LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Nine

      Rush Retreat leaves me hungover as shit for my first interview session.

      I sit with my head in my hands in a room with cold metal walls and industrial lighting, and try to focus on not dying.

      The room—“your home for the next year,” as Professor Price referred to it in her email—is empty save for a stark metal desk and a big window on the opposite wall, a one-way look into the room on the other side, where study participants will see only a mirror.

      I drag a small recycling bin from the corner of the room to the desk, just in case. I’m really hoping I don’t throw up in this Nobel Prize winner’s trash can, though. Even if my hangover was acquired in the name of our project.

      There is no part of the project proposal that specified Fireball shots, you idiot.

      I can’t believe I actually thought that was fun yesterday. We laughed and laughed, but nothing was clever; nothing was actually funny. We weren’t friends. We were just people getting fucked up near each other.

      The digital clock on the wall reads 10:02 a.m. We’re already almost an hour behind, and there’s probably still twenty minutes until we begin.

      Outside, volunteers from Price’s class are having the subjects sign forms, taking down their information and lining them up in the order they’ll enter.

      They’re being paid twenty dollars an hour, plus a free catered lunch.

      Price stops by briefly to ask if I need anything before leaving to catch a plane and save the world.

      I alternate sipping coffee, to try to bring myself out of the fog, and water, to try to hydrate and flush some of the toxins out of my body.

      Exhaling, I open my MacBook.

      So far, when I log in to my project portal there are only my journal entries and my notes on the books and studies about frats Professor Price has been having me read. Technically, that’s all the Stevenson people wanted, but Price demanded funding for the interviews, because sneaking into one frat and having only their stories is not science, she said—it’s reality TV.

      I like it because we can see what they actually do versus what they say in the interviews. It’s only a piece, but an important piece to develop a real picture of what these communities are like.

      The idea is when the findings go public, people can read through my journal entries, with Price’s scientific findings and commentary interspersed or in a sidebar. Keep the human element up front, Madison says. But then use the facts to show this isn’t just me ranting, Price always qualifies.

      I glance at the clock blinking on the edge of my screen. I may as well work on the Kardashian element while I wait for the science.

      In her most recent email, Madison told me my updates so far were “totally fab!” but asked if I could write an introductory entry.

      Introduction:

      I, Cassandra Davis, an eighteen-year-old girl, a freshman at Warren University and self-declared ardent feminist, am about to join a frat.

      I’m doing so with funding from the Stevenson Foundation in order to study the culture of fraternities, which have long been a bastion of the university system, but have also become a center of controversy in regard to diversity in sex, race, sexuality and socioeconomic status. My study will focus on sexism and the treatment of women by these groups.

      The fraternity I have chosen is Delta Tau Chi, the oldest frat in existence at Warren. The chapter is currently under probation for creating a “hostile environment for women.” This is based on complaints last year about a party with a misogynistic theme.

      But DTC has long been the center of the social scene on campus, and the incident has not altered that.

      My intent is to get proof that this wasn’t an isolated incident but rather evidence of a toxic culture. To find and expose the truth.

      In order to ensure that the members of the fraternity do not discover my intent, no one knows about my experiment. Not my parents, no one in the frat, no one in any vicinity of Greek Life and no one in the administration. The only people besides myself who are aware of my project are my Stevenson project coordinator, Madison Macey, who lives on the other side of the country, and the renowned woman’s studies expert Eva Price, who is organizing interviews with students in and out of Greek Life.

      That is, until you read this, and then the world will know, every friendship I’ve made here will end, and I’ll become the most hated woman on campus.

      I highlight and delete the last sentence. I don’t get to care about the social life or reputation of “Cassie Davis, party girl who joined a frat and is aggressively fun.” She’s just a character, and the real me is just an observer, a scientist, an actor, a spy. My college experience gets to be nothing more than one giant social experiment. But considering the boys who thought an important get-to-know-you question was “Ass or tits?” and the girls clawing at each other for those idiots’ attention, it seems like a small price to pay to end the madness.

      A message pops up on my computer.

      [email protected]: Ready when you are.

      It’s from the research assistant who’ll be inside the room, asking the questions. She knows only about the interview portion of the experiment and thinks that’s it.

      She’ll read from a script Professor Price and I developed, but depending on how the conversation turns, I can message her follow-up questions or deviations.

      To her, my name is just “Observer 2.” (Price gets to be Observer 1, of course. When she’s here.)

      I slip on the large black studio-style headphones and type back.

      [email protected]: Good to go.

      The first interviewee is a quiet Hispanic girl. She sits directly across from Stephanie but keeps looking nervously at the mirror.

      I smile instinctively, wanting to make her feel more at home. But, of course, she can’t see me.

      It turns out she’s a freshman and, having skipped sorority Rush, has had no personal experience with Greek Life.

      “My mom warned me against going to the frats, though. She read an article.”

      Her interview takes all of ten minutes.

      Not the most valuable interview, but general opinion is important to get, too.

      Great job! I message Stephanie. One down!

      Hundreds to go, but at least not all of them today.

      Person after person sits in the chair across from Stephanie. There was a lit club guy with sleeve tattoos who didn’t understand why this study was occurring in the first place. “Do you realize how many more important issues there are? You guys should be talking about fracking, not this bullshit!”

      With that, he got up and left. I wonder if he’ll still help himself to the free lunch.

      Then there was a junior, a member of a frat—not DTC—who wanted to talk at length about brotherhood and philanthropy, but was unable to remember if there were any racial minorities in his frat during his three years at school.

      There was a young woman who, without hesitation, said that she loved to go to the frats on weekends for parties, but never alone. At which point I had to stop myself from yelling through the glass how royally messed up it is that she has to be on guard at a place where she’s supposedly relaxing and having fun.

      After a while everyone starts to blur together. I watch people rotate in and out of the chair until I’m dizzy. Watching the window starts to feel more like I’m watching TV, but really boring TV, like

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