Prologue: Meeting the Boys

Written: March 11, 2005

"You will listen to me. You will. Hello. I'm talking. You will listen to me. Guys, shut up. Helloooooo. Me. Sitting here in the front of the room. Your president. Listen to me."

The other brothers either did not notice or did not care about Cowboy's repeated pleas. Racetrack especially seemed worked up, as he loudly told the story of how his gambling seminar had come up with the conclusion that gambling was the worst pastime in the world. "What the hell do those hicks know about gambling?" he shouted, his thick New York accent making his words seem even harsher. "Half the class ain't even been in a casino. They don't know what the hell they're talking about. Stupid dumb bitches."

"Hello, listen to me. Hi, I'm Mr. President, and I'd like to speak now. You are going to listen to me. Goddammit, you guys, just shut the hell up!" Cowboy stood up out of his chair and stomped his foot in fury, glowering at the assembled group. They fell silent. Slightly embarrassed, he sat back down.

Racetrack looked over at him, raising his eyebrows. "Get a grip, Cowboy," he said. "It ain't the end of the world, ya know."

Cowboy could only muster up a glare. "Racetrack, we've been here for two and a half hours already. I have homework, you know."

"And I got a stupid-ass seminar that don't know nothing about gambling! Looks like we all got problems, 'ey, fellas?" Everyone laughed as they agreed, then continued their previous conversations.

Cowboy stared around the room in revulsion. He knew it had been a bad idea to run for president of Lambda Delta Lambda, but somewhere, deep down – very deep down – he actually was quite fond of his brothers. The boys were just now strewn about the living room of their frat house. Snitch and Itey were sharing the armchair, their arms carelessly entwined around each other. Racetrack was sitting on the coffee table just in front of Cowboy's chair with his back to Cowboy, effectively cutting him off from the room. Dutchy was sprawled on the couch, with his head on Specs' lap and his feet on Swifty's. David – who had never gotten an official fraternity name when a pledge, and by now no one remembered why not – was lying spread-eagle on the floor between the armchair and the couch. Sitting in the window seat was Crutchy, staring out the window. Pie Eater and Snoddy were sitting quietly in the corner, with their foreheads touching, whispering back and forth with each other. Snipeshooter stood on his head with his back against the wall right next to the door. Bumlets was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, leaning casually against Racetrack's legs; Racetrack kept getting excited and kicking his legs out enthusiastically, though, at which point Bumlets would just turn around and glare at him. Kid Blink, who wasn't even a brother but hung around enough to be the frat's sole social member, was sitting on a school-issued, uncomfortable wooden chair against the back wall, but his boyfriend, Mush (who was a member of the frat) was making him feel better about his lack of enjoyable seating by giving him a sort of inconspicuous lap-dance.

Cowboy closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall behind his stool. He thought for a second of the mound of homework sitting upstairs in his room, and decided he had had enough. Their frat meetings last year, when Denton was the president, had lasted twenty minutes, tops. This year, the weekly rendezvous had become ridiculously long. Hours upon hours every Sunday night were now spent in this same idiotic fashion. Part of it was Cowboy's own fault, which he was well aware of. He just could not find it in him to yell at his friends and make them shut up. So far, in two and a half hours, they had covered the first two points of his bulleted legal pad list. …Out of sixteen.

"Fine, you know what? Just fuck around," he finally said, getting to his feet once more and gesticulating like a slightly insane person. "There's a picnic we're supposed to be co-hosting, some stuff about budget to cover, the stupid Delt auction that Crutchy signed us all up for is next week, we really should talk about throwing a campus party sometime soon, and I was going to talk about how we might be able to convince the campus to get us some actually decent showers with good water pressure, but you know what? You guys don't seem to care about that at all. So screw you, I have two papers to write tonight. You guys are dicks."

He was about to storm out, when Mush stopped grinding on Blink and turned in surprise. "Wait, what auction thing?" Blink let out a squeak of protest, which Mush squelched by turning and planting himself in Blink's lap. "You don't mean the same auction thing we did last year, do you?"

Crutchy's attention was now turned from the weather outside. "It is a firm tradition," he said with haughty self-importance. "Lambda after Lambda have gone through the auction. All five of my older brothers did it, and they had great times doing it, too."

"Why is it that whenever you come up with a stupid idea, it's because your brothers did it when they were in the frat?" demanded David. "I mean, it's great and all that, like, your entire family have connections to the frat. But how are we supposed to become our own entity as a group if we're just trying to emulate your older brothers?"

"The proceeds are going to the tsunami relief fund," Crutchy said, completely ignoring David, which everyone in the room had expected. Crutchy had very selective hearing when it came to his brothers.

"That's actually pretty cool," Pie Eater voiced, adjusting the backwards baseball cap he was wearing. "Put me down."

Crutchy beamed. "That's the great part! You're all already signed up! I signed up all of us."

"Wait, wait, wait," Mush said. "I don't know about this. I felt really stupid last year. You just parade around and wait for an audience full of people you don't know to spend money for you to like, hang out with them. It's just… I mean, the tsunami relief fund is great, really, but… I don't know. I really hated doing it last year." He paused a moment, then pouted. "The damn Delts make the stupidest costumes, too. I mean, seriously. Dressing us all up as nineteenth century newspaper sellers? What the fuck!"

"Do you have plans for next weekend already, Mush?" Cowboy asked, pressing a hand to his eyes.

"Well, no. But…"

"But nothing, you're coming. You're already signed up. If you back out now, everyone will think you're anti-tsunami help. …Plus, if the rest of us have to suffer through it, then so do you."

Kid Blink kissed his neck. "Don't worry, Mush. I'll bid on you and win you myself. It'll be fine." Mush turned and smiled at him, and Blink winked. "Plus, it could be hot to watch you strut your stuff up on that auction block. Do a little shimmy for me."

Cowboy mentally checked off "Delt auction" from his bulleted list. 3/16. It was more than he had hoped for.

Leaving the rest of the boys behind, he trudged up the stairs to his room and his homework. None of them yet understood the immense effect that the auction was going to have on their group as a whole.