I keep the things I take in a chest in a secret place and visit them sometimes. I think I’m wrong but I can’t help it. And, anyway, nobody gets hurt that bad.
There were hundreds of sheets tacked, pinned and pasted to the walls and trees, announcement boards and lampposts near the broadsides: many more confessions than there had been people in the class.
John realized that his assignment had started an instant craze among students who were already deeply disturbed by the allegations against their professors.
Very few were out and about on the campus that day. John could hear the whisper of sheets in the breeze calling out to whoever would listen: testaments of young people finally able to admit secrets that were worms in their hearts.
“Professor,” Theron James called when John came through the automatic doors of the student recreation center.
“Dean James,” said the deconstructionist killer.
“Are you ready?” James asked, taking John by the arm.
“Absolutely.”
This was the first time he and the dean had touched except to shake hands. The intimacy was the broad-shouldered academician’s way of explaining the importance of the situation.
“The president will be introducing you,” James said.
“I thought this was Eubanks’s show?”
“It was decided that since she was listed on the broadside her introducing you might taint the way people heard your words,” Theron said guiding John by the elbow. “There are monitors set up throughout the center, in the library and in all the offices. Almost everyone on campus will hear you.”
“And the Platinum Path?” John asked.
Theron stopped, his fingers clenching John’s biceps. The scarred scholar looked his protégé in the eye and said, “Yes... that’s right.”
They continued their walk toward the auditorium.
John noticed that the aisles and halls of the recreation center were crowded with people. Students and faculty, administrators and maintenance staff were standing around talking and watching.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m going to say?” John asked Theron as they approached the closed doors of the auditorium.
“Certainly not.”
“Why?”
“This is your battle to win or lose, Professor Woman. I wouldn’t dare interfere.”
Saying this, the dean knocked on the auditorium door. A burly student looked out, then admitted James and his charge. John recognized the big sophomore, he’d taken D-History 101 in John’s first semester at NUSW.
“Carlyle,” John said, reaching for the name. “Francis Carlyle.”
The glowering student suddenly smiled.
“Glad you’re doing this, Professor,” he said. “People need something to hang on to.”
Down toward the stage, on the right side of the center row, sat the college president and Willie Pepperdine. Luckfeld wore an off-white gabardine suit and Willie a close-fitting midnight blue sports coat and jeans. His yellow shirt was buttoned to the neck but he wore no tie.
When John and Theron approached both men stood.
“Glad you decided to do this, John,” Luckfeld said holding out a welcoming hand.
Willie patted John’s shoulder. “I’m surprised Eubanks had the smarts to deal you in.”
“She didn’t have much choice,” John said.
“We were thinking that you should wait backstage until the room fills,” Luckfeld suggested. “I’ll do the introduction and then you can come out.”
“I don’t think so,” John countered. “I should be up onstage waiting for them and then, when everyone is seated, I’ll just get into it.”
“That sounds right,” Luckfeld agreed after a moment’s meditation, “more immediate.”
“One thing, Colin,” John said to the president.
“What’s that?”
“Any truth to these allegations?”
“No,” he said, with a grin. “Not a one.”
John nodded and moved toward the side-stair that led up to the stage.
This time there was an oak lectern again but no table or Containment Report trunk; no three-screen slide show or slow-moving message from Brother of George.
John took his place behind the lectern and said aloud, “You can let them in,” to the four young men who had taken their places at the doors.
As the audience filed down the aisles John thought about the walk across campus, the yellow confession sheets, Chapman Lorraine (of course), his father and how Detective Colette Margolis would wrestle him to the floor in a secret room the police kept for recreation. He wondered how he had maintained sanity in a life that was almost completely separate from the world in which he lived.
People made their way among the aisles and pews. There were students alongside the faculty and others. A few men and women with telephoto cameras stood at the back of the auditorium and a student camera crew was there to film the talk.
When a shadow moved above his head John saw a microphone boom lowering. It was like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle dropped into place at the end of a rainy afternoon.
The obedient audience went directly to their seats in hushed anticipation.
He looked out upon the thousand and more faces and the hush turned to silence.
“We have come here today not to be lectured to or addressed but rather to look inside ourselves to see what it is that makes us possible,” John said without referring to the speech that was still folded in his breast pocket. “That’s how I was going to start this address, with words that were smart and vague enough to be a balm for the problems that bring us here, words to deflect the recriminations brought to bear on the walls and halls of this institution. If I could get us to look at our own needs and failings then maybe we could forget.
“But in truth we will not disremember anything or absolve anyone. Human beings hold grudges long past their expiration dates. They wage wars in the names of their great-great-grandfathers and over borders long ago redrawn, yelling out battle cries in languages that are not the tongues of the original combatants.
“We are, all of us, ready to hate and fight back. We despise in free form, casting our gaze from one poor victim to the next. Thieves, child molesters, murderers and liars fill social media platforms and newspapers, TV reports, talk radio and rumor. We remember who murdered Julius Caesar and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. We hate people even after they have died and this spite lives on past our own deaths.”
John stopped for a moment to look at his audience.
“We tell ourselves that we are better, that we would stand up against oppression and die for the rights of our fellow citizens. Most of us wouldn’t but even if we did who would profit by it? Our fates were written long ago in our stars, our trilling blood. There’s no escape, no justice, no respite.
“We have seen on shiny, indestructible yellow posters the accusations against members of our community. If you believe what they say, our university is a den of thieves, especially the professorial class. But how could this be true? Even if you forget that every employee of this school is vetted by the institution, the state, and the departments they serve. Even if you forget that the first rule of law in this United States is innocent until proven guilty. Even if you ignore the fact that you have been given no proof of wrongdoing — still it is unbecoming of you and the perpetrators of this assault to question a fellow traveler who, through no fault of his or her own, is following the same mortal and imperfect path as the rest of us.”
The written speech now forgotten, John stopped again to look from side to side. The origin of this talk brought a smile to his lips. He was a killer, a guilty man defending the accused. The contradictions felt right.