Fool on the Hill Read online

  “Where’d you get this?” inquired the Top, hopping over the brook and approaching the mannequin. “And more important, why? I’d really like to know, unless it’s another one of your mysteries.”

  “No mystery,” Lucius responded. “Despite all our magic we’re still a fraternity in the end, and we share a certain bond with the other Houses. Do you remember the controversy last year, with that group that called itself PUGS?”

  “People for the Undermining of the Greek System,” Myoko said. “I remember them.”

  “Then,” Lucius continued, “you’ll recall PUGS’ main platform: they thought the evils of the fraternity-sorority system outweighed the good. One of the main charges against the fraternities was that they promoted sexism. . . .”

  “And they do,” Lion-Heart pointed out. “But then so does the rest of the world, more or less No one’s pure.”

  “Not even the Bohemians,” Myoko suggested.

  “Not even the Kennedys,” the Top added, scratching his nose.

  “. . . Well,” Lucius pushed onward, “be that as it may, maybe you can understand that we felt a bit left out. All the frats were getting blasted without any distinctions, but as far as we could tell Tolkien House didn’t have so much as one nude pin-up on the walls. So to save face, we went and had the Rubbermaid custom-designed for us.”

  “Very Bohemian of you.

  “But not Tolkienian,” commented Z. Z. Top, taking something from the bowl the Rubbermaid offered. There was a tear of foil packaging and he shook out a lubricated latex tube with a grinning face inscribed at one end. “ ‘Mr. Happy,’ ” Top quoted the advertising jingle, “ ‘the only condom with a smile to call its own.’ ‘Tolkien would have crucified you guys.”

  Shen Han shrugged. “Eventually we’ll get rid of it. For the time being, though, the Rubbermaid’s become quire a conversation piece.”

  “This whole place is a conversation piece,” Lion-Heart said. “And now that we’ve seen Lothlórien, how about telling us what you want?”

  “We’ve told you already,” said Shen Han, a touch nervously. “We want you as members . . .”

  “If the rest of the House is anything like this forest, here,” Lion-Heart replied, “there’s no chance you’d be giving away a blanket membership to a group like the Bohemians. Not without some other string attached.” He spread his arms, as if to gather in earth, greenery, and projected sky. “This is too pretty. Share it with the wrong people and they might ruin it. So what’s the extra hook?”

  Shen Han considered for a moment. then turned to Noldorin. “Show him,” he said.

  Nodding, Noldorin stepped up to the pedestal that held the silver basin. He gestured to the Bohemian King to come forward, and Lion-Heart did so. Staring into the water he saw that the bottom of the basin was dark, reflecting the stars above.

  “Watch closely,” Noldorin told him. “And be careful that you don’t touch the water.”

  With that he gestured at the basin with his ring-hand. The stars in the basin vanished, to be replaced by various scenes of Ithaca and the Cornell campus. Though he knew them to be some sort of mechanical projection, Lion-Heart was still impressed, for unlike a series of slides, the images faded smoothly from one to the other. After a time Risley appeared in the water, and this image gave way to a face that Lion-Heart knew well. He burst out laughing; for the face was Fujiko’s, and the reason behind the offer of membership suddenly clear.

  “Which one of you is in love with her?” Lion-Heart asked. He looked at Noldorin, saw something in his expression. “You?”

  Very slowly, Noldorin nodded. He tried not to blush; that would have been unbecoming for a fraternity President.

  “Well, she’s unattached,” said Lion-Heart. “Not that I can promise you anything more than an introduction, and you can have that free if you want it. Are you sure you want to make such an uneven trade?”

  “We’re sure,” Noldorin replied. “It’s the spirit of it.”

  “All right then,” said Lion-Heart. “I guess Bohemia’s going to be honorary Greek—or whatever this place is.”

  Noldorin smiled broadly and reached out to shake Lion-Heart’s hand. As he did, the image in the basin shifted yet again; now it showed an outside view of Tolkien House itself, a treetop-level view that looked beyond the surrounding wood tract and revealed, just barely, the rooftop of another nearby Greek House. It was really just a glimpse, but all the same Lion-Heart recognized that rooftop, and froze. His good humor of a moment ago drained away.

