Zaghruda

By Beau Johnston

ZAGHRUDA is an Arabic word for a shrill, vocal outburst. One hears this distinct and unrestrained sound when women of the Arabic world are expressing great happiness.

***

Neither terrorist bombs in Tanzania nor assassin bullets in Belfast can deter Reuters journalist Smiley Sebastinelli as he travels the globe to collect information for a TV documentary. Smiley, together with his best friend and former Harvard classmate, Bill Yates, independently determine to try and improve the world they live in. The documentary depicts recent atrocities perpetrated by man on his fellow man. Bill, a multibillionaire software entrepreneur, plans to host a religious conference at Versailles to advocate a single world religion.

Smiley travels to Africa, Northern Ireland, Algeria and Yugoslavia to gather information for the television documentary. In Tanzania, he falls in love with a beautiful Muslim widow, Nursel. She has a precocious nine, year, old daughter named Yasemin. Nursel and Yasemin move into Smiley’s London flat and become a family in the very dangerous world in which Smiley moves.
Smiley’s travels put him in touch with Osama bin Laden and Slobodan Milosevic with predictably hazardous consequences. He also encounters a letter purportedly written by Jesus!

Smiley and Bill wonder, in this time of the Internet with near instant worldwide communication, how atrocities can continue to occur. Will either of them be able to achieve their goal and make this a safer and saner world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fideli Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781604145120

Beau Johnston

Beau Johnston attended high school in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, and then went to the Phillips Exeter Academy for a year. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a degree of BS in Economics. Beau was an industrialist in the Pittsburgh, PA area until 1991, when he moved to the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, to pursue a writing career. The Red Hat is his first adventure novel, and he also wrote Zaghruda, an action adventure.

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Zaghruda

Beau Johnston

Smashwords ebook edition published by Fideli Publishing Inc.

Zaghruda © 2011 Beau Johnston

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ISBN: 978-1-60414-512-0

CHAPTER ONE: OUT OF AFRICA

Smiley had been standing in line at the Kenya Airlines check in counter for over a half-hour. Finally it was his turn. The agent seemed a bit testy; he had overheard her conversations with those who went before him. She was an attractive black girl with a really wild hairdo, and she did not look up as he stepped to the counter. Your passport and ticket, please.

He laid them before her. She put a check next to his name on a list and then turned and opened his passport. How do you pronounce your name?

Sebastinelli, he replied with a wide smile.

She looked up at him and immediately responded with a big smile of her own, revealing a lovely set of teeth. And your first two names are, Roberto Domenic?

Yes, but everyone calls me Smiley.

I can see why, she replied. You have the most beautiful smile! I see you are going to Dar, will you be returning?

No, My work is finished in Kagali.

I was thinking of going to Dar this weekend, will you be there?

No. I have a flight back home to London later today.

Too bad. She then proceeded to stamp his passport, pull the copy from his ticket and give him his boarding pass. Where would you like to sit?

On the left side so I can get a good view of Kilimanjaro.

Okay, and since you’re so tall I’ll put you in the front row where you’ll have more leg room. There you are then, have a nice flight. It is Gate five.

Thanks. Smiley picked up his garment bag and walked to the gate. He also carried his camcorder and notebook computer. At the gate he had to show his ticket and boarding pass again.

What type of plane do we have?

A Fokker 50, a propjet. It’s our newest aircraft. We took delivery in September, 1995.

Smiley estimated there were about 50 passengers waiting for the flight. A few minutes later they began boarding. Since he was in the first row he was the last to board. There was a space for hanging garment bags and he was just able to squeeze his in. He took his seat by the window and put the camcorder case with his notebook under the seat.

The guy next to him said Good Morning and then went to work on a report. That was fine with Smiley as he wanted to reconstruct what he had learned these last three weeks.

The plane taxied to its runway and took off to the west. It had good power, quickly climbing to altitude while turning 180 degrees to head east. It was 9:00 AM. The flight was scheduled for an hour to Arusha and after a short stop there it was about another hour to Dar es Salaam. Arusha was the site of the international war crimes tribunal investigating the massacres of at least 500,000 people in Rwanda in 1994.

