IT WAS A SUNNY 73 DEGREES. I hadn’t been this warm since Vegas. Being far away from Colorado snow made me feel free, even though I only had $34 left in my pocket. George Holiday, the driver of the Catalina, was dangerous-looking despite wearing glasses. His Coke-bottle lenses gave him monstrous green eyes. He wore his black hair past the ears, and it always looked greasy. George carried the aroma of day-old Aqua Velva. He wore a permanent smirk, as if daring you to take a swing. His black belt gave him an edge. He was bigger than me and wore baggy shirts to hide his biceps and Popeye forearms. George had clobbered a bully who tried rolling me in a game arcade on The Hill back in Boulder. He was quick to anger and loved to fight. He’d wanted to throw the bully through a plate glass window, but I begged him not to. Hanging out with George was like having a Dobermann on a short leash.

We cruised through the university. I wasn’t sure how much cocaine remained in the Catalina’s ashtray. I didn’t want to go to jail. Dennis, George’s big brother, had warned us the Baton Rouge cops showed no mercy.

Sidewalk students wore purple and gold to honor their school colors. The coeds moved in packs, most wearing shorts and miniskirts. The campus was surrounded by rivers, ponds, and swamps. It made me think LSU erupted out of water. Dennis had demonstrated the secret frat-brother handshake. He’d claimed we could stay at any university in the south with a Delta Chi chapter, that is, if we performed the handshake with the signature pinkie curl. He’d recommended this school because of its wild and crazy reputation.

LSU had a monstrous field called the Parade Ground. It was the size of ten football fields. Nicholson Drive was lined with oaks, the ancient ones with gnarled, droopy branches. Some of the droopers touched the ground. A magnolia grove, trees flashing white blossoms, stood between a pair of grassy mounds that George called “teats.” We passed a U.S. Air Force jet mounted on a cement pedestal. The buildings had red-tiled roofs like CU and similar red-brick-and mortar walls. We took Tower Drive and saw the Memorial Tower, which reminded me of Big Ben.

We found the fraternity at the corner of Dalrymple Drive and Fraternity Lane. It was a bone-white three-story with a red door, framed by giant oaks fuzzy with moss. DELTA CHI, in big black letters, appeared beneath a second-floor window. The exterior paint was mismatched in patches, where light gray covered old white. Rust stains dripped down under third floor windows. We parked in front. Smoke off a Weber kettle swirled across the front lawn to greet us. A big guy was flipping burgers.

“Don’t forget that pinkie curl,” I reminded George.

“Not on your life,” he responded.

We ambled over a stretch of crabgrass and gravel. A crescent of shabby couches was plopped on a landing of dirt, the cushions occupied by frat brothers. They swilled beer out of red cups and yapped about March Madness. A belching contest ensued. A resident popped up and introduced himself as Parker Hunt, the treasurer. He was a wiry guy about my size with a toothy smile and a strong handshake. I figured he’d become mayor or even governor. Parker said we had great timing for Porch Friday. George played up our CU angle, saying we wanted to visit the school that always beat Colorado in football. That broke the ice. Parker said he’d skied Vail once with his parents and visited Pike’s Peak. He asked us if we were “wheels” with Delta Chi on the Boulder campus. George nodded. He claimed to be the party organizer charged with coordinating special events with the Delta Delta Delta sorority. Parker held out his hand. George shook. Parker gave him a quizzical look but followed that with a nod. I got the sense that George had goofed up the pinkie curl, but that Parker cut him a break.

We trailed Parker to the red front door for “le grand tour.” The crest above the entrance featured a shield with battle axes crossing swords, black birds, and a yellow banner with the word LEGES. Parker swung the door open. The house smelled of stale beer, BO, and barbecue smoke. Toilets flushed downstairs, and in the netherworld above the ceiling. Flies buzzed around a pot of boiled crawdads. There were pans of over-charred burgers, red beans, and rice.

Getting too many guys in one place stinks up the works. But the symphony of odors was comforting because it eliminated any pretense of etiquette and the need for polite banter. This was tiger country, where bad smells mixed to form an odiferous bouillabaisse of manhood. Parker introduced us to Mike, a big orange cat with cinnamon stripes patrolling the kitchen. He said he was part-Bengal and the namesake of the tiger kept in a glassed-in grotto at the center of campus. Parker claimed the current big cat was one in a long line of Mike tigers kept imprisoned until they died. A brother tossed Mike the house cat a crawdad—he snapped it up off the oak floor and darted upstairs with his prize. A keg was rolled into the parlor and parked beside a table stacked with red cups. Brothers were passing around a joint on a back porch overlooking a cement slab with a basketball hoop at the far end. A tall brother dunked the ball.

