have improved,” Bryce commiserated.

            “No improvement on the home front,” David admitted.  “But I had in mind your comments about how to read the Bible.  What can I believe, and what reject?  I’ve talked with Mike about this, especially after last Sunday, when you guys had that real loser for a priest.  But he says he just knows some things are right and others are wrong, without being able to explain it very well.  He suggested maybe you could help.”

            “David, I’ll be glad to be any help I can, but obviously not at a party like this.”

            “No, of course not, but I was thinking maybe some time tomorrow we could get together,” David replied.

            Bryce considered his Saturday.  GLBT ExCom in the morning.  Meet Jason Todd after lunch.  He had intended to spend some time in the library, but David’s questions needed attention.  “Okay, how about late afternoon, say around three-thirty or four?”

            “You’re on, and thanks,” David agreed.

            Later when the music provided an opportunity, Damon led Kitty out to put on a demonstration, as he had been doing at parties lately.  To their surprise, another black guy and his partner, also black, joined them, challenging them.  This presented an interesting situation, in which Damon and Kitty more or less alternated with the other pair, putting on a show and daring the other couple to beat it.  The entire party became involved, cheering, commenting, and making challenging comments, with the competition lasting for over twenty minutes.  By some kind of unspoken communication, the two couples joined to bring the contest to a close, all four of them breathing heavily.  The house gave them extended applause and many cheers, as they bowed over and over.

            Afterwards, Damon and Kitty made the acquaintance of the other two dancers, agreeing that they were evenly matched.  The other guy was named Tony Barker, and was a sophomore Business major, while his partner was Darlene Minor, also sophomore, and an Elementary Education major.  They talked for some time, with several others, including Bryce, being introduced in the process.

            A little later, Bryce asked Damon, “Did you tell Tony you were gay?”

            “No,” Damon replied, “but then he did not tell me he was straight, either.”

            “Touché,” Bryce conceded.

            The next morning, Bryce and Damon had to be up before the crack of dawn.  This was a Saturday when the Sigma Alpha Tau fraternity carried out one of its civic duties by picking up trash along the highway leading to the airport.  It was still more than an hour before sunrise as they gathered at the fraternity house for transportation to the site.  Fortunately, in addition to flashlights, the highway itself was well lighted.  There was a good deal of grumbling, but they put in more than two hours of public service.  Back at the house, there was hot coffee and pastries of various sorts awaiting them.  After slaking their hunger and thirst, and warming up some, Damon went back to the dorm to catch a few more hours of sleep.  Bryce, however, had his GLBT Executive Committee meeting, so, after a brief stop at the dorm to pick up his computer, he made his way to the student union, where a conference room had been reserved for that purpose.

            Arriving prior to the 10:00 a.m. meeting time, Bryce was able to get settled and power up his laptop so he could take notes.  He also wanted to show off stationery he had designed for the Club, with a rainbow in the upper left corner, the logo GLBT Club in large bold capitals, and the smaller case expanded title, The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Club of the University of Clifton, beneath that.  He thought it looked pretty good, and so printed out a sheet for each of the others expected to attend.  As members began to arrive, Bryce made certain he knew who each was.  He was well acquainted with Mike Sandoval, of course, and to a lesser extent with Gary Woodson, but not so much with the others.  Felicity Gaines was the woman elected to fill the vice-presidency after Josh Young walked out.  She was a lively and articulate brunette, a junior Sociology major, who was delighted with Bryce’s stationery.  The treasurer, by contrast, was a dour, washed-out looking fellow, with thick glasses and long greasy blond hair named Paul Freiling.  He took one look at Bryce’s stationery, handed it back, and commented that he hoped Bryce did not expect the Club to pay for his printing costs.  The other two at-large members besides Mike were Gayle Swinford, a very serious looking senior English major, and Scott Huong, a junior Physics major of Vietnamese extraction.  The last person to arrive was the faculty member who Bryce recognized at the meeting on Tuesday.  Since then he had learned that this was Dr. Conrad Westover, a member of the Department of English, who taught, among other courses, one called Queer Theory.  Bryce was somewhat offended when he found out about this by checking the offerings in that department, but evidently that was the correct term for a facet of literature.  A reading of the course description in the University catalogue did not help much as far as figuring out what was taught.

            The meeting was opened by President Woodson, who commented favorably on Bryce’s stationery, so he felt vindicated, even though he had no intention to charging the Club for printing.  The focus of the meeting was on the announcement, made late the previous afternoon, by the Vice-President for Student Affairs concerning the students involved in the demonstration on Monday, and their attackers.  Eight students were expelled from the University, six of whom were among the demonstrators.  These included the four who engaged in public sex and two who were involved in hacking into and tempering with University records.  The other two students expelled were among the most violent of the attackers, who not only inflicted significant injury on some of the demonstrators, but also attacked Campus Security when they arrived.  Twelve other demonstrators and the other five attackers were suspended, i.e., were expelled for the semester only, but would be allowed to return in the following semester.  The remaining protesters were placed on probation.

            There was considerable discussion about what the response of the GLBT Club should be to this Administrative decision.  Everyone felt there was some injustice in the assignment of punishments, but just where, and what to do about it, took over an hour to decide.  During the debates, Bryce managed to remain quiet for the most part, busily taking minutes.  He discovered that Dr. Westover was in sympathy with the more radical elements who had walked out on Tuesday, and tended to see prejudice and discrimination everywhere.  That made Bryce uneasy.  In the end, however, as most of the officers were moderates, a statement was adopted with which Bryce felt comfortable.  They decided not to question the expulsions, but to protest the placing of peaceful demonstrators on the same basis as violent attackers.  They maintained that the twelve protestors suspended should not be given the same penalty as those who inflicted personal damage on fellow students.  It was the right of everyone to peacefully demonstrate, and any damage done to the lobby of the University Center was incidental, possibly even a result of the attacks on the demonstrators, not of the demonstration itself.  Therefore, the ExCom petitioned the University Administration to reduce the penalty of all demonstrators other than the six expelled to probation for disrupting normal University business.

            Bryce discovered in the files he inherited from the previous secretary a list of campus organizations with e-mail addresses.  He suggested that a copy of the ExCom resolution be sent to all these organizations as well as to the Vice-President for Student Affairs.  That suggestion was adopted, so he drafted the formal response on his Club stationery, and had Gary Woodson sign it, but then began sending copies to all the other organizations.  That brought home to him the need to put together a mailing list, so he did not have to send each separately, but that could be done over the weekend.

            As Bryce exited the meeting, he noted that it was past 11:30.  In a short time, he and Damon would have lunch, then he would be meeting with Jason Todd.  Looking back, the past twenty-four hours had been busy ones, and the rest of the day looked almost as crowded.