One Over X News

The Curse (Installment 2)

As interesting as I may have found the story of Ted and The Curse it did not seem fair to me that I was chosen. I relented in my protests for the most part out of respect for an Eta Beta. What I had I done to deserve such a back-handed slap in the face was something that in truth I was fairly proud of. It was just that the whole story wasn’t known. I was certain that if I explained I would not be forced to bear the hydrogen bomb of all practical jokes and quite possibly the foulest smelling substance known to man?

”With all due respect for your choice, I can’t see why I deserve it.”

“You have earned it?”

“Earned it?”

“The Socks?” I had to play out the charade. I would never admit to having any knowledge of The Socks. That was my little secret. As far as I was concerned Greg had buried them and so they were gone.

“Don’t play that with me. You are the only one that would have done such a thing.”

“Look I admit that I had issues with every one of those self serving, self righteous, arrogant, bigoted mother…uh, well out of the bonds of my fraternal oath I will not call them what they deserve to be called.”

He cocked his head to one side, “There is a story that I suppose you feel that I need to hear.”

I entered into consideration my defense. I needed to set the record straight and explain what it was that had compelled me to seek revenge. In a moment of brilliance I had done what anyone with a master key and a pair of crusty, smelly sweat socks would have done.

But I am way ahead of myself. There is so much more to the story. You need all the details first.

It was the immediately previous summer, the one that bridged what felt like a void between my junior and senior years of college. I was not happy about the prospect of experiencing a string of lasts; last summer, last fall, and last spring before inevitably taking a place in the real world. In the fall I was scheduled to intern at the local TV station. I wanted to intern in production or engineering but I couldn’t until I had completed radio and television production coursework. Also I was still playing catch-up in an effort to improve my GPA and get a few other requirements out of the way as well.

I was staying in the fraternity so that I could attend summer school. It was the second consecutive summer for me. I was working part time for a local hi-fi store to help cover expenses and I had been recently elected to serve as the social director of the chapter for the upcoming fall. As the only chapter officer living in the house I was given a master key that unlocked every door in the fraternity and was charged with meeting with the campus Fire Marshall to inspect the rooms for safety and fire hazards on a monthly basis. It was the only way that the campus administration would permit twelve brothers to remain in the house over the summer.

It might seem an odd thing to stay at college year round but as a rule, I went home only for brief visits on vacations and breaks for holidays. Home was almost a four hour drive from West Lafayette. Back then that seemed like a very long drive.

The reason I stayed at school was not that I had a bad relationship with my parents. Nothing could have been further from the truth. They were always supportive. It was just that I could not seem to stay home for more than a few days at a time. Added to that, I had a job off campus. Anyway, I had not really lived with my folks since I was 14, so being in their house always felt strange to me, even if I was staying in what they called ‘my room’.

The only reason that I called it home was that my parents still lived there. Toward the end of that summer even that concept of home would change forever. At the outset of the summer I already knew that my parents were in the process of moving. By the end of the summer they were planning to have auctioned off all the things they had decided to part with. They had conditionally sold their farm in Ohio and were prepared to realize one of my father’s dreams, something that he had wanted for all his life, ever since as a young man he had read pulp Western magazines. My folks were moving to cowboy country, a.k.a. Texas.

I fully intended for that summer to be buckle-down time. I was going to get on the best possible terms with my professors and seek their recommendation for an internship at the local TV station. I knew that I would need that. There were very few openings and they were jealously and vigorously sought.

My professors already knew what I was all about so I needed to show a dramatic change in my approach and attitude. As talented as I was at engineering, producing, directing and editing audio and video I was also notoriously lazy and a horrendous procrastinator. I told myself that I did my best work at the last minute, that it was the pressure of urgency that drove me to success. The fact was that I cut a lot of corners and even if I made some brilliant decisions under fire if I had planned ahead and worked on a project for a even a few days instead of a few hours, I could have generated an incredible demonstration tape and would have had professors recommending me for internships without my having to ask.

