Late-K Lunacy

by Ted Bernard

  Our conversation about the march and the occupation was interrupted by ring tones on Katherine’s phone. “Hello, oh yes President Redlaw, thank you for returning my call,” Katherine said, the only response she could possibly have come up with in this tense moment. She continued, “Yes, what you say is true. I attempted to inform you of our plans several hours ago. Yes. Well, sir, you understand what we are asking, I believe. We intend to occupy Centennial Quad until we have assurances of your administration’s agreement to our demands. Yes, yes, we understand the risks. But let me explain to you that the situation has shifted since our meeting. We have relevant information that could stop Morse Valley Energy in its tracks, save Blackwood, and hopefully coax the university toward renewables much sooner than planned.”

  She briefly spelled out the details of Adrienne’s disappearance, of the uncertainty of Morse’s whereabouts, of detective Wesley Rollins, and the likelihood that Dr. Tulkinghorn had blackmailed Morse. When she had finished, there was silence. Looking across at Nick, I could not read his inscrutable expression, partly hidden by his Expos cap, but Em’s eyes were locked onto mine. I smiled back at her and raised my eyebrows expectantly. Em’s reassuring smile was pure and I took heart from it.

  After what seemed like hours, the president spoke. “No sir, we won’t,” she replied. “We pledge not to release any of this information for twenty-four hours. This will give you time to verify what we have gathered. However, if we have no response from you in the next twenty-four hours, including an opportunity to meet with you personally, we will have no choice but to call a press conference. Yes, sir, we are very serious.” Another pause. “The Occupation?” she seemed to repeat. “Yes, of course, we will continue it as a non-violent form of protest. We will respect Centennial Quad grounds and plantings, the buildings, the space; there will be no deliberate damage or violence.” In response, the president seemed to be making a request. “Alright,” Katherine said, relenting in tone. “Yes, I think we can stretch that demand. Yes, sir. Before I hang up, I want to stress that we hope you and the police will honor our expressed form of non-violent protest until you meet with us or the situation is resolved to our satisfaction. I must also tell you that we have several thousand people keeping track of Occupy Centennial Quad on social media.” Another long pause followed. Then she said, “Thank you, President Redlaw.” She placed her phone on the table.

  “Whew.” She let out a long breath.

  “Then we’re set for the next twenty-four hours?” I asked.

  “A bit more. He asked us to hold off any press conference until Sunday. He said that as long as the occupation was peaceful, the police would be at the periphery to provide security, especially tomorrow night. He said he would instruct them to open Weary Hall so we can have access to the bathrooms. There will be an officer stationed at one of Weary’s side doors.”

  “And he pledged to meet with us?” Nick pressed.

  “He did. Sunday morning at nine.”

  “Fantastic job, Katherine,” declared Nick.

  “Bon, well done!” Em exclaimed, and in solidarity we each stacked our hands one on top of the other. But in the recesses of my heart, I sensed the unraveling of all my presumptions of order, the specter of emergent properties, and the ambiguity of a future I dared not summon.

  7

  As the chimes in the Stiggins steeple struck 9:00 AM, we — ten rumpled students and one obviously sotted classmate — filed past Lisa Van Sickle, the campus police officer assigned to the front door of Stiggins Hall. As we passed, the officer avoided eye contact with us misguided losers for whom she had little sympathy or patience. Her right hand, the one on her holstered revolver, twitched.

  José pulled Katherine aside. “Astrid’s on her way,” he whispered.

  We took our places and, except for Zachary, we began boisterously sharing exploits of the weekend. Zachary was in a stupor, the result of over-indulgence that wildly exceeded anything in his brief résumé of imbibing. Jason, the Australian grad student, sitting next to him, said, “Zach. You’re looking a bit green around the gills there mate.”

  “I’m not well, man,” Zachary admitted weakly and dropped his head to the table.

