Free American Fraternity Man by Nathan Holic Page A

shouted.
    “I’ve explained this to you!” I said, trying to keep my voice down.
    Jenn approaching now, cranberry-vodka in hand, her crew of sorority friends fanning out behind her with looks of mild puzzlement. As she passed the tall man in the gray slacks, I noticed that his drink was empty now, too; he was standing in a static line, eating ice cubes, eyebrows raised in frustration.
    “Why don’t we just use the plastic utensils to scoop it out?” my mother asked.
    “That’ll have to do,” Edwin said. “No other option.”
    “Charles, just grab some spoons and forks ,” my father said. “It won’t be pretty, but it’s better than nothing.”
    “I’d prefer to use a serving spoon,” I said. “It’s got to be around here.”
    “Charles. We’re hungry. A plastic fork will work.”
    “I can find it. The event deserves better.”
    “It’s going to get cold, Charles.”
    The long, long line—over a hundred people by now, parents, children, all the khaki shorts and polo shirts and button-downs and ties and jean skirts and white pants, all of my fraternity brothers holding Heineken bottles, everyone pulled in from the living room and the courtyard and the game room—they were all looking at him now. My father. They knew what was happening, and what they saw was this: little Charles, the supposed president, rummaging around, panicked, an empty plastic bag in one hand. Parents looking at my father as if he was the sensible one, as if…as if…who the hell was I ? Why couldn’t I just clear out of the way and let the man do his job? As if my father had planned this event, as if I was his mere assistant. For fuck’s sake, let us eat !
    “Fine,” I said. “Plastic utensils.”
    And a cheer arose from the crowd. “All right !” one man yelled.
    “Teamwork,” Edwin said, clapped my father’s back. “Nice work, Mr. Washington.”
    My father opened the Ziploc bag of plastic utensils, dumped them out on the table beside our now-silly-looking glass bowls of barbecue sauce. And even though my father had been first in line, he stepped aside, motioning for the next couple to fill their plates, and as they stepped past him en route to pulled pork, they smiled and thanked my father, and he waited until the very end, a hundred people, two hundred, after the last couple—who shook his hand and called him a gentleman—before he finally stepped back into place in front of the pulled pork tub. But before doing so, he turned to me and said, “Come and grab something to eat, Charles,” the same voice that any of the parents in the room would have used to reprimand a 10-year-old. And he didn’t move to fill his own plate until I’d done so.
    *
    After dinner ended—only scraps of pork and burnt toast left at the tables, a line of trash bags stuffed with sloppy plastic plates and used silverware—it was time for the academic awards presentation, and then the cake. And, of course, the lavalier.
    This was my farewell, my personal send-off, a memory that I hoped I could keep close for the full summer of training and then sixteen weeks of Fall travel and then sixteen weeks of Spring travel, like baby pictures in a grown man’s wallet. This would be another Alumni Ball moment for me, my final bow. My night redeemed.
     

CHAPTER FIVE: After-Dinner Drinks .
     
    “Your attention!” I shouted to the room, and there seemed to be a great deal of wobbling in the fraternity house by now. Mothers holding glasses of wine, hands on their husbands’ shoulders. Fathers leaning against walls, bellies swollen from an ill-advised second or third trip to the buffet, a quarter-pound of extra brisket and four ribs too many, and still finishing another bottle of Heineken. Everyone engaged in sedated post-dinner conversations throughout the house, swirling as they talked, spilling beer and white wine.
    “Your attention, please!” I said again, and now Jenn was standing five feet in front of me. Seeing her was a reminder: I was