  “What’s wrong?” Noldorin asked, concerned.

  Lion-Heart looked at him with a deadly seriousness. “You have neighbors.”

  “What?”

  “We have two neighbors on adjoining property,” Shen Han spoke up. “Carl Sagan and Rho Alpha Tau.”

  “Trust me,” said the Top, “he’s not talking about Carl.”

  “You’re worried about our relationship with Rho Alpha Tau?” asked Noldorin of Lion-Heart. “Is that it?”

  “Let’s say I’m curious what you think about them.”

  Noldorin shrugged. “The distance between the two Houses could be wider,” he said. “And if the ground opened up and swallowed them I don’t suppose we’d hold a wake.”

  “What is it you want us to say?” Shen Han inquired. “The Rat Frat’s reputation is an embarrassment for the whole system. No one loves them.”

  “No one but Tri-Pi sorority,” Z. Z. Top corrected him. “Isn’t that a fucking shame?”

  “It’s a shame, but we don’t share Tri-Pi’s enthusiasm,” Noldorin insisted. “Do you want us to swear to that?”

  Lion-Heart stared up at the stars in silence for a long moment before answering.

  “Sometimes I speak too quickly,” he said. “I have one more question I have to ask before we can seal the bargain. You may be insulted by it, but I need to know . . . and I’ll be able to tell if you lie to me.”

  “Go ahead,” Noldorin prompted him, nodding.

  “Has there ever been a rape here?”

  “A rape?” Shen Han exclaimed.

  “Yes, a rape,” Lion-Heart repeated. “It’s this funny thing that happens at fraternity parties sometimes. A woman gets so drunk that she barely knows what’s going on, and she winds up in bed with some brother who knows exactly what’s going on. Maybe a string of brothers; maybe they planned it that way in the first place. Am I coming through dearly?”

  “Any of our brothers,” said Noldorin, “who were involved in something like that would be permanently expelled from the House. But it’s never happened here, and we don’t expect it to. Our brothers have never needed to get their partners drunk.”

  Lion-Heart studied his face carefully as he spoke, nodding at the conclusion; there was no dishonesty to be found in Noldorin’s expression.

  “Tell me,” asked Lucius, who had said nothing for a long time, “did something happen to one of your people? Something involving Rho Alpha Tau?”

  “Yes,” the Bohemian King said softly. “Something happened to a very dear friend.”

  He looked over at the Rubbermaid, reconsidering it.

  “Can you do me a favor?” he asked them. “Can you get rid of that thing before we have our first big party together? It ruins the atmosphere in here.”

  “It’ll be done as you wish,” Shen Han promised him.

  “You’ll join with us, then?” asked Noldorin.

  Lion-Heart nodded. A moment later he managed a smile. “Weil, where’s that butler of yours? Might as well do this right and toast each other.”

  Ori the dwarf appeared as if on cue, bearing their drinks: Midori for Lion-Heart and Myoko, beer with lemon for Z. Z. Top, and Tequila Sunsets for the three Presidents. These were passed round, lengthy and eloquent toasts made, and friendships begun between the Bohemians and the Tolkienians. Yet through it all, Lion-Heart never stopped thinking about his archenemies, the brothers of the Rat Frat.

  V.

  Despite the jokes it had to endure at
the hands of its many detractors, Rho Alpha Tau’s name was not as foolishly chosen as might first seem. It must be pointed out that the Greek rho is written as P—thus the letters spelled PAT, not RAT. This being made clear, it should come as no surprise that one of the founders of the House was a not-very-modest Anglo-Saxon named Patrick Baron, whose father had made a small fortune in the coal mining industry. Rich and conservative in a bad way, Baron became the fraternity’s first president and set the tone of the House leadership for decades to come.

  Rho Alpha Tau came into being in the last days of the McCarthy Era; Red-baiting was a popular pastime for the early brothers. But it was the Sixties, decade of civil and social rights, that saw the first real tarnishes to Rho Alpha Tau’s image. The bad word began to spread after a series of incidents in the latter half of the decade, including the infamous Martin Luther King party. The party, a very exclusive affair to which only verbal invitations were given, was held shortly after King’s assassination. Guests were encouraged to bring chains, hubcaps, and other appropriate items to the celebration; the highlight of the evening was the Costume Contest, at which fraternity Vice-President Ted Pulaski appeared in blackface, wearing a bloodstained shirt. This proved too tasteless for a good many of the brothers; seven of them quit the House during the following week. Yet none of these seven would stand witness to what had happened, and though word did get out about the party, nothing was ever proven.