  ~

  Excerpt from Dr. Helen Flintwinch’s testimony to the GUO Board of Trustees, January 2014:

  ~

  In President Redlaw’s office, Beth Samuels and Helen Flintwinch were putting on a show, fiercely disagreeing while virtually ignoring the President. He let them roll, listening calmly, his elbows resting on the polished walnut desk, his hands pressed into a tent that touched his chin.

  “Beth, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” the provost argued.

  “I don’t see it,” Beth retorted.

  “I do. Based on a quick look at education and news sites this morning, we’re already awash in what looks to me like bad publicity. Even the New York Times website had a small piece on the occupation. And, as far as I know, local and national media have yet to send a real person here since the occupation. Their coverage is being generated by student tweets, Instagram and Snapchat pictures and videos, and Facebook posts. The students are controlling the message for God’s sake. I say issue an ultimatum to these protestors. Force them to clear the quad by nightfall. If they don’t disperse, threaten to send them to Student Judiciaries tomorrow, one-by-one.”

  “So, Helen,” Beth Samuels cut her off. “You are advocating shutting this occupation down, an occupation that is arguably a form of free speech. I don’t know how to respond except that, as a solution, your reasoning scares me. It sounds like Mubarak in Tahrir Square.”

  “Who’s in control here? The students or the University?”

  The two, speaking on top of one another, were hardly communicating. It was as if they had recorded their comments in separate rooms.

  “Beth, my dear, I’m obviously playing devil’s advocate. Meanwhile, back in the real world, just a couple of hours ago, Governor Winthrop proposed calling up the Ohio National Guard and sending them here. Once he makes the decision to deploy them, we stand back. It’s not on us. Let him take the heat.”

  “A brilliant strategy!” Beth countered. “Centennial Quad is cleared by armed soldiers. Hoorah! Imagine: students shot, or bludgeoned, or bayoneted, or gassed, or all of the above; dozens jailed. If that happens, we’re on tap for much nastier publicity than now, not to mention potential casualties and possible deaths on our consciences and a brutal repression of free speech. Gilligan becomes a pariah. Enrollment plummets; we’re forced to fire faculty; our research funds dry up as do alumni donations; maintenance and modernization of our facilities are further deferred, including the move to renewable energy. The place becomes shabbier and shabbier. Enrollment drops further. What a happy downspiral.”

  “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, Dr. Samuels,” the provost sourly replied. “Nor do I grant that bloodshed would happen. The bottom line for me is that we cannot allow anarchy on our campus. We must not let students dictate the way …”

  Beth cut in again. “It doesn’t look like anarchy to me, Helen. The occupation so far has been orderly, respectful, and non-violent. The students are being lauded all over the Internet for taking a stand against fracking, for promoting renewable energy, and for speaking knowledgeably and non-confrontationally about climate change. Those could be, probably should be, our messages, but we’ve been out-maneuvered and, to be honest, out-smarted.”

  “Oh great goddess of messaging, what would you do?” the provost responded with weary disdain, smirking at her adversary like a person who is fully aware there is no humor in the room.

  “I would try to buy time. I would ask the students to hold off reporting their allegations to the press and I would emphasize that, as long as this occupation remains peaceful and does not disrupt our main mission — education — and that we finish the semester as planned, we let them retain their tented village. We would then come across as open-minded and on the side of free speech and non-violent ci
vil disobedience. We would engage them in a game of delays. They are, after all, students who must attend classes and pass their courses. When November arrives, with its cold winds and stormy weather, I predict the quad will empty very quickly.”

  “That’s all fine and good but what do we do about Morse?”

  “Morse. If we can track him down, I suggest the president and Governor Winthrop force him to meet with them to resolve this standoff. The Northeastern Regional Campus could come back into play.”

  Helen Flintwinch was in the sourest of humors. Later she might regret having engaged Beth Samuels in such a rancorous and disrespectful manner, but now she needed coffee. She abruptly turned her back on the debate and marched to the outer office. She called back, “Isn’t there any damned coffee here, Mitch?”

