American Fraternity Man by Nathan Holic Page B

tucked into khaki pants, a few still in shirt and tie, having driven here straight from work; wives in Florida weekend wear, skirts or jeans or white pants, all of them walking around our house hesitantly, led by sons unsure how to introduce them to their college world; mothers eventually stopping at the giant framed composite photos of the entire chapter, touching the glass, trying to locate the individual photos of their sons, saying, “Oh, why didn’t he tell me he had his picture taken in a tuxedo? He looks so nice ! I would have bought one!”; or touching the hanging portraits of our founders, or the charter, straightening the frames. Some of the fathers commented on the wicker couches, on the big-screen TV where the Magic game flashed with high-def crispness. They stepped over discolorations in the area rug, unaware that these were beer and vomit stains from their own sons. And over and over again, I heard parents repeating the same two questions: “Where’s the bar?”, and “Where’s the food?”
    The first question was easy to answer. “Right this way,” I said to Mr. and Mrs. Cambria. “Right this way,” I said to Mr. and Mrs. Simmons. Over and over, a handshake and a modest bottom-of-the-throat laugh when they said, “You’re the president? Good work, son.” And then I watched them shrink in awe of the grand display of alcohol at the bar. “Where’s the bar?” they had asked, and my response had stunned them to silence.
    F or some reason, though, our caterer—a local barbecue restaurant—was late. “Still gonna be another hour,” they told me when I called. “Sorry, bro. We’re backed up.”
    “I’ve got over a hundr ed people waiting for food,” I said. The house was full by this point, any minor error magnified, and I’d imagined a rigid schedule for the night: cocktail hour, barbecue, awards and cake, lavalier, ass-beating, immortality, all before midnight. “If you’re late, there better be some sort of discount.”
    “You gave us a window,” the clerk told me. “Your sheet says 7-9 PM. So we’ve got another two hours to fulfill the order. Like I said, busy busy busy over here.”
    “I never said anything about a window . That’s the time of the event!”
    “It was on the paperwork you signed. It said ‘between these times.’ That’s how we plan ahead for use of our kitchen space, the times that our customers give us.”
    “I need the food,” I said, summoning my presidential voice, something I wasn’t very good at. “If we’re satisfied, we’ll use you guys for all our events. If not? We’ll let everyone on campus know about our dissatisfaction. Trust me when I say that there will be no one ordering from Old Smoky ever again.”
    “We don’t like threats,” the man said. “You’ll get your order in the time frame promised.”
    Click.
    “Where’s the food?” Edwin Cambria asked me. He’d helped me plan the night, might have even filled out the catering paperwork, and now that I was on the phone he was fielding those two questions over and over: Where’s the bar? (easy) and Where’s the food ? (tougher). “It’s coming, it’s coming,” he told them, trying to then introduce one set of parents to another, or trying to steer them all toward the bar instead of toward the long empty tables where the plates and napkins were stacked in anticipation of the barbecue.
    “I just called,” I told him, holding up my cell phone. “Running late.”
    “Don’t worry, brother-man. As long as the bar’s stocked, everything’s kosher. I’ll play bartender!” So here was Edwin, going from family to family to continue his assurances that food was coming, pointing out the bar and the beer tubs, then slipping behind the bar and conjuring a martini shaker and pointing to one mother and saying “I know you want a chocolate martini, am I right?”
    And the minutes ticked past.
    E ventually, Edwin’s parents joined him at the bar, a semi-circle of genetic