Public Chase was the one I’d long known: the brash, boorish, cocky, obnoxious man-boy prone to pranks he alone found funny, who snidely called me “Brain” when I sat next to him in a lecture and who came up with gems like “Cunthole” to substitute for my real name when he, say, was ordering me to grab him a water bottle during Team period; the veteran who went out of his way to strike me brutally in tackling drills; the beer pong partner who gloated over my continued badness at the game even though I was, you know, his partner. One day I went to use the toilet in the locker room, and when I returned to our cube Chase was spraying Old Spice cologne on my street clothes, the stink of which three separate trips to the laundry room in Stager Hall couldn’t remove. And then there was Private Chase: the kid so shy about his love for his estranged girlfriend he would only ever talk to her in a separate room if she called while I was tutoring him; the kid who pinched the inside of his wrist in punishment as I explained this or that quiz answer he’d gotten wrong; the kid who apologized for ruining my clothes with Old Spice by insisting I take a couple of the new Abercrombie shirts his mother had mailed him. The whiplash could be exhausting, but I continued spending much of my free time with him, and I think there were two reasons. One, I believed Chase’s split personality was beyond his control, as if the cruelty wielded him, rather than he it. Two, and probably more important, Chase was far from the first crush I’d had who treated me like shit. In fact, by now I had come to almost want such poor treatment, the punishment I deserved for my feelings about men.
One weekend in late October, Chase invited me to have dinner with his father. He said Mr. McGerrin wanted to meet me, which I happily took to mean Chase had talked about me with his dad. So after our home game against Missouri (which we lost) I showered in the locker room and dressed in the slacks, collared shirt, and sports jacket Chase told me to bring. We took his truck to a remote part of Blenheim I’d never seen, nothing but skinny roads weaving through heavy forest. When we turned onto a narrow driveway marked “Private” and began winding downhill, the tree cover thinned and water began to shimmer in the gaps between the trunks. At the bottom of the hill the forest halted abruptly, like a crowd held back by an invisible rope line, and from then on the ground proceeded as a level, pristinely maintained lawn that led up to a nineteenth-century Italianate mansion. A lake lay behind the club, turning a molten gold as the sun set behind the far shore.
The lobby of the King Club was done in dark mahogany, with white marble flooring that had lilac-colored veins. Business-casual men sat on wing-backed settees and frowned at laptops propped up on their knees, while bellhops in purple uniforms steered golden luggage carts. At the dining room entrance, which had the same Gothic archway you saw on West Campus, a penguin-suited maître d’ greeted Chase by name and led us through the opulent dining room filled with parents dipping baguette crusts into buttery escargot slime, undergrads sitting primly in long dresses or navy sport coats, liver-spotted husbands with King College lapel pins and their bepearled wives.
At a table toward the back I saw a man I recognized—and immediately wished I didn’t. It was the same man I’d mistaken for a coach when he stepped out of the Marriott elevator during my official visit, the man I’d heard haggling with Reshawn over the bribe money that would secure his commitment to King.
—Lucas McGerrin, he said, shaking my hand.
Mr. McGerrin spoke with a heavy southern accent, but whereas Coach Zeller had never met a g at the end of a word he couldn’t dispense with, Mr. McGerrin’s own speech was what you might call melodiously precise. Chase had mentioned his dad had played linebacker at King, and now that father and son sat side by side, I saw just how close the resemblance was, down to the slab bodies and blond hair that seemed to vanish under strong light.
—First time at the club?
—Yes sir, I said, trying to seem calm.
—This is the President’s Room, he said, pointing at the large oil paintings of white men that hung on the walls. Only people allowed to hang here are past King presidents.
A waiter materialized.
—Scotch? Mr. McGerrin asked us.
—I’m not twenty-one, sir.
—Christ, Chase said, and with that one word made clear I was going to be getting Public Chase tonight. Mr. McGerrin smiled indulgently.
—Drinking age is a little lower at the club, he said. Bring us three Glenmorangies, rocks, and three filets, medium rare.
The waiter left to place our orders. Mr. McGerrin snapped open his napkin.
—Chase says you’ve got straight As?
—Yes sir, but—easy classes.
—Not that easy, Chase said.
Mr. McGerrin laughed softly at his son.
—Well, I’m just glad Chasey found someone smart to cheat off of. That Ritalin doesn’t work for shit.
Two undergrad girls walked by, dressed in skirts and form-fitting cashmere sweaters. Mr. McGerrin subtly watched their asses sway beneath the skirts. Once the girls passed, he grinned and patted Chase’s arm.
—Miles, is this boy still moping about Sadie?
Chase warned me off with a killer stare. Mr. McGerrin noticed.
—There is a lot of pussy in this world, son. But remove thine own beam, I guess. McGerrin men want what they want. Chase’s mom is a King alumna, Miles. Graduated second in our class. We lived down the hall from each other sophomore year, and she would not give this jock the time of day. But I asked and asked and asked
