Mary's Pledge Read online

  Then the subject was broached.

  The young woman who’d taken her hand and escorted her into the room, was Royce’s girl, Elizabeth Waterford, from New York City. In a passing quip, one of the other girls had said they would split a biscuit, and Elizabeth had said “Kappa girls split everything.” There was tittering, and she’d known girls long enough to know there was something slithering under the surface. She raised an eyebrow and moved her chair forward to the table as they dealt her hand of cards. She’d said, “Do tell.”

  There was more tittering, and Elizabeth cocked her head with her eyes regarding her hand of cards, she arranged them the way she wanted, putting off divulging what the big secret was. When it was quiet, she cleared her throat and said, “Kappa girls share everything, just like the Omega men do.”

  And with no other words said, she knew exactly what they meant. She may be from a small town in Iowa, but she was nobody’s fool. She read books, lots of them. Some of them would get her expelled from school, and possibly a stern lecture from her father if he had the nerve to address her, given the nature of those books. It was salacious and rousing, and her stomach hiked up hard and high into her sternum, making it float like it was held aloft by butterflies.

  Elizabeth’s response brought more knowing laughter from the gathered girls. They all flicked the cards in their hands, kept their eyes down and giggled. And she was suddenly frightened. Suddenly very afraid of these intimidating girls and their wild northeastern city ways. But she would be a Kappa girl and Jack would be an Omega man...

  She said, “Tell me more...”

  They did. As soon as they sensed her interest, all their cards were laid face down on the table, drinks were poured, someone lit a cigarette. Elizabeth leaned forward speaking low and conspiratorial. “You know what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  “I think I do,” she’d told her.

  “The Omega’s are true brothers, at least at the very top. What’s one brother’s is another’s. And when it comes to The Trident—” her eyes flitted to two of the sisters at the table—“anything goes.”

  “Anything goes?”

  The girl on her left, a pretty brunette with a tame Bouffant hairstyle, gripped her arm just above the elbow and squeezed it, saying, “You know they’re going to offer Jack top spot...”

  She’d said, “The Trident?”

  Elizabeth said, “Omega loves the Kingsways. Royce said they haven’t had a Kingsway in a generation, and the charter is thirsty for him. Thirsty, Mary...”

  “What are you saying?” she’d asked.

  Elizabeth said, “They’re expanding the Trident to a Quad. A Holy Quad. They want to make Jack a top man.”

  The funniest thing had happened to her. She swooned, struggling to keep herself composed; but her bowels gurgled, and her sphincter loosened. She’d squeezed her thighs together and pushed her elbows down onto the table to stop herself from swaying. “Jack? A Quad?”

  “The Kingsway’s are a legacy.”

  “So what does this mean...?” She knew what they were saying, but she wanted to hear it in words…

  But then the door burst from the office. It was Jack, and his face was blazing red. She’d never seen him so furious. He said, “Mary, come with me.” He’d held out his hand, and since she’d never seen her man in such a state, she bolted upright. When she went to excuse herself, he stepped forward and grabbed her arm. He yanked her harshly. The last she saw of those girls, their pretty faces were falling down in shocked awe. Jack ran his hands over his hair, tugged her arm again making her totter on her toes to keep up with him. The Trident men all stood, watching Jack with subdued bewilderment. Jack said to them, “Good day,” in a harsh and guttural way, and pulled her to walk behind him. Then he stomped down the stairs with her in tow, letting her hand go as they reached the lobby. She had to trot to keep up with him as he stomped along the pathway toward Studdard Field. She’d asked him, “What is it, what’s wrong, Jack?” But she knew. She was sure she knew.

  Now the door behind her knocked. She stood up at the vanity, checking her hair one more time. “Just a minute,” she called out.

  She licked her lips, careful not to muss her lipstick. She tousled her hair, adjusted her sweater. She opened the door and one of the upperclassman brothers stepped in with her. He asked her if she was ready.

  “I am,” she said.

  5

  Royce had said, “Don’t be rash, Jack, there hasn’t been a Holy Quad at Omega House for decades. This is a proud moment.”

