ix
Letters

On Saturday morning, Jack and I met with Michael Stella, forty-eight-year-old senior partner in the Busiris law firm of Stella, Corwin, Purdue, and Holtz. Stella was also owner-landlord of the Old Riverton Courthouse, which housed the office of his own and six other law firms, including Dewey, Rackham, and Howe. Stella had a reputation as the best lawyer in town: aggressive, ruthless, relentless. Flamboyant and reputedly a lady’s man, Stella allowed himself to be known around Riverton as “The Italian Stallion.”

“He ought to be sympathetic to the case,” Jack thought. “Besides, my uncle always told me the only lawyers worth having are Jewish or Italian. Where in this town you going to find a Jewish lawyer?”

“Sympathetic but expensive,” I cautioned. “Also, as you may recall, a close personal friend of Ted Jones.”

“I know him from the Boosters,” Jack assured me as we entered the gray-carpeted, first-floor office. “Besides, lawyers have no friends. Their sympathies follow the money.” Heartened by the fact that Rose Marié had not packed the children immediately and left for her mother’s, Jack had spent a long night making phone calls and reviewing options. He had recovered remarkably from the bullet’s impact and appeared to be ready for a fight, more for the sake of principle and to cause trouble than to keep his job. “If you shoot a man in the back, you better kill him,” Jack said to me that morning. “Otherwise he’ll come back one day to get you.”

By the time we arrived, Stella had conferred with University lawyers, and knew more about Jack’s life than Jack.

“The situation, Professor Creed, is this: complaints against you have been more or less constant throughout your years at Busiris. You are probably aware of some of them, as administration has previously shared some of them with you. These previous complaints constitute what is called a pattern of behavior which has bearing on the present case. In the fall, a particular situation developed which necessitated an investigation by Vice President Reich and Dean Hauptmann. In the course of that investigation old complaints resurfaced, and new complaints were registered. These issues regarded mainly women, one of whom may be an Afro-American. Late in the course of that investigation yet another serious matter developed, regarding an African-American male. You are probably aware of that problem.

“The investigation has resulted in four formal complaints against you, three from women, and one from the Afro-American. Your file also contains letters dating to the 1970s. There are also complaints from other individuals who, for whatever reasons, declined to make written statements. The fact that they refused to put their complaints in writing probably means they’d also decline to testify at a hearing, or to provide a statement in the event of a hearing. But not necessarily. Even the formal complaints were presented to me unsigned. One woman specifically requests anonymity. At a trial, of course, they would have to present their testimony in person. They could not really get away with an affidavit.”

Jack nodded solemnly.

“But you’re not dealing with a trial, at least not until you’ve been through a dismissal hearing, and an appeal, and you’ve filed suit against the University. Initially you’re dealing with an administrative hearing, which is different from a trial in many ways, as I believe Dr. Reich mentioned. Most significantly, your accusers need not be present—neither the women who wrote letters, nor the women who did not, nor anyone else. It would help the University’s case if those women were to step forward, of course, but at a hearing on harassment charges they may request that, because of the nature of their complaints and their fear of campus reprisals, their complaints be presented by an advocate.

“My suspicion is that all have been guaranteed anonymity, precisely because that guarantee would not impair the University’s use of their complaints at a hearing.”

“So the Busiris campus buzzes with speculation about me, and my accusers remain anonymous. Scarcely seems fair.”

“It’s Saturday morning, Professor Creed. The campus is sleeping off its hangover. Ninety-nine percent of Busiris has no idea what happened yesterday. The Vice President is as anxious as you are to deal with this matter discretely, which is why he chose to discuss the matter with you at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon. Dr. Reich is aware that among certain circles you are a very popular teacher. He is also aware of how damaging these complaints can be to your career.”

“Left uncontested, these charges will damage me forever. I will never teach again,” Creed told Stella.

“I wouldn’t view the situation as that dramatic.”

“Back to the administrative hearing on unspecified charges from anonymous individuals.”

“As a private institution, Busiris is free to set its own procedures for hearings. Still, almost all disciplinary hearings share certain features. One of them is anonymity if anonymity is requested by the student. Also, there is no jury in the normal legal sense. There is a panel—in this case it would be a panel of seven—all of whom serve ex officio or are appointed by administration. I can’t challenge membership of that panel the way I can challenge members of a jury.”

“I’m to be tried by a hanging judge in front of a kangaroo court.”

“You could call it that. The presidents of the Busiris Senate and the Student Senate are, of course, elected. You know better than I who they are and how they are likely to react. Vice President Reich can no more control the selection of those individuals than I. He would, of course, determine the two administration representatives. He might influence the two faculty representatives. And he, or somebody in Student Services or in Affirmative Action, would select the second student representative. I would say administration could exercise a good deal of control over the panel’s constitution.”

“And I have no control.”

“If they are strong-willed, the two senate presidents might be able to help you a little. They might at least insist on fair-minded individuals from faculty and student constituencies. If not . . . I cannot present them with a list of acceptable names, and I can’t preempt individuals. In fact, I cannot officially represent you at a hearing. I can go only as an advisor.

“Finally, in a disciplinary hearing the existence of other complaints becomes an issue relevant to the formal complaints, even in the absence of letters and individuals. Letters and complaints on subjects other than racial and sexual harassment might enter the picture: any sort of unprofessional behavior. There are apparently some of those issues too, things unrelated to the specific students bringing charges.”

“I’m having trouble making the bridge between alleged crime A, which took place somewhere in the remote past and was never prosecuted, and the present alleged crime B. You can’t charge a man with speeding and use, as evidence, a couple of two-year-old traffic tickets.”

“As I said, a hearing is different from a trial, although in a trial on this matter . . . well, you couldn’t get a trial for racial or sexual harassment. It would have to be a trial for slander or assault, something specific and actionable. A hearing involves a broader range of issues, which in this case are subsumed under the heading ‘unprofessional behavior.’ The specific charge at the hearing would be ‘unprofessional behavior’—of any sort. And your employment at Busiris would be terminated—if it were to be terminated—specifically for unprofessional behavior.”

“You are saying, then, that the charges of harassment, which may be made anonymously, open the door to other charges, which may also be anonymous. I’m canned because Reich and his flunkies have decided these nebulous charges, unsubstantiated and certainly denied by me, constitute unprofessional behavior.”

“That’s essentially correct.”

“You’re also implying that this ‘pattern of behavior’ business—and I’m being strictly theoretical here—is endless. Even if I beat these charges, they could be used as evidence in a hearing next year on more trumped up charges. Which, if that didn’t get rid of me, could be used two years down the line, and three years down the line.”

