Hazing Meri Sugarman

by M. Apostolina

  I returned to Bud’s room in the late afternoon. I had a notice waiting for me from the office of Dean Pointer. I am now officially on academic probation. Should my grades not significantly improve by the end of the semester, I will be barred from returning to RU. I sat there reading and rereading the notice. The walls started to close in. I had to get out of there.

  I stepped outside, and I thanked my lucky stars that I still had two good legs to use, given yesterday’s fiasco. I also saw a number of girls from Alpha Beta Delta, all of whom were wearing official “Captain & Tennille” Captain hats and passing out flyers. The Oktoberfest Dance tomorrow night is still a go (of course), only now the proceeds will be going toward the newly created “Alpha Beta Delta Historical Society.” It was Shanna-Francine who handed me a flyer and explained.

  “Meri wants Alpha Beta Delta to go, like, completely high-tech,” she babbled. Then her face scrunched up. “Oh God, I really ­shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “You ­don’t have to tell me anything,” I wearily intoned, but of course she ­couldn’t help herself.

  Now, information collected from surveillance and future Hoover File contributions will be carefully catalogued and backed up to several master computers at three “undisclosed” bunker locations.

  “It’ll be, like, our own Library of Congress,” she merrily chirped.

  Naturally, such an effort will be expensive, and this year’s Oktoberfest Dance will have the distinction of being the first Alpha Beta Delta event to contribute to this noble cause.

  ­“You’re coming, ­aren’t you?” she urgently queried. “Toni Tennille’s gonna be there. It’s gonna be, like, s-o-o-o completely awesome.”

  I stared at her intently for a moment—at her wide-open pinwheel eyes, her toothsome smile. Ever since I’d joined Alpha Beta Delta, I’d wondered: Is she really this dumb? Or is it an act?

  “Meri wants you to come. She said that we have you to thank for our, um, oh God, how did she put it? Oh, okay, I remember. Our ‘upgrading.’”

  Upgrading is a three-syllable word, but it tumbled with great difficulty from Shanna-Francine’s lips, as if it contained at least five. That sort of clinched it for me. She is, in fact, as dumb as I’ve always thought. Off she went, cheerfully passing out more flyers. It was a cloudy afternoon, but the sun shone brightly on Shanna-Francine, as I suppose it must on all people who are too dumb to know better and yet are somehow better off for it.

  “Hey ya, girlfriend.”

  Bud abruptly embraced me from behind, and I nearly jerked around to slap him across the face when he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Meeting at the safe house tonight, but Keith ­doesn’t want you to come. Too risky. But he wanted me to tell you that ­we’re still trying to figure something out.”

  I guess that should have cheered me up, but it ­didn’t. It’s two a.m. now and Bud is snoring (loudly), and here I am, once more unable to sleep. Should I go to the dance tomorrow night? Am I a glutton for punishment? Do I really want to see Toni Tennille performing live?

  October 12

  Dear Diary:

  Oh my God! It’s been a day of explosions—literal explosions! Early this evening, I heard a huge ka-boom inside RU’s three-story Parking Garage East. Luckily, no one was hurt, and a few minutes later, when I stepped into the Captain & Tennille–themed Oktoberfest Dance (Lindsay was manning the door and comped me in), I did a double-take when I looked up at the DJ booth and saw DJ Mo Ghee with Pigboy and Patty—and Keith and Bud, too. What was going on? What were they doing there?

  “Oh God, I really ­shouldn’t be telling you this,” blurted Shanna-Francine when she poured me a cocktail later.

  Lindsay assured her that she could, in fact, tell me absolutely anything she wanted now. They both could. The dance was over. It was all over.

  “Okay, well, let’s put it this way,” she said, leaning in to whisper. “Let’s just say that Dean Pointer ­didn’t give a shit anymore.”

  Why? Because someone made an anonymous call to him early this morning, saying, “Meri’s got nothing on you.”

  Then whoever it was hung up. It dawned on Dean Pointer that the caller could be right. Meri no longer had the damning pictures of him in bed with me, and even better, all the “goods” that she previously had on him were from 1998—when an industrious pledge gathered evidence that proved he had deliberately passed two failing football players in order to keep them playing for RU’s team. Dean Pointer is a gambling man, and he decided to operate on the assumption that this evidence, which has long kept him under the thumb of Alpha Beta Delta, had been destroyed in that flying plastic pancake. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. In fact, he got so angry that he tore through his house, hurled his couch covers, pulled up the carpeting, and soon found several hidden mics. In his office on campus, he found several more after he unscrewed his phone receiver and tore apart the lamp shades. Was this enough, he wondered? Did he really have enough to make a very special phone call?