  In spring of the following year, Cornell made national headlines when a group of militant black students staged a takeover of Willard Straight Hall during Parents’ Weekend. The Straight Takeover of ‘69 was to become legendary, though it need not have been; in the beginning, at least, it was no more serious than numerous other takeovers that occurred throughout the Sixties and early Seventies.

  The blacks moved in at 5:30 A.M. on Saturday morning, evicting those visiting parents who had been put up at the Straight for the Weekend. At 9:30 A.M., the course of history was changed when Ted Pulaski (now PAT President) led a commando force of twenty-five Rho Alpha ‘Em brothers into the Straight through a side window, intending to recapture the building. They were not successful; Pulaski was ejected bodily out the same window through which he had entered. Thereafter the Cornell Safety Division tightened security around the building, but rumors began to spread that members of several white fraternities, including the Rho Alphas, were planning a second assault, this time with rifles. The threat never materialized, but that night the blacks, no longer trusting the campus police (if they ever had), imported guns of their own into the Straight to protect themselves. Though the incident was resolved without bloodshed, this additional clement of the guns assured nationwide media coverage, and helped the story pass on into local myth. Years later “the Straight Takeover” remained a campus catch-phrase, though not everyone knew the details of what had taken place; nor was Rho Alpha Tau’s role in the events ever quite forgotten.

  Certainly it was well remembered in the first few years after the Takeover. When the newly-christened Africana Center was gutted by fire in April 1970, many blacks suspected arson, and at least one carried his suspicions a step further. On a moonless night a few weeks later, Ray Avriel Stanner ‘72 crept up on Rho Alpha Tau after midnight with a ladder and a bucket of paint. Working quickly and quietly, he added an extra leg to the ‘P’ above the front porch of the House. Like the Rho Alpha’s commando raid on the Straight, this simple act changed history.

  Stanner was spotted by two brothers halfway down the ladder. They sounded a call to arms; Stanner ditched his paint and ran for it, pursued by an angry mob. Flying down Thurston Avenue he was saved by the timely appearance of a cocky young Ithacop named Samuel Doubleday. Doubleday, a white man with no college education, didn’t know exactly what he thought of black people, but he did know that he didn’t like lynchings on his beat. Not one for long speeches, he dispersed the angry brothers by emptying his revolver into the air. Stanner later faced charges for vandalism, but he graduated Cornell with honors, and Rho Alpha Tau was known ever after as “the Rat Frat.” The nickname did not fade with time, for the House never ceased to deserve it.

  And so it happened that, two years prior to the alliance between Tolkien House and the Bohemians, a Grey Lady named Pearl wound up drunk at a Rho Alpha Tau after-hours party. She didn’t realize which fraternity she had come to; that night she had been at a dozen parties up and down the Row, looking for a Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother named Jim Richland. Instead she met Jack Baron, second son of Patrick Baron, who led her—already drunk—to the House bar, and with a well-practiced charm coaxed her through three Kamikazis. When Pearl woke up in the morning, crashed out on the Rho Alpha’s back lawn with a paralyzing hangover, she could not remember who or how many of the brothers had been with her, but what memories she did have were almost more than she could live with.

  Two weeks later Pearl left the Bohemians, and a week after that the University; Jim Richland, who would eventually take the name Panhandle, went looking for Jack Baron and got a black eye for his trouble; an investigation by the Inter-Fraternity Council into the events of the after-hours party turned up no witnesses; and Lion-Heart, infuriated by the Council’s helplessness, swore an oath of vengeance against Jack Baron and the brothers of the Rat Frat.

  For two years the Bohemian King had sought the overthrow of the House; yet in the end he played no part in the matter. The very same day that he toasted Shen Han, Noldorin, and Lucius in the garden of Lothlórien, the downfall of Rho Alpha Tau was set in motion. Ragnarok, not Lion-Heart, was its instrument, and it began, ironically enough, on the steps of Willard Straight Hall, shortly before midnight.

