8
The Cottage Club was
ensconced in an antebellum mansion on Prospect Street, a tree-lined
lane that served as the address for all of Princeton’s eating
clubs. Admission to Cottage was highly selective; the
athletically-inclined scholar needed the right family background,
membership on a suitable sports team, and grades respectable enough
so as not to leave the club financially strapped after February’s
typical flunk-out season. Cottage men were known for entering in
coats and ties, out-drinking the lower life forms in other clubs,
and never waking up in their own detritus.
Henry Brome was the
quintessential jock—golf, crew, hockey, soccer, and rugby—and he
spent far more time in Cottage’s taproom playing poker than he did
taking notes in class. Such was his stature, his strength, wit, and
ruthlessness, that he was invariably surrounded by a group of
fawning vassals known as Broome’s Brigade.
Like most undergrads
headed for the family business, Henry chose one of the soft
majors—in his case, history. His brushes with academic censure were
usually swept under the rug following a phone call from the Alumni
Office to an understanding dean. Princeton was in the habit of
getting a new building from the Broome family, owners of the small
Hawaiian island of Lanai, once every generation. Those entrusted
with the growth of the university’s endowment had no intention of
strangling that golden goose.
Unbeknownst to the
university’s chancellors, said goose was in extremis, since the
family’s sugarcane and pineapple crops had failed four years in a
row. The stock portfolio of Henry’s father, Henry Bramwell Broome
III, was good for little more than lining the cage of the family’s
macaw, thanks to his habit of swimming around in gin and tonic from
noon to eight o’clock each evening. While attempting to keep up
appearances, the Broomes had become convinced that any hope of
rebuilding their small Pacific empire lay in Henry’s following the
path trodden by his ancestors since Henry Broome, family
progenitor, had taken his theology degree at Princeton and shipped
out as a missionary to convert the heathens of Hawaii. In those
days, missionaries went to do good … and usually ended up doing
quite well.
Henry IV’s parents
had less lofty hopes. Nevertheless, they prayed that their son, who
favored quite a different kind of missionary position, would
somehow acquire the skills to rehabilitate the island, the crops,
the portfolio, and, most importantly, the Broome family name. Henry
III, though a consummate lush, still had a few markers he could
call in after his son graduated. He planned to place Henry with any
one of a dozen companies where his heir could hone his
entrepreneurial skills, be ushered into the boardroom in record
time, and parlay the Broomes’ declining reputation back into
solvency with an infusion of capital. Hopefully, their son would
not only shore up the dwindling portfolio, but also return to run
the plantation full-time. First, however, it would be necessary for
Henry to run the corporate gauntlet in order to acquire
experience.
Though the elder
Broome placed an awesome responsibility on his son’s shoulders,
Henry had an uncanny way of making things happen. From earliest
childhood, he had been a leader, an organizer among his cadre, and
heaven help the boy—or occasional girl—who didn’t fall in line with
Henry’s plans for a game of football, a party, or a day-trip to
Maui. Loud and strong, he was persuasive to an extreme, a one-man
wrecking crew if the situation warranted.
By age sixteen,
Henry supervised virtually all the plantation’s workers during the
summer, earning a reputation as a taskmaster among people four
times his age. The Asian workers would glumly chant, “Yes, Mr.
Henry” or “No, Mr. Henry” as they chopped, bundled, and loaded
sugarcane onto flatbeds destined for the docks at Kaumalapau on the
island’s southern coast. He’d pull off the family’s plan to stay in
the social register all by himself if necessary.
The senior, class of
’78, therefore felt entirely justified in loudly regaling his
Cottage coterie with his latest accomplishments. He’d led
Princeton’s soccer team to a decisive victory over Brown earlier in
the afternoon, three of the four goals attributable to Henry.
Soccer was a rough game, and Henry played to win.
Always.
The slight-framed
Bruce Merewether was a prime example. Bruce was a Classics major
and captain of the men’s equestrian team. While riding horses
barely met Cottage entrance requirements, the presence of Bruce’s
grandfather on Cottage’s Board of Governors rendered the issue
moot. Bruce made it clear—foolishly, on this particular
evening—that people of Henry’s ilk lacked the aptitude to excel in
their studies.