That last summer had almost nothing to do with summer school. Instead it was all about hanging out with my fraternity brothers, going to some killer rock concerts down in Indianapolis, and generally enjoying being young and alive for what I was resigned to believe was the last summer of my freedom from toil. Still all that excitement was crammed into June and a good deal of it happened between spring semester and the onset of summer semester

I wasn’t seeing anyone socially. I had always been a loner. Even in high school I went on very few dates. In college my social life had improved though not dramatically. There had been Barb, Carmen, Denise and Lucy in my freshman year. When I a sophomore I had really dated no one but had gone out a time or two with Barb or Lucy. As a junior I used to meet with Barb quite a lot and I hung out with Dawn, my little sister from the fraternity's little sister program.

Barb had just graduated and as we had become fairly good friends over the years, I attended her ceremony. Barb introduced me to her parents and her brothers and then Barb was gone, off into the real world, promising that she would stay in touch which I really wanted to believe at the time but she never did.

Perhaps it was not until the moment of saying good-bye to someone that I had known for three years that the gravity of what was just ahead of me had finally set in. Despite all the serious intent, in the back of my mind I was frustrated that my extended adolescence would soon and inevitably have to end. I wanted to remain a kid forever.

Despite the few ladies that I had paid any passing attention to throughout college, I was never one to have a dazzling social life or even a full social calendar. My eclectic tastes in music were as prone to take me to a jazz concert in of Chicago as a rock concert in Indianapolis or a classical guitar concert on campus. Even s, if there was a concert that I wanted to see, I usually went to the concerts alone. I wasn't anti-social it was just that maybe I would ask someone and if they were busy it wouldn't prevent me from realizing my personal desire to see a particular artist perform. I even went to see movies alone.

I felt that it was ironic that my fraternity had voted me in as social director. It was intended as a spoof I think. Someone had nominated me as a joke and everyone had a good laugh. I had missed that chapter meeting and so I had learned never to miss a chapter meeting. When I learned that I was nominated I decided to teach the jokesters a lesson. I actively campaigned. I went to every brother's room and asked them what they wanted in the way of a social program for the chapter. I wanted to be an officer of the chapter and an agent for change. I never expected to be president or even vice president of the chapter. I would have been good at either job but I also knew that I had never been all that popular. Social director would look good enough on a job resume, though.

I gave a speech before the entire chapter, including the brothers who lived off campus. I presented my programs before everyone was expected to vote. Of all those nominated, I had a realistic plan and goals to bolster the chapters social image on campus. I was serious about doing something which even though my speech was humorous, I think I won over some skeptics that were at least willing to let me have a shot. I fully expected to lose the campaign but still I had done my best and as long as I felt that way I could be content. That was one of the things that I had always admired about my dad. That was his life's motto and it had always done well by him.

When I learned that I was the new social director I didn't know quite how to react. I had positioned myself squarely in the line of fire and I now needed to fulfill all those promises I had just made.

I felt that there was a good chance that I could follow through on my campaign promises; otherwise I would have never made them. I knew a number of ladies from my classes that were in some of the more socially active and popular sororities on campus. I felt certain that I could schedule parties with their chapters. Getting ladies to show up would be another matter. That would require some creativity.

Even though I was certain that my election was mostly a joke, intended as a subtle statement to the Greek community that the quietest guy in all the fraternity was in charge of the ensuing year’s social programs, I wanted to be remembered as someone that accomplished something. My brothers may have been content to maintain the status quo but I was not.

I had a number of female friends from my classes I nearly never dated any of the ladies that I knew. Frankly I tended to befriend married women for some reason. It was fine with me, though. I would hang out with them on campus, go to the Sweet Shop between classes or sometimes meet for lunch at an off campus restaurant. I knew their husbands and in some instance their children. I was the uncle that was invited over for dinner. I found that the conversations with married women afforded me invaluable insight into relationships. Moreover I think I did not feel threatened in my quest to remain unattached. I did not need to be with anyone else to appear normal. I was with a very nice young lady and very capably handling a conversation. It could have been my intent to avoid the real problem that I was so shy that I would hardly ever ask a drop-dead gorgeous woman out for a date. I convinced myself otherwise; it was something to the effect that these married women just could not leave me alone.

