Behind the Walls of Ivy

When he'd completed as much of the unraveling as possible for the day, he returned to his office because he had one last chore to accomplish before he went home to confront Sylvia. Once he had finished he started to head home, but Perry Ryan suddenly stepped out of his office and hailed him. "Hey, Shale, did you get all your grades turned in on time?"

Shale heaved a sigh. He'd hoped not to run into Perry so he wouldn't have to get involved in their marriage. But now that he was face to face with the man, Shale decided that he had no choice. "I guess if I'm really his friend it's my responsibility to tell him," he thought as he walked into Perry's office and closed the door.

"What's up?" Perry asked, curious at Shale's solemn demeanor.

"Perry, I was in Eric Solveig's office yesterday evening," Shale began.

"And how is the Provost?" Perry asked carelessly, but Shale thought he saw something odd in Perry's eyes.

"Perry, I don't know any way to make this sound better so I'll just say it straight out: Solveig and Camille are having an affair."

His colleague just stared at him, and Shale was surprised at his lack of reaction. "Perry, I know this comes as a shock; maybe you don't even believe me. But they didn't know I was there and I was able to get them on video. I can show it to you if you want."

Perry began to rub his mouth while staring uneasily at Shale. After a long moment he said quietly, "No I don't want to see the video, Shale. I know about the affair. I've known about it since it started."

Now Shale was shocked. "You knew about it and you did nothing? What kind of husband are you?"

A fire rose in Perry's eyes, and for a moment Shale thought the man was going to come around his desk. Then the fire subsided and he slumped down in his chair.

"Shale, Camille and I have $723 in our bank account. The two of us owe close to $150,000 in student loans. By the time I make the monthly loan payment, pay our rent and send in the car payment, there's hardly anything left over from my paycheck.

"Camille has her PhD, so you'd think she could bring in enough money to help us get by. But as an adjunct professor she only earns a few thousand dollars for every course she teaches. And this semester the university only gave her one course.

"So when Eric Solveig came to Camille and offered to get her on full-time staff next year in return for her personal services, what do you think we did? I hated it, but I went along with it because there was no other way out for us."

He stared at his desk, ashamed to look Shale in the eye. "Camille hates it too. She says Solveig is a lousy lover, but she's doing it for us."

Shale thought back to the scene he'd glimpsed through the door of the Provost's office. From the moans of ecstasy he'd heard and the way she'd responded, he didn't think that Camille had been acting, but he kept his opinion to himself.

"I can only imagine what you must think of me, and Camille too, for that matter," Perry continued.

"I understand how life can lead people into places where there are no good options," Shale told him. "All I can do is hope things work out for the best for the two of you."

He started to leave, and then turned back. "And don't worry: I won't share what you've told me with anyone."

As Shale trudged across campus to his parking space, he felt slightly sick to his stomach. "My life doesn't have any good options either," he thought to himself, "but I could never prostitute my wife, no matter how difficult the situation. Of course, I won't have a wife soon, so that's a problem I won't have to face," he thought bitterly.

It was late in the afternoon when he got to their apartment building. As he walked to the door, he realized he'd have to move before long. The place was too large and too expensive for him to live there alone.

Not surprisingly, Sylvia wasn't home, so Shale went rummaging through the refrigerator for something to eat. There was almost nothing inside; finally he settled for scrambling the last two remaining eggs. After a meager serving of scrambled eggs and toast washed down with the remainder of an old bottle of wine, he sat down on the couch and prepared to wait. He thought it was likely that she'd come home because the university calendar indicated that President Jefferson would be speaking at a fundraiser, and Shale was pretty sure that Magnus would have his wife with him, not Sylvia.

Even so, he was startled when the key turned in the lock and Sylvia strode in. She in turn seemed equally surprised to find Shale sitting there, but she recovered quickly. "I see the prodigal son has returned home," she said sarcastically.

