Cold Rain (8 page)

‘For your sake, I hope you’re right. But try to show some restraint. Who tells jokes about gay monkeys in the classroom?’

‘So you’ve seen the complaints?’

Dean Lintz shook his head irritably. ‘I told you no.

Dr Blackwell wanted to give me some idea of the behaviour you’ve been up to. It’s incredible! And this thing about adultery, that it’s okay for married men and single women! You’re just asking for it with something like that!’

‘Personally, I’m against adultery, but there’s a lot of it going on in some of the literature.’

‘Well, skip it! You’re a married man, David! What are you suggesting when you say things like this?’

If I skip
Genesis
,
The Iliad
,
Agamemnon
,
Medea
,
Othello
and
Hamlet
, I’ve lost the course.’

‘Don’t give me this academic freedom bullshit. You know what I’m talking about.’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I don’t have a clue.’

WALT BEERY CALLED ME that evening. What was going on? I told him I didn’t know. He said he had been called over to Affirmative Action and they wanted to know what he could tell them about
Mister
David Albo. ‘Don’t worry,’ Walt told me, ‘I lied like a villain!’

‘I can’t talk to you, Walt. You’re a witness in the case. The dean told me this morning they’re going to suspend me if I talk to any of the witnesses in this case.’

‘Then you better not talk to anyone. Blackwell has statements from Randy Winston, Norma Olson, Jane Trimble, and Marlene Moss. Oh, and Buddy Elder. Did you screw Denise, you bastard?’

‘I’ve got to go, Walt. I can’t talk about this.’

‘You did! You sly old dog!’ This was the stuff of laughter. I was Walt’s new hero. I had bagged a stripper from The Slipper. Instead of protesting my innocence I simply hung up.

I GOT A CALL ON Wednesday from my lawyer. Gail had received a copy of the complaints Johnna Masterson and Denise Conway had filed with Affirmative Action. She thought we should go through them. I had a few hours before my evening class, so we scheduled a late afternoon meeting.

Gail was in her early to mid-forties, I would guess, but they were hard years. She had gotten a bit heavier since Molly and I had first met her, but not from a lack of activity. Gail ran a small office with a couple of para-legals. She specialized in the routine business of lawyering: wills, real estate, divorce, trusts, and the whole gamut of misdemeanour crime. We had met when Molly had inherited Bernard Place. We liked her and started running all our business through her office. Because of the nature of Molly’s profession, there was a considerable amount of routine legal matters, and Gail had become part of our social circle. Gail knew I was a character. She also knew Molly and I were in love.

I found myself sitting on the wrong side of yet another desk, but at least this time I had a partner instead of an opponent on the other side. Gail had photocopied the complaints, each hardly more than half-a-page. I read them and looked up at Gail. ‘They had more than this, all kinds of stuff not mentioned here, including some jokes about homosexual chimps.’

‘Chimps?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘Tasteless?’

‘Entirely.’

‘Well then maybe over cocktails. Look, these are the complaints. She refuses to provide her notes or any witness statements, so what she has she keeps until they determine if they want to draw up formal charges against you. Right now, it’s an investigation.’

‘What are we going to do about getting these witness statements?’

‘My advice, nothing at all.’ Gail made a dismissing gesture with her hand, indicating the two complaints.

This is what counts, David, and there’s nothing here.

Johnna Masterson says you were talking to another professor about her breasts. Hate to tell you this, but that’s not sexual harassment.’

‘It wasn’t my definition.’

‘Well, if it is, we can jail the whole bunch of you and be done with it.’

‘I didn’t say these things, Gail.’

‘You didn’t say bodacious ta-tas?’

‘Not in the context she’s suggesting.’

‘And when you said to,’ Gail checked the complaint,

‘Buddy Elder that Johnna Masterson had extraordinary talent you didn’t mean… bodacious ta-tas?’

‘She’s got them. There’s no doubt about that, but Buddy Elder knew I was talking about her ability as a writer. Talent has that meaning, too, you know.’