I wandered into the living room. A gauntlet of chairs and couches were occupied by brothers shooting Jim Beam from shot glasses. George insisted we join in to get “oiled up.” Instead, I choked down a charred burger, a few crawdads, and spoonfuls of red beans. I watched George gulp his first shot. He smiled and handed me a tumbler of whiskey. I held the glass up to the light and saw heat waves moving through the booze.

“Drink up, Killer,” George coached, “this’ll put hair of your chest.”

I wasn’t sure how he’d come up with my nickname, but I didn’t mind. Sometimes I called him “Wildman.” The names seemed to fit. I sipped the Jim Beam—it burned going down. My belly rumbled.

 

Parker escorted us up to the third floor and showed us a tattered avocado couch in a makeshift study. “Your landing pad,” he announced. I wasn’t sure how two guys could fit, but I vowed to let George have it while I slept on the floor. I spied a sleeping bag tossed in the corner.

*     *     *

I felt woozy when the first females traipsed in at dusk through the red door. Their accents were sexy and twanged of Old Southern money. I felt as if I were in a bowl with exotic fish swimming around. “Ring of fire” boomed on the house stereo. A redhead wore purple knee-high boots, black miniskirt, and black leather jacket. Two brunettes wore matching outfits: tan shorts with black tiger stripes, black vests, and black cowgirl hats. The matching brunettes flirted with me and George. He lit a cigarette and held it in the corner of his mouth like James Dean. They loved that we’d just arrived from Boulder. A whiskey buzz inspired me to adopt a few extra voices, such as my grandma. “Christ,” I said, “whacha drinkin’ so much foah?” and “Cover up dose fat white thighs.” That amused a trio of babes from Kappa Alpha Theta. Parker chuckled. Outside, brakes squealed. I gazed through the window and saw a school bus groaning by—it pulled up behind the Catalina. The Golden Girls charged out in white spandex one-pieces decorated with gold fleur-de-lis emblems.

They darted through the red door and mingled with a hoard of adoring Delta Chis.

I watched a blonde Golden Girl chug a shot. The fleur-de-lis on her suit was outlined with purple sequins. “LSU cheerleader?” I asked.

“No,” she winked. “I’m different.”

“How so?”

“I dance exotic. All us Golden Girls do.”

“What’s your name?”

“Crystal Lee.”

“From Baton Rouge?”

“Shreveport.”

I figured Crystal was chilly dressed only in spandex. “Cold?” I asked.

“’ll warm up with your arm around me.”

I dropped my left arm over Crystal’s shoulder. But I was too shy to pull her close.

Her scent was gardenia.

“How old are you anyway?” she asked.

“Eighteen.”

“You look sixteen, tops. Maybe younger.” “My wrinkles are coming,” I joked.

“Don’t get me wrong. I like youthful-lookin’ guys, but not too young. No need for a baby brother.”

I nudged my shoulder in closer. It brushed against her breast.

Crystal grabbed my wrist and pulled my arm off. “Once more,” she said, “you’re far too young. But my kid sister might go for you.”

“How old is she?”

“Fourteen.”

Parker was making time on the stairway with the purple-booted chick. George shot more whiskey. A brother strummed an acoustic guitar and choked out “They call me the breeze” off-key. A sorority gal picked up Mike the Cat and cuddled him. I scooped a can of Dixie Beer off the ice in an open cooler and chugged it.

*     *     *

By midnight, the women who didn’t find men began trickling out. The Golden Girls bus pulled away from the curb. George didn’t get lucky. Neither did I. George had focused on the brunettes with the matching black hats but they ended up with the flipper of burgers.

George retreated to the third-floor couch and flopped. The sorority chicks may have disliked us either for our western accents, or maybe it was George bragging about going to New Orleans in the morning. I fantasized about being hitched to a southern belle and listening to her twang when I got home from work.

I grabbed the sleeping bag and rolled it out on the balcony. The moon broke through the clouds—it ignited the balcony and oaks with floodlight power. A naked woman mannequin was ensnared in a web of branches on the closest oak. I wondered if women got restrained like that mannequin, their arms and legs arrested by duty and stereotype.

My whiskey high was gone. The beer didn’t buzz me, so I suspected it was watereddown 3.2 like the Coors in Boulder. I felt clear-headed but lonely. I spotted a pack of coeds meandering across the lawn below. They giggled. I wished they were with us. I wanted George to teach me how to attract the fairer sex. But there didn’t appear to be any romantic drive in him, as if some girl from the past had destroyed his heart. He seemed off-kilter. I’d seen him cry when two Baker Hall residents froze to death hiking the Flat Irons. But the ability to shed tears for tragedy was no guarantee you’d be a star at romance.