Strange Flesh

by Michael Olson

  2

  For a school perceived to host a driven and introverted population, the number of social clubs one can join at Harvard is surprising. They run the gamut from coed cocktail societies like the Hasty Pudding to artistic clans such as the Signet and the Lampoon.

  In the fall of 2000, I’d accepted membership to the Bat, one of the college’s Final Clubs, our slightly refined version of fraternities. After the holidays, I began my pre-initiation “neophyte” period, wherein you serve as a party Sherpa to the senior members. On a bitter Tuesday evening, I was ordered to report to the club for my mandatory shift in the Texas Hold ’Em game we’d run continuously during the entire two-week reading period before exams.

  Late that night, I found myself seated in our book-lined card room drinking neat bourbon and inhaling an atmosphere saturated with exotic smoke. I watched with wonder the massive pile of chips growing in front of me.

  The state of my finances had been much on my mind. Like many of my classmates, my father had a blue-chip doctorate; in his case, aeronautical engineering from Stanford. I grew up within miles of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Unfortunately, his commitment to the nation’s space program was supplanted just after my mother’s death, when I was too young to have formed memories of her, by a far more zealous embrace of Jim Beam. By the time I received my heavy envelope from Harvard, he was going to work in a begrimed jumpsuit, and I was left with a complex financial aid package, now proving itself hopelessly inadequate. Despite a grueling work-study job in my house’s cafeteria and moonlighting at Ravelin, a nearby network security start-up, I would likely be forced to take the next semester off to work full-time in order to pay off swelling credit card balances. As I turned over a Big Slick, I contemplated the fact that while poker may contribute to my academic undoing, it would provide a respite from the debt collectors, at least until next month.

  The only other player at the table with any kind of stack was a senior named William Baldwin Coles III. The son of a notorious currency trader, he was the club’s vice president (in the Bat, this is the highest office) and had been playing in the game for almost four days without cease. Just as I began the theatrics to set up a devious double bluff, he looked down at his cell and grinned.

  “Gentlemen, things are about to get a lot more interesting.”

  A couple minutes later, three new players arrived, led by the Bat’s reigning carnal Achilles, Raffi Consuelo. The second was Matt Weeks, the president of the Spee Club, who spent more time at his family’s Las Vegas casino than he did on campus. And finally, Blake Randall stepped inside.

  Blake resembled one of the better-looking busts of a young Julius Caesar. He had the same strong nose and penetrating eyes, and his pale skin was the white of new marble. He stood a couple inches taller than my six-two and had a full head of blond hair. His chiseled physique came from hours logged on the Charles River as captain of our heavyweight crew.

  Though he was a notable presence in his own right, when I looked at Blake, all I could see was his twin sister, Blythe, the legendary beauty of her class. She was also intimidatingly tall and had the same snowy complexion as her brother, which prompted her inevitable female detractors to call her “that starving vampire bitch.” Of course, her rich-girl celebrity status and willowy elegance ensured all sorts of male admirers flocking to her banner.

  I was utterly bewitched the first time I laid eyes on her.

  The twins’ glamour alone would have been enough to stimulate gossip at school, but combined with their alien mirrored beauty, we really couldn’t keep ourselves from trotting out sensational fantasies, often making use of the delicious term “twincest.” Further inflaming such rumors were their matching crooked ring fingers. A congenital abnormality? Had a ten-year-old Blake broken his while skiing, causing Blythe to snap her own in sympathy? Or maybe it was ritual mutilation: no wedding ring would ever pass over either finger to vitiate their perfect love.

  As if to demonstrate contempt for our trifling opinions, Blythe and Blake did nothing to discourage such chatter. In a cocktail circle, her hand would seek his arm. They would clutch and whisper when they met. On formal occasions, they danced together splendidly.

  Seeing these three arrive, a couple of the current players began packing up their chips. I followed suit, but Coles put his hand on my shoulder and said, “A little early for the money leader to cash in, don’t you think?”

