America 1982-Chapter 88 - 9: Recruitment Night

E-66 dormitory, Jason White was buttoning his shirt in front of the dressing mirror and asked Tommy to hand him the dark gold tie next to him, while asking Tommy, "Are you sure you don’t want to change into something more formal? My cousin told me that when freshmen visit the fraternities tonight, dressing appropriately and formally can make you seem mature and dependable."

While he spoke, he took the tie from Tommy, but in his haste, he wrapped it outside the shirt collar. Tommy walked over, gestured for Jason to lower his hands, and then skillfully fixed Jason’s tie for him, "I advised you, Jason, but you insisted on dressing this formally."

"Yes, this is the most important night for college freshmen, it determines whether we will be nobodies or somebody for the next four years," Jason obediently stood in front of the dressing mirror, letting Tommy adjust his tie, his tone serious.

Tommy stepped back, understandingly looking at Jason get dressed in a dark blue double-breasted vintage suit with a bowler hat on his head, then crossed his arms over a black umbrella, full of anticipation looking at Tommy, "How do I look, Boss? Do I resemble one of those elite gentlemen?"

"Buddy, if you stuck a fake mustache under your nose, everyone could mistake you for a big shot named Charlie Chaplin," Tommy said to Jason with a smile, "Let’s go, the teacher has urged us down several times already."

Jason, holding his umbrella and speaking to Tommy, who was just wearing a baseball jacket with a printed T-shirt underneath, said, "You should respect the fraternities."

"I fucking respect them; otherwise, I wouldn’t wear a jacket to hide that genitalia* printed on the back of the T-shirt," Tommy replied to Jason, "Not every word your cousin says is a gospel truth, sometimes it might just be to tease you."

The dormitory manager of Hope Apartments, along with a freshman mentor, had urged the students several times downstairs before the more than forty new Hope residents slowly gathered outside the building, some still spraying deodorant or perfume on themselves as they came down.

Tonight was Rush Night, and on Stanford’s Greek Row, seventeen fraternities opened their doors unconditionally, allowing freshmen to enter and learn about each fraternity’s history and past and to have candid conversations with fraternity members. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Freshmen wanting to join a fraternity all tried their best to leave a lasting impression on the members of the fraternities they admired, even the most indifferent nerdy boys would carefully pick out what they thought was the coolest outfit.

For instance, a four-eyed kid standing next to Tommy was wearing a white tracksuit printed with various numbers and symbols, standing out in the crowd as if he had escaped from a mental hospital in his patient garb.

"OK, everyone, for the next four or five hours tonight, I will take you to Greek Row to visit the homes of seventeen fraternities. I need to remind you, if you have any important letters of recommendation, yes, from your family, friends, or boss who was a member of a fraternity and gave you a letter, you better remember to bring it tonight and hand it to the person from that fraternity who talks to you. Tonight is your only unrestricted entry into those buildings, after tonight, if you haven’t received an invitation from a fraternity, venturing there again could lead to an accusation of trespassing," the mentor warned the new students in front of him.

As he finished speaking, most of the freshmen took out one or several recommendation letters from their pockets, including Jason, who took out two and held them in his hand, saying to Tommy, "If Phoenix Society or White Robe Society doesn’t take me in, I’ll have to rely on my uncle and cousin’s recommendation letters to join the fraternity they were part of back then. It’s not very famous and the social events are sadly few, but it’s better than ending up with nothing. Speaking of which, my cousin’s first time was ruined by a black girl at that fraternity’s social event, and after he graduated, he became a staunch white supremacist, a racist."

"I guess just sleeping with a black girl once isn’t enough to turn a white guy into a racist immediately; most likely, your cousin received some pretty direct negative feedback on his bed skills from the black girl, making him feel insulted and unable to accept it," Tommy said with a low laugh.

The group followed the mentor to Greek Row, and the mentor pointed to the first fraternity house, "This is Stanford University’s earliest-established fraternity organization, LIS. Those who are interested can go inside for a visit; the rest can continue forward with me."

Although this fraternity called LIS had put a lot of thought into Rush Night, with even the front lawn meticulously trimmed, visible from afar with a small band and various drinks prepared in the open living room door, still no freshmen wanted to go there. Seeing the students remain silent, the mentor nodded and turned to continue leading the group forward, "All right, it looks like LIS is going to have many Chapters closing down this year, next house."

The reason nobody went in to visit as he mentioned, first, LIS had become the most infamous fraternity in the country last year when members from a Chapter in Montana used their fraternity house to traffic drugs. Although the investigation concluded it wasn’t connected to the headquarters, it obviously tarnished the reputation of all of LIS’s Chapters across America. People didn’t mind using marijuana at fraternity parties to liven things up, but that didn’t mean they wanted to become drug traffickers.