Clockwork, Inc.

By Michael Soderlund

Clockwork, Inc. is the tale of an epic scandal. Taking place at the University of Colorado, it's a story of six friends who discover a great opportunity and decide to take advantage of it, only to set into motion a series of events that would shape their lives in a profound and lasting way. The story is an intellectually engaging look into the ideal college life. From beginning to end, the reader is kept engrossed in a rich and involving plot, building to a suspenseful climax and an unforgettable conclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468534825

Book preview

Chapter 1

SKU-000533460_TEXT.pdf

When we are young, anything is possible. It was at the beautiful University of Colorado that I first learned of what can be accomplished with a fated blend of ingenuity, good luck, and determination. The stars aligned for us there. It was there that we achieved the kinds of things otherwise only found in fiction, and there that we lost the kinds of things that most men spend their whole lives searching for. We caught a glimpse of glory then, but by the time it was over we found ourselves embroiled in a great scandal.

I don’t remember when the University of Colorado first appealed to me, but I remember all too clearly the visit that sealed my fate. As high school graduation neared, my classmates and I were encouraged to tour colleges, and to begin planning out the remainder of our lives. So it was that I attended a guided tour of CU. Never before having seen a mountain, I was awestruck.

Nestled beneath the splintered foothills of Colorado’s Front Range was the majestic town of Boulder. It was alive and uninhibited. Free, fresh and clear. Colorful people peppered the streets and the town offered an array of the most beautiful girls that I had ever seen. That was all it took. The unassuming campus tour followed me home and invaded my thoughts until the empty triumph of high school graduation set me loose into the wild. Now, I decided, I was Boulder bound. And so it was.

The following fall semester I enrolled in some introductory level journalism classes and I spent my first week in town surveying fraternity houses. I pledged the first one I visited and none others. I was invited to join, and I did. This decision would go on to shape the rest of my life in a profound and lasting way.

The first portion of that semester moved slowly, but was marked by real progress. I attacked my assignments with a passion, and managed to nod my head at all the right times in class. I was well received by my professors and my peers alike. Early on I would even pursue news stories for no academic reason whatsoever. My fraternal relations developed quickly and each new friendship was accompanied by the timeless regiment of hazing. I was only ever safe in the company of my fellow freshman. Needless to say, we bonded right away.

For the first semester the fraternity had kept us in bunks in the basement, resembling an old military bunker. We thought nothing of it. We were relieved to be out of our families’ reach, and any amount of casual torture seemed tolerable then. As far as we knew, that was as good as it got for freshmen, and that was alright with us. We spent our daylight hours studying and availed ourselves drinks each night. It was blissful.

Our entire first semester went along this way; regular stabs at intellect being as regularly interrupted by craziness. I made some valuable connections with my now forgotten professors, and I got to work learning the system. Spending hours on campus each day, I got the lay of the land in no time at all. I stayed on campus a lot at first, because the week of hazing extended indefinitely, and was rumored to intensify throughout the semester.

When we freshmen did return to the house, especially when in a group, the hell began. One noteworthy exercise was the annual ‘first snowfall of the year’ ritual. Low-browed and brutal in its simplicity, this exercise went to the heart of hazing. Once the first substantive snowfall of the year began, the newcomers were tossed from their studies and their recreation, rounded up and put in a great single file line on the front lawn. We were flooded by a barrage of spotlight fire and stripped of our clothing, down to boots and boxers. Then we were made to recite the fraternity’s constitution over and over again. Chapter President Tom Metzger started things off. He was a character who was larger than life in all our eyes, and everyone followed along.

Tom, in full winter attire, spoke through a bullhorn to a shivering and frightened crowd, and he looked to be enjoying himself. Although we were expected to have memorized it by this time, for good sport we were each provided a copy of the fraternity’s constitution, and the recitation began. The catch was that the first person to quit was, without contest or conjecture, therefore removed from the fraternal order. So, every year, no one quit and tragedy was tempted. In this instance, however, someone did quit. From my distance on the end of the line I couldn’t tell who had dropped off, and I never did care to find out, but it certainly wasn’t who I had expected. I had pledged with an ill-managed, four-eyed, frizzy-haired kid from Denver named Arthur. I had pegged him to fall first, but he hadn’t.