  The newcomers sat down as the others hustled out like the roof was on fire. I started counting out chips.

  Blake smiled benignly at me. “Evening, James. What do you say we raise the stakes?”

  I found it strange that Blake would want to disrupt the game right away—and even stranger that he knew my name. I looked to Coles for guidance.

  My stomach turned over when the group agreed to increase the blinds by an order of magnitude. There was simply no way I could come up with a four-figure buy-in. But the words “I can’t play” wouldn’t quite come out of my mouth. I stacked plastic slowly as I imagined how I might get myself out of this situation.

  Coles leaned over to grab the Wild Turkey bottle and whispered, “Just deal, man. I’ll cover you.”

  A wispy rumor tickled my bourbon-fogged brain. Coles was dating Blythe Randall. Blake supposedly didn’t care for the match and did a poor job of concealing his feelings. I wanted to explain that there was no way I’d be able to pay him back. That I’d never played for that much. That it was impossible, because I’d have to drop out of school and live on the streets if I lost. But I didn’t say any of that.

  I dealt.

  I dealt myself seven hours’ worth of pocket pairs, flopped sets, and nut flush rivers. I was playing like a field mouse surrounded by hawks, and yet a mountain of valuable chips steadily accumulated under my chin.

  But Blake held the chip lead all night with his unfailing instinct for the jugular. Having folded a huge pot, Raffi got up in disgust after watching him flip over a garbage hand of two-seven unsuited. Matt passed out after writing his third five-digit chit to the bank.

  “And then there were three,” said Coles.

  My next cards were a pair of jacks, spades and clubs. I almost had to fold them in the maelstrom of pre-flop raising that went on between Blake and Coles. But with only three players, my jacks couldn’t be that bad.

  True to form, I flopped myself a set. The center cards were:

  The pot rocketed over two grand before it got to me. It was weak, but I just called.

  Coles said, “Shit!” and folded his cards. That worried me. Something about the hand scared him off. I glanced over at Blake for any sign of what Coles had seen, but he was a mannequin. He made a courteous gesture for me to deal another card.

  I did, and up turned the jack of hearts. Giving me four of a kind for the first time in my life.

  Silently screaming at myself to stay cool, I kept staring at the card until I had it together and then slowly raised my head to meet Blake’s eye.

  He betrayed nothing. “Thirty-five hundred.” His bet said a full house, probably kings.

  “Up five,” I said, trying to lure him in.

  Blake smiled cruelly. “Table,” he said, indicating that he bet everything I had in front of me. At the bottom of my innocent columns of colored discs, I had three obsidian placards. These were ten-thousand-dollar markers. He raised me confidently enough that I took a second to reexamine the board and realized he could be holding cards that already beat even my fantastic hand. The ace of diamonds and queen of diamonds made a straight flush that would impoverish me utterly. I studied him, trying to evaluate whether the universe could be so unjust.

  Blake had politely averted his gaze from someone wrestling with base monetary calculations. I started figuring odds but was interrupted by a voice inside me.

  If you let this rich bastard muscle you off four of a kind, you might as well cash in your chips and prepare for a life of absolute mediocrity.

  The black rectangles emerged. “It’s thirty-seve
n thousand five hundred. And I call.”

  If Blake was surprised by the amount, he didn’t show it. Maybe he became slightly more still, but my hand was the one shaking as I flipped over the last card, cultivating nightmare visions of him pulling a miracle winner.

  The last card was the Queen of Hearts.

  He turned over his caballeros and shrugged. Fortune is a cruel mistress.

  I had to give him credit, though. He didn’t bat an eyelash when he saw my jacks. He just took them in for a second and then murmured something I almost didn’t catch.

  “Knaves. How apt.”

  My brain was about to start leaking out my eyes as Blake casually counted off four black placards from his stack and tossed them over to me, making me wealthier than I’d ever been. Allowing me to quit my humiliating job in the cafeteria. Changing everything about my time in college. I was expecting him to insist that we keep playing for another two days, and I planned for a protracted period of trench warfare to protect my newfound riches.

