Quid Pro Quo

Quid Pro Quo

By the time she returned to her dorm room, Rachelle's plans had changed. She had been thinking it through, and she was pretty sure she had figured out how to get Mark to break up with HER. This was necessary, because her “D.C. Lawyer” father would never accept her autonomous decision to abandon the political connections that came with Mark, but if Mark was the aggressor, Delancy would be obligated to defend her decision, if only to rage at her privately afterward.

She called Andover in her room. “I'm ditching Mark for good,” she confided with calculating candor. “Can I count on you to help?”

Andover was not sure she wanted to help at all, but since she had already agreed to lie to Mark, a change in their story seemed hard to refuse. “What do you want me to tell him instead?” she asked, with an accusatory edge to her tone.

“I want to say that Jerry blackmailed us into taking the pics by threatening to tell Mark's Profs that I do half his coursework.” She combined female solidarity with a righteous cause; Andover could never refuse. “I just can't screw up the courage to face him myself!” she added.

“You sure you're really leaving Mark?” she queried. “Do you really do all his work?” she continued, more conspiratorially.

Rachelle played it to a tee. “I'd get in SOOOO much trouble,” she admitted. It was SOOOO true!

“OK,” Andover consented.

Rachelle gave her the guys' room number, after promising any amount of compensatory assistance in future, if only Andover made sure the conspiracy was never found out. Rachelle hung up the phone slightly apprehensive.

The night before, Mark had made little noise when the team got back from their road trip, and did not disturb Jerry as he came in and went to bed.

Now, when Jerry had risen for his 6:00 o'clock run, he had left without waking his room mate. When he got back, Mark was exiting the shower, and he took his turn after they exchanged perfunctory good mornings.

When Jerry finished up his shower and re-entered the room to find Mark checking email. The phone rang, and Mark took the call, while Jerry sat down to check his own email. The background noise didn't bother him, and he soon came to the promised picture of Rachelle's hand. She had been cute about it; the filename was the French, “Le Mans.” He smiled, and was about to move on, when Mark took hold of his chair and spun it 'round abruptly.

“What do you think you're doing with Rachelle's picture?” he charged.

Recalling that Rachelle had asked Andover to alibi their lie, he answered straightforwardly enough. “We took it just last night, and she said she was going to give me a copy.”

“That's not saying much about why!” Mark growled. Jerry was taken aback.

“It wasn't supposed to be such a big deal,” he replied. His statement was ambiguous enough. It wasn't SUPPOSED to be a big deal. His tone was meant to appease, not merely sooth, but he couldn't help feeling that it was still MEANT to be a big deal.

“She TOLD me you'd say that,” roared an enraged Mark. “I knew it! You're NEVER wrong, and now you sit here, trying to say you didn't hit on her like so much BAIT last night! ...and BLACKMAIL her TOO!”

The biological chemicals of shock flowed in Jerry's veins. Grasping at straws, he managed to gasp “What did Andover Joust say?”

“Aw, you fucking SHIT!” Mark bellowed, “She's the one that TOLD me!”.

In his mind, Jerry gave Mark a quizzical shake of the head, as if to question the foundation of these charges, but his body failed to follow the instructions. He stood his ground, and Mark was confused as Jerry blanched, but did not retreat. When Jerry again met Mark's steady glare, he did so with a “six-gun stare” of his own. All logic told him that he'd been set up, but deeper still, fight or flight had been forced to decide about Rachelle, and he wasn't about to flee. He loved her. She was imprinted in his mind, and if Mark and she ever broke up, he had always intended to capitalize on the opportunity. Now here it was, precipitated by some lie. No truth table could ever tell him what he actually knew; whatever the lie was, it meant Mark had failed to hold her, and he would never get a better chance.

His tone began quietly, like the deadly calm that foreshadows a hurricane. “I'm a fucking shit and you're NOT? You've never respected her, and by disrespecting ME, you're proving you don't even know what it MEANS to treat someone as an EQUAL!” His rising tone held genuine outrage, and his mind had slipped the safety that perennially taught him not to lash out at lesser minds. “You're a fucking JOCK, Mark, and you expect your Daddy's political connections to pave the way for your incompetent leadership for the rest of your destructive LIFE!” He paused, and his hushed tone began a new crescendo. “Did you ever stop to think it might be wrong for you to rule her life like an incompetent TYRANT?” His volume peaked, and he finished with heartfelt sincerity, “I'm GLAD she's kicking you to the curb. She can do BETTER.”

Mark paused at this. There must be some misunderstanding. As an athlete, Mark lacked nothing for the “killer instinct,” but he had never fully accounted for the hardy constitution of his room-mate as an adversary. The truth was that he HAD expected deference, but he didn't admit it to himself. By expecting others to defer to his pedigree, he had made the mistake of expecting Jerry to scrape and bow without question. Faced by this unswerving opposition, he realized the truth. Rachelle had chosen Jerry over him in some way! He was reduced to fuming. “JACKASS,” he returned, “She says you blackmailed her!”

“Blackmailed her?” Jerry was incredulous. “I'm the one that took 'em, but she ASKED me to,” he returned. Somewhere in his mind, he was realizing that Mark would retain only doubt and photographs, where he, Jerry, might to have... RACHELLE!

Mark drew himself up to his full height, and blustered back. “Andover said that you got drunk and told the pair of them that you'd report me to the University, for Academic dishonesty if they didn't do what you said. If you're not a cheating hound, then why did they say THAT?”

The obvious paradox invoked yet another logic circuit in Jerry's brain, and he started speaking before he finished planning his own question. “Quid Pro Quo! Aren't you a cheat?”

“Quid Pro Quo? Quid Pro Quo?” Mark was sputtering.

Jerry saw an opening and took it. “Whose turn is it to answer, Mark? You asked first, I asked second!”

Unprepared for a battle of the wits, Mark nevertheless answered correctly. “I ANSWER FIRST!”

Then, when Jerry made no move to prompt him, Mark faltered and asked almost meekly, “What was the question again?”

Caring for nothing, Jerry pressed home the same point upon which Rachelle had predicated her emancipation. “You ARE a cheat, Mark! DEAL with it!”

Mark was livid. “Mark my words Jerry Burke. You'll regret this some day!”

“Make me,” Jerry retaliated. “I've got nothing to lose, and everything to gain.” Without having any idea why, he instinctively knew that he could give no quarter; Mark was just NOT getting the last word, so he turned on his heel and left.