  He’d stood up so abruptly the chair had toppled over behind him. His fists clenched and released over and over and he glowered—oh, how he glowered at those three men and their devious machination. Stick it where the sun doesn’t shine his stare had told them—with his eyes, because Jack Kingsway didn’t use words like that.

  Rage had blinded him—their insinuation harsh and ludicrous and more than any man could be expected to bear—and it wasn’t until he was well away from Omega and standing in Studdard Field with Mary that his vision had cleared.

  “What is it, Jack?” she’d asked, and he’d thought How can I even explain it to my sweet Mary? How would I put in words what those men suggested?

  So he’d said, “Never mind,” and Mary had looked at him with care. Then she’d said, “Did they tell you about Holy Quad?” The rage returned, and he held her arms a little too tight, shouting, “What did they tell you? What did those girls tell you?” She’d trembled at his anger but she was cool, cooler than he’d expected.

  “They didn’t tell me anything, Jack, not in words, but I think I know why you might be so sore...”

  “I don’t even want to hear what those harlots might have put in your ears, Mary...”

  “They’re not harlots, Jack...”

  He’d held her steady then, braced her. “I don’t ever want to hear about Omega or Kappa ever again, do you hear me?”

  She’d said, “Jack, did they offer you a top spot?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s even more than you wanted...”

  “It comes with a price, Mary.”

  “It’s all you’ve ever talked about,” she’d said, wistfully, then tried to touch his face. It angered him. He was certain those immoral girls had keened her to the ploy and there was no way his Mary would be game.

  He’d said, “Now I know why my father wasn’t Omega. He had principles.”

  “Your grandfather, your Papa who you love, he has principles, and he was an Omega.”

  That had sealed it. Mary had just insinuated his Gram, a legendary Kappa, had succumbed to their dark games. The thought that all Papa’s buddies had shared his sweet Gram when they were twenty was ridiculous—those were the guys he still played golf with today! Poor Mary, poor virgin, she couldn’t be seeing what had been implied. She had to be protected.

  “There’s to be no more talk of Omega, Mary.”

  She’d said, “Jack, you’re my man, but I want you to know that you don’t have to protect me... I would do anything for you. Did you hear me...? Any thing.”

  6

  The Omega House was at 122 College Way, on the edge of campus. It was a stone building, a mansion, three floors, the two front corners were turrets with black slate pointed roofs; somewhere along the way someone had mounted ravens on their posts. It was a foreboding place, the brick dark and stained black with age, the trim was painted black. For the last week a white cloth banner hung over the portico like bunting at a parade. Written in blood-red paint across it: WELCOME PLEDGES, and underneath, CLASS OF ’58

  But he wasn’t reading it tonight, running too fast, his attention focused on one thing. That front door painted a blazing, unholy red.

  He clambered up the steps, feet pounding on the stone and he banged into the door with his shoulder, hand jamming the lever. It was locked. The windows were all unlit, but he could see the flicker of candles from within. He banged on the door with his fist; he banged again when no one answered, and when
no one came still, he kicked with his toe.

  Now he was cupping his hands around his face and trying to peer inside. He could see polished mahogany, arcane furniture, the Oriental rugs and velvet drapery. But there was no sign of movement inside.

  The fraternity had been on campus since 1838. A deep brotherhood with established roots that wound deep into the soil of American culture—unseen and unrecognized but for the bright pops of flowers in politics and business. His grandfather had been an Omega Man. His great grandfather and his great grandfather’s father, too. It was his legacy. It was his father that failed them. His father rejected the fraternity. And look where it got him. His mother always lamented it, even more so during the trial. One night, crying, she’d cursed him for being a quitter. Without Omega, his mother and father had moved west after college, and his father’s greatest potential was wasted at a bank branch in Iowa—oh so far from Manhattan.

  So, it had been his goal since his first day of high school to bring back the glory that belonged to the Kingsways. There was nothing he wanted more than to be an Omega Man.