"I don't want to cross swords with you, Sylvia, not now. I'm here because I wanted to tell you in person that I'm filing for divorce. You'll probably be served with the papers early next week."

She walked over to a chair on the other side of the room and sat down. Even given all that had happened, Shale couldn't help but notice how good her legs looked in her pencil skirt.

"And just what has brought on such a drastic step?" she asked coolly once she was settled.

Shale looked at her evenly. "No more games, Sylvia. I'm divorcing you because you're having an affair with Magnus Jefferson."

To his surprise she gave a derisive laugh. "You really are something, you know that? First I'm having an affair with the Provost, now you think I'm having an affair with the President. Do you know how crazy that sounds, Shale?"

"I was at President Jefferson's office last night. I saw the two of you together."

"That's impossible, she snapped. "You're making all this up."

Instead of replying, he walked over to the television and switched it on, along with the DVD player. Then he pressed the remote and suddenly the video of her giving a blow job to the President filled the screen. He let it run until he saw Sylvia smilingly swallow Jefferson's cum.

At first Sylvia simply stared at the screen in surprise; as she realized what she was seeing her face went pale. But when Shale stopped the video, she became defiant. "Aren't you the hotshot detective?" she sneered. "Are you proud of yourself: trespassing, taking dirty pictures, sneaking around like a peeping tom?"

"No," he said, "all I am now is curious. What happened, Sylvia? I thought we had a good marriage. I thought we had the same goals and dreams. How did we get to this?" he asked, pointing at the frozen image of Sylvia licking her lips.

"You really want to know?" she asked, her face distorting with anger. "Things changed when I started working for Eric. It didn't take long to learn how the people in the administration look down on the faculty. He would make little jokes about their quirks, their petty rivalries, and their obsession with things that didn't have any significance in the real world. To people in the administration, the faculty are little more than spoiled over-educated children.

"Then when I began to do work for Magnus I started to meet the real movers and shakers: billionaire donors who fund the university, captains of industry with big research grants to offer, government officials who need advice. Those are the kind of people that Magnus rubs shoulders with every day, while you're stuck in a dusty lab teaching bored students the difference between sedimentary from igneous rocks.

"What's worse, I realized you loved it all, that you would be content to bury yourself for the rest of your life. The closer I worked with Magnus, the more I admired his drive, his ambition and his influence. When we became lovers, I saw a way to get out of your pathetic little world and into something so much bigger and better."

Shale looked at her like she was some unknown specimen under a microscope. Was this the woman he'd married? Had all this envy and insecurity he was seeing now been there all along, or had it only come to the surface since they'd come to the university? "I guess it doesn't matter, either way," he thought sadly.

She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "If you want to file for divorce, be my guest. You're just saving me the trouble of doing it myself. All it means is that Magnus and I will be able to be together that much sooner. He's planning on leaving his wife right after graduation, and as soon as the divorce is final, I'll become Mrs. Magnus Jefferson."

He stared at her a moment. Then in a flat voice he said, "There's something else you need to see." With that, he pressed the PLAY button again, and now it was Margaret Jefferson's voice that came through the speakers.

Shale didn't even look at the screen; instead, he watched Sylvia's face intently. At first there was a look of disbelief as she saw and heard the conversation that had taken place after she'd left the President's office. As she listened to Jefferson's words, Shale saw her confidence crumble and shock grow in her eyes. When the video abruptly stopped, what was left of her composure disintegrated and she began to sob.

Shale stood up, ignoring her tears. "I'm leaving now. You can stay here tonight, but you need to be gone by the time graduation is over. I don't know where you'll go - that's not my problem." He picked up the bag that he'd packed and started toward the door, but then stopped. "However, I wouldn't recommend trying the President's mansion," he said bitingly. As he walked out the door, Sylvia screamed.

Shale drove back over to the graduate student dorm. When he knocked on the door, Mosa quickly answered and put her arm around him as he walked in. "How did it go?" she asked sympathetically.

"As bad as you would expect," he said.

