Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary: “Pure Water”

Over Christmas break, Rob attends a mandatory convention for KA chapter presidents. He hears about all the safety protocols on the official KA books, absolutely none of which are implemented in practice. The policies would create “the lamest fucking party in the history of the world” (124). Mikey buys himself two cars, hides stacks of cash at his grandparents’ house, and spends time with Biscuit and Waka Flocka Flame at 808 Mafia, a studio that produces trap and rap music. Waka is planning to perform at an SAE chapter, but he cancels his tour when a video surfaces of SAE members chanting a nursery rhyme that includes the n-word and promotes lynching. A news anchor, responding to Waka’s anger and disgust, suggests that the frat brothers learned the n-word from Waka’s music.

Many fraternities had an official “whites only” policy until the 1950s, with some even specifying “Aryan” blood requirements. These policies are often unofficially enforced today. The Kappa Alpha Order shares its origins with the Ku Klux Klan; the KA was created to “inculcate in their young men such high ideals” (131) as white supremacy. The links between the KA and KKK are not secret; they are on the KA Wikipedia page. Today, the KA has distanced itself from the KKK, and some chapters do have Black members. However, they maintain a reverence for Robert E. Lee and view themselves as knights who “rose after the Civil War to defend women’s purity” (133) from a slowly desegregating society. The Varlet contains quotes from John Temple Graves, who is famous for his 1903 speech advocating lynching to prevent rape. Marshall interviews a C of C KA who says that there will never be a Black KA member at the college.

Mikey moves back to Charleston in the summer of 2015. He tells his mother that he has enrolled at the Trident Technical College but in reality plans to split his time between Charleston and Atlanta and keep trafficking drugs. He reconnects with his KA brothers. Many of the pills circulating at C of C are no longer name- brand Xanax but counterfeit pills that are either blank or stamped “GG249.” Zack is the supplier, and Rob and his team sell tens of thousands of pills per week. Business is booming.

Chapter 10 Summary: “Uncle’s Coke”

Mikey goes to KA parties and hazes new pledges even though he no longer attends C of C. Younger members are impressed by his wealth and music industry connections. Rob and Mikey begin selling cocaine, which most college students are afraid to sell. Mikey has a source in Atlanta whom he calls “Uncle,” who gets him wholesale prices for cocaine. Soon, they are selling to frat houses at colleges in Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi.

Mikey delivers cocaine from Atlanta to Rob, who resells it to Zack and others. Zack in turn sells Rob Xanax, who sells it to Mikey and to college students. Zack now manufactures alprazolam pills himself, using black market powder that he orders from China. At a rented beach house, he and a colleague, Eric Hughes, run a pill press.

To avoid suspicion, Zack starts to stash his supply away from home at a rented apartment, 97 Smith Street, which he calls the “Treehouse.” He keeps cocaine from Mikey, “twenty pounds of marijuana and nearly a million alprazolam pills” (150). Mikey hides drugs and money in a safe at 7 Montagu. Police violence, which often targets Black people in the area, has no impact on the drug ring. At the end of 2015, a student who deals LSD and Xanax is arrested. When asked about his supplier, he names Zack Kligman, and the police start watching the Treehouse.

Chapter 11 Summary: “Patrick”

Marshall interviews Patrick Moffly’s family and friends. Patrick’s parents are very wealthy. Patrick had severe anxiety but did not want to be on medication that numbed his emotions. As a teen, Patrick smoked weed and threw raucous parties. His parents hired expensive lawyers to keep offenses off his record. He would often go through depressive episodes that could last weeks before returning to the party scene. Patrick started hanging around older guys and developed a dependency on cocaine and Xanax.

Patrick starts at C of C in 2015. He moves into 97 Smith Street with four roommates. He parties with fraternities but is not a member. Patrick gains a reputation for being clumsy while high, and his drug dependency spirals out of control. Two of his housemates are part of Zack’s operation and Patrick starts dealing too. His friends worry about him; he sometimes takes as much as 10mg of Xanax at a time, mixing it with alcohol and other drugs. Patrick befriends a man named Josh Bowman and a woman named Jordan Piacente. In November, he is arrested for trafficking 13 ounces of cocaine. He does not want a lawyer; hiring one would break Zack Kligman’s trust. His parents hire a lawyer anyway.

Patrick is released on bail and allowed to go to South America with his family while awaiting trial. When he returns to Charleston, he goes into a depressive spiral. Zack has cut him off from his trafficking operation since his arrest. He takes more and more Xanax to cope with his anxiety. He breaks his arm, then spends the night doing drugs with Jordan. The next day, he posts a Snapchat video of himself doing cocaine. Later that day, Patrick’s parents receive a phone call from the hospital: Patrick has been shot and is in critical condition.

Chapter 12 Summary: “Count Crazy”

On March 4th, the day Patrick is shot and killed, most C of C students are preparing for spring break. Rob and Mikey are vaguely aware that there has been an incident. Even Patrick’s own housemates leave for their holidays the day after he is shot.