“Again, essentially correct.”

“This is right out of Kafka. No known case of definite acquittal. Only ostensible acquittal or postponement.”

“Your contract has always provided for termination in the case of unprofessional behavior.”

“Which is nowhere spelled out in the contract.”

“Yes, Mr. Creed, that is true. What is unprofessional is as vague as what constitutes harassment. But basically, your behavior is unprofessional if the Vice President thinks it was unprofessional.”

“Just as I’m guilty of harassment if someone feels harassed. I’ve already pointed out the logical fallacies and legal injustices of that thinking in my critique of Busiris’s harassment guidelines. Maybe you’ve seen that article. My basic point is, a crime that cannot be defined except in the mind of the alleged victim is virtually impossible to avoid. Harassment as a crime is bullshit.”

“I have read your article. We can discuss harassment in a minute. My point is that if the Vice President can convince a hearing board that your behavior was unprofessional enough to warrant dismissal, then the Vice President’s judgment is upheld and your dismissal stands.

“Vice President Reich could, in fact, legally terminate your employment even if the panel found in your favor. Busiris is a private institution. The Vice President is virtually an autonomous figure. He’s answerable only to the President and the Board of Trustees. Not to the faculty, the public, or the state.”

“It doesn’t matter who Reich answers to. Only when terminating faculty and expelling students begins to cost Busiris—let’s say $200,000 per victim—will the arbitrary executions end. Put that kind of price on a man’s soul, and maybe Old Main will think twice before sending the good people sent packing.”

“I can’t get you $200,000 Professor Creed. Probably I can’t even save your job. Henry Howe, the University attorney, is convinced that Vice President Reich believes he can get a dismissal for cause out of a hearing committee. He’s prepared to see this thing through. I don’t know what you ever did to those people, but they have a real hard on for you. Don’t underestimate them.”

“So at a private institution, academic tenure is basically meaningless.”

“Nothing in life is ever really guaranteed.”

Jack shook his head. “Right. But before my case is entirely dismissed, I would at least like to know specifically what I’m charged with, and by whom. Reich was pretty vague yesterday. Except on being sexually intimate with a student, and possibly trading sexual favors for grades.”

“First, Professor Creed, let me ask you directly, have you ever been sexually intimate with a student?”

“Mr. Stella,” Jack answered directly and without emotion, “the great love of my life was a student. That happened many years ago, and I cannot believe she would have any cause to complain of our relationship, then or now. However, one’s sex life is one’s private business, period, no matter what the Neo-Victorians say. So yes to your first question, but. . . .”

“Did you ever trade or suggest trading sexual favors for grades?”

“I can categorically say that I have never traded sexual favors for grades. I have never given undeserved higher grades to anyone with whom I was sexually involved, and I have never given undeservedly low grades to punish anyone who spurned sexual advances. I never offered, directly or indirectly, to trade sexual favors for grades, and I never made, directly or indirectly, sexual advances which I thought for even the slightest moment were undesired. I have in fact rejected at least one offer of sex for grades. I stand on that statement.”

“This morning Mr. Howe gave me copies of the four letters and mentioned a couple of other documents in your files. He did not provide names.”

Stella handed Jack photocopies of three typed letters, from which the author’s names had been deleted. At the first letter Jack nodded slightly, although he did flush visibly. With the third letter, his face turned bright crimson.

“Look,” Jack told Stella, “I can guarantee you I did not grab anybody’s tits. I never promised anybody an A for a lay. Period. The third letter is so fictional, I can’t even tell you who wrote it. I never physically assaulted anyone. Period.”

“The writer of the second letter claims to have been grabbed as well.”

“She was grabbed, if she was grabbed at all, and this is Shirley Friedman, and I don’t know if I grabbed her or not . . . she was grabbed around the shoulders. Not the crotch, not the ass, not the breasts, but around the shoulder. Not across the front of the shoulders, around the back of the shoulder. She calls it a grab. I call it a hug. I have hugged a lot of students that way. A lot of them have hugged me that way. Nobody has complained. If this was a grab, I’ve grabbed. . . .

“And if Shirley was kissed, she was kissed on the top of her head. Or the back of her neck. Not on the lips or even on the cheek, lightly, not lingeringly. The way I’d kiss my daughter. Or a friend. I’ve done that for years too. Nobody has complained. I can’t say I never kissed students, but they were not kissed on the lips.”

“You are certain?”

“In this case I am absolutely certain. If my behavior offended Shirley Friedman, or Blondie Robertson, who is the author of the first letter, it wasn’t done with intent to offend, nor was it an invitation to sexual relations.”

“What can you tell me about letter number 1?”

“This is a student named Leanna Robertson. She is, I believe, a junior or senior this year. The disgusting episode which forced her to leave class was our discussion of Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Howl.’”

Jack explained the “Howl” incident.

“Vibrators?”

“A line off a record album of belly dancing music belonging to Tucker’s wife,” Jack explained. “The kids wanted an example of a metaphor. I said a dancer’s belly should shimmy like a bowl of jello with a vibrator.”

“You have to admit it’s an unusual metaphor.”

“Unusual?”

“Those are not exactly household items.”

“Right. Especially the jello.”

“What about Blondie?”

“We all call her Blondie. Leanna Robertson is the spitting image of Debbie Harry, lead singer for a group named Blondie, very new wave, very New York City four or five years ago. Apart from the facial resemblance, Leanna Robertson and Debbie Harry have as much in common as Bob Dylan and Richard Nixon. That’s part of the put-down. I don’t know whether Robertson understood all the implications or not. Calling her ‘Blondie’ is definitely a put-down, but the put-down is political, not sexual.”

“Who coined the nickname?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“What else can you tell me about Robertson?”

“Blondie is an interesting case. She is very conservative socially and politically, but she is a looker. She’s an off-again, on-again member of the Lady Bucks dance line. The Women’s Studies people keep trying to convince her that dance line insults women, but she figures being a Lady Buck is one way to land a Busiris Buck.”

“A woman is allowed mixed emotions.”

“Blondie is basically a sorority sister looking for a fraternity pin, a letter jacket, and a pre-law degree. To get one, she’s willing to market herself. But only to a point.

“Of course the freaks all think she’s too sold on herself, and some of them whistle at her across the campus just to bring her down a notch. Both men and women. Students. I do not whistle at Leanna Robertson, although I tend to agree with them. She has avoided me since her freshman year, but I’ve also avoided her.”

“She says she’s avoided your classes.”