  But Blake said, “Well, I doubt we’ll do better than that this morning. What do you say we wrap it up?”

  Ten minutes later, he slipped out the door into the cold Cambridge dawn. Coles gave my shoulder a painfully hard squeeze and said, with a certain lilt of passion in his voice, “Thank you.”

  I lifted my glass and began an epic bender that still makes my toes curl to think of.

  At the time, I was too beside myself with joy to think much about Blake’s parting shot. It was only later, while researching a paper about the iconography of playing cards, that I realized what he meant. I always believed that the jack was the prince of the deck, the heir to the king and queen. But he’s not. He’s the servant. Another word for which is “knave.” My jacks beating his kings was “apt” because the ranks of our cards matched the players. Blake the aristocrat was defeated by the scullery boy.

  Once I understood this, I told myself that I’d gladly suffer far greater insult for that much money. That I would try to remember him only with gratitude.

  By and large Harvard is a resolute meritocracy, free of the old overt classism. But I guess among any group of relentlessly ambitious people, weird hierarchies and castes develop. When we spoke of our aspirations, you’d occasionally hear someone disparage those choosing even such lucrative professions as the law or investment banking as “mere wage slaves,” the unspoken idea being that the real elite operated on the “principal side.” In business, this meant you owned the enterprise; if you didn’t have one to inherit, you started one. In other fields, you’d hear similar language about acting “on your own portfolio.” Being an artist, not a gallerist. Being a politician, not a consultant. Being the talent, not the handler. The subtext was that there were two classes of people: masters and servants.

  Blake had called me a knave. I didn’t let it bother me at the time.

  But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t bother me now.

  The prospect of seeing his sister is more bothersome still. I find it eerie, now that I’m once again drowning in emotional quicksand—and courting the consequent physical danger—that I’m receiving this visitation from Blythe, my original will-o’-the-wisp.

  I’m supposed to go and drink their fine whiskey, pretending to be old friends, while the Randall twins interview me for a job. Though it may well demand my brand of skills, there are others they could have called.

  At the end of our meeting Mercer says, “Dear boy, you know who these people are. I’m sure I needn’t emphasize that you’re to do everything in your power to accommodate their wishes.”

  I say, “Of course.”

  But I think, Why me? Why now?

  3

  Blake’s assistant, a tall Caribbean beauty in a black Chanel suit, opens the door to what looks like a salon, in the eighteenth-century sense of the word. The walls are graced with finely framed paintings that I feel like I should recognize. Ritual masks from obscure religions watch from the bookshelves. She seats me in a leather armchair with brass studs along the seams.

  “Mr. Randall will be with you shortly.”

  Once she departs, a side door opens, and out slides Blake. As he extends his hand, he flashes me a mock anxiety smile, like we’re old conspirators dealing with something unpleasant, but by no means unexpected.

  “Pryce, good to see you.”

  “You as well, Blake.”

  As we shake, I notice a small tattoo emerging past the cuff of his shirt, unmistakable as the head of the King of Hearts playing card.

  A bit more solemnity in his eyes. “I heard about your recent, ah, troubles. But you seem to be bearing up all right. Please join us.”

  He ushers me into an equally opulent office. Seated at his desk, looking up at the ceiling, is Blake’s twin.

  “James, I’m sure you remember my sister.”

  Blake knows that nobody forgets Blythe Randall, least of all me.

  She stands languorously. Like a cat who’s had just enough time in the sun. She cocks her head and fixes me with her lambent green eyes. “James Pryce. So nice to see an old friend.”

  My vision twitches.

  Is she toying with me? Is that an ironic twinkle in her eye?

  Luckily fatigue diminishes my need to obsess over her diction. So I fall back on blank courtesy.

  “It’s been entirely too long . . .” I find I can’t say her name yet. “I hope you’re both doing well.”

  Blythe flicks her eyes toward Blake. She lets out a long breath, almost a sigh, and mashes a cigarette that had been burning in the ashtray next to her. Which is interesting. Blythe only ever smoked when she was drinking. Or when she was nervous.