A wave of relief swept over the rest of us, and our posture loosened. We knew that shortly we would be relieved of this obligation to exhibit our naked bodies in the winter spotlight. As soon as this first boy fell, Tom Metzger pried himself from his presidential, fireside chair and reappeared on the porch. He stood in front of the spotlights and projected a hundred foot image over the crowd. With a short little wave he gestured us inside. After that horrific experience we were treated to uncharacteristically good food and beer, and Tom went upstairs and went to bed.

Not every encounter with upperclassmen was as abysmal. Once, sometime in the second month, I was woken in the early morning hours by a violent commotion on the upper floor. After my attempts to ignore the ruckus proved hopeless, I dressed myself and walked up to see what was happening. There were three fuzzy figures sitting at the card table, with half of the bar, half-emptied, laid out in front of them. I stood in the doorway and tried to decipher the objective of the game that they were playing. It made no sense. Cards were involved, but in no meaningful way. Before long, I made out the three participants. The first one I noticed was Arthur, barely hanging on, but being a team player as usual. The second kid was a familiar upperclassman who I never did get to know, and who graduated at the end of that first year. The third was a political science student named Zachary Lovett. He wore a sly goatee, short brown hair and cosmopolitan glasses. He was wrapped up in the makeshift game and, from all appearances; they had been at it all night. He was the one who turned around and spotted me in the doorway. Who the hell are you? he demanded, as if I were an intruder. I was just sleeping, I managed to sputter. Well, I guess you’re not anymore, he said, throwing back a shot of bourbon in a boot shaped glass. He slid a chair out from under the table with his foot and motioned for me to sit down.

I took my seat and tried to catch up. All the attention that Zach and the other had been lavishing on Arthur was now directed at me. The other upperclassman dropped off not long after I began, but the three of us carried on until the early morning. When the sun rose, we were deep into a memorably political conversation. Arthur, although responsive at the time, later admitted that he remembered none of this. Regardless, it was the first time that I had fraternized with either of them, and I left with a resoundingly positive impression of them both. Our discussion had also marked my first intellectual experience in college, and it left me wanting more.

The next day I and my studies suffered, but a political interest had been sparked in me that night, and it would later come to shape my academic career. I started paying special attention to political coverage and reading three or four newspapers a day. Around the same time the radical nature of the lectures at CU began to bother me. It started to pick away at the enthusiasm that I had arrived with, and I wanted my new friends’ opinions on it all.

Zach usually only surfaced when the house held its weekly formal dinner. My new revelations gave us a lot to talk about, and the drinking hours after dinner allowed me a chance to showcase my new beliefs and to vent my newfound frustration. As it was, Zach and many of the upperclassmen had realized long before what I was struggling to admit; that this town and this school were insane. Wednesday dinners were also the only time that Tom Metzger was accessible to the whole house, and we freshmen got the impression that he distanced himself from us intentionally.

One such dinner, however, offered me a unique opportunity to speak with Tom one-on-one. The house’s general membership was deciding on a new bylaw and, for some counterintuitive reason, the house President was shut out of negotiations. I had arrived late and happened upon him in the main corridor, wearing a full suit, sitting on a wooden bench with only three legs, and smoking a cigarette. I didn’t know what to say, so I started with the basics. I was sure he wouldn’t remember me, but he did. He called me by name and asked; how are ya’? I said; good, I’m good, and I asked him what he was doing alone out there. He explained and suggested that since I had arrived late, that I not enter and disrupt the discussion. So I sat across from him and we talked.

He was a tall and striking young man, with a sharp ‘captain of industry’ feel to him. I learned that he was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and would later learn that he was of old money. His grandfather owned a lucrative enterprise and Tom in was line to take the helm when he was ready. He studied business management and he played the stock market just for the fun of it. He asked me what I thought about the house and the school so far. Not wanting to disappoint, I said that I fully approved. He was surprised. He went on to tell me about his first semester. He, much as was the case for me, knew no one coming in and decided that the house would act as a crutch for him, but after joining he feared that it was a mistake. His honesty was shocking. There was the President of the house speaking candidly about once detesting his time there, but Tom had a way of saying even shocking things in such an agreeable manner that it was hard to question him. He asked me what I studied, and I stuttered journal-journalism. This piqued his attention. He gave me an interested look and followed it shortly with; Really? A friend of mine is the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper. He could probably set you up. My jaw dropped. I had been wondering what it took to get a position on the campus paper, and, as in so many other cases, it only took knowing someone. Before I had a chance to get all the details the door swung open and Tom popped up and entered a room full of well-dressed and hungry young men. He waved me in after him and we sat down in our respective seats and ate dinner.

