Under the Rose (40 page)

It’s good to be knight.

21.

The Game

Those of us who have chosen to spend our college years within the Gothic, ivy-spattered walls of this New Haven institution, who have bathed ourselves in blue and baptized ourselves “the sons and daughters of Eli,” who have aligned our academic and collegiate philosophies with this university, who have proclaimed our allegiance and sung, full-throated, our alma mater—to us, there is only one Game.
The Game.
Eli vs. Harvard.

Every November, on our campus or theirs, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we play the last football game of the season against them. Every time, it’s epic. It doesn’t matter if the results have no bearing on the championship standing. It doesn’t matter if their record trounces ours all season long. We rally, and scream, and cheer, and sing songs for the glory of our team and school, as generations of Eli students did before us.

This year, it mattered, as Eli was up for the Ivy League Championship. If we won The Game, we’d take first place. It was my senior year, my last Game, and we had home field advantage. But on this overcast Saturday, my mind was focused on loyalty of a different sort: Today was the day the Diggers got their pride back.

In the week following our meeting with Odile and George, they’d done everything they’d promised, and more. (I spent the time hacking out a new thesis topic. Jury’s still out on whether Burak will accept it.) We’d been told the revenge scheme would serve as penance for the disgraced knights. What we hadn’t realized was that the planning process would do more to galvanize the club than a semester’s worth of whining about devotion and brotherhood. Forget oaths—nothing bonds people together quite like the power of mutual dislike.

Today, that dislike was focused on the blond head seated seven rows down. Most Eli attendees in the stadium had been sectioned off into groups according to their college affiliation. Near the forty-yard line, I caught sight of the Prescott College contingent in their sunny yellow shirts. Lydia was the one sporting the yellow bandanna and the giant foam finger. My last Game, and I was missing cheering in the stands with my best friend. Still, it would be worth it. Above me, I could see a huge crowd of green-clad Calvin College residents, though thankfully Brandon was not in evidence.

At Eli, school spirit is every bit as valid in college colors as in Eli colors, unless, of course, your college colors happen to be Harvard crimson. Edison College colors were red, so the shirts of the people seated around me were gray with red accents, and everyone waved Eli Blue banners as well as the college flag as they shouted obscenities and college cheers across the rows to the other groups. I hadn’t the foggiest what constituted an Edison College cheer, so I stayed quiet. I looked at Jenny, seated beside me and shielded from the sight of anyone nearby by the massive form of Ben, who was splayed out in the row below us wearing a giant bulldog-shaped hat.

“How’s it going?” I asked her.

“Fine.” Her thumbs moved beneath her anorak, which was letting off a series of very unanorak-like beeps. “Just keep your eyes on that scoreboard. He’s still there, right?”

I looked over Ben’s hat. “Yep.”

Micah, of course, was not doing anything so dull as sitting with the rest of Calvin College. (Perhaps it was because they weren’t behaving in a manner that could be construed as remotely Calvinist.) Instead, he’d gathered about him his usual groupies and they’d separated themselves from the surrounding madness. For once, he didn’t appear to be attacking anyone. I felt a small twinge of guilt that we were about to reward such benevolent behavior with humiliation, but then again, I doubted it would be long before he pulled a dick move of some sort or another.

Above me, a brown-shirted member of Hartford College made a play for the Edison flag (flag stealing being a favorite pastime at The Game), and the whole section rose in revolt. Someone jostled Jenny, and she slammed into me, throwing us both off the bench and against Ben’s broad back.

“Watch it!” he shouted at the squirming mass of Edisonians. “You okay?”

“I think I screwed up the sequence,” Jenny said, rubbing the back of her head. “I knew I should be doing this from the tent.”

“And miss the look on his face?” I asked. “Not a chance, hon. You deserve this more than anyone. This is the only part we can’t catch on camera. So we’re here.”

“We won’t be catching anything, camera or otherwise, if I screw up the sequence.” Jenny crouched in the space between the benches and started back in. “Okay, it’s counting down. A little early, but it’ll still work, right?”

Elsewhere, people paid attention to the action on the field, sang along to the school hymns the marching band banged out, or sneaked out flasks for a quick swig; all were oblivious to the chaos about to be unleashed.

Harun appeared behind us. “How’s it going?”

“We started.”

“Already?” He put his hands on Jenny’s shoulders and gave her a congratulatory knead. “Great! How are you feeling?”

Jenny shrugged, but didn’t pull away.

“Not guilty, right?” He smiled down at her. “Personally, we’re all excited you’ve decided to hang on to your vengeance card for a little longer.”

“Vengeance is a lofty goal,” she said. “One I’d never think of usurping. I try to keep it simple.” And then she smiled. “Just a little reminder that payback, when indeed it comes, is going to be a bitch.”

A gasp rippled through the crowd and we all looked up. Here it goes. The scoreboard began to decay before our eyes, the digital numbers falling from screen to screen.

“Show-off,” Harun whispered.

“This is hilarious,” said an Edison junior nearby. “Someone hacked it. What do you think, MIT?”

“This wouldn’t be the first time,” said the guy’s girlfriend. “But I bet it’s one of our guys. Who else would have access to the scoreboard?”

All the Diggers hid their smiles.

The announcer called a pause in play as everyone in the bowl, from the players on the field to the students in the stands to the alumni enjoying the pricey seats in the boxes, stared at the scoreboard and wondered what would happen next.

This is what they saw:

MICAH PRICE

WE’RE WATCHING YOU

BEST BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU DO

And then the words exploded into a shower of tiny hexagons and roses.

“Nice touch,” said Harun.