‘Okay. They have absolutely nothing here. They’ll go through the motions of an investigation, and then drop it. Thank you very much. You don’t need me again unless they turn stupid, in which case we sue and win and can both retire from the rat race.’

‘What about the other complaint?’

‘Conway? Conway doesn’t even know what she’s complaining about. You brought up adultery in class.

Is it in the literature?’

‘All over the place.’

‘And you called someone on campus about getting her some work?’

‘She asked. She said she wanted to quit dancing at The Slipper.’

Gail blinked. ‘She’s an exotic dancer and she’s complaining that you complimented her hair?’

‘She asked me what I thought of it.’

Gail shook her head. ‘This isn’t a complaint, David.

This is a piece of paper.’

‘These things are supposed to be confidential, but everyone on campus knows I’m being investigated.’

‘You’ve been harmed by that?’

‘I was going to apply for promotion this year.’

Gail thought about this. She shook her head. ‘Take the hit. Apply next year. It’s not worth the ill-will you’ll garner by filing suit.’

I said nothing, but Gail could see I was upset.

‘How is Molly handling this?’

‘I haven’t told her about it. Actually, I wasn’t planning on bringing it up.’

‘Afraid she’ll think there has to be something to this, a little hanky-panky?’

‘Molly knows better. Look, we don’t talk about what goes on at school because she thinks the whole place is a loony bin and the only reason most of us are working there is it’s cheaper for the state to pay us a salary than keep us locked up in an asylum. She doesn’t want to hear it.’

‘Well, it’s your business, but I’d say it’d be a good idea to at least fill her in on the complaints. Just to be on the safe side.’

‘I’ll talk to her tonight.’

‘Good. Now, when Blackwell interviewed you, were you relatively honest? Hell of a thing if they drop the charges and bring you up for obstructing an investigation.’

‘I was perversely honest, Gail.’

‘Enlighten me. What is perversely honest?’

‘I answered the questions without attempting to discuss the setting or context of my words.’

‘You didn’t try to explain anything?’

‘She didn’t ask. I didn’t offer. What the hell? I didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘Did she record the conversation?’

‘No. She took notes.’

‘Let’s hope she knows what she’s doing and she’s honest. Otherwise, she’ll have you confessing to anything she wants you to.’

Gail looked at her watch. We had been at it for close to thirty minutes. ‘Okay. You’re in to me for a little over three hundred bucks. Let’s leave it at that for now. If they want to talk again, tell them to contact me. Say nothing. Write nothing down for them. If they attempt any kind of disciplinary action, do whatever they say and contact me immediately. I’ll have charges filed against them so fast it will make their collective head spin. And don’t talk to anyone about this, except Molly. Are we clear on that?’

‘Tell me I don’t have anything to worry about, Gail.’

‘I make it a policy never to lie to my clients, David.’

‘But it’s bullshit. You think the complaints are bullshit?’

‘You’re the man with the farm. You know what it’s like when you step in that stuff.’

I WENT TO A TAVERN after I left Gail Etheridge. It had been a favourite in my drinking days, and I convinced myself they had a good menu. In fact, it was a bar for the locals, safe territory. I knew the people there. It had been two years since I had crossed the threshold, but some of them hadn’t even changed seats.

The waitress asked me where I had been. ‘Been sober,’ I said and ordered a tenderloin sandwich, fries and a non-alcoholic beer.

‘We don’t serve that crap, Dave. It’s the real thing or nothing at all.’

‘Possible to have a Coke?’

She gave me a smile. ‘For you I’ll see what I can do. But this sobriety has to go. You’re setting a bad example for the people who keep this place in business.’

While I waited for my order, I found myself reviewing my various conversations with Denise Conway. This was hardly the first time. In fact, less than a week into it, I discovered Denise Conway was becoming one of the most important people in my life.

It seemed to me there were two distinct possibilities. The first involved a series of misunderstandings.

Eager and insecure, Denise had sought me out as a familiar face. She wanted assurances that she could handle college. Having received those assurances, her insecurities began twisting legitimate praise into something sinister. The complaint she had filed supported this theory. She wasn’t quite sure what I had done wrong! Her only real problems with me she had expressed as evidence rather than a complaint.