More precisely,
Bruce had muttered that, “Jocks like Henry Broome were placed on
Earth to make Neanderthal Man seem intelligent by comparison.”
Having injected this acerbic gem into the pub’s pulse of activity
just loudly enough for Henry and his comrades to hear, he resumed
holding forth on Chaucer’s rhyming couplets.
Henry could hold six
beers and still walk a straight line for the campus police, which
he’d had to do on more than one occasion. He had chugged ten thus
far tonight, and his not-so-considered opinion was that Bruce’s
remark had slighted the honor of all true Princeton athletes, past
and present. “At least I don’t spend my time reading a lot of queer
poetry,” he stated, strutting over to Merewether and his two
companions.
Bruce pushed his
chair back with a screech and stared blankly up at the muscular
figure of Henry, who, at six-foot-four, towered above a literary
discussion that dwindled with each passing second. “I don’t believe
you were invited to join our group,” Bruce said confidently. “And
to assume that Chaucer’s poetry is more queer than a group of grown
men in shorts dancing around a spotted ball, giving each other love
taps on the ass … ” Bruce concluded the rebuttal with a mocking
grin.
Henry smiled, leaned
over, and clapped Bruce Merewether on the shoulder as if the two
young men were old friends, a couple of buds having a few
brewskies. His ruddy complexion and dirty blond hair were just
inches away from Merewether’s face. “Aren’t we Cottage men all one
group, one family?” he asked rhetorically, his eyes gleaming with
mock goodwill.
“A bit of a
generalization,” answered Bruce. “Some people here are part of the
group, as you put it, because their parents cut a few dozen extra
checks every year and grease the palms of the right administrators
and athletic directors. Besides, ailing Hawaiian pineapple
entrepreneurs really don’t have much in common with the rest of us,
wouldn’t you agree?”
The noisy
conversation in the bar abated quickly as several dozen people
directed their attention to the imposing Mr. Broome and his seated
rival. The sharp crack of a pool cue breaking freshly racked balls
sounded in the corner and then faded as silence claimed lease on
the pub for several tense seconds.
“I think you owe the
true gentlemen-athletes of this university an apology,” Henry said
emphatically, grabbing the front of Bruce’s white polo shirt and
lifting him from the chair. “The last time you competed in
anything, all you succeeded in doing was tiring your
horse.”
“You’re just a
dumb-ass jock,” Bruce asserted smugly. “You’re an insult to
Cottage. You may get away with some sneaky elbow punches on the
soccer field when the refs aren’t looking, but you’re neither a
gentleman nor a scholar.”
“Maybe you’re right,
Mr. Merewether. In fact, maybe I’m just a janitor. I must be,
because I just realized that it’s time to take out the
trash.”
Henry lifted
Merewether over his head and headed for the front door, already
propped open by a fawning member of Broome’s Brigade.
Angling sideways,
Henry carried his load into the crisp, blue New Jersey evening and
walked down the alley on his left.
“Put me down,
Broome!” Merewether demanded. “One more step and the honor
committee is going to find out who really wrote your junior
essay.”
“You have Mommy and
Daddy do whatever they like,” Henry said, heaving Merewether’s body
into a corroded green dumpster with a single thrust of his powerful
arms. “And tell them Henry Broome sends his warm
regards.”
Broome’s Brigade
burst into applause and cheers.
Henry bowed
ceremoniously. “Dei sub numine viget!”
he bellowed, reciting the school motto, Under God’s name she
flourishes. “Cottage rules!”
“Cottage rules!” the
students echoed.
Henry walked
casually toward the bar’s entrance, ready to put away a few more
beers, but first he stopped and faced the dumpster.
“Didn’t think I knew
Latin, did ya?” he called to the now invisible
Merewether.
Laughter followed
the indomitable Henry Broome back into Cottage’s leather-lined
lair.
Eddie Karn was the
lone bystander on the sidewalk that night. Karn was on his way back
to the library to put in a last hour before closing. He stood
there, transfixed at the sight of Broome’s disregard for another’s
humanity. Though there was nothing he could do, he felt compelled
to bear witness. Karn didn’t hang around Cottage types and wasn’t
impressed by demonstrations of power. Or by Henry Broome, for that
matter. He would remember the night Bruce Merewether got
dumpsterized for a long time.
A very long
time.