The week beginning Tuesday, August 31, and running through Tuesday, September 7, had been designated ‘Rush Week’ by the Pan-Hellenic Council, which regulated fraternity and sorority affairs on the University of Clifton campus. This schedule was adopted in large part at the request of the new President of the Council, Curtis Manning. As President of Sigma Alpha Tau, Curtis was automatically the fraternity’s representative on the Council, and the Council elected its presiding officer at its first meeting each academic year. Curtis told Bryce that he thought he was elected in a sympathy vote, as news of the harassment he was receiving from the Vice-President for Student Affairs in the matter of Bick Lomax and Mack Campbell had made its way onto the campus gossip circuit. In theory, the Vice-President for Student Affairs was the campus support officer for the Council, but there was little love lost between the two in practice, mostly because the VPSA constantly attempted to dictate the decisions of the Council, making it into an arm of the Administration. The students were having none of that.
What all this meant in practice was that on that Tuesday various fraternities and sororities set up booths or tables, some in the University Center, some on the quad, some in both places, to inform students about who they were and what they did. This was the preliminary to having various students fill out forms, seeking to pledge these Greek social organizations. There would also be open houses at the fraternities and sororities, probably a party sometime during the week, and then, on the last Tuesday of the week, a vote at the fraternity or sorority to determine which hopefuls would be accepted as pledges. That was only the beginning, but as Bryce and Damon learned last year, an essential part of the process of joining one such organization.
This was a very time consuming activity. Not only did those booths have to be set up, they also had to be manned, and not just for one day, like that of various clubs on registration day, but for a week. In addition, there was the open house most afternoons and evenings, and a party of some sort to organize and pull off. This meant that very little else got accomplished that week.
In addition to the activities of Sigma Alpha Tau, Curtis Manning also had to be concerned with the activities of the Pan-Hellenic Council. There were certain rules adopted by the Council which all Greek social organizations were expected to follow during rush week. For example, while it was perfectly okay for a fraternity to claim it was the best, it was not permitted that it run down another fraternity by name. Likewise, there were the university-wide regulations which prohibited university recognized organizations from discriminating in the selection process based on race, religion, place of origin, or sexual orientation. Of course, fraternities were allowed to recruit only males, and sororities only females. There were also other considerations, such as organizations which recruited members only from certain fields of interest. There was a fraternity which recruited only members of athletic teams, and another which recruited only students majoring in some discipline in the School of Business Administration. There were also two “historically black” fraternities, which were in theory not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, but in one case “it just happened” that there were only black members.
All this meant that Curtis was extremely busy this week. He said he could not survive it without Maddy being there every night to comfort him. He did not know how unmarried persons survived, he said. Matt Bostick commented that one did not have to be married to have that kind of comforting. Curtis just gave him a withering look.
But Curtis also made it plain that he was going to be calling on the members of SAT for a lot of help at both the fraternity and the Council levels. Every effort was made not to interfere with classes, but schedules were crowded. On that first Tuesday, Bryce cut his gym short, and he and Damon had cold cereal for breakfast, then rushed to campus to help set up a booth on the quad. This is the large open green area surrounded by the older buildings of the University at the heart of the campus. They were able to help for only a short time before heading off to their Art History class, but when it was over at 10:30, they were back at the booth, where Damon remained until his Spanish class at 1:00, and Bryce until his Renaissance class at 1:30. They were brought food from the concessions on the basement level of the Union by another member of the fraternity.
After class, Damon put in three more hours at the booth, and Bryce overlapped with him from the time he got out of class at 3:00 until closing time. The booths on the quad shut down around five o’clock. Having put in so much time already, they were free from then until the fraternity business meeting at 7:30 that evening.
Bryce and Damon were by far not the only members of SAT who had put in long hours that Tuesday. In addition to there being always two brothers at the booth on the quad at all times, there was also an SAT table in the Union which had to be manned, someone had to be at the house to answer questions from hopefuls, and Curtis called on his brothers to help with Council business as needed. Hence, it was a somewhat bedraggled and exhausted group which assembled for the business meeting.
Sigma Alpha Tau was not expected to hold open house on the evening when it held its usual business meeting, and, of course, the same was true for all the other fraternities and sororities. Still, the house had been open all afternoon, which meant that brothers had to be there to greet and explain. And interested students tended to show up in the evening, not realizing that a meeting was going on. Kurt Bordenkircher and his staff were kept busy guarding the doors of the assembly room to prevent a casual student from wandering in during the business meeting.
