Fraternity House
Campus Chronicles
Fraternity House
Campus Chronicles
First day on campus, everything felt new.
People moving in—doors open, voices everywhere. Some looked like they already belonged. I wasn’t there yet.
I walked into the room. That’s where I met Jeff.
He seemed at ease.
We introduced ourselves, unpacked a little, talked here and there. It was simple. Easy.
Outside, things were already picking up. Inside, it felt like something was just starting.
It didn’t take long.
The first few days came fast. Then everything moved at once.
Looking back, it’s a blur—but I got through it.
And once I did, everything opened up.
Sometimes with Christine.
And once it started, it carried—late into the night.
That’s just how it went—a great time.
It started small.
A joke that went a little too far.
A moment that didn’t quite land.
The kind of thing you laugh off and move past.
With Jeff, it was easy to do that.
Until it wasn’t.
Later on, at the fraternity house just off fraternity row, I ended up in Sam and Jeff’s room.
It was the kind of place people drifted into—
somewhere in the house—maybe the Dead, maybe “Sweet Child o’ Mine”—through the walls.
We had ridden in that car—Sam, Jeff, and me—cruising like we owned the place.
It didn’t drive. It glided.
There was a BMW M3 emblem mounted on the wall.
I stared at it for a second.
“Sam… that’s from your car, right?” I said.
It was all that remained of Sam’s M3.
They had been coming back from Atlantic City after a long night.
Somewhere along the way, both of them drifted at the wheel.
The car flipped.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
And then it stopped.
They walked away from it.
The emblem didn’t.
It stayed—on the wall.
After that, it was hard not to notice things a little differently.
After college, we went our separate ways.
Jeff went to law school in Florida. I stayed closer to home to help my parents. Sam started his own business.
Life moved on.
Years passed.
Then I heard.
Jeff had died.
It was AIDS.
It was a different time.
I still think about him.
Looking back now, I see it differently.
What felt like freedom at the time wasn’t without weight.
We didn’t always see it.
But it was there.
Somehow, I was guided through it.
And for that, I’m grateful.