Chapter 2

SKU-000533460_TEXT.pdf

As the semester wore on much of my spare time was spent downtown at a bar called the Buff, where various fraternity brothers held select positions. They all came to consider me a fixture there, just another hopeless drunken reporter. There I met an endless ensemble of the kind of girls that I hadn’t believed to exist just three short months earlier. Eventually, great friendships and a grand scheme would be hatched out of our escapades in that silly little peanut bar.

As finals approached everyone adjusted their schedule and social relations mostly dropped off. I used my excess hours to buckle down for the first time since those first few weeks. I studied with a purpose during that time. My journalism assignments all went smoothly, but nothing else did. That first round of finals was ugly, but it didn’t matter to me.

There was a layover period of about a week after everyone was done with their studies, but before the town evacuated. This was prime party season in Boulder. It was the cliché college life; an abandonment of responsibility, an embrace of everything impractical and self-serving, and all with no one there to hold us accountable. That’s how it went for that week before Christmas. Many of the upperclassmen had left for home and the house had a strangely vacant feeling to it. Arthur and I got bored as soon as there was no schoolwork to avoid and I brought him to the bar. Something remarkable happened that night. The stars aligned for us then, as everyone that I had met over the course of the semester was there, and almost no one else.

A beautiful waitress named Keri Baker was the only one working and she had nothing to do other than to attend to us. There we were. Myself, Arthur, Zach Lovett, Tom Metzger, Keri, and two other house members named John Porter and Ryan Roarick. We found ourselves poised around a table and engrossed in discussion. Ryan was from Chicago. I had seen him at our events and our weekly dinners, but we had never been properly introduced. Although often clumsy on the weekends, Ryan could talk his way out of a hurricane. He was a fixture downtown, but it was clear that despite his love for recreation, Ryan was going places. He and I went from being strangers to being friends instantaneously. John was a psychology student from Austin, Texas, and he was firmly religious. So much as to donate his time to a local church every week. He had been bred to attend Georgetown, but had fallen in love with skiing and convinced his family to send him to Colorado.

Something was said that night. Something about the current student body president and his glaring incompetence. That was where it all started. Neither Arthur nor I knew much about the student government. We knew what was printed in the newspaper, and not much more. But Tom, Zach, John and Ryan knew all about it. They were each insiders in their own way. Tom had his seat in the Student Senate. Zach was fully versed in everything political, and John knew everybody. He was friendly with the then current Student Body President, Vice President, a good portion of the Senate, as well as many student organization leaders on campus. Ryan was also an insider by nature. He was altogether well-connected, on and off of campus, and never was he shy about utilizing his contacts to get ahead.

The conversation continued. It was agreed that the performance of the current President was sub-standard, and that there was no way for him to secure the vacancy that would be left in the fall. The current V.P. was not only a senior, but was decidedly incapable of holding the office. As the conversation grew more heated, some questionable alternatives were offered. Then, alas, it was suggested. By whom I forget. Tom, you should run! That was how it all started; with a quiet suggestion in a noisy barroom. Immediately we all fell behind the idea, and it didn’t take long for it to begin to sound feasible. There it was; a hint of promise in the air. That night was the genesis of Tom Metzger’s political career at CU, and there Arthur and I were, two freshmen on the ground floor. Where it would take us from there, we never would have believed.

We all went home for Christmas break the next day. I had the second shortest distance to travel after Arthur, who only had to go just down the hill. I made it home without incident, and after working out wonderfully elaborate excuses for my grades, my folks never brought it up. After the initial relief of being home had worn off, my thoughts again gravitated back to my stories. But something was missing. My mind wasn’t as squarely focused as it had been. As hard as I tried to ignore it, I couldn’t stop thinking about Keri Baker. Why I hadn’t noticed it more clearly before I couldn’t reason. The two of us had an immediate rapport and had spent more time back and forth than had any other two at the table. She was also a freshman, a sorority girl, and she was gorgeous. She had long, straight blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a beautifully flirtatious smile. The more I thought about her, the more I couldn’t stop thinking about her. By the time Christmas and New Year’s had past I was determined to go back to Boulder and to make her my own.