  He had more than enough. Or so it seemed. Later that afternoon, RRPD swarmed into Alpha Beta Delta with a search warrant and quite literally ripped the house apart. Meri ­wasn’t there, and neither was Shanna-Francine. The only ones there were Lindsay, who anxiously stepped aside, and Gloria, who was loudly protesting. She had no idea what the police were talking about. This was an outrage. What mics? What recordings? Surely they had the wrong house. She ­didn’t even blink when they swung open Meri’s armoire, revealing her DAT recording equipment.

  “So?” shrugged Gloria.

  This proved nothing. There was nothing being recorded. There were no incoming signal antennas. There were no tapes. What “tapes” were they talking about? There was nothing anywhere in the house to connect the mics to Alpha Beta Delta. Wiretapping charges? Please. What were they talking about? Frustrated, the police continued to rip apart the house and even pulled up the floorboards in both Meri’s room and the living room. By that time Gloria had called Meri on her cell phone, who in turn called the Sugarman family attorney. Quicker than you can say “harassment,” “illegal search and seizure,” and “defamation,” the police received orders from their superiors to immediately vacate the premises.

  “Bye,” said Gloria, giving a wave. “And remember, boys, Alpha Beta Delta is a contributor to the Rumson River Police Department’s Benevolent Society.”

  A few hours later Meri got the all-clear from Gloria and returned to the house. She shared a good, hearty laugh with Gloria and a somewhat jittery Lindsay. Talk about luck. Only yesterday, as part of Alpha Beta Delta’s surveillance modernization, and in anticipation of its new, “undisclosed” bunker surveillance and data storage headquarters, the current DAT surveillance system had been shut down, and all the incoming antennas and wiring in the house had been removed. Meri smiled, smartly adjusting her black bouffant wig.

  “Whoever did this will pay. Big-time. Good job, guys. What did you do with the tapes?”

  ­“They’re gone,” said Gloria proudly.

  Meri raised an eyebrow.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

  It seems there was more good luck for Meri. The DAT tapes have long been archived in Shanna-Francine’s room (I never would have thought to look there), and this morning, fearful that they might somehow be discovered and used against the house, Shanna-Francine gathered all of them in one large box and took off. Meri bolted up.

  “What do you mean, ‘took off’?”

  Lindsay noticed that Gloria seemed to visibly shrink. She had thought she was being prudent. She had approved of Shanna-Francine’s plan. The mishap with the Hoover File could have proved disastrous. It could even have brought down the house for good. By now, she submissively intoned, Shanna-Francine had more than likely destroyed the box and all of the DAT tapes inside of it.

  The sun was setting at RU’s Parking Garage East, and Shanna-Francine was on the roof when she heard several bloodcurdling, high-pitched screams in the distance. Was someone calling her
name? Setting aside the large plastic gasoline can that she had brought along with her, she stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. Below, Meri and Gloria were running to the garage—and Gloria pointed straight up at her, calling out, ­“Don’t move!”

  Meri was having a lot of luck today. She and Gloria ran up to the rooftop and were flat-out astonished to see that they had arrived just in the nick of time. Before them was the box of tapes, a plastic can of gasoline, and Shanna-Francine, who stood dumbstruck holding a matchbook in her hands.

  ­“Don’t burn them!” howled Meri. “Those tapes are my history. My oral history.”

  She greedily hefted the box and charged angrily down the stairs.

  “This could have been a catastrophe,” she said, her anger rising. “I’ll be punishing you both. I ­don’t know how yet, but I will—and it ­won’t be pleasant.”

  Stepping out of the garage, she barked orders. “Cigarette.”

  Gloria gulped, gently placing a cigarette to Meri’s lips.

  “What? I’m supposed to light it myself?”

  Shaking, Shanna-Francine lit a match, brought it to the tip of Meri’s cigarette, then hurled it over her shoulder. Oops. It seems Shanna-Francine was holding the plastic can at a slight angle; it had dribbled a trail of gasoline when they walked from the rooftop to the ground below. Behind them, they heard a violent ka-boom. Meri spotted the ignited trail.

  “Run!” she cried.

  The girls ran for their lives, then leaped in the air and crashed to the ground. Behind them, there was a series of violent explosions from inside the parking garage—boom-boom-boom—one after another, until the entire complex was engulfed in flames and blackening smoke. With a sigh, Meri stood up, dusted herself off, and shrugged.

  “My car’s not parked there.”

  Then her eyes popped out of her head.

  “Wait a minute,” she bellowed, looking down at the felled box and all of the tapes that had tumbled out of it.

  “Those are 8-track tapes. Where are my tapes?”

