Lincoln's Briefs

by Wayne, Michael

  “I can be up there in a couple of hours,” declared the Director of the CIA, and he slapped the Beretta into the palm of his hand.

  “No, that wouldn’t be the way to go, Clyde. Not right now, anyway. First we have to get our hands on whatever evidence he’s tracked down.”

  “I can take care of that, too,” the Director of the CIA shrugged, and he slapped the gun into the palm of his hand again.

  “No doubt, no doubt,” said the President. “But in this case I think it would be better if you let your, uh, special operative handle things.” And he gave the Director of the CIA a wink.

  The Director of the CIA smiled. “Quite right, Mr. President. The special operative you have in mind would seem to have just the attributes needed to deal with a problem of this nature.”

  III

  Located in the heart of the campus, the Lyceum was an imposing yellow-brick structure with Corinthian pillars, ivy-covered walls, and a domed copper roof. Internationally known for the prestigious Vincent lecture series given each spring in its two thousand–seat auditorium, it symbolized the deep and historic commitment of the university to the very highest standards of intellectual endeavour, as attested to on beer mugs, Tshirts, and bobble-head dolls sold in the lobby.

  Adjoining the Lyceum, and directly across the neatly trimmed lawn of Regency Circle from the Edifice Building, where Professor Templeton gave his lectures, stood Graves Hall, staid, granite, and grey. Constructed shortly after World War I, it had served for almost fifty years as the administrative centre of the institution. However, when Felicia Butterworth left her job as head of marketing at the Frito-Lay Corporation to take over as university president and CEO, she decided to spend most of her time in the newly erected prefabricated structure at the entrance to the campus, temporary headquarters for the three-billion-dollar fundraising campaign. “So I can be close to the people who really matter around here,” was the way she put it.

  Flags representing two dozen of the largest corporate sponsors of the university flew in front of the headquarters, and above the entrance hung an expansive blue banner carrying a picture of the Lyceum surrounded by dollar signs and, in gilt-edged letters, the slogan “A University Education: There Can Be No Better Investment.” Inside was a display case containing a scale model of what the campus would look like after plans for expansion were completed. “Your logo here!” was printed on the domed roof of the replica of the Lyceum. United Airlines and Microsoft were reported to have made preliminary bids. Disney had committed eight million dollars to the construction of an IMAX theatre and animated cartoon arcade in the Centre for Reformation Studies, while an Affordable Fashion Design Museum, funded by grants from Club Monaco, Armani Exchange, and Banana Republic, was to be built at the site on Greener Street where the campaign headquarters now stood. On the western edge of the campus the Pasteur Laboratories for Biochemical Research were to be closed and the tower housing them converted into an aluminum silo where the new Centre for the Study of Carbonation would be located. Three soft drink companies were competing for the right to have their names attached to it. Just to the north would be the Maidenform Building, which was expected to employ over forty graduate students from the School of Engineering to investigate stress and support problems. And highlighting the expansion was a new $170 million, six-story office building with state-of-the-art computer equipment that was to serve as permanent headquarters for future fundraising activities.

  Felicia Butterworth had been a compromise candidate for the position of university president, between the chairman of the Philosophy department, preferred choice of the faculty, and Trustworthy Ted, the Toronto billionaire acclaimed for his liberal funding of the dramatic arts both in Canada and abroad and for the unbelievable bargains offered on toilet paper, air freshener, and other bathroom products at his discount store, located just blocks down Greener Street from the university (“prices so low you’ll flush with excitement!!!”). Her arrival was accompanied by the announcement that Frito-Lay would be donating $25 million to the university for construction of a Snack Food Institute. And she, in turn, saw to it that the company’s products were now found across the campus, from the Ruffles potato chips, Rold Gold pretzels, and Funyuns Onion-flavored Rings available at all college cafeterias, to the machines dispensing Tostitos tortilla chips in the common room of the Latin American Studies Centre, the Grandma’s Homestyle Cookies provided, along with tea, to everyone attending the Gerontology Seminar in the Department of Psychology, the Sunchips multigrain snacks served in the waiting room of the Clinic for Bowel Disorders at the Medical School, and the Smartfood popcorn distributed to students in the Film Studies program. And of course, each scholarship winner now received, along with financial support and a certificate, a box of Cracker Jack, the “caramel, popcorn, and peanut snack with the prize inside.”