I had of course seen some of my fraternity brothers in passing and they saw me with some very nice looking, well-dressed and occasionally older women. Unbeknownst to me my reputation spread on the back of rumors. There as every imaginable speculation rampant. So when it came time for the chapter to vote on my candidacy for social director I was an enigma. I barely ever attended parties and if I did I left early to retreat to my room where I carried on writing whatever the hell it was that I was working on. Still, I was with a different woman every time anyone saw me on campus. Then I proposed changing the image of the chapter and getting the big name sororities over for parties. So even if my candidacy was a joke I rather think that some voted for the hope of change and those were not disappointed I delivered on promises and I shook things up even if events spiraled out of control and well beyond my expectations.

But that is another story.

In pursuit of my serious intent, I had asked my fraternity brothers that were dating sorority women from this or that chapter to arrange for me to get introduced to their social directors. I had met every one of the fall semester social directors except for two; the two that no one ever believed would condescend to party with the likes of us anyway. Despite that I had some insiders working behind the scenes, some ladies that I knew from class. It would happen. I was going to see to it.

Until I started dialogues with the social directors of the sororities I had not realized how utterly negative a reputation that I was seeking to correct. We were generally viewed as a fraternity that at best was a collection of misfits and malcontents and hardly a real Greek organization. We were not the preppy boys. We were not the jocks. Certainly we had or share of each in our membership. The bulk of our membership were just good guys that wanted to have some fun. Our quest for fun had been grossly misinterpreted.

I had even planned to work on the social programs over the summer, an ambition that once classes started was left by the wayside.

When the dropping and adding of courses had concluded my radio production class was divided into four groups; mine consisted of two other guys and three gals. We selected a leader which I was not. The leader assigned tasks based on our interests and abilities. Our group was challenged to write a script for a 1930’s-style radio production, complete with sound effects and actors with rehearsed lines.

The professor assigned individual projects for the course as well but the group project was intended to serve as a mid term examination. I knocked out my individual project in three days and the professor was impressed and played it for the entire class. It was a gem of tape splicing, even down to the syllable of words that I had recorded at a high enough speed to have enough tape to physically cut and tape back together. What resulted was a collection of sounds assembled in a montage to create a story. I received an A- for my efforts.

The group leader assigned two of us that professed to being writers to generate a script for our group project. After a couple of group brainstorming sessions we arrived at a general theme and subject, so creating a script fell onto Senobia and me. No other production efforts could really advance until there was even the general outline of a script. The first week of school I met with Senobia daily after class in the sweet shop and we created the foundation for what would eventually become our group’s project.

Never before had I collaborated with anyone on a work of fiction. At first it seemed unnatural and almost invasive. I felt violated. I didn’t like the experience. I had hardly anything in common with her except that we had the same assignment. We were from different worlds, different regions of the country and completely different backgrounds. She was affluent; I was not. Her father and mother were both professionals; my dad was a hard-working, blue collar farmer and my mother was a housewife. Senobia was a liberal; I was politically neutral for the most part. She was African; I was Anglo.

As might be expected we agreed on almost nothing at all. At first we lacked direction, still we determined early on that it was perhaps best for each of us to put forth a best effort to come up with our own individual outlines. It seemed logical to form some ideas just to get some things onto paper. Then we met again and each of us did an informal presentation of our outlines to the other.

As a result of our first efforts, I learned that some of my ideas for a plot Senobia did not like. In turn, she had ideas that I did not like. We were both creative and each of us were stubbornly defensive of our works in progress. Still we agreed to take the notes back and revise our works. When we met again it would be to present our works to one another anew, with the revisions.

An unexpected thing happened at that point. In the process of adjusting the plot to fit the suggestions of the other and incorporating the changes into an outline, we had fashioned two slightly different versions of a plotline that had more in common than not. It was actually sort of eerie how alike the two versions were.

We met for a final time just after class and the day before giving a formal presentation to the other members of the group. For some reason at this meeting more so than anytime previous everything we did simply clicked. We spoke with a single mind and purpose. Despite our diverse backgrounds and the completely unique ways that each of us created, we had a single body of text based on a mutually approved outline. There was some compromise still required but not too much. In the process of critique and revision we had agreed on the same basic format and the plot was virtually the same without significant deviation. I was personally relieved as I had thought only a few days before that we would never agree on a storyline. Suddenly we were ready to give the basic framework to the remainder of the group for their preproduction efforts. In the meantime Senobia and I would work closely together to hammer out a single draft of a final script.