  Now he was racing around the mansion counterclockwise, hands gripping the top rail of the wrought-iron fence that separated the Kingsway Ivy Garden. He hoisted himself up and kicked out a leg, jammed a heel in the gap between two posts, and pulled himself up—pushing with all his might so the tipped spears that formed the top of the row of posts wouldn’t puncture him and end his life. Then he was tossing himself over, kicking his leg away so it wouldn’t snag, and fell on his back into a dense boxwood shrubbery. The boxwood tossed him off, and he tumbled onto a brick pathway littered with fallen willow leaves.

  No time for pain, he rolled to his stomach, got on his elbows and knees, and was blasting off. He wasn’t an Omega man, but—thanks to his Papa who helped raise him once Dad went to prison—he knew some of the Omega’s secrets. And one of them was hidden under a gnarly faced gargoyle that sat perched amongst wilting red sumac, the dangling fiery leaves hanging around its face like a cowl.

  The sight of its ghoulish visage made him recoil, but he slipped his fingers inside its fanged mouth, wiggled them around until he felt steel. Now he was withdrawing a long key with the carved head of a human skull. This was the Savior’s Key, the one the highest brethren knew to use when they found themselves inebriated and past campus lockdown—they could slip back inside the fraternity (or any of the campus buildings) without waking anyone.

  Within the confine of the garden built by his great-grandfather there was a side door, a fancy one, set down three steps in an alcove at the side of the stone mansion. He slipped the key in the lock, jiggled it, opened the door. Now he was inside, finding the place silent like a tomb.

  He trotted the hallway, pitch black except for light spilling down stairs at the end of the hall. His bucks made soft sounds on the tile, and when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he mounted them carefully, head tilted up to see the landing ahead. It emerged near the kitchen on the main floor, between the living room and a hallway. Candles flickered here; fat, waxen blobs melted down on platters on the kitchen counter. But on this floor, he could hear now a flickering. A rat-a-tat-tat that he recognized.

  Now he crept the hallway, making his way to the room that was emitting the sound—and he found what he expected: a metal green box on a wheeled stand, two reels set across its spine, film scrolling from one reel to the other, a bright light projecting a lurid tale across a white cloth sheet draped in front of where the pool table rested.

  Interspersed in the room, some standing, some lucky enough to find comfortable chairs and couches, were almost two-dozen pledges. Grim-faced guys who watched the film playing out on the sheet with wide and horrified eyes. There on the screen, a buxom full-figured woman opened her legs for all the young men watching. Her lips moved but there was no sound but for the clack-clack-clack of the film projector. Written in yellow across the bottom were her words: “Do you like what you see?”

  Now a hoot emerged from the right side of the room, and it broke the spell. The men laughed and some of them clapped. One of them shouted, “Yeah, baby!”

  “Show us some more, mama,” someone else shouted to the image on the sheet. Now the lady was showing them more, opening her thighs, taking the front of her underpants and shifting them. A thick, honey-blonde bush sprouted along the open seam and someone near him made a moaning sound.

  Jack moved through them. Going around the back of the room and moving to the right, he worked his way along the outer wall. He crouched, still moving, seeing their blank faces now as they watched the naked woman on the screen. In a whispering shout, his hands cupped around his mouth, he said, “Mary...” then again, louder, “Mary!”

  Someone shushed him. There was no sign of her, she wasn’t sitting and watching with the pledges. They were all dressed casual, khakis and open-neck shirts, no ties tonight, but legs were crossed—most of them probably trying to hide their arousal.

  Now he was at the screen, his shadow cast across the woman’s exposed bush, and someone shouted at him, “Down in front!”

  He waved them off, pushed the sheet aside—he’d expected to find them behind it, Mary perhaps about to make the biggest mistake of her life... But all he found was the empty pool table with the balls scattered on it.

  “Jack?...”

  Behind him, the sheet lifted, and there was more groaning and sounds of irritation from the men trying to enjoy the stag film.

  He recognized the silhouette of a friend he’d made during the pledge hazing. “Bernie? That you?”