  A selection of Frito-Lay snacks was also available in the conference room at Graves Hall, where seven deans now sat waiting for President Butterworth. They had been careful to arrive a few minutes early, well aware of her views on punctuality. No one said a word. They shuffled papers, shot furtive glances back and forth at each other, and munched nervously on Doritos, Fritos, and Cheetos. Then, exactly at noon, the door flew open and she swept in, taking her place at the head of the table.

  Though slender, Felicia Butterworth was an intimidating presence, over six feet tall and with hair so red you might have thought her head was on fire if you saw her at a distance. She wore an ice blue Armani Exchange dress with matching handbag. Her scarf, from Club Monaco, was winter white, embroidered with rampant black horses on a field of gold.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, addressing the three men and four women seated at the table, “you all know why I called you here. This morning there were three more stories in the Globe and Mail, two in the Star and National Post. The Sun has convinced some student from Templeton’s Civil War class to appear as a Sunshine girl. Yesterday I had calls from Time, People, and the Wall Street Journal. Letterman wants me for an interview. What next? A free-for-all on Jerry Springer? It’s turning into a disaster, gentlemen. I have to give my quarterly report to the Governing Council next Thursday. We’re here today to assess the damage.” Then nodding to a man in his forties dressed in an immaculately tailored, brown Banana Republic suit, she said, “Tom, let’s start with you.”

  The Dean Responsible for Relations with Manufacturers of Breakfast Food Products briefly consulted his notes, then stood to speak. “General Mills has elected to continue with its sponsorship of Professor Forenza’s research into the development of a chocolate-flavoured cereal that does not adhere to braces or retainers, but Kellogg’s has withdrawn its offer of eight additional Tony the Tiger fellowships. That will be particularly harmful for our affirmative action program, since three were earmarked for First Nations students. Eggo is waffling— “

  “This isn’t the time, Tom.”

  “… while Post and Quaker Oats faxed me letters yesterday afternoon withdrawing from the Breakfast Foods Consortium. The other companies say they’re reserving judgment, but if Schneider Foods drops out, I think we can kiss the Pork Sausage Wing of the new Biological Sciences Complex goodbye.”

  President Butterworth sighed. “Jessica?”

  A young woman dressed in an immaculately tailored, green Club Monaco suit rose to speak. “We won’t know the full impact on our relations with the major studios for some time. But yesterday Variety reported that a number of actors will protest use of their voices in the Martin Luther cartoon if you continue to bar Templeton from speaking to the media. Since Disney planned on previewing the cartoon at the opening of the arcade, that could be a public relations nightmare. I hear Angelina Jolie’s agent has already told Disney executives she won’t do the voice for Greta, the sultry nun who haunts Luther’s dreams. I think the arcade will likely still go ahead—Spielberg hinted to me he’ll step in if Disney drops out—but the IMAX centre is almost certainly gone. On the other hand—although I don’t know how yo
u’ll feel about this—the Coen brothers have offered us $20 million for the rights to the Templeton story, provided we let them use the campus for location shots. The word is George Clooney would star with Susan Sarandon in the role of the diabolical university president.”

  Felicia Butterworth grimaced. “That’s enough. It’s even worse than I realized. The rest of you, have your reports on my desk by the morning.” Then she punched a button on the intercom in front of her. “Dolores,” she said, “send in Penney.”

  A moment later a short, stout, balding man with wire-rimmed glasses, wearing a charcoal Armani Exchange suit and carrying a black attaché case, walked into the room.