After a breakfast of fruit and juice, Smiley got his laptop out and started going over his notes. About two months ago his boss, Tim Heidelbaugh, had called him to his office. Tim oversaw all the foreign journalists at Reuters. Tim recently read an article about the Rwandan slaughter and decided to send Smiley there to collect facts for a documentary. Arrangements were made through the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam and Kigali for his investigative work. He flew directly to Dar and spent the night at the Dar Sheraton. The next morning he went to the Embassy and met with Ken Hardy, an assistant in the Defense Attaché’s Office. Ken Hardy was CIA. He’d made arrangements for Smiley to stay at the Windsor Umubano Hotel in Kigali. He also hired a guide/interpreter and two security guards to accompany him, so every time Smiley left the hotel he had his quartet.

The contact at the Kigali embassy was the Administrative Officer, Gustavo Mejia. Gustavo made all the arrangements for transportation, visits to people Smiley wished to interview (including prisoners), and sundry other things. Smiley was certain Gustavo was also CIA but they never discussed it. Smiley and Gustavo got along great. Gustavo would come over to the hotel each night after Smiley returned and they would have a few drinks together. Often Gustavo joined Smiley for dinner. Smiley would tell Gustavo about where they went and what he accomplished that day. At first Smiley had been embarrassed having two men with machine guns accompanying him. After visiting a couple of the refugee camps he quickly changed his mind and was delighted they were there. The only time the guns were ever fired was at dusk when they were leaving a mass grave. A pack of six yelping jackals were attempting to dig up the remains of massacred Tutsi. The security guards asked Smiley for permission to shoot, and he gave it. The Tutsi had suffered enough.

Smiley’s guide was named Elizaphan. Of course that was quickly shortened to Eli. Eli was obsequious to Smiley, not only for the good pay he received but also because of the Sunset Inn. The Inn was a local bar a few blocks from the hotel and after a tough day and a lot of travel Smiley would stop off and buy the three of them a few rounds of beer and some barbecued pork sandwiches. They really enjoyed that!

The man next to him closed his report and said, I’m Charley Bosco.

Smiley Sebastinelli. They shook hands.

What do you do Smiley?

I’m a foreign journalist with Reuters.

That sounds exciting.

Well, Charley, it gets me a lot of frequent flyer miles.

I’m an accountant with Arthur Anderson. I’ve been investigating how much money certain Rwandan politicians have stolen. They’re now being tried in Arusha as war criminals, and believe me, they stole plenty. The Rwandan government is lucky to have anything left! Tell me Smiley, how did this genocide happen? What was behind it?

It will take some time.

We have a half-hour to Arusha. Go ahead.

The Hutu/Tutsi conflict was a real surprise to me. I presumed these two peoples were at war for centuries and that the animosity probably had a religious basis. That was not the case. It turned out the Hutu and Tutsi always got along, often intermarrying. It was more an economic disparity. The Hutu constituted about 90 per cent of the Ugandan population. They were short and stocky in build and were cultivators. The lanky Tutsi, always a small minority, were herdsmen. When the Belgian colonizers arrived, they emphasized these differences, launching a policy of divide and conquer by favoring the Tutsi. The Belgians held that no real civilization could have existed in black Africa. Therefore the centralized state of Rwanda was an anomaly that challenged a premise of colonial legitimacy. This led to the Hamitic hypothesis that all ‘civilized’ institutions in central Africa were the result of an invasion by ‘Hamites’, or black Caucasians, from Ethiopia. From 1910-1940 Bishop Leon Classe developed this Hamitic ideology. They designated the Tutsi as Hamites because they were taller and thinner and looked more European, but the Tutsi and Hutu continued to intermarry and interact peaceably. Toward the end of the colonial era, the Roman Catholic Church and the colonial authorities reversed their preferences and inverted the hierarchy. They decided to favor the majority Hutu. How are you holding up? Am I boring you to death?

No! Not at all. Please continue.