  Bernie said, “Jack, what are you doing down here?”

  “I’m here for Mary.”

  Bernie disregarded him, saying now with exuberance, “Jack, can you believe it? I can’t. My best friend is going to be an Omega man. Jack, you’re going to be a Trident. Or a Quad, excuse me...” Bernie closed the four steps, clapped his hands over Jack’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Jack, I’m proud of you. You remember the little people, you hear me?”

  He gripped Bernie’s arms above the elbow and held him firm. “Bernie—where is Mary?”

  “I don’t know—why do you think she’s here?”

  “Wait, Bernie, you said ‘down here,’ what am I doing ‘down here...’”

  “Yeah,” he said, “the ceremony’s upstairs. Shouldn’t a Quad be up there?”

  “What ceremony?”

  “I don’t know, they won’t let us lowlifes up there, it’s all hush-hush, upperclassmen brothers and VIPs only...”

  “I’ve got to go, Bernie...”

  Bernie laughed and patted his arm, saying, “Mr. Big-shot, go on up to your hoity-toity ceremony, I get it, but I’ll have you know,” he paused, hands swooping to illustrate an hourglass figure, “I heard the second feature here is of a sexy mamacita and she does it with a donkey…”

  7

  At the bottom of the staircase that led to the second floor, two upperclassmen stood casually, one leaning against the wall, the other against the newel post where a velvet rope hung to block the way. The two men manning admission to the second floor were second-year brothers; Reggie Hart and Matt Michelson. Matt played running back on the college football team. He was a bigger guy, arms folded over the college logo on his gray sweatshirt, one sneaker resting on the second step

  “No entry, Pledgie,” he said, “back to the stag room. What—you think the rules don’t apply to you?” He smirked, puffed his chest out and Reggie stepped forward, sneering.

  He put up his hands and said, “I’m Jack Kingsway.”

  It instantly disarmed them. Both of their chests deflating, their features dropped. Reggie said, “You’re Kingsway?”

  “Yes, I’m Jack Kingsway.”

  Matt said, “It didn’t sound to us like you were going to be here tonight, we didn’t know you were coming...”

  “Why wouldn’t I be here?” he said, his voice stiff and monotone, his ears ringing. This was urgent, everything in him screaming to get up those stair
s and stop this before it was too late but knowing if he bobbled this, they would kick him out. Reggie put a hand out, Jack shook it. Reggie said, “Good man. You’re here to go upstairs?”

  “Is that where it’s happening?”

  Matt was already un-linking the hook from the brass end of the velvet rope, clearing the way for him to pass and get upstairs.

  Reggie said to Matt, “Take him up and get him in his regalia, I’ll man the gate,” then before they could leave, Reggie said, “Jack, it’s an honor to have a Kingsway inside these walls again.”

  Jack nodded to him, then began to trot the steps. Matt hustled to keep up with him. At the top of the stairs, he turned right, but Matt turned left, saying, “Your regalia, Jack. Come on,” waving him to follow him down the other end of the hall.

  Matt led him three doors down to a room that served as the study, and inside there were about two dozen suit jackets laying on couches and over chairs. There were tumblers of scotch and glasses of wine left unattended. The room was empty, but Matt was headed to a coat rack in the back where there was a purple satin robe hanging from one of the hooks. He retrieved it and brought it back to Jack, saying, “I’m sorry, there’s not a Quad robe for you yet, this is all unexpected, but you can wear these...”

  He took the fabric from him, slipped it around till he found the head hole then ran the robe over his head, shimmying it down his body, saying, “Has it already begun? Am I too late?”

  Matt said, “They won’t tell lower brothers what’s going on, but I don’t think it started yet, whatever’s happening. I think you’re in time.”

  Jack straightened the robe, and Matt presented him with the hood. He donned it, pulling it over his head and lining up the two eyeholes so he could see out. It was tall and pointed and matched in purple. Matt was tying a length of gold rope around his waist for him and knotting it at the front. “You’re all set, c’mon, let’s go,” he said.