  “Those of you who were here under my predecessor know Harris Penney,” Felicia Butterworth remarked, directing him to take a seat at the end of the table. “His law firm has represented us in negotiations with the Faculty Union for more than twenty years.” Then, turning to him, she said, “You know the problem, Harris. What I want to know now is how do you propose we deal with it? I might add, speed is of the essence.”

  “Of course,” Penney replied. “I’ve already drafted a letter to Professor Templeton outlining the substance of your concerns. I thought it best not to be too specific at this point, just in case we run into a lawsuit down the road. He has three months to submit a formal reply, after which—”

  “No! No! We don’t have three months. We don’t have three days. I want to terminate him immediately!”

  Penney stared at her in disbelief. “Absolutely out of the question. He has tenure.”

  “But he’s made us a laughing stock all across North America!”

  Penney shrugged. “Section 6, Paragraph 3 of the collective agreement, and I quote: ‘Behaviour deemed by the administration to bring the university into disrepute will not be regarded as just cause for dismissal.’”

  “But …”

  “The union insisted. Otherwise they would never have agreed to the clause requiring professors to do two-minute advertising spots for Nike before each lecture.”

  “Can we suspend him?”

  “Yes … if you don’t mind a bloodbath over the freedom-of-speech issue. The union would hold an emergency meeting, organize a protest. They might even try to call a strike under Section 11 of the collective agreement. Then you’d have pickets in front of Graves Hall, television cameras—”

  “All right, all right.”

  “What about getting him to take a leave of absence?” suggested the Dean Responsible for Relations with Manufacturers of Feminine Hygiene Products.

  “That would be fine,” replied Penney. “But only if he agrees, and then you’d have to pay him his full salary.”

  “Ridiculous!” snorted Felicia Butterworth. “It would be like rewarding him for his lunacy.”

  “Not to mention claims by the union that you were setting some sort of precedent,” said Penney. “And that would open up the Pandora’s box of sabbaticals all over again.”

  “If only he’d committed a felony,” cracked the Dean Responsible for Relations with Manufacturers of Breakfast Food Products.

  “You mean when he was supposed to be lecturing?” asked Penney.

  “What?”

  “Well, say, for example, he hijacked a Brink’s truck.”

  “I wasn’t being seri—”

  “Because if he did it when he was supposed to be lecturing and you can prove that it was premeditated—that is, that he intentionally skipped his lecture—then you’d have a case against him.”

  “Then we could fire him,” commented Felicia Butterworth dryly.

  “No, then you could put a letter of reprimand in his file.”

  “A letter of reprimand?”

  “For neglect of duty, under Section 9, Paragraph 7 of the collective agreement. Three reprimands and he’d have to appear before a disciplinary panel comprised of one representative from the administration, one from the union, and one mutually agreed upon by the two parties.”

  “And then we could fire him.”

  “And then, if at least two of the representatives deem his behaviour contrary to the standards set out in Section 17 of the collective agreement, you could send a letter to the chair of the History department requesting he take the finding into account when awarding merit pay for the following year.”

  Felicia Butterworth stared at him. “So what you’re saying is, if he knocks over a Brink’s truck, and if it can be shown he did it when he was supposed to be lecturing …

  “Providing you can establish he made up his mind to skip the lecture before he decided to hijack the truck.”

  “… then he might not get a raise the following year.”

  “Oh, he’d get a raise. The collective agreement mandates a 3 percent cost of living increase for all faculty. But his merit pay would undoubtedly be below average … Unless, of course, he’d published a book during the previous year, in which case, History department guidelines dictate he must receive the maximum increase allowable.”

  “Then,” said Felicia Butterworth, her fury rising like lava in a volcano, “how do you ever get incompetents out of the classroom here?”

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” replied Penney cheerfully. “We just move them into the administration.” And the four deans at the table who had not been hired by Felicia Butterworth all smiled and nodded their heads in agreement.

