Mexico enters the dry season at the end of September. Gone are the daily rain squalls that cool and lubricate the land and make corn grow ten feet tall. Mr. Madera returns from another successful water polo practice with the selection of a Mexican private university. He was on the varsity squad at Berkeley and now he plays here for perks like getting the tests beforehand from the pretty pasantes doing their social service as teaching assistants at the university. The Wracks sit with feet up on the coffee table in the living room of a furnished house the Mexicans provide foreign students with money or at least exalted parents in the States. He reads an anatomy book with three-dimensional human body illustrations, taken apart and cast in polyethylene. Mr. Madera sits down; he spent Labor Day at home in the States and had a great time. He wants to tell the Wracks about a movie he saw at the panoramic dome in Los Angeles called “The Animal House”.
In it is a torpid psychotic called “Bluto” who rubs food on himself and starts food fights wherever he goes. He is a pleasant lot and skulks around creating hardship and mayhem wherever he goes. The movie’s main impetus, however, is around the Greek fraternity system and a famous fraternity on the border of felony and incarceration. The people are zany and he wishes he belonged to such an organization up in his home university of Berkeley. Mr. Madera insists that the Wracks go see this movie because it displays the fraternity system at its best or worst, depending on how you look at it. The Wracks closes his book, walks to the kitchen, grabs a Mexican bread roll from a bag, and a large one-quart Coca-Cola from the refrigerator, and heads to his room. Everyone makes their dinner. They want it this way.
The Wracks have been invited to a frat party at the big U. His brother is a member of the frat but doesn’t have the money to live there so he lives outside on the street in his sky-blue hot rod Volks wagon bus. He eats at the frat and showers there every morning. It the showers are occupied he bathes at the Pavilion less than a block away in the football locker room. At the frat, everyone has chores to do to be a member of the frat, be it doing the wash, clean up crew, or kitchen police and the tasks revolve periodically so everyone gets a chance to maintain the fraternity. The Wracks knock on the door.
A tall handsome dark-haired man with a pipe answers the door. His girlfriend stands behind him. This man is the frat president and he dresses in clothes only seen in the upper class on TV shows. He sticks out his hand and says, hello are you a pledge, The wracks say no, his brother invited him to the frat party. The president says, well then, you can be our unofficial mascot. The Wracks nods. The girl standing behind the president moves up front and the Wracks exclaims, your girlfriend is buck naked!
The president laughs, like Sant Claus laughs, and says, no she has a transparent body stocking that maintains the code of etiquette of the fraternities and sororities here at the big U. My name is Ally, she says and she dances away mischievously. Another girl dances by the door and she is wearing a brief sarong in vibrant oceanic colors. Another girl is in a string bikini with a false top. I thought fraternities have toga parties says the Wracks. No says the president togas are Roman; we are Greek and tonight is a sorority welcome party with the girls across Campus. Would you like to come in and look at the fraternity? Yes, I would say the Wracks. I am studying to be a doctor. We have doctors here too and much more says the president. Let me show you the fraternity. We don’t have toga parties anymore because the vomit is hard to clean up.
The Wracks enters the fraternity and being displayed on the ceiling is a pornographic movie in 3d. A centrally placed projector with a fisheye lens pointing up is at work at a time before cassette disks. Let me show you the fraternity says the president. To my right is the kitchen and we have a professional chef come in once a day and fix a meal for the men here. The members keep the kitchen clean and well-stocked. To the left is our crime lab. We maintain a crime lab for legal and forensic purposes. The photographer who is our visual does work for us. He is a member too. Would you like to see it? Yes, says the Wracks. On the far wall is a huge collage with pictures of girls getting into Fonz’s van on the street outside. This is our wonder wall says the president. It is for forensic purposes I assure you. Would you like to see my roof retreat? Yes, I would say the Wracks. Going up two flights of stairs, the two emerge to a star-studded open roof setting with a putting green and driving tee., If you want, you can come up here with me and hit drives and try to bean the football team in the field next door. I am trying to get into graduate school says the Wracks, the authorities will put me in prison. It is only for the fun of it says the president. They wear helmets and they probably don’t feel a thing. If you change your mind let me know. I will teach you how to drive with the number one wood. The stars up above on a fall night twinkle and demonstrate the eternal promise offered to the good-hearted and brave, and then they leave. You can visit the other rooms says the president. I have to go now and meet some new pledges and entertain the crew. Have a good time. I hope to see you again.
The Wracks alone walk around the fraternity. In one room the brothers are playing mumbly peg with throwing knives and betting twenty dollars a toss. A beautiful sorority sister in sexy clothes sits in a chair watching for decoration sakes. In another room sits a brother with a hydraulic contraption. He has a pneumatic injector attached in line with a forty-gallon keg of beer. The large funnel-shaped contraption delivers a quart a shot. Would you like to try asks the brother? Yes, I would say the Wracks. The brother inserts the funnel device in the Wrack’s mouth, turns on the regulator of a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher, and shoots a quart of beer into the Wrack’s stomach in less than two seconds. That is heavy says the Wracks, they don’t even have one like this in the pit. The maximum is two shots an hour, we don’t want an ambulance coming to the fraternity to break up festivities. That is real heavy says the Wracks, real heavy and I didn’t even taste a thing. Cool refreshing keg beer, on tap in an instant says the brother. Can you ask for more? The Wracks move on. Around the fraternity of three stories are locked rooms that the Wracks can not enter but he knows someone is inside. People smoke pot and lay in the living room watching the adult movies boil away. The Wracks sigh, I don’t have the time or money of the boys in the upper twenty percent. I have to sit in a library and study. On his way out, the frat president waves and says, you come from a good family, stop by any time you want, we have sorority friendship parties quarterly, and the Wracks walks out and finds the Ford Pinto he borrows from his father and drives home. The states are more sophisticated than Mexico.
The bolillo, and the piece of asadero cheese taste excellent when washed down with Coca-Cola. He is in his room and picks a textbook to study and prepare for the class ahead of tomorrow., He moves the desk that came with his room to blockade the door. A steel prop can be moved with a wire loop from underneath the door. He turns on his tensor lamp, lights up a Marlboro cigarette, and starts to read. After a while, he walks to the bathroom and charges his Mr. Coffee percolator that he brought from the States. He opens an envelope of creamer empties it and then takes a large gulp of coffee. He begins to read again and when he can’t read anymore, he looks at pictures. I never had time for a fraternity life he thinks, it is only for the upper class. The fraternity is the animal house and is not alpha, theta, or phi. Bluto is an associate professor of experimental oncology at the big U. Maybe in another life he thinks.