Okay. Now the important positions were awarded to the Hutu. As independence approached in the 1950s, the Hutu reaped the rewards. Hutu extremists took the ‘Ethiopian invasion’ hypothesis and turned it around, calling for the Tutsi to return home. In 1959 the Hutu began to politically organize under the banner of Hutu Power. Until then there had never been systematic violence between Hutu and Tutsi. A prominent Hutu ideologue, Leon Mugesera, showing a contempt for geography, enjoined his followers to throw the Tutsi in the Nyabarongo River to transport them back to Ethiopia! Some say 40,000 corpses made the watery journey to Lake Victoria! Then in that same year Belgian paratroopers presided over a bloody uprising in which 10,000 Tutsi were slaughtered and over a 100,000 driven abroad. In 1962, Gregoire Kayibanda, secretary to the Archbishop and founder of the Hutu supremacist party, became the first president of independent Rwanda with 80 percent voting to end the monarchy and confirming the Republic. In the late 1980s new President Habyarimana declared a policy of ethnic ‘balance’ that supposedly allotted public sector employment according to the national ration of 85 percent Hutu and 15 percent Tutsi. In fact he was a Hutu supremacist who appointed cronies from his hometown to all the important positions and reserved the spoils of Rwanda’s wealth for his own family.

Yeah, Charley said, he’s on my list.

Smiley continued, In 1990, the Rwandan exiles in neighboring Uganda formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front, more commonly known as the RPF. They invaded and plunged the country into civil war and a vicious cycle of human rights abuse. The name kubohoza emerged and it meant aggressive action against a political opponent. Many died from kubohoza. By 1992, there had been several large-scale massacres, and political assassinations were commonplace. International investigations concluded that responsibility lay in the president’s office. But in mid-1993, it seemed as though an internationally mediated peace agreement would save the country. The government, the RPF, and civil opposition parties signed a set of accords in Arusha that appeared to provide a model for transition to democracy. While the rest of the world dragged their feet, African heads of state at a meeting in Dar es Salaam reaffirmed their commitment to the Arusha Accords and insisted Habyarimana cease his delaying tactics and implement the power-sharing formula to which he agreed. On the way back to Kigali, Habyarimana’s own handpicked extremists in the Presidential Guard shot down his plane and set in motion their final solution. What followed was a carefully planned extermination. The government specially trained and mobilized its militia, the interahamwe, compiling in advance a list of targets, dismissed all administrators seen as moderates, and replaced them with extremists. The extremist Hutu radio RTLM and the state sponsored Radio Rwanda broadcast calls inciting mass murder. The interim President, Theodore Sindikukwabo, also made incendiary speeches on radio and in person around the country congratulating the killers on a job well done and telling those in places where the killing had not yet started, that they should set to the work. How are you bearing up? This monologue must be pretty boring.

Not to me! All I do is crunch numbers all day. This is fascinating.

Well, the United States had lost 18 soldiers in Somalia in 1993. Nobody wanted to label what was happening in Rwanda genocide because if they did we would have a moral obligation to intervene. So while Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher, and Ambassador to Rwanda David Rawson and most of the rest of the world looked aside, somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered.

My God, Charley said, I had no idea that many died.

Would you care for a drink? the hostess asked.

Do you have Coca-Cola? Smiley replied.

Yes.

Thanks, I’ll have a coke.

Charley had coffee.

Smiley took his drink and as he sipped it, he wondered how Ken Hardy would receive his report. Probably badly, as it was critical of all his superiors. Anyway, Smiley promised Ken a copy and it was the least he could do after all the help Ken gave him. Smiley put the report on a floppy disc for Ken. When he got to Dar he had to wait about four hours for his flight back to London. He would get a locker at the airport and cram everything into it and then take the floppy over to Ken at the embassy. He doubted Ken would try to read the report while he was there, and if he asked him to summarize the report he would. What the hell, he reported the story as he saw it.

Do you have a Jean Baravagwiza on your list? Smiley asked.

Yes, Charley replied.