  Felicia Butterworth rose from her chair and leaned forward on the table. “Now let’s be clear about this,” she declared in stiletto tones. “I was hired by the university for one reason. To implement a management strategy based on sound marketing principles. Animated cartoon arcades, centres for the study of carbonation, endowed chairs in the chemistry of adhesive tape do not fall from heaven. Mahogany like this,” and she slammed her palm down on the burnished finish of the table, “does not grow on trees. Corporate sponsors are the lifeblood of this university, the key to our very existence. Without them we’re no better than Berkeley or any other provincial backwater in the United States or Canada.”

  Then she addressed Harris Penney. “Notify Templeton at once that he’s suspended without pay.”

  “But the collective ag—”

  “Damn the collective agreement. The union has to deal with me now.” Then leaning forward once more she slowly took in all the people around the table, stabbing them one after the other with her eyes. “Let me be perfectly clear about this. At the end of the day I will get what I want. I always do. Those of you who were with me at Frito-Lay know what I mean.” And two women and one man at the table shuddered perceptibly.

  It all began with the moose, I suppose.

  IV

  It all began with the moose, I suppose. First, however, you will need some background information.

  Eight generations of Templeton men had gone to Yale, which is how he came to be named after the Ivy League university. Not that his mother had been at all happy with the choice. Born in the very proper neighbourhood of Rosedale just before World War I, the sixth and youngest daughter of a judge whose lineage traced back to the Family Compact, her reverence had been for Tudor England, not twentieth-century America. But the family fortune—and her own prospects—had slowly been washed away by her father’s thirst for Hiram Walker. Small, wilful, and painfully unattractive, she had long given up any thought of marriage on the day in 1953 when Forster Templeton arrived for dinner.

  He was in Toronto to receive an award from an international bankers’ association. “You must look up an old chum of mine from Upper Canada College,” a fellow member on the board at the country club had told him. And so he had. He was charmed by the old Victorian house on Dunbar Road and, over the course of the evening, fell in love with the genteel refinement of Rosedale life. He fell in love with her, too, although here the encroaching Alzheimer’s might have had something to do with it. They were married a few weeks later in Grace Church on-the-Hill, and after a honeymoon on his yacht in Long Island Sound, returned to his mansion in Greenwich to live.

 
It can hardly be said she was taken by surprise when he died just a year later, several weeks before Yale was born. After all he was eighty-nine at the time of their wedding. Still, she had never imagined he would be shot in a mugging. But then neither she nor anyone else who knew him had been aware he was down in Harlem mugging welfare recipients on those days he forgot to take his medication. None of which mattered in the end, because by the time of his death, she realized she had never much cared for him. She also thought Greenwich was gaudy, New Englanders vulgar, and not to put too fine a point on it, hated everything about the United States with an intensity impossible to put into words. And so she took her son back to Rosedale, staying just long enough to finish the paperwork related to her husband’s estate. Then, when her substantial inheritance had safely been transferred to Barclays Bank, she did what she had always dreamed of doing and moved to England.

  They settled in the old market town of Saffron Walden, named for the crocus cultivated locally during the late Middle Ages for use in dyestuffs and medicinal products. Quaint, untouched by industrial development, and dotted with Tudor cottages, the town had an obvious attraction for a woman who since childhood had immersed herself in the literature and music of the sixteenth century and liked to dress up as Elizabeth I. And based on an argument she had overheard between her parents when she was young, she was convinced that her ancestry traced back, through her mother’s grandfather, to the powerful house of de Mandeville, which had built a castle and abbey in the vicinity during the twelfth century. Years of research in genealogical records had failed to establish the family connection, however, or indeed to disprove her father’s Hiram Walker–induced assurances that her maternal great-grandfather was actually a Talmudic scholar from Lemberg who fled to Canada after being caught in bed with the rabbi’s wife.

  All of which I mention only to explain why Yale Templeton, descended on one side from a line of wealthy American bankers and on the other from a line of distinguished Canadian jurists, grew up on a quiet lane in a small town in England. Indeed, aside from a brief trip back to Rosedale to attend the funeral of his grandfather, he spent his entire childhood within twenty-five kilometres of Saffron Walden.