PROLOGUE

Saturday, October 14, 1989

His own eyes, blue, red-rimmed, haggard, stared back at him. He grimaced, shifted the backpack’s weight on his shoulders, and turned away from the mirror.

His walk to campus was slow and labored; he hadn’t expected his load to be so heavy. Anxiety gripped his heart; the clock was ticking.

He stepped onto the cobbled plaza in front of Bascom Hall and stopped for a brief rest. The stately Gothic structure behind him once served as the first – and only -- instructional building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. He gazed down the steep hill at groups of laughing people converging on Library Mall from all directions. Amplified voices, cheers, and applause drifted up the hill from the festivities below him. He shuddered and adjusted the heavy red backpack again. The objects inside dug painfully into his back. His mind was empty; Ruth was mercifully silent.

With a deep breath he stepped to the sidewalk and slowly loped down the south side of Bascom Hill, eyes on the ground, ignoring anyone who passed him. The old limestone-clad buildings that lined each side of the hill were, for the most part, silent. No classes on Saturday. Golden fall leaves dotted the bright green grass on the open quadrangle. It was an unseasonably warm October morning, and people were already sitting and lying on the grass sipping coffee, chatting, and enjoying the last rays of sunshine before autumn swept in on cold winds and gray clouds.

At the bottom of the hill, he stopped and leaned on the steel railing that separated the bottom of Bascom Hill from Park Street, the primary thoroughfare in and out of the sprawling lakeside university campus. His backpack rested uncomfortably against his spine. Across the street from him stood the Humanities building. The imposing Brutalist concrete structure, built with all of the architectural aesthetics of the late 1960s on a campus polarized by a war taking place half a world away, blocked his view of Library Mall – where the Sigma Alpha Tau and Kappa Delta annual Animal Humane Society fundraiser was already underway. The popular event always drew large crowds, and this year’s was no different. More thunderous applause echoed between the buildings and made him shudder again.

He doubled back and took the footbridge over Park Street, cars streaming by under him. He walked through the shadow of the Humanities Building, down the stairs, and followed the sidewalk toward State Street – and the crowd milling about Library Mall. Nobody seemed to notice he was there. He found what he was looking for: the event was rocking, centered on the concrete platform with amphitheater-style steps on the southeast corner of the mall. Greek letter banners waved in the breeze. Metal cages were hidden behind black curtains. Lauren Dailey stood on the platform, her gray tee shirt adorned with Kappa Delta’s Greek letters (K∆) pleasantly contrasting against her mocha-colored skin. Ben Packard, his dark Zack Morris-style hair swept back from his forehead, stood at the top of an elevated concrete stage that was connected to the platform. He wore a green Sigma Alpha Tau (∑AT) shirt and held a squirming black puppy to his chest. The abstractly-shaped tower Ben stood on was a favorite spot of hoarse-voiced evangelists who were forever trying to save the souls of errant college students.

He stood in the crowd for a good while, watching Kappas and Sig Taus ham it up on stage. Dull rage roared in his ears, drowning out everything they said. He’d expected to be more nervous; instead he was calm, sure in his plan and course of action.

There were people everywhere. The crowd stretched back to the large circular fountain that stood in front of Memorial Library. It was turned off and covered for the season; the heavy bronze-like cover reminded him of one of those cheap folding hand fans that could be had at any flea market. People stood around in small groups or sat on blankets or aluminum webbed lawn chairs – the kind that folded flat for easy carrying and could be had in a wide array of colors -- in the grass, watching the antics on stage. Some held Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate or coffee, despite the warm morning temperature. Occasionally someone in the crowd would raise his or her hand and receive a small laminated card good for one admission to view the slobbering dogs and howling cats that waited in the cages for their new forever home. It was too bad; they would never get there.

He glanced at his old analog wristwatch – he missed his new Casio digital watch something fierce -- and his heart lurched: nine fifty-seven. It’s time. He took a deep breath and moved toward the tower. He made a wide berth and approached it from behind the platform, making sure that nobody from the fraternity saw him. Sweat dripped down his back. The item in the backpack shifted and jabbed into his ribs. He grunted, but didn’t stop walking.

Looking straight ahead, focusing on an invisible spot on the tower’s pebbled concrete side, he started pushing through the crowd.

“Hey!’

“Watch it!”

“Dude, what the –“

He ignored them. He stopped just behind the platform, to the side of the tower, where he was most exposed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Scott Schlosser’s massive back. He grinned, appreciating the magnitude of what he was about to do. A certain peace covered him like a warm blanket. I win.

His watch ticked over to ten o’clock. Grinning maniacally, he held his arms out wide at his sides, took a heaving breath and screamed his last word.

“MOTHERFUCKERS!”

He allowed himself the pleasure of watching Scott Schlosser turn at the sound of his scream before the timer in his backpack flipped from :01 to :00, beeped once -- and sent them all straight to Hell.