  “None freshly brewed. I brought mine from my palatial mansion across the street. Mrs. Wickett is off to Pittsburgh to help with the birth of a grandchild. As you know, I have no wife and today no maidservant. Miraculously, I brewed it myself.” He wondered: How can I manage to find humor in face of a potentially ruinous end to my reign?

  The president rose and ambled across the office toward his media relations director. She stood at the window gazing toward Pan’s statue. He stood next to her, silently, a few moments: two ageing hoopsters about to face opponents more implacable and less predictable than any they had faced in their innocent heydays. He spoke conspiratorially, perhaps fearing the provost would return to unleash wanton chaos in his chambers. “There’s no easy way out, Beth. The Ohio National Guard is the worst of all options, as I told Governor Winthrop an hour ago. He needs to read up on the governorship of James A. Rhodes, the one who last called up the Guard for an Ohio campus disturbance. We all know where that led.”

  “Sure don’t want that,” Beth agreed.

  “As for Blackwood, none of us has been able to either substantiate or invalidate the students’ allegations. Morse has gone to ground. Beyond admitting there is a missing person, the detective in the Virgin Islands refuses to divulge details about his investigation or to speculate on Morse’s whereabouts or his connection to the missing person. Tulkinghorn zealously denies blackmailing Morse. I hate to admit it,” the president said, “but I cannot imagine how these allegations could have been fabricated and I dare not take them lightly.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “I believe we must somehow convince the students to postpone going public for a while longer, slow-walk them, as you suggested. With borrowed time, we might just weasel out of this mess. And thus, my good woman, I believe we are drawing from the same play book.”

  “Alright, sir, listen up. Here’s how we’ll frame things.” Back on the edge of the paint, in the dying minutes of a championship game, her munificent physique poised and controlling the pace, Beth Samuels knew exactly what she needed to do.

  ~

  Astrid slipped into the briefing room on the heels of President Redlaw and Media Relations Director Samuels. She handed Nick a folded sheet of paper. As Nick read it, his eyes widened. He passed it to Katherine.

  I regarded the president’s red-rimmed, basset hound eyes. I could see that events were taking their toll. He seemed to suspend eye contact when meeting my direct gaze, as though he were afraid to admit something shameful.

  “Thank you for coming here this morning,” he began. He looked around, noting that the brilliant and tenacious Zachary from Sandusky looked dangerously unwell. Though several students sat between the president and Zachary, the president (and the rest of us) could detect boozy vapors off-gassing from Zachary’s every pore. The stink was eye-watering. Serves him right, I thought.

  President Redlaw turned his gaze to the others. “Although we are in the midst of what appears to be a standoff, I believe we are all well served by the openness and civility of our communication. I hope we may continue to work in this forthright way toward a resolution. Director Samuels showed me the video clip of Nick’s declaration at the onset of your occupation. That, together with Katherine’s call Friday and this press release you just handed me, stakes out your position with unusual clarity. Your demands are reasonable responses to what you perceive to be the hazards of hydraulic fracturing and the potential risks to a cherished natural area, which, it is true, we pledged to protect but are now obliged by law to relinquish. That there is a connection between the natural gas under Blackwood Forest and our campus energy plan is undeniable. We view natural gas as a cost-effective and lower carbon bridge to the time, in a decade or so, when we can begin the transition to renewable energy. That argument is also well known to you. So, I think our respective positions are clear enough.”

  Beth Samuels tried to make eye contact with everyone, sweeping her shining brown eyes, much more alert than Redlaw’s, in a grand circle. “I’ll say this”, she began, “you and your followers are exceptionally well-organized and media savvy. After this situation has been resolved, some of you might think about documenting it as a case study: how it evolved, the process of decision-making, and what your proposals ended up achieving. It could be the basis of a great article for, say, the Journal of Communication and Environmental Affairs.”

  Her remarks felt like pure patronization to me.

  Nick, too. He said, blandly, “Thanks for that.”

