I Didn’t Want Larry in My Sorority.
I have a vision in my head of Larry at Mount Union that, no matter how old I get or how hard I try to forget, I cannot erase from my mind.
It isn’t the cool, leathered version who slid off the motorcycle like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. It also isn’t the guitar-playing country star version who rocked my world in Pittsburgh. It’s not even the one whose presence lit up the bar as we walked in, friends flocking to him on all sides.
It’s a picture of Larry wearing long white thermal underwear on his legs, accented by black cowboy boots. On his top half, he’s wearing matching white thermals with, of all things, an overlay of black suspenders. His suspenders are clipped tightly to a pair of plaid boxer shorts, worn over the thermals.
The boxers were the required clothing item for Alpha Chi Omega’s annual Boxer Bash. Larry was my date.
Shortly after his 37th birthday, Larry was holding his red-cupped beer over his head and saying, “I’m in a sorority!” with the same enthusiasm he’d had for being “in” college.
I didn’t want Larry in my sorority. I didn’t even want him to visit. But on weekends, if I didn’t visit him at “home,” Larry had nothing better to do than to ride his motorcycle a hundred miles and visit me. And the weekend of the Boxer Bash was a special one, indeed.
I remember being so excited for the party. I was excited for most parties, of course, but the Boxer Bash was extra fun because everyone wore boxers and paraded around in very comfortable attire. My sole purpose was to get obliterated, and the comfortable attire was much to my liking for that goal.
I loved flirting with the guys, having a brilliant reason to drink, and being so enmeshed in college.
When I found out Larry would be visiting – whether or not I wanted him there – I said, “But it’s a sorority party! I’ll be with all my friends!”
And Larry said, “Well I’m one of your friends!” He never questioned this.
To be fair, I never gave him any reason to question this. For me, he was a means to an end: a place to live, someone to ensure that I could stay drunk whenever I wanted.
For Larry, I was a really fun young thing he’d snagged as his “Old Lady.” He owned me.
I wanted very badly for Larry to forget I existed while I was in Ohio, but Larry wanted to be part of every waking minute of my life. So Larry went to the Boxer Bash.
The outfit he chose was entirely of his own making.
The rest of the guys at the party – dates and random frat boys – wore boxers and sweatshirts and sneakers, like twenty-somethings would do. Like college kids did. We bared our knees proudly and drank even more proudly, and nobody thought it was unusual or exciting to be drinking inside a sorority house.
But Larry did.
He spent all night being proud of himself for holding his own with the young folk, chatting it up with the local dudes, believing he was every bit the college student he imagined himself to be (minus acceptance, enrollment, classes or a degree).
And every time I saw a cute guy, or wanted to make out with someone in the corner, there was Larry, smiling that broad smile, utterly unsuspecting that I was living any kind of double life.
I could hardly wait for him to go home.