We all returned to town at roughly the same time. With about a week before classes started, we had time to drown out all the healthiness that our families had subjected us to over break. The house was always chaotic around this time of year, but especially was it then. Although all of us freshmen were kept strictly unaware of this fact, we were being moved out of the bunker and into actual rooms. It was a relief. Three and some months in the bunker were more than enough. The twisted fact about it was that these perfectly fine rooms were, and had been, sitting vacant for all the time that we had been sequestered in the basement. Both Arthur and I had arrived back sooner than most others and since roommates had to be decided on before any room could be assigned, we decided to lodge together and we got first dibs on a room. We picked a spacious corner room on the third floor. It looked out on the north side over a sorority house and west up a towering foothill. This marked a major improvement for both Arthur and I.

As more freshmen filtered back into the house frantic calls were made to summon friends home, designate roommates and not get stuck with the bottom of the barrel. Many of the rooms on the second floor left a lot to be desired. Most would be confining for a single person, let alone with another body there. This, we eventually concluded, accounted for a lot of the random hostility down on the second floor. Things would erupt on a regular basis down there and usually with no rational explanation. But, the worst of all possible rooms, the absolute bottom of the barrel, the one which had supposedly been kept vacant for several years, was room 212. A freshman had hanged himself in the closet of that room many years earlier, and the room was widely rumored to be cursed. Any kid that was assigned to the room invariably flunked out of school. This later proved to have some merit, if only anecdotal. Nonetheless, Arthur and I settled readily into our new accommodations and things began to fall into place shortly thereafter.

It wasn’t long following our return that the six of us found ourselves again at the bar. This time I was the one to tempt fate. I asked; Tom, do you remember what we all talked about last time? As it happened, no one had forgotten, and new ideas were introduced to the mix. But, like so many of such conversations, things took a casual turn and it was over a month before I heard the subject broached again.

After one of the semester’s first formal dinners I approached Tom with something that had been loitering in my thoughts. At this stage I knew him well enough to take him up on the offer that he had surely forgotten having made. I approached him and asked; Do you remember telling me that you’ve a friend on the paper staff? He didn’t even let me finish before beginning his response. Sure-Kyle! He’s the Editor-in-Chief. I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. Do you think… ? I stumbled my way into asking; . . . you could get me some kind of position there on the newspaper? Sure! he belted out. This was a giant step forward. His snap response would have seemed dismissive should it have come from anyone else, but Tom always said what he meant and meant what he said. I took him for his word, shook his hand and thanked him in advance for his help. Then I fled as not to make any mistake that would allow him to reconsider. Just as he had said, about three days later came a melodic knock on our door. It was Tom. When I opened the door he slapped me on the shoulder and said; You meet Kyle tomorrow in the Union-first floor at one o’clock. Don’t be late and bring him something of yours for him to read. When he left the room I let out a small yelp.

I showed up fifteen minutes early for my meeting. Arthur and I shared a pitcher of beer beforehand to help calm my nerves, but this turned out to be unnecessary. Kyle was an agreeable guy. He glanced at the story I brought him and asked me a few formulaic questions before asking; You know you don’t get paid, right? I knew then that I was in. I chuckled and said; that’s fine, I just want to write. He proceeded to explain the extent of the obligation. It ultimately consisted of attending all news staff conferences, answering the phone at all hours, showing up when requested and covering any story that the news editor assigned to me, regardless of any lack of interest on my part. I agreed to all terms and conditions with a great wide smile on my face, and the following Monday I entered my first newsroom.

It was appropriately casual for a newsroom on campus. I couldn’t help but take notice of an old leather chair leaking fluff, an Army issue typewriter, and a medieval-looking telescope when I came into the room. Kyle the Editor walked me through the office and made some formal introductions. The news staff was a curious collection of students, ranging from the proper to the radical, who were usually photographers. I made a point to meet each person individually, even though, as a whole the newsroom seemed to have little interest in having another reporter on staff. I kept my greetings short and parted as soon as I could. I thanked Tom that following Wednesday and then again, probably too many times, at the bar that weekend. He barely considered it a favor, and, at least for the time, I thought this to be a simple fraternal gesture. Either way, I was genuinely appreciative.

During that semester I put my articles first and used my leftover time to satisfy my class work. On the surface it seemed backwards, but making a good impression on the paper meant more to me than did almost anything else. I knew that I had much more flexibility in class than in my grandfathered position. I worked hard on both and the two balanced out nicely. I got past the paper staff’s reluctant façade, and got to know some of my fellow reporters. They were just like me, if only in that their reporting work always came first.