I’ll tell you one short story to give you an idea of the type of people behind these massacres. I interviewed the jailed suspect, Jean Baravagwiza. What a son-of-a-bitch this guy was. I was glad there was a guard present during the interview or I would probably have beaten the hell out of him. Some of the top Hutu administrators had a hunting camp on the Kagera River. This Baravagwiza admitted to throwing about 100 men, women and children over a 25-foot cliff into the waiting mouths of crocodiles in the river. He thought it was great fun! I was able to locate two women who Baravagwiza tossed in but survived. Evitta Kwimbere lost a part of her arm, Hosiana Mmbaga half her leg. When I showed their pictures to him he just shrugged his head. When I interviewed the girls I had a campaign poster of Baravagwiza with me and both girls confirmed he was the one who tossed them to the crocodiles. His Minister of Defense had joined in the fun. Both girls thought the only reason they survived was that the Hutu soldiers raped them first and thus they were among the last to be thrown in the river. They surmised that the alligators were so full that they couldn’t finish the job once they had each girl by a limb. One of the girls lost a brother and sister, the other a sister in the river. The last words Baravagwiza said to me was, ‘All of Africa is a war. When we come back, all will be killed.’ Yeah, I sure would have liked to get alone with that son-of-a-bitch.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Captain announced, if you can see out of the left side of the aircraft that is Mt. Meru. Very shortly behind Mt. Meru you will see the majestic Kilimanjaro. Enough people from the right side got up and moved across the aisle for a look to cause the plane to tilt a bit. When Smiley flew over to Kigali three weeks ago it was cloudy and there was no view at all. All of a sudden, there it was. What a spectacular mountain! It was a wonder that more books other than Hemmingways hadn’t been written about it. On second thought there probably were other books, but he just wasn’t aware of them.

A young boy wanted to take pictures so Smiley gave him his seat. It felt good to stretch. A few minutes later the seat-belt sign came on for the landing in Arusha.

The war crime trials were currently in progress. Smiley knew there would be a lot of material he could use revealed as the trials proceeded, but he estimated the information he accumulated to date would easily cover one hour. His documentary was to be an hour in length so he decided to go with what he had. In addition he didn’t relish spending hour upon hour culling through reams of testimony. There was time to deplane so he walked with Charley and they shook hands and said so long. Smiley found a newsstand and started looking for a magazine but suddenly broke into a huge smile, for there was his good buddy Bill Yates ugly puss on the cover of another magazine! He bought the magazine to see how many billions Bill was worth now, and what he’d been up to lately. He hadn’t talked to Bill for a couple of months and determined to call him when he got back to London. He sipped some coffee and waited as the Arusha passengers boarded, skipping through the other articles but saving the Yates story to read on the Dar es Salaam leg of the flight.

The take-off was to the west and as the plane turned east Smiley again enjoyed the spectacular Kilimanjaro. This time he used his camcorder to shoot about two minutes of the mountain. It’s not often that you look up at a mountain when flying! How ironic that some of the most heinous crimes ever committed by man would be revealed at the Arusha trials, almost in the shadow of this beautiful mountain.

Smiley got the magazine out and went to the article on Bill Yates. It talked about some of the recent acquisitions Software Inc. had made. Software Inc. was Bill’s company. The rest of the article was about the problems they had delivering the updated version of their new software on schedule. Smiley put the magazine in the rack in front of him and rested his head back, closed his eyes, and remembered the first time he laid eyes on William Yates, III.

It was 1973 and Smiley had got a scholarship to play football at Harvard. He came in early to practice and immediately won the starting center position on the freshman team. Smiley came with good credentials, he had twice made All-State for the Aliquippa, Pa. high school team. He was assigned a room in Currier House. Smiley was just about to walk out the front door of Currier House on his way to practice when a slightly built guy with glasses approached him and said, You’re Sebastinelli, aren’t you?

Yes.

Did I pronounce your name right?

Perfectly

I’m Bill Yates. I’m from Seattle so I came in a week early to familiarize myself with the campus. There’s only five of us in Currier now.

Nice to meet you Bill, Smiley said as he shook hands and produced his famous smile.

Are you going to practice now? Bill asked.

Yes.

Do you mind if I walk along with you. I’ve got everything I wanted to accomplish today done and have nothing to do. I might as well watch you guys practice.

Be my guest, Smiley said. Would you like to try-out? You might make a wide receiver.

Bill laughed, Oh sure, do you want to see me get killed!

They walked along for a couple of blocks and conversation came easily to them. They got along well. Soon they were joined by a couple of more football players headed for practice. Bill attempted to drop back behind the players but Smiley would have none of it. He introduced him to the others and insisted Bill walk next to him.

When Smiley returned to his room after practice he took his shoes off and put his feet up to relax and watch TV. The door to his room was open and when he heard a knock on it Smiley looked up to see Bill. Come on in.

Are you going to eat at the cafeteria? Bill asked.

No, Smiley replied, I think I’ll go down to Johnny’s hamburger shop.

Mind if I join you?

Hell no, be glad to have you.