  JINSEI AND THE BLACK KNIGHT

  I.

  Evening came to that well-hilled part of the World, but in an even loftier place, in Mr. Sunshine’s Library, it remained as bright and Saturday-afternoonish as always. The breeze still smelled pleasantly of laurel; the lowing of cattle and the distant lyre-chords continued to accompany the clacking of the Typewriters.

  The Storyteller had shoved over one of the Monkeys again, taken its place at the Typewriter devoted to “Fool on The Hill.” Calliope and George were already together; she had him well in hand. Now it was time to add another layer to the Tale, bring another Character to the fore.

  Mr. Sunshine Typed:

  Set Ragnarok up against Jack Baron.

  Having Written this he paused briefly, then added:

  Ragnarok’s trial is not George’s trial.

  Almost immediately he shook his head at the redundancy. Obviously their trials were not the same. No need to waste Words—William Strunk, E. B. White, and the Chinese Emperor Shih Huang Ti had all been in agreement on that.

  “I must be getting Old,” said Mr. Sunshine to the Monkey. The Monkey had no comment.

  Obviously their trials were not the same; they were very different Characters. Yet just as a classic heroic tale needs a Saint, an unabashedly White-Hatted and periodically naive champion of romantic love, so too it isn’t quite complete without that other, more dubious, good guy: The Black Knight.

  II.

  The computer jockey’s name was Lenny Chiu, and he stood just over five feet in his black dress shoes. He wore no tuxedo—Jinsei had convinced him to go for a less formal and more comfortable style—but he carried himself regally, like a prince on his way to the palace ball He perhaps had reason to feel special, for Jinsei had fished him out of a sea of seemingly cloned Engineering students with matching steel-rimmed glasses, no-nonsense work shirts, and multi-function programmable calculators. They were not steadies in any sense of the word, just dating; but if Jinsei did not give much thought to the possible future of their relationship, Lenny certainly did, and this added an extra spring to his step.

  Jinsei, dressed simply in a clean white jumpsuit that reflected the moonlight, thought only of having fun. Since the first week when Ginny Porterhouse had introduced her to the campus—an introduction that included Ragnarok and Preacher—her workload ha
d been without respite. Tonight represented her first real chance to just relax and enjoy herself, and she planned to do so. Walking hand in hand with the wind ruffling her hair, Jinsei too felt a touch regal—though Princess was not quite the title she would have chosen. A Lady of the Court, perhaps.

  The royal function she and Lenny had chosen to honor with their presence was the semi-annual Cornell Asian-Americans United (CAAU) Dance, which had got going at half past ten and was now in full swing. Inside Willard Straight Hall’s Memorial Room, Adult Eastern—a good band, if no match for Benny Profane—played to an enthusiastic audience: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Western Orientals in pressed tuxedos and long cotton dresses. The Bohemians were there too, of course, accompanying the Grey Ladies and making as much of a scene as possible. Lion-Heart and Myoko calmly ruled the dance floor; Z. Z. Top threw toast at the band; Preacher discussed Third World politics and any-world sex with a Taiwanese exchange student; Woodstock got drunker than a fish and made a general nuisance of himself.

  Jinsei and her date walked up the steps of the Straight together, laughing, and at that same moment the front doors of the building swung outward. A cake-slice of music slipped through the opening, and with it three brothers of the Rat Frat, Rho Alpha President Jack Baron leading the pack. At his side was Bill Chaney, the House Treasurer, and directly behind him, Bobby Shelton, a lineman for the Big Red football team who weighed in the neighborhood of two hundred and thirty pounds. Shelton was in the process of demolishing an apple he’d smuggled out of Oakenshields late-night dining; so intent was the football player on this bit of food that he very nearly ignored the Asian couple and kept to his own business.

  Then Jinsei’s laugh drew Bobby’s attention and almost as a reflex he launched the apple—now little more than a core—through the air with a flick of his wrist. It struck Lenny Chiu hard in the side of the head, stunning him and sending his glasses spinning away.