Planes, Pipes and Plumbing

A FRIEND OF MINE, an undergraduate I'll call Ralph, returned to Cambridge last week on an eventful HSA charter to find his suite destroyed by flooding and subsequent efforts at repair.

I should say right off that Ralph has never been a conspiracy zuff. He has seen the Zapruder film only once and most of his friends think of him as a level-headed sort of fellow. But as the hours slid past and his reserve books remained on a landing strip in San Diego, Ralph's mind began to wander. He took to peering stealthily over the dining hall checker's shoulder to see whether or not he had eaten dinner, he hummed Carpenters' songs quietly to himself, and he hadn't slept since a fitful doze twenty thousand feet above Providence. Worst, he believed he was on to some kind of new conspiracy.

"Nothing to do with assassinations," he whispered to me. "This is Plumbers-related."

"What plumbers?" I asked.

"No," he hissed. "Plumbers. Capital 'P'. Dirty tricks, CREEP, Dr. Fielding. You know?"

"What are you talking about, Ralph?"

"Krogh. Egil Krogh. Remember? I think he's here, at Harvard. They let him out of jail a long time ago."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But I don't think he's bright enough to get into Harvard. Look, if you're getting into another nostalgia trip..."

"No, fool, he's working here, now." Ralph's eyes darted around us before he said, "Working for Stephen S.J. Hall."

None of this would have been worth reporting except for the document Ralph slipped into my pocket before slinking off. "It's a transcript," he said. "From Hall's office tape recorder--the conversation happened last October, I think..."

Egil: Listen, uh, one more thing. I've revised the plans for Operation Grindstone like you asked.

SJ: Hm?

Egil: You know, uh, Grindstone. Making life a little difficult for these [unintelligible].

SJ: Oh, right. Well, it had better be more cost-effective than your last one. The part with the Chem 20 notebooks was okay, and you've done a great job with the Food Services, but we don't have the manpower for the rest of it.

Egil: Right. Well, this one should suit you better. I thought [unintelligible] especially while they're on vacation.

SJ: Good idea. Um, shortsheet their beds, that sort of thing?

Egil: [Expletive deleted]. No wonder you Democrats can't win anything. Seriously, SJ, I thought you wanted a professional, you know, a real job done on these [inaudible]. Right?

SJ: [Unintelligible].

Egil: Okay. Well, then, here's what we do. They go on vacation, right? You turn off the heat in all their rooms until the, you know, the pipes freeze. You could do that, right?

SJ: Well, sure, we could, uh, we could do that, but it would--

Egil: Just let me finish, okay? You tell everyone it's to conserve energy, but the pipes burst, everything floods, you know? Ruins everything--soaks their stereos, turns their [expletive deleted] pot all soggy, you know? [Laughter] You see what I'm driving at?

SJ: Uh, yeah, uh-uh. You got a cost estimate on that?

Egil: Sure, let me show [inaudible] beauty of it is, we have to go in there to, uh, clean up the mess, right? Clean up--[expletive deleted]. We could read anything, burn anything, we could put holes in the [expletive deleted] walls, you know?

SJ: Well, that might be going a little too far. Still, [Unintelligible] You got anything else?

Egil: Oh, baby, do I. Listen, you got someone, uh, a friend at HSA, right?

SJ: Hm. You're thinking, what, infiltrate the laundry, something like that?

Egil: [Pause] Listen, I was thinking more about that, uh, that charter coming from the West Coast, you know? We could [unintelligible] Baltimore, New York, back to [unintelligible] and could circle for at least [unintelligible] New York for a while, then fly up [unintelligible] uh, Providence, you see what I mean? Meanwhile the luggage is searched and sent to [unintelligible] never, uh, never see it again. What do you say?

SJ: Well, uh, let me go, uh, up, you know, uh, let me take it to the top, uh, we'll see what [unintelligible] Okay?

Egil: Right. But the best part [unintelligible] final exams. First [unintelligible] that calendar, room numbers, times, course numbers, the works. We could really do a number on [inaudible] Especially the pre-meds [unintelligible] and in the drinking water.

SJ: [Pause] Well, look, I'll get back to you, okay? On the exam thing. Meanwhile see what you can do about [inaudible].

I TRIED TO pursue the matter further with Ralph the next day, but he was no longer living at home. Apparently when his section-man--who reminded Ralph ominously of Donald Segretti--refused to grant an extension for the twenty-five page English paper which was sitting neatly typed and bound in plastic in California, they checked Ralph into UHS. No visitors allowed, the doctors said.