At Johnny’s they ordered cheeseburgers and Smiley also got a beer. When the waitress left Bill asked, Are you 21?

No, I’m 18. I have a fake ID.

Boy I’d like to get one of those, Bill replied. Where can I get one?

I don’t know about Cambridge, Smiley said, but I can definitely get you one in Aliquippa.

Aliquippa, Bill said, where’s that?

That’s where I’m from. It’s on the Ohio River west of Pittsburgh. Where did you say you were from, Seattle?

Yes.

Make me a copy of your driver’s license and I’ll mail it home and see if we can’t get you one with three more years tacked on!

What do your parents do? Bill asked.

My Dad has a small construction company. Ninety percent of the employees are relations of mine. He mainly builds houses. My Mother teaches school. How about you?

My Dad is an attorney. My Mom’s a teacher too. What kind of a name is Aliquippa? Bill asked.

It’s Indian. There are all kinds of small towns like it along the Ohio River; Beaver, Monaca, Beaver Falls. Most everybody works in the steel mills along the river. J & L. or American Bridge.

What is J. & L? Bill asked.

Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, Smiley answered.

Smiley chuckled as he recalled the first math class he had at Harvard. Bill was in the class along with a couple of other athletes including a wrestler from Iowa and a basketball player from New Hampshire. All 12 students were seated around a big round table. The wrestler’s name was Cates and he and Bill were seated next to each other. The teacher was the nicest old guy, Dr. Adkins. Dr. Adkins was immaculately dressed, thin, with long wavy gray hair, and very polite. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. As part of his introduction to the class Dr. Adkins did a few calculations on the blackboard. Later they found out it was calculus and was intended to scare the students into studying hard. It certainly accomplished that goal. Smiley had always done exceptionally well in math but now he wondered if he was in over his head? While Dr. Adkins completed his blackboard work all eyes were riveted on him, except Bill. He was popping the top off of a ballpoint pen. He would pop it off, replace it, and then repeat the process. Since no one else had their hands on the table it was very obvious. Finally Dr. Adkins could no longer put up with such intransigence.

Am I boring you, Mr. Cates? he asked. (Cates would later relate that he nearly crapped himself!) No sir, he stammered.

Pardon me, Mr. Cates, Dr. Adkins said. I meant to address Mr. Yates.

Cates was so relieved you could hear his breath as he exhaled.

Am I boring you, Mr. Yates?

Yes, Bill answered.

Perhaps you’d like to tell us what you are doing?

I’m trying to figure out how far the top of this ball-point pin travels when I pop it.

Would you like to come up to the blackboard and figure it out? Dr. Adkins asked.

Okay, Bill replied.

Dr. Adkins walked to Bill’s empty seat and as they passed he handed the chalk to Bill. He sat down in Bill’s seat, crossed his legs, and folded his hands over his knee. He looked attentively at Bill. The room was a rectangle, and as you came in there was a small blackboard to the left and right of the door. Both of the long sides of the room were all blackboards. The wall opposite the door was filled with windows. Bill started his calculation on the small blackboard to the left of the door. He then carried it down the left side of the room. It was obvious he had the logarithm tables and trigonometric functions committed to memory. He then crossed over to the other long blackboard. No words were spoken. Bill exhausted the chalk he had and picked up another from the gutter beneath the blackboard. When he got his calculation about two-thirds of the way back toward the door he stopped writing.

The answer is 1.238493492 inches, he said.

These were the first words that were spoken in 25 minutes. The bell sounded and everybody hurriedly left the class. It was 11:00 AM. Each dorm had a proctor in it. In Smiley’s dorm it was Mr. Broderick, who lived at the end of the hall on the second floor with his wife and two small daughters. He had previously introduced himself to each student under his aegis and established a time of three o’clock to bring problems to him. Smiley got to his door about five after three and took his place in line. Cates and four other guys from Dr. Adkins class were before him. After a few minutes Mr. Broderick emerged from his apartment.

Are you all in Dr. Adkins math class? he asked.

Yes, they replied.

Well come on in.

Once inside Smiley saw that the basketball player was already sitting on the couch. He must have been the first one in line. They took what seats were available and the rest sat on the floor.