“I can list fifty kids who, for one reason or another, avoid taking various professors at Busiris.”

“Why would she write this letter about you?”

“I can’t say. Popowski indicated to me that she organized, or spear-headed, or directed some kind of campaign to ‘railroad me out of Busiris.’ That was his phrase. Popowski seemed to think Professor Victoria Nation, head of the Women’s Studies Program, is responsible for some of Blondie’s thinking and may be responsible for the whole investigation. Maybe she’s working a little too hard, trying to have it too fast and too much. Maybe she has some repressed desires she’s not ready to admit to herself. I always felt just a little more kindly toward Blondie—she’s smart, but she’s young. By the time she figures it out, she’ll be over the hill.”

“You haven’t encouraged her to . . . see herself differently?”

“No, I haven’t. But I’d be willing to argue—strictly theoretically again—that’s what a teacher is for. Encouraging people to see themselves differently is my job, isn’t it, Michael? To give her what I’ve got to give, and hope that she receives it well.”

“Your job is certainly not to persuade female students to have sex with you. I think we’d all say that’s pretty unprofessional.”

“Professional people don’t do sex? Or professional people don’t do sex with other professional people? Or becoming a professional person means foregoing sex? What is the law saying, Michael?”

“It’s unprofessional for teachers to seduce students. Can we agree on that, Professor Creed?”

“That’s not what I’m saying I did. It’s also not what I was arguing, theoretically, that a teacher should do. I was saying that my job is to help people come to terms with themselves. To try out new and uncomfortable ideas, to grow into themselves. And to be patient with them while they grow. I talked about that in my critique of the harassment guidelines. I alluded specifically to the ‘Howl’ episode, without naming Blondie, of course. If the poem presented something a little beyond what she was ready for, or if I represent a sexual presence she finds disconcerting, so it goes. But I don’t see that I have any obligation to ignore the poem or change my presence. I’m willing to be patient while she works through her confusion. I’d rather not be fired for trying to make her grow.”

“Professor Creed, I didn’t ask for speeches or rationalizations. I just asked about these letters.”

“Well, any answer is going to involve a little analysis, isn’t it?”

“The law will do the analysis. We’re establishing facts.”

“I would never trust the law to do my analysis, Michael. Or Bert Reich either. Anyone who knows me could tell you that. My point regarding this letter situation is that some people find all sex threatening. Specifically Leanna Robertson, but also some other adolescents of any ages, even in this sexually liberated age. The very idea of sex terrifies them. So okay, that’s a stage in your life. You reach it and then you pass through it. You have to pass through it, or you’re unfinished. Girls and boys. There is this fear and fascination. But how do you come to terms with sex except by coming to terms with it, which is by definition going to be traumatic? I don’t want to terrorize either men or women, but I do think college is the time to come to terms with sex, and sex has its place in a college curriculum, especially literature. Otherwise you get militant virginity: ‘I’m not doing sex, and I want to make damned sure nobody else is doing it either.’ It’s these people who are warped, not the rest of the world. What does Mim say in Rabbit Redux, ‘Fucking is just what people do, Harry’? Literature is about people. There’s a lot of sex in literature. Deal with it. If I can’t teach ‘Howl,’ then I can’t teach literature.

“And Busiris has to back me up on this. Not fire me, for chrissake!”

“What can you tell me about the second letter?”

“The second letter was written by Shirley Friedman, who is also a bit more fond of herself than she has reason to be. It is a non-case of non-harassment. Shirley arrived at Busiris with very nice high school credentials. Had even published in some small literary magazine as a high school junior and senior. She announced her intent to major in creative writing, thereby becoming my advisee. Personally, I think she announced as a creative writing major partly to hobnob with the resident Pulitzer Prize winner. Shirley is a snob that way. Pushed or conditioned, I suspect, by family. So Shirley wanted to take junior creative writing as a first-semester freshman, which is where the problem began. I suggested she save junior creative writing for later, register in my section of freshmen composition, and instead of the usual essays work on a creative project. This was, understand, very generous of me, because at the time I had absolutely zero spare time, and I don’t know this girl from our mother Eve. I didn’t figure to spend much time on her, though: she could work mostly independently, we could meet maybe every other week to review her writing. The time I spent reading her story would be not much more than I’d have spent reading her freshman comp. essays. For a minimal investment of time Busiris gets a happy customer. I figure.

“I did not, incidentally, promise an A. She brought up the subject of grades, worried that she might be tossing away an easy A by writing stories instead of freshman themes. What I said was, if I recall correctly, ‘If you’re good enough to get an A writing essays, you’ll probably be good enough to get an A writing stories.’ Hell, she’s the one who wanted junior level creative writing. I would like also at this point to point out something else. Shirley’s a troll: squat, swarthy, oily hair and large nose. Could not get herself sexually harassed in a whorehouse. The allegation that I was interested in her is an insult as much to my taste in women as to my professionalism.”

“We wouldn’t say that in front of a hearing committee.”

“Right. Let facts speak for themselves. Anyway, Shirley is not quite as good as she thinks she is. Or as good as the record from her private school indicates. Turns out the little magazine which published her high school stuff belongs to a friend of her father. She wants to do a historical novel, a little love story set in Renaissance Italy. ‘Lovely,’ I tell her. ‘What do you know about Renaissance Italy?’ ‘Not much,’ she admits. ‘Better do a little research into love and life in the Italian Renaissance.’ She wants to know how to begin. I suggest a few books from the library, give her a fatherly hug around the shoulders and a reassuring kiss on the back of her oily little head, and send her off in search of Padua and Verona.

“Two weeks later she is back. With her roommate. She hasn’t read a thing, hasn’t written a thing. Now she’d like to write maybe a love story set in her hometown. ‘Go to,’ I tell her, figuring I will cut my losses on this one and promising myself never again.

“The office door, incidentally, is wide open during this conversation, and her roommate is standing in the hall watching, waiting. The door is open because I sense that Shirley is tense. Her historical romance novel has taken over her head, I figure. So I am sensitive to her tenseness, and I want her and her roommate to see Mr. Sensitivity. Apparently that’s not what they saw.

“I don’t see much of Shirley the rest of the term. Comes the end of the semester, she leaves a manuscript in my mailbox. Doesn’t even deliver it herself. No letter of explanation. It’s a drama script, a mystery, nothing we had ever talked about, not very well written, spelling problems and all. Smells like something she did in high school, and it bears one of those pretentious ‘First Rights Only’ notices, the things that beginning writers attach to their work when they’re afraid of getting ripped off by unscrupulous publishers. That’s the main tip-off that this piece was not written for me. I admit, I should have phoned her, but I did not. Too busy. So maybe this piece is recycled. Maybe it’s plagiarized. At this point I don’t know and I don’t care. I let it ride, give her a C, and wash my hands of Shirley. Next thing I know, she feels harassed.”