Senobia was the sort of person that you had to like. She found a way to win you over to her side. The fact that anything that I stood for in the presentation lingered beyond the first draft is a testament to how stubborn I can be. She had me mesmerized for the most part but for whatever reason I refused to compromise on what I believes was right.

In the fall Senobia was moving out to a sorority but for the summer she still lived in a dorm. Due to the strict visitation policies, I could not go up to her room late in the evening when it was convenient for both of us to work. I had to work most nights until past ten o’clock. It seemed very inconvenient for us to meet in the social area of her dorm, especially that late. Anyway, she would have had to lug her typewriter downstairs and set it up or alternatively I would have had to bring mine. Add to that the confusion of a wide open area and the distraction of people frequently coming and going.

The library was out of the question as we could not talk there, besides it was usually closed at that time of night. So, it was determined that we would have to work in my fraternity room. As she was the better of the two of us at typing, she would use my typewriter to capture the essence of what our minds collaboratively produced.

It was hard work but for some reason the time passed by quickly. A couple of nights I would have been driving Senobia back to her dorm well after her curfew and she would have gotten into trouble for it. So she stayed over more than a few times and slept in my regular term roommate’s bed. I purposely woke up early enough to drive her back to her dorm in time for breakfast and I thought that no one ever knew that she had stayed the night.

While we were collaborating we did as much laughing as arguing as each of us garnered the other’s creative respect. We bounced ideas off one another, sometimes in a rapid fire manner. All along the way we provided daily updates to the remainder of the group so that their production efforts could remain focused on target. We were getting close to the studio time that was allotted for rehearsals, two weeks before the actual recording for our midterm project for a grade.

Of course I did not know and would not have cared to know that some of my fraternity brothers had already misperceived Senobia’s coming over nightly to work on the script. I only learned about the perceptions well after the fact. My fellow brothers believed that I was finally seeing someone seriously and that the laughter that they heard coming down the hall from my room was anything but amusement in response to our joint efforts at writing.

We were close to finishing the script, only had another long night or two shorter ones and that was good as the other production rehearsals began the ensuing week and the final production that served as our midterm examination was scheduled for the following Tuesday. Despite the rocky start I was very comfortable working with Senobia. I knew and understood how her mind worked at least on a creative level. She amazed me with her brilliance and it even embarrassed me. I thought that I was a good writer; she was so much better. Whatever was my best effort she could perfect, and almost momentarily and without much effort or rebuttal from a dumbfounded me.

It was perhaps the most incredible thing of all but when I realized it I could make full sense of it and establish the logic of how it might have happened. I have never been certain whether we are anything other than body except that judging from mind alone we tend to be very different. Senobia put all that into perspective. She was far more than her physical being ever indicated.

Senobia claimed to be 5’3 ½”. I asked her once as at 6’1 7/8” towered over her. Maybe she was close to her claim. Giving her the benefit of doubt as I never measured her height, she had still become larger in life to me that her physical stature. She also had a perfect body for her height, not a short woman’s torso at all but the body of a tall woman cast in miniature, as if she was proportionately shrunk into a lesser size so as to save space, for whatever reason in whichever deity’s dream.

As a male, Senobia's perfect figure had distracted my attention many times and even though I had cursed her face early on I had grown to know and respect her, she had incredibly delicate, even lovely features. At that point I was well past the denial of having a thing for her. I was even past the refusal to admit that I might have a lot in common with her after all.

The Fourth of July approached. My fraternity brothers Cooker, Larry and Chuck had a fantastic idea for a party. They bought a few Slip’n’Slides which we attached to garden hoses and stretched down a fairly steep incline outside of our fraternity’s front door. At the bottom we placed old plasticized mattresses to prevent anyone from rolling and tumbling out into the street. We invited everyone we knew to a party and that of course included my entire production group, although only Senobia, Alicia, Jennifer and Bill could make it. Lyndon and Mike had to go home for the holiday.

The holiday in the middle of the term was a friendly reminder of our national heritage and what we had to celebrate as a nation of great diversity and individual liberty. It was also a time to relax from the routine of eating, sleeping, attending classes and studying. Everyone was ready to unwind. So it was a very cordial even if overly friendly environment that our guests entered into. We had an attraction, a sort of private water park. We had some refreshments and grilled food. We were fully expecting to have a lot of fun.