At the end of spring break, Mikey’s grandfather dies. Rob spends time with Mikey to help him grieve. Mikey reveals that he is now a millionaire; he and Rob have been so successful in their drug operation that they now have to launder money. Their success is largely thanks to the highly addictive nature of Xanax. When Patrick tried to quit Xanax after being arrested with cocaine, he became erratic and “cycled among depression, panic attacks, and delirium” (187). When his body was autopsied, coroners found Xanax in his system again. Many people who try to quit Xanax fail, and withdrawal can be lethal. Marshall himself has seen several high school friends try and fail to stop using Xanax.

Zack orders a pound of cocaine from Rob. He has never met Mikey and does not know who Rob’s supplier is. Rob tells him that he will have the cocaine by the end of the week. Mikey has trouble with his usual supply and has to push the deadline while he finds a different, cartel-linked source. After several delays, Rob sends a pledge driver, Jonathan Reams, to pick up the cocaine. Mikey delivers the drugs to Jonathan in Atlanta, and Jonathan drives it back to Charleston.

The following day, April 22nd, Rob meets Zack outside 7 Montagu to deliver the cocaine. Zack leaves to get the money he owes Rob. Rob gives Jonathan another delivery of drugs to drop at a house. Police arrest Jonathan and confiscate the drugs. They also stop Rob and ask him if he has drugs. Rob admits that there are “five to seven ounces of cocaine in his truck” (196). He is arrested and taken to the police station. Police raid 7 Montagu but find no drugs. After the raid, Rob’s housemates are frantic, and rumors are flying. Rob returns and tells them that the police have confiscated his passport and told him not to leave town.

Chapters 9-12 Analysis

The order of events as Marshall narrates them can get confusing, as there are a lot of people involved and a lot of moving pieces. Police close in on the drug ring when a student informs on Zack. Through Zack, they find Jonathan and Rob, which puts them just one step away from Mikey. Patrick’s death is connected to the drug ring, but only tangentially; of the other major players in the story, Zack is the only one he knew personally before he was shot. The next section elaborates more on all these connections and on the police’s path to uncovering the whole operation.

Privilege and Institutionalized Racism are on full display in this section. The members of the drug ring are shielded from police brutality because they are white and wealthy. Marshall makes a brief reference to the 2015 murder of Walter Scott, a 50-year-old Black man. Scott was pulled over for a non-functional brake light and was then fatally shot in the back as he ran away. The police officer who killed him was Michael Slager, a 33-year-old white man who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder. This murder had virtually no impact on the lives of the young men committing far more serious crimes than traffic violations in the same area at the same time.

These chapters illustrate the profoundly racist history of the Kappa Alpha Order and other fraternities like SAE. The news reporter who suggests that Black rap artists are to blame for white frat members’ use of the n-word demonstrates how racist sentiments at fraternities are often downplayed or dismissed instead of confronted; the lynching rhyme that the SAE members were chanting reflects the organization’s long history of white supremacy. KA and SAE are both closely linked in their histories with the KKK. The quote from John Temple Graves about lynching being a way to prevent rape helps illuminate KA exhortation to protect women’s “purity.” The unspoken part of that instruction is that KA members (like KKK members) should take it upon themselves to ensure that white women do not sleep with Black men, by whatever means necessary. This racist instruction is closely tied to Fraternity Culture and Misogyny: It denies (white) women agency and emphasizes that (white) men should control them.

Frat culture is predicated on loyalty among members. It welcomes Mikey back even when he is no longer a student at C of C. The extensive frat network at C of C ensures that Mikey, Rob, and their associates have a perpetual pool of buyers for their product. Some college students, Marshall notes, want access to drugs like Xanax or cocaine, but do not feel comfortable seeking them out on their own. The opportunity to buy from friends on campus makes the entire operation feel less risky, thereby encouraging even higher levels of drug use. Mikey, Rob, Zack, and the others managed to stumble upon a financial opportunity far more lucrative than most college students are ever able to manage.

Marshall explores The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse in this penultimate section of the book. Zack starts pressing his own pills because it is cheaper than getting name-brand pills on the black market, but GG249 pills are extremely dangerous. It is harder to control the dosage with homemade drugs, and there are no quality safeguards in place as there are in the real pharmaceutical industry. The effects of GG249 pills, Marshall notes, are often unpredictable. That is not to say that real Xanax pills are safe to use recreationally; they are not. They are an easy way for some people, like Patrick, to self-medicate for serious anxiety. They are highly likely to induce dependency in users, and withdrawal causes intense anxiety, depression, and delusional thinking. Severe withdrawal can kill people, just like alcohol withdrawal can.

For Mikey and Rob, Xanax has another danger: It is a gateway drug, not in the sense of their own drug use, but with regard to their dealing. Once they become confident selling Xanax, they decide to start dealing cocaine, even though they know that it carries harsher legal penalties and is generally much more dangerous to sell due to the supply being controlled largely by cartels. At this point in the narrative, all of the pieces are in place for the final chapters, where the entire situation will unravel very quickly.