Cold Rain

Chapter 14

I wrote three different confessions for Gail to pass on to the committee. I tore each up in turn.

Finally, I found the defence I could live with and scribbled it out: ‘I am innocent of all wrongdoing.’

The next day I took it into Gail Etheridge’s office.

‘You want to type this out or just hand it over like this?’

Gail’s face showed no reaction. She simply stared at me. ‘I take it we are prepared for the consequences?’

‘I have a verbal statement as well.’

‘Great! Let’s see it.’

‘It’s a verbal statement, Gail. I don’t have anything written down.’

Gail looked at my one sentence defence sceptically.

‘Can you give me a rough idea of what you intend to say?’

I played the English professor. ‘I can,’ I said, ‘but I think I’ll wait until the defence and let you hear it then.’

‘I don’t like this, David.’

‘I like it, and that’s what counts.’

She urged me toward ‘a more comprehensive statement’ but I told her it didn’t get any more comprehensive than innocent of all wrongdoing.

We met the VP’s committee a couple of days later.

Gail made one last pitch as we went in. She thought it might be best if I didn’t say anything at all. She would speak to the issue of a complete lack of proof, the lawyer’s preferred method of pleading innocent.

By then I had steeled my resolve and shook my head like Tubs. ‘It’s my execution,’ I said. ‘I want to tell them I didn’t do this.’

The meeting did not feel like a trial. In fact, the vice president for academic affairs, Lou Morgan, assured me repeatedly, while not quite looking at me, that I was not on trial, nor were we in a court of law. The committee had examined the evidence, he said, and they had gathered here today to discuss it. I was free to call witnesses on my behalf, but this was not a forum for cross-examination. Furthermore, he said, the administration rejected our request to interview the two women who had originally filed the complaints against me. Their statements had been investigated and verified. There was no point in involving them in what was essentially now a disciplinary action.

As things developed the meeting involved a good deal of back and forth between the vice president and various members of the committee. One prof, who I remember had consumed a great deal of caviar at my party, wondered if it was appropriate that Leslie Blackwell was on the committee. She had collected the evidence. Shouldn’t it be for others to judge it? The vice president made it clear that Dr Blackwell was sitting on the committee as a non-voting member. Gail Etheridge asked for clarification. Was Dr Blackwell to provide guidance? Certainly. Guidance and clarification of law? Of course. Clarification of the evidence as well? That seemed only logical. Gail wrote this down for a future complaint, muttering to me as she did, ‘Imagine a trial in which the prosecutor sat with the jury during deliberations.’ I nodded thoughtfully.

We had already discussed due process. Any break in procedure causing fundamental unfairness in the process would be open season when and if we brought suit against the university.

Curiously, there were no witnesses for the university. This meant the evidence Dr Blackwell presented was the complete case. None of it could be contra-dicted by oral statements made directly to the committee, nor refuted by cross-examination.

Blackwell’s notes about her interview with me had me confessing to calling the breasts of Johnna Masterson bodacious ta-tas. When Gail Etheridge complained that I had said no such thing the vice president informed Gail that Dr Blackwell was not on trial. Gail swallowed her exasperation and tried to explain that the evidence itself was incorrect. Her client, she said, admitted to using the term without explaining the context of that usage. Dr Blackwell had either wilfully or unconsciously manipulated an honest response into an admission. A committee member asked in what context bodacious ta-tas would be acceptable.

Gail was ready for that one, ‘In the context you just used it,’ she said and scored nicely for our side. Another committee member asked if Gail meant to say Dr Albo had been discussing the expression and not a certain feature of the female anatomy. Gail explained that Dr Blackwell had failed to investigate that issue. Without the ability to cross-examine, she said, every piece of evidence put forward was subject to the investigator’s whim, and this was a perfect illustration of whimsy.

A second committee member pushed the issue. Was Dr Albo asserting that he used the phrase ‘in a technical sense?’

Gail finished the discussion with perfect deadpan:

‘I wasn’t aware that bodacious ta-tas had a technical sense, professor.’

Before the affronted professor could respond, the vice president suggested we move on. The committee could discuss that possibility in private.

It was a grim procedure for the very reason that it lacked judicial procedure. Material was not presented, then challenged. The case lay before the committee as a finished product, rather like a dead fish on the verge of rot. Hearsay and gossip passed for facts because the rules of evidence did not apply. Perish the thought that professors pretend at being lawyers. The committee members could speak whenever they chose to, thus directed the course of the hearing. As a result, there was a great deal of concern about the issue of faculty members performing sexual intercourse in their offices.