“Ms. Friedman was one of the first complaints to the Vice President’s office. In October.”

“Neither she nor Reich said not a word to me. As I said, I could see she was tense, and I was trying to calm her down. I think my reaction was exactly what the circumstances called for.”

“Your conferences with Ms. Friedman were held in your office?”

“That seems like a logical place to hold a student conference.”

“The door was open or closed?”

“The door was open. And the roommate was standing outside. It’s pretty hard to do any serious harassing with the door wide open and the roommate taking notes.”

“You can tell me nothing about the third letter?”

“Absolutely nothing. I have never grabbed anyone’s breast—at least not in that context—let alone fondled two. I can guarantee you I did not fondle any freshman breasts last term. She says she’s a female freshman. Her remarks about racism suggest she’s black. I think I had two black females in the freshmen section. Call them both. If you have to, call in every freshman in my classes last fall and talk to them all. The encounter this letter describes is a complete fabrication.”

“Its author was interviewed personally by the Vice President. Or one of his representatives, Dean Hauptmann or Professor Nation.”

“Professor Nation?” Jack asked incredulously.

“Professor Nation was part of the investigation, in its early stages.”

“What was Vicky Nation doing on this investigation?”

“Some of the girls came to her as an understanding and sympathetic person with whom they could speak in trust and confidentiality.”

“Victoria Nation is Blondie’s advisor, her teacher, the source of her raised sensitivity, and probably the indirect solicitor of the complaints. Regarding the issue in general and me personally, she is not exactly unbiased. If the interview really took place, somebody lied. Maybe the student, maybe Victoria. Women can lie as self-servingly, and as maliciously, as men. Or maybe the student was telling second hand a story she heard from some other girl, who was lying. There’s no other word for it.”

“Mr. Creed, if I am your lawyer, I need to know the truth.”

“I am giving you the truth. This letter is bullshit. Period. It doesn’t even sound like freshman writing. ‘Demeaned my personhood.’ You want me to think a freshman uses that kind of language? A freshman who can’t even spell? That’s Nation jargon.”

“Can you think of any reason this woman would lie about you?”

“If I knew who she was, I could probably tell you the reason. Let me check the C’s, D’s and F’s in my grade book for last fall, and I can probably name the woman. And give you a reason.”

“Collectively these three letters are very incriminating.”

“They are intended to be. The question is, intended by whom?”

“The students wrote them.”

“These letters were not spontaneous. They were coached. Personally, I suspect they were solicited, especially the third.”

“There are apparently a couple of other matters. A woman who chose not to write a letter claims that when she came to you about some missed work last fall, she was invited to some motel. She also claims to have been grabbed and kissed. She’s so upset, she’s thinking about transferring.”

Jack flushed again.

“I’m not sure on this one, but my guess is Annie Brower.”

“I have no names, Professor Creed.”

“Bet on Anne B. I heard indirectly that she’s unhappy with me, because I wouldn’t let her off the hook for missed classwork. The description fits the facts . . . to a point. I always considered Anne B. a friendly freak, somebody close, but Paul Popowski, one of the other students, says she’s trying to rehabilitate her image after being a little too free and easy with the frat boys. Maybe that involves distance from me as well. Maybe that’s why she considered transferring to another school.”

“The motel?”

“I never invited Annie B. to a motel bed. I might have invited her to talk things over at the Holiday Inn Lounge. Annie and I drank there when I thought we were friends. With other students, incidentally. So it’s quite possible, even likely, that I invited Anne to the Holiday or the Heidelberger. But it would have been for drinks, and probably as part of a larger company. What she’s saying is technically correct, if this person is Annie B., but it’s been put together, by her or by somebody else, to imply that I offered to take care of her grade in return for an afternoon roll in the sack. That’s simply untrue.”

“You did, however, grab and kiss her?”

“Not on the occasion of her wanting to make up missed classes. Earlier, possibly yes. I have been quite free with hugs and those kinds of kisses, as I said before.”

“If you felt close enough to Ms. Brower to hug and kiss her, how could you deny her request to make up work?”

“I thought she was using our friendship as an excuse to give me less effort than I, she, or the class deserved. I felt she was trying, in a way, to flirt her way through the class.

“I feel that way about several of the women. My experience has been . . . I am very sensitive when somebody I think is being friendly tries to use that friendship as an excuse for receiving special treatment. I’ve known women to be very direct about it: ‘I read your book, that story in the newspaper, and you sound like somebody I would really like to get to know.’ Next thing I know, they have a manuscript that’s looking for a publisher. Would I introduce them to Ken Kesey or Robert Bly? I sensed that Annie had been playing up to me, looking for a free ride. I probably should have talked with her, and I most certainly should have sat down, explained the assignments, patted her little head—metaphorically, of course—held her little hand—also metaphorically—given her a supportive pat on the back—ditto—and sent her back into the game of academia. But I did not.”

“The women sound angry.”

“To me they sound coached. Annie B. was even reluctant. She wouldn’t even formalize her complaint. Robertson is a case of prolonged adolescence. Friedman needed to explain a C to her daddy, who thinks his daughter is the new Eudora Welty. Who knows what that third letter was about?

“That letter is very recent, written only last Tuesday. You said this investigation has been going on since October. It antedates the letters by a good two months. I think the letters are a result of the investigation, not the cause for an investigation. I think the letters were manufactured by the investigators. You’re the lawyer. Analyze the evidence.”

“It’s not uncommon for informal complaints to be formalized into letters only after some investigation.”

“The investigation never included me.”

“You were the person being investigated.”

“Or railroaded.”

“As you wish.”

“We have two letters dated in late January, one from Leanna Robertson, the organizer of the ‘Nail Creed’ meeting, and the other by the former student most likely to harbor a grievance. We also have Annie B.’s complaint of sometime. Then there is a third letter dated February 5, three days before I got fired.

“Reich claims to have already made two ‘preliminary’ consultations with the Committee on Tenure, Promotion and Dismissal and the President of the Faculty Association. He could not well have gone to them without written documentation, but the three days between February 5 and February 8 would have afforded very little time for him to make a case, have Kaufman and the others deliberate, then draft his letter requesting my resignation and run that by Hyde, as he probably had to. Reich made the appointment with me on February 4th, don’t forget.