At the meeting, everything was pretty low key. As far as anyone could tell, the first day of rush week went off well for SAT. There were plenty of enquiries, and some very promising ones. To the considerable satisfaction of Beau Lyle, his cousin Roland, and also Roland’s partner John Luke Lansing, had shown up at the booth in the Union, and signed applications. Bryce had also been pleased to accept the application of Nate Hagan earlier that day. He was also pleased to see Jason Todd in attendance at the business meeting for the first time that semester.
A real conundrum occurred at the booth in the Union late in the afternoon. It was being manned by Matt Bostick and Canning Grey at the time. Mack Campbell, Bick Lomax, and Buck Lomax turned up, and all three insisted on filling out forms of application for membership. Matt and Canning were sophomores, like Bryce and Damon, and had no idea what to do about that, so they accepted the forms and added them to the pile they were accumulating. Buck’s application was undoubtedly valid, but the status of an application from someone who had previously been excluded from the fraternity presented a constitutional quandary. A weary Curtis appointed a committee of three brothers, all of whom were pre-law majors, to consult with the fraternity advisor on this matter.
And all this was only the first day.
On Wednesday, Curtis recruited DuBois Kennedy to check on a fraternity which was suspected of discouraging a possible recruit on racial grounds. DuBois was paired with a white brother from another fraternity to investigate the complaint. Curtis also asked Bryce whether he could recommend a gay brother from another fraternity to be half of a team sent to investigate a complaint that another fraternity was discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryce recommended Mike Sandoval, for which Mike did not thank him later. His dissatisfaction was not the fact the Mike was now known to Curtis as gay, but rather the difficulty of dealing with guys who clearly did not want a gay guy in their fraternity, but could not say so. A difficult situation was the complaint of a student of Hispanic origin who claimed that she was being discouraged from applying to a sorority on the basis of place of origin. The student had been born in Mexico, but claimed that she was a legal US citizen. Curtis shamelessly imposed on his wife, Maddy, to serve on this investigative team.
During the week, Bryce became aware of several “little brothers” applying for membership in SAT. In addition to the well publicized application of Buck Lomax, it seems that Keith Hamilton, Scott Huong, DuBois Kennedy, Kitty Jansen, and Sean Rollins all had little brothers, freshmen this year, who expressed an interest in SAT. Keith and DuBois were brothers, so that was understandable, but Scott was a fellow member of the LGBT Executive Committee with Bryce, and Kitty Jansen was Damon’s regular dance partner at parties. Sean Rollins was one of the renters in the carriage house at the Caldwell place who seemed to be avoiding Bryce. These applications interested Bryce, who had been appointed to the committee to scrutinize all applications for membership in SAT. There was nothing in any of them indicating any reason to reject the application out of hand, so they were put into the hopper with all the others.
Still another interesting application came from Kevin Weatherington, the sophomore in Bryce’s medieval England class who had to adjust his work schedule in order to meet the study group on Wednesday afternoons. Bryce wondered whether he would have time for SAT activities, but that was not his decision to make, and there was also no reason to reject the application, so it, too, went into the bundle of those applying to become a pledge of Sigma Alpha Tau.
On Wednesday, too, there was the first meeting of the study group for the medieval England class, but that had nothing to do with rush week, and Bryce was more than a little abstracted when calling the meeting to order. Fortunately, Roland was also there, and explained something of the circumstances to the other students, so they would not judge him a complete idiot. Bryce snapped out of it long enough to share the book 1066 and All That with the group, and explain that Dr. Dickinson was having a joke at their expense when he cited it in class. Some of the students did not appreciate that, but others thought it a real howler. It’s a shame some people have no sense of humor. The problem seemed to be that appreciating the humor in this case involved a knowledge of real English history, and some did not have the qualifications.
Later that evening, Bryce and Damon were at the Sigma Alpha
Tau house for the open house. Students of all descriptions came through, some pretty obviously only wanting to cadge a drink at someone else’s expense, but many seriously interested. One visitor who attracted the attention of both Damon and later Bryce was Kyle Sandoval. When Damon first encountered him, he asked, “Are you here to spy for the competition?”
“No, of course not!” Kyle responded, acting offended. “I just heard you guys were woefully short of Hispanic members, and thought I might be able to help you out.”
Damon thought that response was classic, and insisted on taking Kyle to find Bryce and repeat his answer. In fact, of course, Kyle would pledge the same fraternity his brother Mike was in, but no one objected to a little cross fertilization during rush week.
Bryce considered that there were, in fact, very few Hispanic members of SAT. That evening, he discussed that with Damon. Damon was always sensitive to the possibility of discrimination based on race or ethnicity, and so took Kyle’s comments seriously. There were two Hispanic members of SAT, neither of whom were close friends to Bryce or Damon. One was a football player, a former pledge of Kurt Bordenkircher, who was now one of his staff as sergeant-at-arms. The other was a party animal with an outgoing personality, but never seemed to have anything interesting to say to Bryce or Damon. They determined to have a good look at the prospective pledges, and make an effort to include at least one decent Hispanic.