  She says, “Of course you’ve heard about . . . our brother.”

  “Well . . . I can’t say I know the details,” I manage, willing myself to stop gaping at her like a moonstruck toddler. “I take it he’s in some kind of trouble?”

  Blake frowns. “Half brother actually. Our father took it upon himself to impregnate and then marry our au pair when we were eight. Our mother never really recovered and, after we enrolled at Exeter, has been in and out—well. . .” He shrugs. “Needless to say, we were not close. He fancies himself an avant-garde artist, so some time ago he changed his name. It’s now ‘Coit S. D. Files.’ You’re meant to say it ‘coitus defiles.’ But nobody does.”

  “Everyone still calls him Billy, even when they don’t know who he really is. The name followed him despite his efforts to reinvent himself,” says Blythe.

  Blake asks, “We assume you adhere to some principle of client confidentiality in your . . . line of work?”

  “With Red Rook it’s more like omertà.”

  Blythe nods. “So after the divorce, our father tried very hard to create a functional stepfamily. But it wasn’t to be. Billy’s mother Lucia was very beautiful and naturally fifteen years younger than our mother. But she was also . . . emotionally unstable. After a huge fight, they separated—this was in 2000 when we were at college.”

  “She was found dead at our old beach house a month later,” Blake says. “Overindulgence in her twin passions for Stoli and Seconal.”

  Blythe pats her brother and leaves her hand on his shoulder as if trying to physically restrain him from further interruption. “Billy was the one who found her. He was only thirteen . . . Our father was devastated as well.”

  “And as you know, he was killed in a car accident a year later.” On saying this, Blake unconsciously shoots his cuff, covering up his King of Hearts tattoo. His gesture makes me curious about its significance. That card is named the “Suicide King” for the sword he appears to be stabbing into the back of his head. The twins’ father, Robert Randall, had driven his Bugatti off a cliff on Mulholland Drive. His death had been ruled an accident, but there was talk about a lack of skid marks on a dry road. I assume the tattoo is some kind of tribute. Or maybe a reminder of whatever tragic epiphany his father’s death inspired.

  Blythe continues. “Billy wanted nothing to do with us
and went to live with his godfather, Gerhard Loring, who was our father’s best friend and now chairs IMP’s board. Eventually, Ger got him into the Rhode Island School of Design, and he seemed to be doing okay there. The problem with art, though, is that what it craves more than anything is attention. Despite the level of media interest our father’s business has always attracted, we dislike publicity. I’m not sure what changed, but Billy began producing these . . . I don’t even know what to call them. Installations? Happenings? Art games?”

  Blake says, “I would call them frivolous garbage, were it not for the lawsuit.”

  “Colton et al. v. Randall. A delightful piece of civil litigation—settled out of court of course. For his thesis, Billy designed a sort of live role-playing game called NeoRazi. He wanted to create an oppressive celebrity culture on campus, so he set up a tabloid website that recruited participants to take photos of various attractive coeds. The more tasteless and degrading the image, the more money they got. His classmates, most of them being quick with a camera to begin with, promptly generated a litany of police complaints: invasion of privacy, stalking, assault charges against irate boyfriends. One of the girls even had some kind of breakdown.” Blythe lights another cigarette. “The horrible thing was that, due to the abuse these poor women suffered, they became actual local celebrities, and some real paparazzi materialized to continue tormenting them after Billy’s ‘game’ had officially ended.”

  “I take it his work was not well received?”

  “The members of the Rhode Island State Bar were big fans. The girls suing the Razis for harassment; Razis suing them for battery; everybody suing Billy for setting the whole thing up.”

  “I guess one must suffer for his art.”

  Blake adds, “The story was nasty enough that the regional media ran with it for a cycle or two. Including some of our own stations, God damn them. And even they weren’t above asking whether this was the sort of novel content we could expect as the new generation of Randalls takes the reins at IMP.”