I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Broderick began The story of what Mr. Yates did today in Dr. Adkins class has already made the rounds of the faculty. And it was told by Dr. Adkins himself! He has got such a kick out of it. He’s normally so mild mannered and the one time he steps out of character and acts a bit smart he gets stomped on! The two Doctors who wrote your textbook have already decided to teach, or tutor, Mr. Yates separately. Your class will remain unchanged except Mr. Yates will no longer be in it.

After a collective sigh of relief everybody had a good laugh describing how they panicked about the class while Bill was going around the blackboard!

That was the only math class Bill and Smiley ever attended together. Whenever Smiley had trouble solving a calculus problem he would walk down to Bill’s room. Bill and his friend Paul were always there writing and developing software. Bill would first ask Smiley to read him the question. Next he would tell Smiley the answer. Then Bill would ask how far along he was and if necessary suggest a different approach. Smiley would return to his room and soon the dark skies parted and the sun would shine through and Smiley would have the answer.

Bill wasn’t much of a party animal. He was immersed in his software enterprise. Occasionally he might decide to go to a mixer or party but only if Smiley was going. He had quickly noticed how irresistible Smiley was to women. Bill found he had more success in acquiring a girl that Smiley discarded for bigger and better things. After all, the conversation was already initiated, and some level of social comfort attained. Everybody knew Smiley and being with him assured Bill of meeting, if not the brightest, certainly the best looking girls at the party.

One evening when the guys were sitting around at the dorm shooting the bull Bill estimated that Smiley could convince about 90 percent of the girls at any party to leave with him. He also figured that of those who left with Smiley probably close to the same percentage would end up in bed with him. None of the others disputed Bill’s estimates. They knew how many phone calls Smiley got and they had seen him in action. He would flash that great smile and light the girl up. Smiley had two older sisters and he told Bill that was the main reason he was able to initiate conversation so easily with girls. He knew what his sisters were discussing, whether it was designer clothes, hairdos, movies or music groups. He also had a great repertoire of jokes. He would get the conversation going with one of his sister’s subjects and then slip in a joke. He also saw to it that the object of his affection did not lack for booze. That was where Bill contributed, as he was usually the one to go for the drinks.

Smiley laughed as he recalled all the times he had told Bill, You can’t start a conversation with a girl you are interested in by asking her what she scored on her SAT exams. Especially when everyone knows how high you scored. And you have to be interested in the girl as a person. You’ve got to listen to what she is saying.

Bill also noticed how Smiley handled a girl he liked a lot but was not responding to his advances the way he wished. He’d make a serious move on her and then switch his attentions to a less attractive girl. Bill could almost guarantee that the jilted girl would be calling Smiley the next day. He was certain Smiley jilted her deliberately because often when the original girl left the party, Smiley would round up Bill and leave too. Anyway, Bill had often told the guys that when you have as many girls after you as Smiley did you could afford such strategies!

Quite a few girls had told Bill that Smiley’s bowlegs were a turn on. Smiley had a pair of designer jeans that really fit him well. There was no doubt that Smiley was all muscle. The fact that he wasn’t perfect seemed to humanize him and make the girls more relaxed around him than they would have been with a guy that good looking, but flawless. Smiley would often bring the subject up himself by stating that if he hadn’t been so bowlegged he would have been two and a half inches taller and at 6’4 he would have a chance at a career in the NFL! Bill was always amazed at what expressions of sympathy Smiley would get from this ruse. Come on, Bill would say, do you really feel Smiley has been short changed in life? Of course the girls would then be pissed at him! In any case Bill got lucky every now and then. The girls he did care about and would go on and date, he usually met when accompanying Smiley. He and Smiley became good friends. Bill learned that once he became interested in a girl she immediately went on Smiley’s verboten" list. Smiley would never try and take the girl away from Bill. He could be trusted!

Smiley remembered the trip he and Bill took to Philadelphia for a Penn-Harvard football game. Smiley had a girlfriend from Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania who he saw whenever he went home. She started school at Bryn Mawr and had called Smiley to see if he was coming down with the team. At that time Smiley had broke a small bone in his wrist and had a cast on it. He had the option to travel with the team but was not required to do so. Since he had exams coming up the next week he planned to stay in Cambridge and get caught up. Judy kept imploring though and the more he thought of those beautiful long legs the weaker his resistance became.