As it happened, someone turned up the next day. On Thursday at the open house one of the members of Bryce’s medieval England study group walked in. This was a student named Chris Robles. Chris wandered in, more or less just checking out the place. Bryce happened to be on duty at the house, and noticed him. He greeted him.
“Hello, Chris. How’s it going?”
“Fine. Just visiting a couple of frats. My dad told me he could afford to pay a little extra this year, as his construction company was doing well, so I should make some important connections,” Chris reported with an amused smile across his face.
“We are definitely an important connection,” Bryce played along. “How about a drink?”
“I won’t refuse,” Chris said.
“Would I be stereotyping you if I asked for a tequila for you?” Bryce asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, you would. My family comes from Puerto Rico, not Mexico. And we’ve been here on the mainland for four generations. My folks live in Covington, so I’m a Kentuckian. I prefer Bourbon,” Chris replied.
“Geez, I really screwed that up,” Bryce apologized. “I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Come over to the bar. My partner, Damon, is acting as bartender at the moment, and he’ll get you what you want.”
“Partner, eh? I kind of thought that might be the case,” Chris said as he followed Bryce to the bar.
Bryce turned to face the other student. “Yes, I’m gay. If that’s a problem, maybe Sigma Alpha Tau is not the place for you.”
“Whoa!” Chris protested. “You’re jumping to conclusions again, man! I am not homophobic. My brother is gay. I was just making an observation.”
Bryce blushed. “I did it again. I apologize, Chris. I’m kind of tense, what with all the rush stuff and the classes and the study groups. I don’t usually screw up this badly. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted. Now, where is that bar?” Chris replied.
“Right over here,” Bryce said, leading his classmate to the appropriate location.
“Damon, this is Chris Robles. He’s in my English history class, and he needs a Bourbon,” Bryce said to the man behind the bar.
“Bourbon and what?” Damon asked.
“Bourbon and branch,” Chris replied.
Damon filled a glass with Old Forrester, a couple of ice cubes, and water, and handed it to Chris with a napkin. The glasses got cold.
“Can I do anything to redeem myself?” Bryce asked.
“Impossible,” Damon responded.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Bozo,” Bryce objected, but by then Damon was distracted by someone else wanting to be served, so he left Bryce and Chris to themselves.
“Yeah. Can we talk?” Chris responded.
“Sure. That’s why we have open house. But a crowded fraternity house is not the most appropriate place for anything serious,” Bryce added, thinking of Nate Hagan.
They wandered into one of the side rooms, and happened to catch two chairs just as some others moved out. They sat, and Bryce said, “Shoot. What’s on your mind?”
Chris smiled. His concern was quite different than Nate’s. “I’m acquainted with Mike and Kyle Sandoval. In fact, I have a job at their restaurant on a part-time basis. They told me about you guys at SAT, and, as I was thinking of joining a fraternity in keeping with my father’s advice, they told me to check you out. They said you are woefully lacking in Hispanics.”
Bryce laughed at this. “I was talking to Kyle about this just yesterday,” he admitted. “We do have Hispanic members, but maybe not as many as we should. Are you seriously interested, or like Kyle are you just stringing me along?”
“I’m assuming Kyle will go with the fraternity his brother is active with, but I think maybe it would be good to spread the blessings of Hispanic-dom around to others. In short, I’m interested,” Chris said.
Bryce laughed, and they then spent over half an hour discussing the fraternity, and how it was not acceptable to call it a frat, and what Chris might expect if he were accepted as a pledge. Of course, Chris also revealed more about himself. He had the grades to qualify. He was a History/Pre-Law major, and Dr. Howard’s advisee. He was like Bryce a sophomore. With a wry smile, he also said he would not need a loan to pay his fraternity initiation expenses. His father would see to that, as he wanted him to be the next generation to step up one more rank in the social scale, and belonging to an established fraternity, with connections to brothers and old boys across the country, was an important step in that direction. Chris’s father, Desi Robles, knew how the game was played.
After listening to Chris, Bryce decided, “You need to talk to Damon.”
“Hey, I’m straight,” Chris protested.
“I was not suggesting a hook-up. Damon and I are exclusive. But he might have some useful advice about social mobility, and he’s also in a Pre-Law curriculum, but in Political Science, not History,” Bryce responded.
“Sorry. I guess you’re not the only one jumping to conclusions this evening,” Chris apologized.