I was assigned some boring stories at the beginning, but I attacked them with the same vigor that I would have a real set of assignments. My vigilance paid off shortly and I was rewarded with a few assignments that resembled true news coverage. I arranged things so, when needed, I had a standard photographer to accompany me on my trips. She was a cute and enthusiastic young photographer named Emily. She was the only photographer on staff that wasn’t possibly a communist. This accounted for her initial appeal to me, but as we grew more familiar we realized one another to be pleasant company, and so we continued requesting overlapping assignments. She routinely helped me construct my stories, and I gave as helpful of advice as I could about her photos. Her assistance was always much more helpful than was mine, but she always accepted it anyway. She and I collaborated on some very rewarding stories that semester, and we became friends along the way.

Zach, Tom, Ryan and I, when the weather began to improve, got into the habit of taking trips to trap-shoot up in the mountains. Being from Kansas, I valued my firearms, and my skill paid off then more than ever. I gained respect in the eyes of these upperclassmen, so I demonstrated it as often as I could.

It was on one of these trips to the foothills that I again broached the issue of Tom’s potential candidacy in the upcoming student body presidential race. As it happened, the idea hadn’t been far from his mind since it was first suggested. He mentioned then that he had discussed his running with his family over Christmas break, and that they were not only supportive of the idea, but were now actively encouraging him to run. This topic dominated our conversation for the bulk of the afternoon. We discussed how easy it would be to carry all the members of the major student organizations. It also came up that a great many apathetic CU students would not be following the campaigns, and would certainly not be voting. This would allow us to target the more likely voters and to concentrate our time and resources.

In addition, we knew that we could carry the majority of the Greek community, either by general familiarity or by throwing campaign parties at the swing-vote houses. The latter alternative was my contribution. Everybody loves beer, and it’s my understanding that no one follows these campaigns. People will vote for where the beer is coming from, I suggested. This was agreed by all to be a strong point. We could simply bribe our way into a good number of otherwise undedicated votes. If Tom were to be the only Greek affiliate running, then we could assume nearly the entire Greek vote. Furthermore, it was decided, Tom’s position on the Student Senate could be used as a springboard to this higher office. We could make headline news of the bills that Tom had carried into code. This would swing many uninformed political enthusiasts, regardless of the content of the updated codes. These and many more reasons for Tom’s candidacy were acknowledged, and we headed back down to Boulder with a new objective in mind. We had left for the mountains that day only looking for some light drinking and heavy gunfire, and we returned with a type of determination that we had not yet known.

I realized, after our return, that I had more to offer this candidacy than I had previously thought. It occurred to me that my position on the paper could serve a valuable purpose. I had received several assignments concerning the student government, and it was approaching the stage where my work spoke for itself. If I asked just right, I could usually request my own stories. Then, I remembered, I wouldn’t have to request a thing. Tom could have Kyle the Editor gear all campaign coverage towards me and Emily, and we could take it from there. I assumed that Emily would be game, and she was. When I saw Tom that Wednesday I mentioned this, and as appreciative as he was for my volunteering, he had already constructed the situation to ensure this to be the case. He informed me that Kyle would be graduating at the end of the semester, and so the position of Editor-in-Chief would be up in the air, and we couldn’t necessarily count on anything that Kyle set into motion being honored in the critical campaign season after he was gone. Regardless, I considered this to be both the source of my contribution, and my ticket in the door if Tom were to be elected.

I carried on in my studies as if that day in the mountains wasn’t lingering in my thoughts. I pursued all the stories that I was assigned with the same drive that I had before, but only one week elapsed before I cornered Tom and ask him, for mutually beneficial reasons, to have Kyle direct me to exclusively political coverage. My strategy was to wedge for myself a spot in the newsroom that no one could more effectively fill in the fall semester; to become indispensable. Surely enough, Kyle handed me the title of ‘Campus Political Reporter’ early the next week, and I held that title through the following summer and well into the semester of the campaign. Things had gone exactly according to plan.

