The Dentist of Delta Delta Delta
Jon was a different person when he returned to campus - he was so different that his parents were alarmed. He'd flown to visit Noelle in the hospital. At first his parents suggested he delay his trip until after the holidays with his grandparents, and this triggered an explosive outburst of profanity. In French. For some reason, Jon lost the ability to speak English for several hours. His father spoke French well enough to communicate with people who spoke slowly and clearly, but the only thing he understood about Jon's rant was that his stable, reliable, dependable son was in the middle of a crisis that no one in the family understood. The only thing that was clear was that it involved a lovely young woman in a photograph he'd brought home.
Jon's father volunteered to fly with him to see Noelle, but his mother vetoed that idea. Jon's brother was harder to handle every day, and the only person who could control him at all was his father. She would go with Jon. They'd planned for Jon's family to visit his grandparents in Quebec over the holidays. They would figure that out when Jon and his mother got back.
Jon's mother was present when they met Noelle in the psychiatric ward. She burst into tears as Jon took her into his arms. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Noelle said. In French. Jon's mother was not prepared for the notion that her son was obviously in love. As the story of Noelle's ordeal emerged, Jon's mother recognized that she'd been so violated that Jon's heart was breaking in ways that would never heal. She slowly recognized that part of the nightmare was that Noelle had apparently made some bad decisions that amounted to a betrayal of Jon. It broke her heart to see her loyal, dependable, generous son hurt in ways that would devastate any adult. At one point, while Noelle was sitting in Jon's lap and crying, his mother went to the ladies room and threw up violently.
Nobody went anywhere for the holidays. There were no holidays that year.
Jon spent a lot of time alone in his room with the door closed. Everyone, including his goofball brother, tiptoed around him for the next two weeks. At one point Jon went to the refrigerator, put ice cubes in a glass, poured himself several shots of his father's bourbon, then went back to his room and closed the door again. No one said a word.
After several days Jon's father William got his son to tell him the whole story. Father and son loved and respected each other. They needed to discuss what had happened at college, and what Jon would do about it. Relating the story to his father helped Jon organize thoughts that had been very jumbled.
William helped by outlining Jon's options. If Jon wanted to skip the next semester, he could do that. If he wanted to find another college, he could do that. He could drop out of the fraternity. If he wanted, he could spend a year in France, something he'd planned to do after graduation anyway.
Noelle and her parents let Jon know that she couldn't resume their relationship and that she would not return to college.
William said he would support any decision Jon made, saying that he was proud that Jon had always been smart, reliable and disciplined. These qualities would sustain him during the difficulties ahead - whatever they were.
Jon thought about it. He finally told his father that he'd picked that college, and that fraternity, for good reasons. He would not let one asshole take that away. He went back, telling his father he'd get in touch if he changed his mind. William didn't know what would happen, feeling powerless to help his son navigate such an awful situation. It was a strange feeling for a billionaire.
The other members of the fraternity avoided Jon, looking in the other direction when he passed by. They didn't know the whole story, but they knew enough to realize that Noelle had acted in a way that humiliated the man who was supposed to be her boyfriend. Like all stupid adolescent boys, they tended to put too much blame on Noelle and not enough on Andrew Lodge. When in doubt, blame the girl.
Jon stayed away from the fraternity. He spent a lot of time studying in the library. There were long work-out sessions in the gym. He'd spent lots of time lifting weights under the direction of his boxing coaches in high school, but he started lifting heavier weights than ever before. He found it motivating to imagine that doing just one more rep would smash the face of Lodge. He ached at the end of these sessions, but it was a good ache.
As always, the fraternity sponsored a party on the first Friday of the semester. There was free beer, so lots of people came, and lots of them got very drunk very quickly. Jon poured himself a beer that he couldn't bring himself to drink, so he sat on a couch in the middle of the front room and watched the action around him. A sweet young lady who had no idea what Jon had experienced tried to start a conversation with him, and she was surprised that he was so absent and tongue tied. She moved on and chatted up one of the other frat boys.
At length, Jon noticed that a particularly pretty girl who belonged to the same sorority as Noelle was getting drunk. Like Noelle, she was a freshman. Jon didn't remember her name, but he remembered that she'd gotten way too drunk at campus parties in the past.
Suddenly, Lodge closed in on the drunk little co-ed. Jon couldn't tell what Lodge said, but the girl was smiling and giggling. He recognized that Lodge offered her a cocktail - which was the last thing she needed - and he got so angry he decided to insert himself into their conversation.
"Hi there," Jon said to the girl as Lodge watched in confusion. "He's going to get you as drunk as he can. Then he's going to offer to give you cocaine if you go up to his room. Then he's going to rape you. If you don't want that to happen, you need to stop drinking right fucking now."
Lodge was speechless with rage. The girl looked startled, then began to cry. She was shaky on her feet, so she grabbed Jon's arm to steady herself. "Would you take me home please?" she asked.
"Let's go," Jon said, leading her to the door. Lodge was shocked that a little twerp like Jon Major had treated a senior fraternity brother this way, and he tried to think of how he would get even.
"I'm Leah," the girl said as they walked back to her sorority. "I'm Jon," he said, imagining that she wouldn't remember his name - or much else - the next morning. He guided her to the steps of the sorority house and patiently helped her navigate the stairs. It took a long time.
"I am so stupid," Leah said.
"You aren't stupid. You're just drunk," Jon said.
Leah finally got to the top of the stairs - then vomited all over the porch. Jon guided her to the railing, helped her lean over, then held her hair out of the way as she vomited again. And again. And again. She was so loud that some of her sorority sisters came to investigate.
"Don't step in the puke," Jon said. They looked at Leah, looked at Jon, and had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Jon provided the details.
Soon they realized that Andrew Lodge had come within a nanosecond of preying upon Leah the same way he'd preyed on Noelle. This meant that Jon had gone out of his way to rescue a girl he didn't even know. One of the sisters, Margeaux Laurent, took a long look at Jon and wondered what Lodge would do to him when he returned to the fraternity. Lodge was a lot bigger. Another girl whispered to Margeaux that Jon was Noelle's boyfriend. Or had been. Oh God.
Leah kept trying to vomit, but there was no beer left in her stomach. One of the girls fetched some paper towels and used them to wipe Leah's mouth. "You're alright," she told Leah. "Come and sit down." Everyone but Margeaux went inside.
"So," Margeaux said. "I hear that the guys in your frat are worthless pieces of shit. Is that about right?"
"Right now I can't tell you the name of a single one who is worth a damn. I want you to know that I played no role in the election of Andrew Asshole Lodge. That was before my time."
"So . . . why was he elected?" Margeaux said.
"He's a tall, handsome, rich, bully. He'll be a senator before he's 40, unless someone kills him first."
"We can dream," she said. "I'm Margeaux, by the way."
"I'm Jon."
"I know who you are. When Leah sobers up I'll be sure to let her know that when she was a damsel in distress, you were her knight in shining armor."
"I'd rather that you educated her on the risks of getting black-out drunk in a house full of predatory assholes."
"Why not both?"
"OK. Good call."
They were quiet for a moment. Margeaux thought that Jon was a strange kind of boy. He was simultaneously angry, full of gallows humor, and able to function despite being humiliated and surrounded by older students who weren't likely to approve of his interference with another boy's efforts to get laid. "What's going to happen when you go back there?"
"Oh, I'm sure it will be a barrel of monkeys. They'll write songs about it someday."