My second theory involved Buddy Elder. I much preferred this theory, because there was not much I was unwilling to credit to Mr Elder. In this theory Buddy manipulated Denise Conway into filing a complaint. Johnna Masterson’s complaint made more sense as well. Buddy had fed his fellow graduate student choice titbits of gossip and then coordinated a double-assault on the source of all evil, David Albo.

Theory number two had only one tiny glitch. It wasn’t going to work. As a piece of sabotage the thing had no teeth. I put myself in Buddy Elder’s place.

Johnna Masterson had been handled nicely. She had been stirred gently and brought to a simmer. At that point I was sure Buddy had introduced her to his girlfriend, letting the two of them compare notes. It was probably even Johnna Masterson’s idea to march on Affirmative Action.

Denise, however, could have brought charges of real substance. Private conversations between the two of us could have taken any form. Why hadn’t I offered, in her complaint, an A in exchange for sexual favours?

Pressure, manipulation, insinuation, all the elements that make up a genuine case of sexual harassment, just weren’t there!

There was no intelligent explanation for this failure.

Buddy knew his way around campus. He was hobnobbing with professors who had experienced the inner workings of Affirmative Action as few ever experience it. Why hadn’t he exploited his opportunity? There was no answer, and so I was led back to theory number one, a simple misunderstanding. I didn’t like it, but it was the only logical explanation for the charges.

I WAS MILDLY SURPRISED to see Buddy in my class that night, actually amazed to see Johnna Masterson.

Johnna had filed charges before our last class, but at the time I had not known that. I tried to remember how she had behaved, what looks she had given me, but it was impossible. The week before, I had not been under siege. I had been at work. I watched my students only to know if they were tuned in to the business at hand. This time, I hardly noticed anyone other than Johnna Masterson and Buddy Elder. Buddy made a great show of it. He quietly complimented both writers presenting their work that night. His observations were legitimate, though not particularly insightful. Johnna Masterson put on another sort of face. She had come to class because she did not want to let some pig ruin her academic year. Knowing I might have my revenge on her at my leisure and yet refusing to cower, she sat bravely before me with only a tremor in her voice to betray her.

At the break, I saw her talking animatedly with Buddy. Buddy was consoling her. I could almost imagine his speech. She had to hang on. Tonight and maybe next week and then I would be gone!

Or something like that. They imagined their position to be stronger than it actually was. Part of the climate of the university was a bold rhetoric that rejected even the nuances of sexism. Truth was another matter. Because students never got to experience the process directly, they didn’t know. The truth was tenured professors remained, even in these modern times, virtually untouchable. One heard about those rare cases of dismissal precisely because they were rare.

Though Johnna Masterson could hardly imagine it, the deepest wound for me was observing what this had done to her. Catching the gossip, as I was sure she had, she imagined some kind of salacious joking about her figure that turned her talent into
TALENT!

I wanted desperately to sit her down and explain it all to her, but I knew I couldn’t. Even if I were allowed to talk to her about the case, I could not persuade her.

I could only say Walt Beery had said it. Walt had turned her into a joke. Me? Well, I was just sitting there.

Going along with it.

I decided at some point during the second half of class that maybe I was wrong about Buddy Elder on a lot of counts. Maybe my discussion with Walt about the new
talent
had made its way through the grapevine, and Buddy Elder, actually believing I was coming on to Denise, had brought her together with Johnna Masterson because he believed I was misbehaving. Call it theory number three: all complaints legitimate. I had quarrelled with Buddy because I was jealous. I had crossed some kind of line with Denise, taking liberties that if not overtly sexual were nonetheless intrusive and unprofessional. Denise had talked to me about her job, but it wasn’t my business where she worked or who paid the rent. And Johnna? Well, she was pretty.

Maybe I liked to mention the title of her story because ‘Sexual Positions’ prompted certain satisfying fantasies involving the two of us. Maybe I had enjoyed my talk with Walt without understanding the dehumanizing dimension of it.

Such is the nature of accusation: first we are surprised, then we are angry. Finally, we believe what our enemies tell us.