  As scripted, the president took it from there. “As Beth mentioned, we have tried to check the facts regarding what Katherine has described as new developments. Unfortunately, so far we can neither confirm nor refute them.”

  “That puts us in some kind of pickle,” Beth added.

  The president smiled at her theatrically. He scrunched his forehead and put on a humble expression, as if begging for bread crumbs or pickles. He said, “So, I want to propose that your steering committee refrain from meeting with the press for another five days while we seek further verification. In the meantime, as long as your occupation of Centennial Quad does not interfere with classes and other vital university functions, it may continue unabated on its present terms.”

  Katherine gazed at Redlaw and Beth. She subtly winked at Nick. She cleared her throat. “Thank you, President Redlaw. As you surely understand, our group will need time to consider your request. Meanwhile, we have recently uncovered more data that can speed the verification you seek. Astrid Keeley will present this information.”

  Astrid sat upright in her chair. The president smiled extending an open hand toward her and asked, “Are you not the woman who argued for renewable energy in a town hall meeting in the basement of … where was it? … Morgan Hall?”

  “Yes, I’m the one from Morgan,” replied Astrid. “I was surprised you did not recognize me last week.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Your face somehow just popped into place for me.”

  I thought: How could he not have remembered her — her dreads? Her swag?

  Astrid put on her earnest face and said, “Well, Mr. President, I have some leads for you. I believe they will strengthen the foundation of our allegations of collusion between Dr. Tulkinghorn and Jasper Morse on the Larnaca Chair, and the whereabouts of Mr. Morse, along with his possible involvement in the disappearance of Adrienne Foster.

  After Astrid had concisely summarized her new findings, the president responded, “In normal circumstances of university discourse, I would want to know your sources. But in this case, I sense that perhaps it is best that I do not ask.”

  “Yes sir, that would be a wise choice. We do, however, encourage you to check out these means of verification.” She handed him a sheet with her contacts. Bemused by Astrid’s confidence and the specificity of her intelligence, the president scanned the document. To Astrid’s surprise he then looked directly at her and chuckled, shaking his head wistfully. “I must say that receiving such obviously clandestine information, derived by an intrepid investigator, who is simultaneously a graduate student, is a stunning indicator of how much of a mossback I’ve become.”

  “Undergraduate student, sir.”

  “Eve
n more impressive!”

  When we reconvened, we reported that we had reached consensus on giving the administration not the five days they had requested but instead four days, as long as the president promised not to interfere with the occupation and disrupt our plans for a teach-in. Regarding the teach-in, Redlaw said, “Now, Beth, you’re too young to remember, but these guys are reviving a protest strategy from the sixties.”

  The president then cautioned us not to neglect our homework. “I’ll be calling your moms and dads if I hear that you’ve flunked any quizzes.”

  Nobody even broke a smile. Beth put on the slightest eye roll, I noticed. I found it amusing, a gesture of admiration really, a tenderness there.

  En route across the quad, I walked with Em and Nick. Em told us, “That man's becoming like my grand-père. I think he is comfortable playing this role.”

  “A shifty grand-père.” Nick replied. “I wouldn’t trust him with my grandmother’s sister.”

  8

  Alongside the small platform I gazed up at Dr. Sophie Knowles speaking to no more than a dozen of us scattered on the grass. It was another sun-washed late October morning on Centennial Quad. Sleepy occupiers crawled out of their tents and yurts and wandered toward the food. Sophie was lecturing about the risks of deep-well injection of wastes from fracking and its connection to a rash of earthquakes that have shaken states like Ohio where faults had long been dormant. Stefan stood nearby. He waved at me just before Dr. Burt Zielinski ambled up alongside him. Per Stefan, here’s what they were whispering about:

  “Not much of a turnout at this hour for Sophie,” Burt said. “Are you next?”

  “No sir. You are,” Stefan replied. “Looks like they’ve jammed the program this morning with C-Nerds. Maybe we’re the only department foolhardy enough to ally with these renegades.”