“So I figure the first consultation with Kaufman came in late January or early February, probably after the investigation and on the strength of Blondie’s letter and Shirley’s letter, and possibly Annie’s complaint. Maybe this consultation took place over semester break. In the letter of February 8, Reich says only that the Committee and the Faculty Association President ‘concur with our assessment of the seriousness of these charges,’ and he anticipates that the committee will uphold my dismissal. I’m betting that in January the committee told him his evidence was serious but not serious enough for dismissal. He, or Hauptmann, or Nation, or somebody, fabricated a clincher letter, covering themselves by stipulating that the author’s name be withheld. Or possibly the letter was based on verbal allegations which, because they were untrue, the author refused to put in writing. Either way, it doesn’t matter, because Reich didn’t expect to use this letter except to muscle the committee. So he or someone created the letter, then he ran it quickly by Committee and President, and then hit me . . . after he’d squeezed a full fall term out of me, but before he’d have to pay me a full salary for 1985-86.

Jack’s analysis was largely confirmed at two decade’s remove by one member of the 1985 Busiris administration, who will remain anonymous. Stella remained skeptical.

“Professor Creed, you have an interesting theory. But I do not believe this is a fabrication or a bluff. My sense is that Vice President Reich is very confident and very prepared to press the issue.”

“It’s a completely bullshit call.”

“But you have, Mr. Creed, been sexually intimate with a student.”

“Mr. Stella, I have taught for a decade and a half. I taught during the sixties and the early seventies. I have been very close to a number of students. I honestly believe they were close, of their own volition, to me. I have kissed, fondled, and made love with at least one student. Maybe two, maybe a hundred. Maybe not a hundred. Maybe not even two, but with at least one. Not with any of the students involved in this case.

“I’m not even saying that things I did in the high sixties and mid-seventies are things I would do today. Maybe what I did then was unwise even then, but I was lots younger and lots closer to my students in age and outlook. The climate was very, very different then. No law to be applied ex post facto.”

“Your behavior would probably not be deemed ‘professional’ by any standards.”

“This was very private behavior, which does not involve Robertson, Brower, Friedman, Hauptmann, Reich, Howard, or the Board of Busiris Trustees. Or, for that matter, you.”

“You ever tell a student you’d like to ‘fuck her brains out’?”

“Not that I recall.”

“One student claims you did.’

“I don’t remember it.”

“Mr. Creed, if Vice President Reich asks you, directly, ‘Have you ever had sexual relations with a Busiris student?’ your answer is going to be affirmative. If he asks you, directly, ‘Have you ever kissed Ms. Friedman?’ your answer is going to be affirmative. If he asks you, directly, ‘Have you ever put your hands on female students?’ your answer is going to be, ‘yes.’ If he asks you ‘How often?’ your answer will be ‘frequently.’ You claim this is your private business. A panel of students and peers—and, after them, the jury you seem to insist upon—will make your actions their business. Their public business.”

“It does not seem reasonable to me,” Jack argued, “that students A, B, and C can complain about what went on between professor E and consenting student D.”

“They’re not. Students A, B, and C are complaining about what happened between Professor Creed and students A, B, and C. And they did not consent to what they claim went on between you and them.”

“Nobody ever indicated displeasure. Leanna did, of course, over the Ginsberg business, but that’s a matter of course content. When I sensed Shirley’s discomfort, I did what I thought proper to alleviate it. I kept the doors open, kept a friend present. That’s as far as I am willing to go. I’m not giving her a free A just because she feels uncomfortable. That’s just blackmail. If her work is substandard, she gets a substandard grade. As for harassing behavior, nobody said nothing. Not the women, not Reich or Hauptmann.

“That’s the bottom line, Mr. Stella. If Busiris was trying to save a valuable and esteemed teacher, Hauptmann would have called me in—as he has called me in on other occasions—and said, ‘Look, Jack, we have a little problem here. You might not think it’s much of a problem, but it sounds like a problem, we think it’s a problem, and we call the shots around here. You can take care of it, or you cannot take care of it, but this is your first and last warning. Shape up or you’re going to be shipped out.’ This is, as I recall, exactly the response mandated by Busiris’s own guidelines on harassment: ‘If you hear or witness a colleague engaging in what might be considered sexual harassment, suggest the inappropriateness of those actions.’ And the offender gets at least one written warning.

“If, on the other hand, you want to unload a trouble-maker, you say nothing at all, continue the investigation, make as nasty sounding a case as you can, call him in on a Friday afternoon when nobody’s around to see or hear, stand him up against the wall, and shoot him in the back.

“As for the women, all any one of them would have had to do was say, ‘Creed, you’re an asshole,’ or ‘Get lost,’ or ‘not in a month of Sundays,’ or ‘Professor Creed, you’re old enough to be my father.’ Victoria’s feminist friends are dead wrong here. Men do not enjoy seeing women in discomfort. They are not turned on, made more aggressive by resistance. Men are terrified of rejection. We have egos like egg shells. One disparaging look from a beautiful woman and we collapse. My greatest fear is becoming a parody of myself. The whole idea of sexual favors is ridiculous. I reject it out of hand.”

“I know. I read your article in the Sentinel. I also read the student responses to it.”

“You will note there was no response from Old Main,” Jack pointed out. “Except yesterday’s meeting.”

“Let’s talk about some other things in your file.”

Stella handed Jack another photostat:

“Now what the hell is a letter like that doing in your file, Jack?” Stella wanted to know.

Once again, Jack’s blood pressure rose.

“This is Alonzo Jackson, Michael.”

“I know the name.”

“Yes, we know the name. Plays for the Bucks. Played for the Bucks, rather. Started, as a freshman, for a division one college basketball team. Unfortunately, Alonzo is about as bright as the bricks in this wall. If they made a zero-watt bulb, Alonzo is it. After the fall semester, Alonzo has 2 D’s and an F. He’s academically ineligible.”

“I know.”

“We know. What you might not know is that Alonzo Jackson’s F is mine. Freshmen composition. No tough decision, either. He never showed up for class, never wrote a single paper, never indicated any extenuating personal problems. ‘A problem finishing some work’ is the understatement of the decade. He did nothing. Maybe I should have been talking to him during the season, but Alonzo is kind of stand-offish, not only with me but with the rest of the team. At least with the guys I hang out with. Maybe I should have talked to Marty. I thought about this, because I believe in Busiris basketball and Marty is my friend.