The only thing that I noticed and only after she pulled me aside to ask if my fraternity brothers were okay with her being there, was that Senobia’s family had immigrated to the United States from Haiti a year before she was born. She felt self-conscious and singled out. Every other lady there was lily white.

Of course she didn’t believe me when I told her that I hadn’t noticed. I wouldn’t have believed me either even if it were mostly true. I never expected any repercussions from her being there. We were at college, the bastion of acceptance. She had been over to my room many times. The guys had to know her by now.

I took my turn at the non-sanctioned extended version of the Slip’n’Slide and after a long but quick ride over the watery plastic surface I reached the bottom virtually unscathed. I was just preparing to stand up from the pile of mattresses that had prevented me from major road burn as I might have otherwise skidded across the pavement at the bottom of the hill, when all of a sudden Senobia who had been directly behind me in the queue threw her shapely and bikini clad, very slight self down the hill at an velocity that was dangerous and would have been well beyond the ability of the mattresses to absorb. As I stood there, directly in her path, sort of in disbelief and mostly in denial of the immediacy of my choice to stand or flea, I heard her scream at the realization of the impending impact. I chose to stand firm and attempt to catch her even if the impact was going to be around 60 miles per hour.

At the instant of impact my feet slipped out from under me and flew up into the air as I tried in desperation to catch Senobia's wet body as it passed a few feet above me. My raised arms blocked her shoulders and the force of the impact threw me even further back onto the mattresses as she slid up from my grasp even carrying me along with her as we rolled over one another until at rest her legs were around my neck in a most unseemly and provocative way.

Still I had caught her, sort of. I had prevented her from flying beyond the mattresses out onto the pavement that was a real risk for anyone her size that had thrown self toward the slide at that speed.

It was funny. I looked up at her, even as her sat back on my chest. “You were expecting Superman perhaps?”

Senobia laughed, then looking around her, silently appraising the reality of what had just happened, “Damn that was good. You caught me. I mean I was out of control and you snagged me in mid air. God, that was incredible.”

“It happened so quickly," I was still a little bit addled. "I didn't want you to get hurt.”

“Thank you. I guess I'd better go slower next time,” she said as she rocked up to her knees, inadvertently presenting a part of her anatomy too close to my mouth and nose. Then she stood up.

"That would be my advice," I said as I accepted her offered hand for assistance but in the wet mud around the mattresses my weight caused her to lose her footing and she fell into me and back once more on top of me and onto the mattresses. She laughed at the thought of how ridiculous we must look to everyone that was still at the top of the hill. "It seems like we're trapped here," she said as she pressed up on her hands with arms locked at the elbows.

"It is not all that bad a thing," I said.

She kissed me on the cheek, "Thank you again."

"Hey, c'mon down there," Cooker called out to us. "Take that to your room."

Immediately she rolled off of me and I sat up. "What is that supposed to mean?" Senobia asked.

"How would I know?"

"They don't think that we...I mean all those times I came over here to...you didn't tell them that we..."

"Even if there had been something going on between us it would have been none of their business."

"Kiss her and be done with it!" Cooker called out.

"Are you sure you didn't..."

"Senobia, I didn't. Cooker can think whatever he wants to think."

"Well I am not okay with that," she stood up and as she started to storm off she slipped again. By then I was on my knees in an attempt to stand and I caught her in my arms as she fell.

"I seem to always be catching you."

"When we get out of this mess, can you drive me back to the dorm?" she asked as she finally succeeded in extricating herself from the mud to stand and gingerly negotiate the mud.

"Yeah, sure," I said as I stood up and joined her off to the side on the dry grass. "You really don't want to stay. I mean you haven't even eaten."

"Look, I really don't know what all you have been telling your fraternity brothers and I am sure I don't want to be a part of their dirty little thoughts."

"I promise you that I said nothing."

"It is what it is. You say you didn't; they say otherwise."

Even after the Fourth of July, every afternoon and almost all day on Saturday and Sunday my brothers invited their friends to party in the front yard. They would queue up to take turns running and belly flopping into the watery surface, reaching considerable velocities before crash landing on the mattresses below. Despite my invitations Senobia never came over to my fraternity again. Despite the fact that I liked her a lot I could never seem to convince her that I had never intimated that there had been anything between us. Whatever had developed in Cooker's fantasy though had spread amongst his click. A couple of times Larry had even asked if I had broken it off with that cute Black chick.