Chapter 3

SKU-000533460_TEXT.pdf

On one of my more adventurous nights at the bar I was finally availed the chance to sit down one-on-one with Keri Baker. She was even more beautiful than I had remembered, and I had been thinking of her since our last encounter back before Christmas. The bar was thankfully empty that night and we sat and talked for hours. About what I have no recollection, but I remember that it was the best time that I had ever had talking in a bar. She was full of life and diluted opinion and just sitting across from her made me feel alive too. She had a carefree way about her, yet she harbored some very strong opinions. I think that I learned more about Keri that first night than I would in the entire duration of our relationship. She studied marketing and had the ability to demonstrate her assertiveness while keeping everyone in line with her. I was assuming that such a poetically beautiful girl must be attached, but as that hadn’t come up in our lengthy conversation, I swallowed my pride, took the plunge, and asked her out. She didn’t hesitate in her response. In fact, I got the impression that she had been waiting for me to ask. She answered with an enthusiastic sure and gave me a look that melted me inside. I was ecstatic, and I had difficulty containing my excitement. We set a time and date for the following Friday, and I picked her up in front of her sorority house.

At this time I was altogether uninformed as to what we would be doing, but I thought it would be a standard first date sort of activity. Maybe it was, only not the type that I had anticipated. She took me to a performing arts show that featured a variety of interpretive dance, set to crazy African music. With no drink and an empty pack of cigarettes, I was in no mood to sit through interpretive dance, but a friend of hers was involved and she was enjoying herself, so I played along. Afterwards, the date resembled more what I would have chosen from the start. We had dinner and two bottles of wine. She considered herself a wine connoisseur, and only I took her word for the bottles’ quality and nodded along. After dinner we went to a bar downtown and talked. I had to elbow my way up to get our drinks and after a few close calls with large, drunken students I asked her politely if we could go to the Buff. She agreed and we finished our drinks and walked down the street to that, my favorite haunt. There we met up with the guys. I wondered if any of them would remember seeing us. They all did, and I later received high kudos for my conquest. Kudos aside, Keri and I went home to our respective houses before the night got too late. I was left in a flurried state of excitement. I was taken, and there was no forgetting her now.

The next night I received full congratulations. That night the bar was pumping. People had flocked in to see the headlining band. I sat in a daze. My mind still hadn’t fully processed the night before. I fraternized despite my incoherence, but had then only one thing on my mind, and she wasn’t there that night. I wound up sitting at the same table as usual, with this group of guys that were quickly becoming my best friends. After all expected congratulations and questions had run their course; we digressed to the second most interesting topic on my mind, Tom’s election.

By this stage, the concept of Tom’s running for office had fully converted into intention and we moved from the hypothetical into our first stage of planning. Everyone was given a specific detail. Mine was to keep and faithfully execute my role as a political journalist until my pro-Tom services were requested. John was put in charge of turning all the on-campus religious organizations in our favor. Ryan, who was President of the Finance Club, was designated as our campus attaché. He was to procure as much support as he could from both his club members and all of their acquaintances. Ryan took this to heart and got started immediately. In the following weeks random groups would shuffle into the bar, or sometimes the house, always escorted by Ryan, and would head straight to meet Tom. I always wondered what Ryan had said to them prior to their arrival, as they always had a look of determination to them before meeting Tom, and always left a sense of admiration behind when they parted. Zach was encouraged to spread the word of Tom within the political science department. He knew a great many students, and they, as did we, respected Zach’s opinion. Although conservative at heart, his behavior on campus never tipped his hand. He was well-liked by all, other than the commies, who tended to hate everything that wasn’t in line with their own aimless schemes. Zach treated his daily relations like one long lobbying campaign, and Tom knew that he could reap the benefits of this. Arthur, although he was the low man on the totem pole, was also assigned a task.

We, as a group, stirred up a lot of interest in a relatively short period of time. Tom managed to enlist the help of nearly every member of the house, and many of their friends came along for the ride. I went out of my way to include Keri and her sorority sisters as much as I could, but so far before the campaign it was tough to get them interested in it. So I made up some official sounding titles for her and her friends. Keri would be ‘Director of Greek Relations’, and her best friend ‘Campaign Event Coordinator’. Even though at the time I had concocted these positions only to ensure her involvement and to keep her close to me, I later cleared my move with Tom and the girls each did a great job. His consent was immediate. In fact, he was full of congratulations for the idea. I had approached the issue timidly, because I had offered two make-shift positions on his campaign to two sorority girls. Consent wasn’t a guarantee, but it was forthcoming. My self-serving gesture sparked in him an uproar of attention to the creation of formal campaign positions. He analyzed the idea in his room for hours afterwards, calling everyone he knew