“On the other hand, I’m not giving Alonzo a free ride because he plays ball. Any more than I’m giving Annie B. a lot of breaks just because I think she’s my friend. Or Shirley a free A because she feels uncomfortable. I’ve never worked that way. Do the work, get the grade. Don’t do the work—well, it hurts me because I like you, but a prof’s gotta do what a prof’s gotta do.

“I don’t call Alonzo. I write down a big fat F.

“Ten minutes—and I do not exaggerate here—ten minutes after I drop off my grade roster at the registrar’s office, there’s a knock on my door. It’s one of the assistant basketball coaches, Andy Schmidt. The lowest of the low end of the bench. He’s got my grade roster in his hand, the one I just handed the registrar. ‘What’s the story on Jackson?’ he wants to know.

“I tell him.

“ ‘This is a very talented athlete, Chas, and very important to the success of the Bucks’s program,’ he tells me. Calls me Chas, like he’s my old buddy or something. I haven’t said twenty words to him in my life, even at the Bucks Boosters dinners.

“Well. Have we not been discussing Alonzo Jackson at every Boosters meeting for the past year? I know all about Alonzo, except what he can do in the English classroom. In the English class he’s persona incognita. ‘Didn’t show me a damned thing in class,’ I say, ‘including his face.’

“ ‘Alonzo is a very sensitive Black Man,’ Schmidt gives me to know, ‘and he sensed some . . . how shall we say, insensitivity in you which made him uncomfortable in your class.’

“ ‘He never indicated that to me,’ I tell him. ‘Of course, he was never present to indicate anything . . . or, for that matter, to feel my insensitivity.’

“ ‘I think it would be better for us all’ this bozo tells me, ‘if you reconsidered your grade here, Chas.’

“ ‘Did Marty send you over here?’ I want to know. I couldn’t believe Marty would play me that way.

“ ‘No comment.’

“I threw him out of the office. Two days later I got a call from Hauptmann. ‘Zero attendance, zero work,’ I tell him.

“ ‘His coach said something about racism,’ Hauptmann says.

“ ‘He and his coach can take their racism to the B. S. A. and see where it gets them. I damned near lost my job at this institution building the Afro-American program. I stand on my record.’ Hauptmann hangs up. I never heard another word about it until now.”

“This incident took place in January?”

“Late January. End of the semester, when grades went in.”

“The charge is already a part of your personnel record.”

“Motherfuckers.”

“The matter might come up at a hearing.”

“I will bring in twenty Afro-American students of both sexes who will testify I’m no racist. For that matter, I can bring in a hundred women who will say I’m no sexist. This thing is preposterous.”

“There have been other allegations of unprofessional behavior.”

“For example?”

“I’ve been provided with a copy of an unsigned letter to the editor printed in the Busiris Standard-Republican, a letter I do not remember reading, but you might recall it:

“I remember the letter.”

“Was there any reaction at Busiris?”

“Yeah, a funny incident, although not so funny in light of what later happened. I got a letter in the inter-campus mail, on Busiris stationery, purporting to be from Reich, citing this letter and other reaction to Age of Faith and calling for my resignation. I blew up, of course, went roaring into Lou Feracca’s office, raged at him for ten minutes. When I told him I was going straight to the press, he blanched a little, then produced a photostat of the Reich letter. He’d written it himself. ‘Always rage to me before raging to UPI,’ he made me promise. I was six inches away from major fuck-up.”

“Vice President Reich never responded?”

“Not to the letter in the Standard-Republican, and not to the book. I never received a word of congratulations from anyone in administration concerning my book or my prize. Which tells you where they were coming from.”

“I’ve been provided with a copy of another letter, written several years ago by an older woman who took your creative writing workshop:

“There was no real fall-out on this one either. Until now. I can’t imagine it helped my reputation in Busiris administration, though. For all I know, Reich never saw it. It went to my department chair.”

“The letter comes from your personnel file in the Vice President’s office.”

“Well, well, well. Another player unmasks himself.”

“What was the end of the complaint?”

“Edith and I had an encounter independent of the letter. She was unhappy with her B, although it was a pretty charitable B as you may imagine. Her stories weren’t stories as such, mostly Essays on Moral Living the likes of which a Congregationalist minister would approve. So she called me on it. ‘I want to know why I got a B in your class.’

“I gave her the standard answer. ‘I thought your writing was good, showed some intelligent ideas, was even above average. But it wasn’t outstanding, could have used a little more invention, stronger characterization, maybe a little work on grammar and punctuation. So a B for better than average, but not the best it could be.’

“ ‘I bet if I was young and cute, I’d get an A. Like that little Negro girl.’

“ ‘Edith, there were two A’s in that class. One went to a female and one went to a male.’ I showed her my grade book.”

“ ‘Maybe you like the boys too.’

“That’s what she said. ‘Maybe you like the boys too.’ I threw her out of the office. Then she wrote the letter. The ultimate irony was that, as a senior citizen, she paid a very reduced tuition for the class, maybe $25 or something. Even at Busiris, a class of 20 Ediths wouldn’t have paid me a living wage.”

“What was the textbook?”

“The Pushcart Prize anthology for whatever year it was. Each year Pushcart selects the best of small press literature, publishes it in a big fat anthology, makes a lot of money, gets a lot of attention for ‘alternative writers and alternative writing.’ Most authors are pretty well known, major-leaguers slumming it in the small presses. I had a piece in there one year. I thought that kids writing for publication should have a sense of what’s being published in the places they might aspire to publish in. I still think that.”

“No one in administration ever talked to you about your choice of textbook? No one ever interfered?”

“I heard nothing about the Kolb letter. My chair gave me a copy of her letter, but I refused, as the expression goes, to dignify it with a reply. Edith died from cancer a year or so later. She was probably dying when she took the course, when she wrote the letter. I forgave her just a little.”

“Mr. Howe has provided me with a copy of Vice President Reich’s letter to you concerning Mrs. Kolb’s complaint. It suggests you be more sensitive to student reaction to your language and the language in material you teach.” Stella handed Jack another photocopy.

“I have never seen this in my life.”

“The Vice President indicated you had not responded to it.”

“The Vice President did not send it to me. The Vice President probably wrote it over the weekend.”

“Is it possible, Professor Creed, that you lost or ignored this memo?”

“Have you been provided with a copy of a letter from the Dean congratulating me on my Pulitzer Prize? Another letter that I might have lost? Or how about a letter from the Vice President, thanking me for writing those Mass Communications and Global Studies proposals that got the University, what was it, two million bucks? Maybe those letters also got lost.”

