Quintile V for Vendetta

Do you know why you're here, Mr. Fraser? You're being formally charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, alcoholism and hedonism, the penalty for which is enrollment in a four-year residential college. You have one chance and only one chance to save your social life. You must tell us the identity or whereabouts of the terrorist Quintile V. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"YES!"

"Are you prepared to cooperate?"

I glanced around the Guantanamo Room, deep beneath Nassau Hall. Lawrence Summers was not going to save me this time. Westminster Kennel Club Best Handler Runner-Up Dean Malkiel had threatened to make me sit through a symposium on the role of transgender individuals in sub-Saharan African theater if I did not consent to interrogation. But should I talk?

"Students should not be afraid of their administrators. Students should be afraid of their professors," I murmured, refusing to answer. As she reached for a platter of dining hall Brussels sprouts, my eyes rolled back, and I lost consciousness.

My mind flashed back to when I met him. I had been standing in the 1903 courtyard with a spatula in one hand and a sweet Silver Bullet beverage in the other. I was sporting this year's unofficial politics department t-shirt: "Hungry for theoretical debate, thirsty for beer." As I turned around to give a burger to a friend, I found myself facing a Public Safety officer reaching for his radio.

Before he could report me, however, he was struck in the skull by a flying Snapple bottle and crumpled to the ground. Then a figure emerged from the shadows wielding additional mixed drink projectiles. It was Quintile V, the nefarious radical who had been terrorizing campus recently. He wore a black cape sewn to a North Face ski parka, a Polo shirt with a popped collar and UGG boots. His face was hidden behind a Steve Forbes '70 mask fixed in a Cheshire capitalist grin.

"The only verdict is vengeance," he told me through the Forbesian façade.

"A vendetta!"

"Why did you blow up Clio Hall in a fantastic pyrotechnic display?" I stammered.

"The building used to facilitate debate," he replied. "But now it has been seized by the admission office. I don't want them to admit more green-haired activists; I want them to admit they have a hidden agenda!"

"But why did you play the 1812 Overture during the demolition? And why was there a dancing gopher in the rubble?"

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"Oh, I just really like Chevy Chase movies."

And so began my friendship with Quintile V, the terrorist who vowed to bring down the administration. I learned that he had been a student here, destined to go to Harvard Law School like everyone else in his family but denied admission due to his deflated GPA. The event had left him scarred. I also learned of his plan — as did the rest of the world — when he hijacked the campus TV station one evening.

"If our own administration was responsible for the deaths of innumerable Princeton traditions, would you really want to know about it?" he asked his puzzled audience. "Did you know that students from every class used to steal the clapper from the bell atop Nassau Hall, until it was removed out of 'liability concerns?' Did you know that everyone on campus used to get drunk and run around in the nude? Did you know that Peter Singer is not 'mainstream'?

"The truth is, traditions are easy to destroy when memories last no longer than four years. In less than a decade, all Princeton students will understand four-year colleges to be the norm and political correctness to be the language of academia. Unless we take action.

"In 2007, I will return to destroy another building. It will not be a historic structure but rather the edifice of the new regime — Whitman College! If you agree that there are some traditions worth fighting for, dress nicely and join me on that September 17th to watch the termination of this treasonous plot. Remember, remember the first class of September!"

His words echoed through my head as I regained consciousness.

"You're free to go," Dean Malkiel told me.

I broke into a cold sweat. "Did I confess in my sleep?" I asked, panicking.

"Oh goodness no. You passed out like a freshman Pi Phi on a Saturday night. But Quintile V is no longer a threat. You see, he's going to Yale — they found out he was a terrorist and offered him admission immediately." Powell Fraser is a politics major from Atlanta, Ga. He can be reached at pfraser@princeton.edu.