Jenny tried not to smile and we all ducked farther down in our seats as people in the audience began pointing to Micah. A knot of people had surrounded him, their heads close together as they whispered about the message. Laughs and jeers floated down the rows. Frat boys taunted him with sophomoric singsong rhymes. At last he stood and made a beeline for one of the exits. Harun picked up his cell phone and typed a message. As soon as Micah disappeared down the hall, we stood.

“Shall we?” I asked, and it took restraint not to link elbows as we strolled out of the stadium, leaving the Eli football team to fend for themselves. I’d like to say the game was going well for our side, but the Eli students had already started up the cheer of “School on Monday,” which was only utilized when we thought we couldn’t lord it over the Harvard students any other way. (Eli gave the whole week of Thanksgiving off, whereas Harvard kids only got Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.) Things weren’t looking good for Old Blue. I hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of bad luck to come for Old Blue’s most notorious secret society. Much as I loved my school, if anyone needed luck right now, it was the Order of Rose & Grave.

We spilled out of the stadium and into the shantytown of tailgating tents and vans. The Rose & Grave tent was a respectable yet relatively unassuming affair situated in alumni central. Even in the midst of a massive conspiracy to start civil war, the patriarchs knew to keep up appearances. Actually, the ones who arranged the tent (like Gus Kelting) probably weren’t aware of what their fellow board members had been up to. That would all end today.

The rest of the club was waiting for us inside.

“He’s in his car,” George reported, waving us over. We gathered around the television set, and someone handed me a beer. On the screen, a grainy image of Micah could be seen driving back to campus.

“Come on, flip on the radio…” George coaxed, and such is the boy’s charm that Micah, even from this distance, did.

“Man, I wish we had sound!” Josh exclaimed. But you almost didn’t need it. You could see the shock register on Micah’s face as he listened.

“By the way, this is what he’s hearing,” said Odile, pressing
PLAY
on the iPod she’d plugged into a stereo. A jarring, grinding sound issued from the speakers, followed by Micah’s name, whispered over and over in an ominous, evil voice. “Micah Price…we’re watching you. You can’t escape from the Devil that easily.”

Micah’s face was a mask of fear as we watched him press station after station on his radio control.

“Jammed,” Omar said, and smiled slightly.

Finally, Micah switched his radio off and pulled in to what I supposed was his parking garage.

Odile lifted her phone to her ear. “He’s at home. Quick, George, switch the channel. It’s showtime!”

Odile had called in one more favor from her Hollywood FX friends, Kevin had raided the Eli Dramat for the necessary sound and video equipment, and Nikolos had D-bombed Micah’s landlord good and proper. The stage was set.

The television set now showed a four-way split screen, each focused on a different section of Micah’s efficiency apartment: his kitchen sink, his bathroom mirror, the front hall, and the phone.

A few moments later, Micah entered by the front door. As soon as he did, he froze and put his hands up to cover his ears.

“The open door trips a wire that blasts death metal,” Kevin explained. “Really Satanic stuff.”

In the image, Micah ran from spot to spot, looking for a way to make the music stop. He paused to turn on a light, and the picture flooded with shades of red and violet.

“Wow, Micah,” said Odile. “Are you using those new low-energy bulbs?” She giggled as Micah stuck his head under the lamp shade to get a look at his new lighting scheme, and got a face full of movie cobwebs instead.

From there, he rushed into the kitchen and turned on the sink tap, the better to wash the gunk off his face. Yet what issued from the faucet was not water, but dark red blood. (Actually, dye packs shoved in the faucet head.) As it splashed all over his hands and arms, he reeled back in shock.

“Please get a towel,” Jenny said. “I’m begging you.”

He knelt on the floor in front of the sink and went to yank open the cabinet. From that point on, everything happened too fast. All I saw were things spilling out on him and Micah scrambling back, practically climbing the walls to get away from the wave of little brown bodies…rats!

“
Well-trained
rats,” Ben clarified. “Homing rats, if you will. And they were
not
easy to get in there.”

The homing rats covered the floor and Micah dropped out of the frame. For a moment, all I saw were the squirming bodies of the rats slowly filling the floor of the apartment, and I hoped they actually
were
very well trained, because I couldn’t imagine how much more freaked the landlord would be if he were to find out what the Diggers had done once they’d been granted permission to go inside his place.

All of a sudden, there was movement near the phone. Micah’s feet. He was standing on a chair.

“Time for the coup de grâce, I think,” said Odile, and whipped out her cell phone. On-screen, we could see Micah lean over and pick up his own phone.

“Hello,” we heard him say over Odile’s speakerphone.

“Micah Price,” Odile said in her best impression of Cruella de Vil. “You have been judged and found
unworthy.
Prepare for your punishment at the hands of my minions, the unholy Knights of the Order of Rose & Grave.”

“Holy shit, make it stop! Make it stop!” When hysterical, I noted, Micah sounded surprisingly like a six-year-old girl.

“Do you know what it means to have the Brotherhood of Death as an enemy, Micah Price?”

“I’m sorry. Please! Please! I can’t stand these rats! Get them out of here!” Behind the sound of his voice, I heard more of the music and, yes, squeaking.

“If you know what’s good for you,” she went on, “you’ll be more careful about whom you decide to target. We can always get to you, Micah Price. This is merely a taste of what you can expect.” She stopped. “Oh, and for Christ’s sake, stop picketing that Bible class.” She clicked off. “That should do it.”

We all burst into applause. On-screen, two figures entered the apartment, both enormous, burly guys dressed completely in black and wearing executioner-style hoods. One grabbed an unresisting Micah and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, while the other proceeded to begin herding up the rodents.

We toasted our success, and were still laughing when the tent flap opened to reveal a half-dozen patriarchs, including Kurt Gehry. The good cheer died down at once, and he strode forward and took in the scene on the television set.