“Possibly,” Stella answered. “It seems to be you’re in the habit of acting very . . . brashly. Recklessly. Almost suicidally. You haven’t listened well to Dr. Reich’s warnings. Complaints require response.”

“Anyone who has taught more than two years is going to have some complaints. Sooner or later, everyone gets a few cranky letters in his file. You can’t please everybody. Basically I’m a popular teacher.”

“How popular are you?”

“My classes have always been, and continue to be, among the first to fill at each registration. I have always been close to a number of students, especially blacks, athletes, and women. Sure Reich can find students who dislike me, but I can provide a long list of students who are passionately on my side. Popowski is right: I’m being railroaded. A couple of kids too Baptist for twentieth-century sex. A couple others too lazy or stupid to handle college work. And a couple of megalomaniacal administrators willing, no eager, to use their self-absolving complaints to blackmail me into throwing away my career. The only proper response is a law suit.”

“You can’t file a lawsuit, Professor Creed, until you’ve been through a hearing. And if you resign, there’s no hearing.”

“All this shit going down, and I can’t file a lawsuit? Slander. Malicious gossip. Defamation. You mention ‘harassment,’ Michael, and people don’t think hugs and kisses and bad language. They think very nasty things. Assault. Rape. Extortion. My reputation is S H I T. My career is finished. I’m lucky my wife hasn’t packed the kids and the bank account in the car and headed for her folks. This is an insidious, vicious thing that has happened. And you’re telling me I can’t do a thing about it?”

“At the moment, nothing has happened. The confidentiality of this matter is for your protection, Professor Creed. If you want to make this a public issue, request a hearing. Once you’ve been through the hearing, appeal the Vice President’s decision to the Board of Trustees. After you lose your hearing and your appeal, you can sue for defamation of character . . . if you think your character has been defamed. Or you can claim your promising career has been ruined. If you win your hearing or the appeal, of course, your career is not ruined, although these allegations are part of your permanent personnel file. And remember, truth is an absolute defense on their part: if what the students say is true, you have no case.

“Remember also that the students have no money—they’re not worth suing. To sue the University, you have to prove malicious intent on the part of university administrators. They would probably claim to have been motivated by a good-faith intent to protect students’ interest.” Stella folded his hands behind the back of his head.

“They created the guidelines to hang me. That’s obvious. That was part of my analysis.”

“I have read your analysis of Ms. Martin-Oliver’s harassment guidelines.”

“Rather prophetic, wouldn’t you say? I’ll stand on that analysis as well. More today than when I wrote it.”

“You make a number of valid points. And some points that I might, as a lawyer, be inclined to quarrel with. We’re specifically interested in the relationship between this article and the matter at hand. It seems to me that somebody reading this article on one hand and assessing your case on the other might take you as perhaps more of a misogynist than you really are. Some of the student responses to your essay mention the highly sexual nature of the literature you teach. Those letters also might be regarded as part of a consistent pattern of misogynist behavior.”

“I’m no misogynist. I’m just an anti-academic feminist, or whatever this crowd is. They’re the misogynists. One of the student letters pointed that out.”

“Do you know the student who wrote that letter?”

“No more than Victoria Nation knew the authors of those letters you showed me earlier. You may have noticed that no one in administration or the Women’s Studies program responded to my critique. Not Victoria Nation. Not even the author of the guidelines.”

“Ms. Martin-Oliver was one of your students, is that correct, Professor Creed?”

“Is Ms. Martin-Oliver involved in this case?” Jack asked. He was trying to discover, I believe, whether their relationship was the unplayed trump in Reich’s hand, the joker being used to leverage him into resignation.

Stella misinterpreted the question.

“My understanding is that Ms. Martin-Oliver was not involved in this investigation at all.”

Jack and I exchanged glances.

“Reich told me that she was,” Jack said suspiciously.

“My understanding is otherwise,” Stella assured him. “She did write the Busiris guidelines . . . on Vice President Reich’s instructions. Even those were adapted from a number of similar documents at other institutions.”

“She’s the affirmative action officer,” Jack said incredulously. “Complaints about harassment and racism would first go to the harassment officer.”

“Ordinarily they would,” Stella told him. “That surprised me too. They seem to have gone out of their way to avoid Ms. Martin-Oliver. She was not a player in the investigation. Or in drafting the Vice President’s letter. The original complaints came to the Vice President through Professor Nation. I’m quite certain of that fact.”

“Reich mentions Lily Lee in his letter requesting my resignation.”

“Only as author of the Busiris guidelines. Which, as the anonymous response to your critique in the Sentinel points out, represent a position far more protective of the accused than the guidelines of most other institutions. I would like to meet the person who wrote that letter. He or she knows as much about the subject as you do. You have no idea who wrote that letter, Professor Creed?

“None.” Jack had not fully recovered from Stella’s roundhouse right. “So Ms. Martin-Oliver was not a player,” he repeated.

“The Vice President understood that she had been your protégé. He felt she might, oh, compromise this investigation.”

“My protégé.” Jack said softly. “Yeah.”

Jack’s eyes hardened.

“I want to ask you one question, Michael,” he said, “and I want the straightest answer you have ever given in your life. Was Lily Lee Martin-Oliver in any way a part of this investigation?”

Jack’s intensity surprised Stella. “As I said before, Ms. Oliver drafted the guidelines on racial and sexual harassment but was kept out of the investigation. Apparently intentionally. You have my word on that.”

I could watch Jack’s mental gears churning. At this moment the picture finally snapped into focus: a vision of Penelope weaving at her loom melted into a picture of Lily Lee forced by her employer and circumstances to braid the hangman’s noose. To the casual observer, that noose looked stout enough. But into the rope she had woven a weak spot or two. He could break that rope if he wanted, before it broke his neck. She had even provided, anonymously, instructions on how to break that noose. He grasped the message in Lily’s eyes on Friday afternoon. He recognized, finally, the clarity and eloquence of that anonymous letter in the Sentinel. And its purpose. In the back of his mind whispered a voice. “By all means necessary,” it commanded firmly.

For the first time, really, Jack knew what to do on Monday. What he could do. What Lily expected him to do.

“The bottom line is, they didn’t even follow their own regulations. If Reich or Hauptmann had issued the warning mandated by Busiris’s own guidelines, my behavior would have changed in a heartbeat. They knew that, and they chose not to. Because they wanted me gone. Not a word from October until now. They didn’t even follow their own procedure. That anonymous letter in the Sentinel makes precisely this point: procedures must be followed in all cases of alleged harassment before disciplinary actions can be invoked. As that letter makes clear, the Busiris guidelines require warning before sanctions. I got no warning. Procedure was not followed. I want a job or compensation.”