Let me get back to you, he said. He hung up the phone and went down to see Bill, who was all excited about a change of scenery for the weekend. Judy promised that if they came down she would get Bill a date with a great looking girl who was not averse to spending the night with a guy she liked.

Is she good looking? Bill asked Judy on the phone.

She’s a stunner.

Is she smart?

All A’s and B’s last year, Judy replied.

That did it. Bill called the Warwick Hotel and reserved a small suite for Saturday. Smiley called and rented a car, which they would pick up Saturday at eight. They briefly considered going to the game as Smiley could get free tickets but quickly disposed of that option. They had better things to do!

They took off Saturday morning and arrived in Philadelphia about four hours later. They checked in to the hotel and were pleased with the room. It had a nice sitting room with a huge sofa, coffee table, some chairs and a TV. The bedroom had two queen-sized beds and another TV.

Smiley had a football teammate from Aliquippa who was a Phi Gam at Penn. The plan was to chill out in the afternoon, then go to the Phi Gam house for a party after the game, and in the evening attend a formal dance in the ballroom of the Warwick. After settling into the room Smiley called Judy. We’re here and raring to go. Give me directions to Bryn Mawr.

You don’t need to drive out, we’ve got a ride in. We’re staying at a classmate’s home on Rittenhouse Square. We’ll meet you at Smokey Joe’s Café about two o’clock. But Smiley, I have one problem.

What?

The girl I had for Bill, her period started today and she’s miserable. I had to get another date. She is smart as hell, from Midland, Texas, has a cute accent and a great personality.

Oh no! I’ve heard that personality thing before.

What could I do honey? I only had about two hours notice.

Here, you talk to Bill and explain what happened, Smiley said.

Judy got on the phone with Bill and repeated the story. Finally they hung up. He was disappointed, but what could he do. I’ll just have to hope for the best, Bill lamented.

They got to Smokey Joe’s a little before two. Smiley had been able to get a bogus ID card for Bill so there was no problem getting in. They went to the bar and ordered a beer. Smiley had his back to the door and all of a sudden Bill saw hands wrap around Smiley’s head, covering his eyes.

Guess who?

Smiley reached up and took the little finger of her left hand and diverted it into his mouth.

The girl giggled.

It tastes like Judy to me! he said.

She came around then and gave Smiley a quick kiss. He introduced her to Bill. She had heels on and was very tall. A definite see through. She looked athletic and Bill later learned that she competed for the Pennsylvania State amateur golf title.

Sheila doesn’t have an ID so she’s waiting outside.

Okay, Smiley replied, we’ll finish this beer off and be right out.

I just hope this Sheila is half as good looking as Judy, Bill said as they walked outside. The two girls were leaning on the side of a parked car.

Ohhhhh, Bill could hardly contain his disappointment. Sheila was about five feet, probably did not weigh 100 pounds, and had dishwater blond hair which was so sculpted she must have used a half can of hair spray on it.

On a scale of ten, a three, Smiley thought.

Sheila, this is Bill Yates and Smiley Sebastinelli, Judy said. Smiley’s mine so keep your hands off him. Fellows, this is Sheila McCrea."

Let’s head over to the Phi Gam house so we can all have a drink, Smiley added quickly. They walked the three blocks and Sheila never shut up during the trip. There was a bouncer/greeter at the door.

We’re guests of Frankie Rossi, Smiley said.

That will be $15 a couple.

They paid and went into the fraternity living room that was set up for a party. Judy and Smiley had a draft beer while Sheila ordered a vodka and tonic.

Bill pulled Smiley aside. I need something strong to get through this. I never tasted whisky before, he confided. What should I drink? I don’t want anything too strong.

Smiley looked over the bottles on the table and picked one up. It was Old Bushmills. This is pretty mild, give it a try.

Okay, what should I mix it with? Bill asked.

Water.

They were on their second drink when Frankie and his date showed up.

Who won the game? Smiley asked.

Harvard, 14-7.

All right! Smiley exclaimed.

Smiley asked Frankie to describe the game while the girls and Bill had a discussion about the City of Brotherly Love. Soon two more fraternity friends and their dates joined them and it was decided they would play a drinking game called Buzz. The rules were simple enough. Starting from the number one, each person took a progressive number clockwise. Anytime you had a number with a seven in it or which was divisible by seven you were to say Buzz instead of