When our project was complete and it seemed that there was no other pressing reason to be with her, she did little more than say hello to me if she saw me in passing. It was strange how I reacted to the rejection. I needed to lose some weight anyway. I had been jogging once in a while all summer long but after the frustrations of having my veracity questioned I redoubled my efforts. I threw a lot of the anger into my exercising. I worked hard at becoming hardened of body and mind.

Brad, my big brother in the fraternal pecking order was my next door neighbor for that summer. He alone believed me that Senobia and I had done nothing in my room but work on our project. He had heard us talking to one another through the walls. Of course even if Brad had come to my defense, he was my friend and big brother so of course he would say anything that I wanted him to say.

It all served to further infuriate me. That was the last straw, the one thing that Cooker said to me that was unforgivable and not retractable.

I was shaving. My beard was so sparse and my hair was so light that at the time I did not need to do that more than once a week. Still, I made the effort to shave daily. Cooker came into the restroom and taking a newspaper with him into a stall he sat down and started to read.

Cooker and I had never really been best friends but ever since the party on the Fourth of July I had not spoken to him at all. He had obviously noticed. It may not have bothered him all that much as we would never hang out together. But for whatever reason he felt compelled to ask, "So whatever did I do to piss you off?"

"It's nothing Cooker," I said.

"It's that Black chick, though. That is what it is about, right?"

"Her name is Senobia."

"Senobia then. It's about her."

"Yeah it is about how you and your little group all jumped to conclusions."

"You're offended that we thought you were banging a Black chick? Dude, she has a hot little body on her. I wouldn't mind a little brown sugar..."

"Cooker, just shut up. Okay? We worked on a project together and we were good friends."

"Whatever you say. Anyway you wouldn't want that sort of thing on your reputation, being social director and all. What kind of sororities do you think you could line up for us if your girlfriend was Black?"

"What?"

"You going to invite some sistas over?"

"I am not even going to grace that with a comment, Cooker."

"I know you are a country boy. You understand how it is."

"No, Cooker, how is it?"

"Have your fun with the Black girls but never get serious. That's the way it is."

"Cooker, just don't talk to me, okay?"

"Fine whatever you want."

Brad told me to let it drop. The more that I tried to forget the angrier I became. It wasn't that I was obsessing over it so much as I felt that I had lost the ability to choose my friends. What if I had wanted to date Senobia? What if she liked me and we started hanging out together? Would that constitute grounds for the chapter voting to have me removed as social director? How crazy was that? What did it matter?

I didn't discuss the matter, not even with Brad. It was something that soured my associations with my brothers and so, except for Brad, I spoke to the others only when absolutely necessary.

Brad and I were almost inseparable every evening. It had cooled down enough at night that it was comfortable to run. We were both very much into getting back in shape. Even so we went out jogging together, pacing one another and taunting one another to achieve greatness, which was beating the personal best that each of us might have established only the previous night. Each night we returned from our runs exhausted. We'd shower and then collapse onto the couch in my room to watch reruns of Star Trek, the original TV series.

It was toward the end of August that Brad began to complain about the smell in my room and after a cursory scan he determined that it was my smelly sweat socks that I promptly admitted had never been washed in recent memory, at least for that summer.

I remember Brad’s response at the realization, even as he was getting up to go back to his own un-air-conditioned room. “I’m sorry,” he said. "It stinks in your room and I need to get to bed.”

I had of course noted the smell from time to time. I had generally attributed it to the pile of laundry that I had in my closet. I had never thought that the source of the stench was those filthy sweat socks that I had worn all summer for jobbing and had yet to bother laundering.

When I knew what the source was an idea came to me immediately out of my desire for revenge. The very same brothers that had offended first Senobia, then me and had arrogantly assumed that they knew what was best for me and the social direction of my private life shared a common air conditioned room. As a chapter officer and the keeper of the master key for the summer, I had responsibilities to maintain the rooms and fix anything that needed to be fixed. I suppose it was a little bit of creative interpretation but I decided that I needed to right some wrongs.

("The Curse" is a Three Part Story. This is the end of Part 2)

E

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posted by Unknown @ 11:42 PM