Stella was listening.

“You have a point on the procedure,” he agreed. “And what you say about your behavior toward the students is probably true. Let me ask you this, however. Your persistent harassment of Busiris officials is another thing. When, Professor Creed, when was that going to stop?”

“Bert and Ernie have been fucking me over for years—me and the institution.”

“They’re the bosses. You’re simply a college professor. A ‘field nigger,’ as you’ve been known to say. You might make something of the procedure, if you are inclined. Apart from the procedural business, you’re not in an especially strong position, Professor Creed.”

“Bert, Ernie and Busiris will very soon regret this whole episode.”

“I am afraid the Vice President does not share your perspective.”

“So how much money are they offering?” Jack asked suddenly.

“A year’s salary plus insurance. We could get . . . oh, another $10,000 or so in severance pay.”

“And there’s nothing, as far as you see it, that I can do?”

“The procedural aspect is interesting. It might win you $20,000 or more. Or an appeal, or a civil suit. But that’s an ugly business. Everyone gets smeared, including all the students you have mentioned. Unless you buy your own newspaper, publicity in Riverton is likely to be pretty one-sided. Far from offering an early and easy settlement, I suspect Busiris would draw things out as long as possible. You can expect the University to make both internal and external proceedings as protracted and painful as possible. We are talking years here, years that you will be unemployed and unemployable. If you win the civil suit, you can collect lost pay, and punitive damages, and legal fees. That’s if you win. If you lose, you have invested three or five years of your life in pursuit of nothing. You would have my fees to pay . . . and while I may be sympathetic to your situation and do what I can to minimize those fees, I am not free.”

“The trial, of course, would be held in Riverton,” Jack meditated aloud. “In front of a jury of Edith Kolbs.”

“One faculty member, incidentally, is prepared to testify to hearing noises coming from your office that sounded very much like sex.”

“He’s a lying son-of-a-bitch.”

“He’s a she.”

“She’s a lying son-of-a-bitch. Did she give a date, a year? I was probably out of town.”

“Whatever the dates, testimony like that would end your teaching career.”

“Even if you win, even at the level of a hearing,” Stella pointed out, “the proceedings—not just the four formal complaints, but anything and everything else that is said or done—become a part of your official personnel file, which will guarantee you never get hired elsewhere. At Busiris you will receive minimal raises and maximum scrutiny, including further disciplinary actions next time you step out of line. Or are perceived of as stepping out of line.”

“With this stuff being rehashed to demonstrate ‘a pattern of behavior.’ And so on, again and again until convicted. Why am I not surprised,” Jack meditated aloud. “I’m the one who’s always preached that law has little if anything to do with justice.”

“Mr. Creed, the mechanism of the law is indeed expensive and cumbersome, but as even you appreciate, the threat of the mechanism of the law is more easily used than the law itself.”

“Everything you’ve said suggests that Reich holds all the trumps, except for the procedure business.”

“So he does. But while you have apparently made yourself a thorn in the side of Busiris Tech, Vice President Reich is not, contrary to what you seem to think, obsessed with destroying you. He is as anxious to avoid a protracted disciplinary procedure as you should be. Everything I have heard about him convinces me that he—like most other members of the Busiris administration—is a fair and compassionate man who appreciates your professional achievements and your popularity among some students. I honestly believe he respects you and values your contributions to the University. He also understands that you have support among some areas of the University community. Although Professor Nation, among other individuals, has convinced him that your behavior has been, by most standard, unacceptably unprofessional.”

“He’s fouling me out on a very ticky-tacky call.”

“Vice President Reich, on behalf of the University, is making an offer which I personally would find very attractive. We can sweeten it considerably on the technicality. I’d take it.”

“This is a crock of shit and we all know it. The only bigger crock of shit would be walking away without a fight.”

“Mr. Creed, do you want to teach at Busiris Technical University for the rest of your life?”

“I can think of nothing worse.”

“Precisely what I thought, and precisely what Vice President Reich thinks. You, he, and I are in complete agreement. Why fill your life up with things you can’t touch?”

“I would prefer right now not to move to any other place. If I do leave Busiris, I would prefer my departure to be on my own terms.”

“You’ve had five years to leave on your own terms, and you haven’t left.”

“I would prefer to resign on my own terms. I would not prefer to be blackmailed into resigning. Or to be fired.”

“Mr. Creed, I am as independent a son-of-a-bitch as you, and in my life I have been fired from a dozen jobs. But I am a realist. In each case I accepted the realities of the situation, took what I could get in terms of money and experience, picked myself up and got on with my life. That’s what made me the best lawyer in this city. I own this firm. I own this building. I accept whatever cases I choose, and I decline those I wish to decline. I am my own landlord. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody. I’m advising you to do the same thing. You are a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer. I personally have read your book. Although I don’t agree with you politically, it’s a brilliant book. You have talent and influential friends and admirers in the writing and publishing world. You can be a writer if you choose. As a writer you can be absolutely independent of everyone. If that’s what you want, be a writer.

“If you want to teach, your Pulitzer—and Busiris’s tactful silence—will get you a teaching position at schools far more prestigious than Busiris. Vice President Reich is offering absolute confidentiality and one full year’s salary in return for you leaving the university. They broke their own rules—that’s probably another $20,000, another year’s salary. Quite a nest egg, I’d say. If you want to be a writer, two years’ salary will give you plenty of time to write. If you land another teaching position, you will be paid twice for one year’s work. Most importantly, you will save your reputation, avoid tremendous legal fees, and keep your mind focused on your true work.

“My advice, and I hope that you receive it well, is simple. Don’t destroy yourself battling for a victory the situation doesn’t offer. Take the money and get on with your life.

“My further professional advice is, if you decide to continue teaching, become more of a team player.”

Jack spent the afternoon of February 9, 1985 at Burr Oak State Park, alone, in communion with the squirrels and trees and the ghost of Lily Lee Martin. On Sunday, February 10, 1985 he heard a sermon on forgiving and forgiving again, to “seventy times seven.”

“Thank you,” he told his minister; “you saved my life.”

“Something you want to talk about?” the reverend asked him.

“Nothing at all,” Jack answered. “Only thanks.”

On Monday, February 11, 1985, after discussing the matter not at all with Rose Marié, Jack Creed resigned his faculty appointment at Busiris Technical University “for personal reasons.”

Not until half a year later did we discover that Michael Stella taught both the civil and business law courses at Busiris Technical University. At a stipend of $5,000. Per course.