Damon was relieved of his duties at the bar about that time, and joined Bryce and Chris. He talked about jumping several stages, as far as social class was concerned, with his own ambition to become a lawyer despite growing up in a dysfunctional family in a public housing project. That made Chris take note, and see that his situation was not as unique as he thought. He was not as concerned about social standing as his father, but was pursuing a career in law because it interested him. Damon and Chris immediately found a good deal in common, and so a new friend was added to the list of Bryce and Damon’s acquaintances. Chris was assured of the support of these two brothers when the vote was taken next Tuesday on applications for admission to SAT.
Monday, September 6, was Labor Day. There were no classes. Students, especially new students, often felt at loose ends on that weekend. Curtis Manning had considered this when he proposed that rush week include the Labor Day weekend. The fraternities and sororities could give the new students something to do over this first extended weekend away from home.
On Saturday, all the prospective members of fraternities and sororities were encouraged to attend the home football game. Before the game, there were cook-outs at the various houses for those interested. The various organizations had their own sections of the bleachers, and did their best to out-yell everyone else in support of the home team. This was followed by parties and more cook-outs at selected fraternities and sororities. The Greek houses held open house in the evening, and there were several parties. Nothing was planned for Sunday morning, leaving that free for those who chose to attend some church service. But on Sunday afternoon there were various contests, including such things as tug-of-wars and three-legged races. Basically, things those who were not athletically gifted could also participate in. This was followed by a picnic type supper on the quad. Of course, the various houses held open house that evening, and, in most cases, all afternoon as well. Bryce and Damon managed to slip away to put in time at the soup kitchen, but they worked especially hard both before and after that. On Monday, which was Labor Day, more events were organized, including this time a serious forum in which a select group of the faculty advisors of the various fraternities and sororities formed a panel to discuss the spirit of Greek organizations, and the rules of the University which governed them. It was strongly emphasized that discrimination in recruiting on the basis of race, religion, place of origin, or sexual orientation was not allowed by University policy, regardless of what the local house’s national over-arching organization might permit. But, in addition, a series of contests were staged. There were soccer matches, touch football games, volleyball games, a baseball game, tennis matches, all coordinated with the University Athletic Department as far as the facilities and equipment were concerned.
On this occasion, Sigma Alpha Tau was one of the fraternities which offered a cook-out to prospective members, and, in reality, to just about any student who came by. This meant that some of the brothers had to be available all day, first of all to be hosts at the open house, then to prepare the cook-out and to serve it. Damon shone at the grill. He had spent time with Caroline Koehler in many intense consultations prior to this weekend, and obtained lots of advice on how to produce food which was both filling and tasty. The rumor mill, much to Damon’s delight, reported that his offerings were the most appreciated of any that Monday.
An incident that evening undoubtedly influenced the votes the next day. Buck Lomax bumped into Martin Kennedy while getting served at the grill. He responded with: “Watch it, Boy. We don’t need pushy blacks around here.” DuBois intervened, and told his brother to ignore the loudmouth, who would never be accepted in SAT anyway.
On Tuesday, the rush continued during the day, with the booths on the quad and in the Union still manned and active. But in the evening, all the various Greek organizations held meetings at which they voted on which prospects would be extended invitations to pledge. Bryce and Damon were pleased to have included among the SAT invitations those to Roland Lyle, John Luke Lansing, Nate Hagan, and Chris Robles. Also included were invitations to Malcolm Hamilton, George Huong, Martin Kennedy, Derek Jensen, and Tyler Rollins. These were the “little brothers” Bryce had noticed previously. Each had come across positively during rush week in contacts with various brothers. As far as Bryce was concerned, of these the most interesting was Tyler Rollins. He was the brother of the mysterious Sean Rollins who shared the carriage house at the Caldwell place, but who seemed determined to avoid meeting Bryce or Damon.
The meeting also resulted in some definite rejections. The special committee appointed by Curtis early in the process to advise the fraternity on the applications of Bick Lomax and Mack Campbell, reported its finding that, once these individuals had been ejected from the fraternity, they were no longer eligible to apply for membership. The resolution adopted on August 24 specifically rejected any readmission of those two. Hence, the applications of Bick and Mack were rejected. But so also was the application of Buck Lomax rejected. He had offended too many people with his arrogance and his prejudices during rush week. It was the consensus of the brothers that he would simply not fit into Sigma Alpha Tau as a brother. Of course, the brothers were prepared to face the ire of the rejected individuals, and in these cases also that of the Administration.
At the end of the meeting, Jason Todd was very appreciative of the support his partner received from Bryce and Damon in the voting.
The fraternal year was off to an interesting start.