  Then she laughed, and Gloria joined in. Thank God for Shanna-Francine’s ineptitude. To think, the real tapes might have been burned. Then, as if she were talking to an especially dense third grader, Meri turned to Shanna-Francine and very slowly spoke.

  “Everything’s okay now. You did good. But we ­don’t want those tapes. We want the other tapes. Where are they?”

  Shanna-Francine was awfully confused.

  “Well, um, let’s see,” she said, trying to figure it out. She pointed to the 8-tracks. “I thought this box had the other tapes and the other box had these tapes. Right?”

  “Good, ­you’re doing good,” said Meri encouragingly. “Where’s the other box?”

  “Okay. Um. Okay, let me think. See, those are the 8-tracks. And ­they’re all Captain & Tennille. Which means I must have given the other box to the DJ this morning. You know, for the dance? Oh my God, like DJ Mo Ghee is s-o-o-o cute.”

  I should have known something was up when Lindsay blithely comped me into the dance tonight, but I was still so depressed, and I was a bit shaken by the sight of that very strange explosion I saw on my way over. And it made no sense at all when I saw everyone up in the booth with DJ Mo Ghee. I practically leaped out of my skin when I heard bellowing screams and hollers behind me.

  Meri and Gloria angrily pushed forth.

  “Where is he?” bellowed Meri, but the music was so loud (“You Better Shop Around,” which is one of the few songs I like from the Captain & Tennille songbook), that I could barely make out what she was saying. She stepped closer, seething. “Where is he?”

  “Where’s who?” I asked.

  “The fucking DJ.”

  Was this a trick question? “Uh, why ­don’t you try the DJ booth?”

  I pointed. Meri jerked her head up—and DJ Mo Ghee blew her a kiss. And so did Patty and Pigboy and Bud. Suddenly, blaring from the speakers, and mixed perfectly to the house beat that DJ Mo Ghee had added to “You Better Shop Around,” was an unmistakable voice. It was Meri’s voice, chopped up and staccato.

  ­You’re my little bow-wow. Bow-wow. ­

  You’re my little bow-wow. Bow-wow.

  Meri stood at the center of the dance floor, rooted to the spot, the color draining from her face. The song’s beat hit double-time, and the voices intermingled (beautifully, I might add; he is a good DJ), adding more words and phrases.

  Never told you to do anything illegal.

  Never told you. Never told you. Never told you.

  Plant drugs in Keith’s locker.

  Keith’s locker. Keith’s locker.

  We can do a hit on Rags.

  Rags. Rags. Rags.

  By now the crowd was catching on, and so were the professors, all of whom had been too afraid not to attend. But they ­weren’t afraid now. They were euphoric. An unhinged giddiness was spreading. You could tell that Meri wanted to run. But where? The crowd was closing in on her and the music was getting louder, and the voices were increasing in both beat and variety. It was a sort of “Best of Meri” house mix, with each clip more damning than the next.

  Blackmail. Woof-woof.

  Let’s make crystal.

  Bow-wow. I run this school.

  Woof-woof. Fuck the dean.

  Bow-wow. Run this school.

  Run this school. Run this school.

  And then the most fantastic sight; it’s almost impossible to describe. It was as if everyone decided to move at once, including Nester and Randy, who had previously placed countless digital cameras in a strategic circle all throughout the hall. Now I understood what everyone was talking about in the safe house when they mentioned The Matrix. At just the right moment—in tandem with the suddenly surging crowd—Randy gave the signal, and Nester hit a remote switch, igniting the cameras to take flash pictures one second after another. The result was a cacophony of blinding flashes that swirled over and over in a whiplash-fast circle around the entire crowd. But no one noticed. They were diving for Meri. I covered my mouth in horror. She screamed, then vanished, consumed by the maddening throng, and then she was flung violently into the air, her hands reaching vainly for the heavens, while others clawed at her body, her face. She screamed like a hellcat. This was power destroyed, a monster vanquished! Then the flashes were extinguished, the song abruptly ended, and the crowd, as if jointly awakening from some sort of supernatural reverie, slowly stepped back. Meri was gone. Was the nightmare really over? How could it be? Meri always wins. A sudden, familiar musical vamp blasted from the speakers, and a spotlight whipped to the stage where a performer cheerfully began singing.

  Love, love will keep us together

  Think of me, babe, whenever

  Some sweet-talking guy comes along, singing his song . . .

  It was like a dream. Keith’s arms engulfed me, and then he whirled me to the dance floor. We were the only ones dancing, and as he held me close, I looked up. It was really her! Oh my God, Toni Tennille was really here—and in darn good voice, I might add.

  When the others turn you off

  who’ll be turning you on

  I will, I will, I will, I will

  Be there to share forever

  Love will keep us together . . .