Rather to their astonishment they discovered the handbook did not address this issue. Instead of discussing the implications of that in my case, one of the committee members concluded, and they all nodded solemnly, the handbook should be rewritten. At about this point, Gail breathed pure rage, whispering to me,

‘These people are morons, David.’

I whispered back, ‘Welcome to my world.’

For nearly an hour, no one doubted the veracity of any of the charges or the credibility of any of the evidence. The chief concern was if such behaviour constituted sexual harassment. A private conversation with another professor, a professor helping a student leave the sex industry and take a Work Study job so she could continue school… it was not exactly time to bring in the feds. Dr Blackwell pointed out a passage in the diary of Denise Conway in which I threatened to fail Denise if she did not perform fellatio. A joke, Gail answered. Was it? Denise had admitted as much in the same passage. ‘Perhaps,’ Blackwell retorted, ‘Denise was trying to convince herself Mr Albo was joking.’

‘It’s Doctor Albo,’ Gail answered with a gratifying touch of outrage. Gail then went on to explain the difference between a complaint and the evidence supporting a complaint. ‘The committee is not free to rewrite the complaint of a student, much as certain non-voting members might desire it.’

Blackwell responded as Gail expected, introducing the concept of a hostile atmosphere. Having anticipated her opponent Gail now attempted to cross-examine Dr Blackwell as to the definition of atmos phere. She got as far as asking if a single remark in a private conversation with another professor constituted atmosphere when the vice president reminded her that this was not a trial. People could decide for themselves what constituted hostility toward women.

We all knew what a hostile atmosphere was when we saw it, didn’t we?

Shortly after this my moment arrived. I held up my statement and then placed it on the desk before me.

Dean Lintz, who sat on the committee, had to play fetch. He actually stopped on the way back to the table where the VP’s committee sat. Turning toward me with a look of astonishment, he said, ‘This is your statement?’

Dean Lintz had not seen such a compact statement since the days his high school English teacher made him read a haiku. I stayed seated and told him that I also wanted to say something. As I had not made copies, my single sentence made its way down the line of the committee members, gathering a look of reproach at every stop. They were quite certain no man is completely innocent, and concluded therefore I must be mocking them.

The vice president told me to proceed, cautioning me to be brief. Dean Lintz could not resist. He said verbal statements, according to the handbook, were supposed to be summations of the written statements.

If that was the case, he expected a very brief statement. There were a couple of smiles among the committee members, but most of them maintained the grim demeanour of the Salem patriarchs in their heyday.

I remained seated behind a little table, if only to conceal the accused. ‘It seems to me,’ I said in a conversational tone, ‘no one, least of all Dr Blackwell, has bothered to investigate the veracity of the diary of Denise Conway. The sole concern of this investigation has been whether the behaviour itself warrants disciplinary action. My position, however, is that I am innocent of all wrongdoing. Denise Conway’s diary is a fabrication first to last.’ I gave them a moment to consider this assertion. ‘If you believe me, then her complaints lose all credibility. Had the committee allowed us to call Ms Conway as a witness or to cross-examine her about her statements to Dr Blackwell, I believe we could have exposed her diary for what it is: an absolute lie. Since the committee chooses to turn this into a case of he said / she said, I can only tell you it is not true.

‘As this leaves you at something of an impasse on what turns out to be the critical issue of this investigation and as this is potentially a very serious matter, the possible dismissal of a tenured professor on the basis of an unsubstantiated accusation, I believe the solution is for Dr Blackwell to arrange a follow-up interview in which she asks a single question of Ms Conway: am I circumcised or not?’

‘I think,’ the vice president announced officiously,

‘that will be enough, Dr Albo.’

‘I’m not quite finished, sir.’

‘I believe you are.’

‘It’s a fair question,’ I said as calmly as I could.

‘According to her diary, Ms Conway got a close enough look. If anyone can answer the question besides my wife, she can!’

‘If you are determined to make a mockery of this proceeding-’

‘If you have no interest in the truth, you’re the one making a mockery of it!’ I shouted.

Having no gavel, the vice president slapped the table with the palm of his hand. ‘This meeting is adjourned!’

I stood up at this and pointed my finger at the man.

‘The evidence against me is a lie,’ I roared. ‘And I don’t care if you put a gun in my face, I’ll still tell you it’s a lie!’

Feeling as though the ghost of Tubs Albo had stepped into my shoes, I turned and walked directly to the nearest door. I never once looked back.

Gail Etheridge met me outside several minutes later and treated me to a grudging smile. ‘You’re beautiful, David. You really are.’

‘You think they’ll ask her?’

Gail shook her head and lit a cigarette. ‘Not a snow-ball’s chance in hell, but I guarantee you this, you’ll be the talk of campus by sunset.’