Saturday morning was graduation day. The joke among the faculty was that the only valid excuse for missing graduation was to phone in dead. Shale didn't want a strike against his hopes for tenure so he reluctantly donned the required academic regalia. Wearing the golden yellow cape that designated Science over the black robe made him feel like some grotesque bumblebee, but tradition outweighed taste in such matters.

When he arrived at the university, the great quadrangle had been covered with rank after rank of folding chairs arrayed in front of a large platform erected for the faculty and speakers. Looking at the steep steps leading up to the stage, Shale could only hope that none of the new graduates suffered a spill trying to climb that last barrier to their degree.

The weather was perfect and the quadrangle was rapidly filling with friends and families. A small platform had been erected in the midst of the crowd with a videographer perched on top to make a continuous record of the entire ceremony. A photographer wandered about taking stills and candids for the university web site. Even in his dark mood, the spectacle still impressed Shale.

When Pomp and Circumstance finally played, the faculty marched in, mounted the stage and were seated. Shale saw Perry seated several spaces away, but the man steadfastly refused to look in his direction. Then the graduating classes followed, filling their designated rows in front of the stage. When everyone was finally in place and seated, President Jefferson rose to commence the proceedings.

Despite his contempt for the man, Shale couldn't help admire the way the President's opening remarks deftly wove tradition and formality together with a little knowing humor. "The bastard would make a good political candidate," he conceded. "Hell, that's probably already part of his master plan," he thought.

Next the President launched into an extended metaphor about the compact between student and university. "Today the students before us have kept their part of the bargain by fulfilling the requirements for their degrees, and we, the faculty and administration, have kept our promise by delivering a world-class education," he pontificated, pausing to emphasize his point.

In that momentary pause a shrill voice near enough to the podium to be picked up by the microphone shrieked, "You're lying!"

Some in the crowd tittered, and Jefferson looked around in amazement, unable to believe that someone had dared interrupt him. His hasty scan found no source of the outburst, so he tried to resume. "As I was saying..."

"You're lying!" came the scream again. "You didn't keep your promise to me!"

People on stage and in the audience began rising and craning their necks to try to see what was happening. Jefferson's head swiveled around again, and this time he focused on the photographer who had been crouching onstage snapping pictures.

Shale peered between two of his fellow professors to get a better look and gasped. "That's Sylvia!" he realized in astonishment. She was wearing jeans and a hoody with her long hair tucked under it, and with the camera in front of her face neither Magnus nor Shale had recognized her.

As the President gaped at her in shock, she stood up and stepped toward him. When she pulled the hood off her head, he gasped as he too recognized her.

"Sylvia, what are you doing? This isn't the time or place..." he started in a low voice, but the microphone caught every word.

With a cry of rage Sylvia lifted the camera over her head and smashed it to the floor of the platform. The lens shattered and rolled across the stage as the crash reverberated through the speaker system. The audience gave an audible gasp.

"I will not be thrown away like some unwanted toy," Sylvia cried.

The campus police had been stationed at the outskirts of the crowd at the start of the ceremony. Now Shale spotted several of them trying to make their way to the stage, but the aisles crowded with spectators impeded their progress. One of the officers managed to get near the stage, but Sylvia caught sight of him. Quickly she reached into the camera bag slung over her shoulder and pulled out a pistol.

"That's Annika's gun!" Shale realized with dismay. He'd forgotten all about it.

"Get back!" Sylvia yelled at the campus cop. "Don't try to stop me. I will have my say!"

The audience at the back of the quadrangle couldn't see what was happening, but those nearest the stage did and shouts began to ring out: "She's got a gun!" Like a wave receding from the beach the crowd scrambled to back away from the stage.

Sylvia brandished the pistol in Jefferson's general direction as she turned toward the audience. "He lied to me. He promised he was going to leave his wife. He said he was going to marry me!" she cried in a wild voice.

Jefferson stood there as if paralyzed, gripping the podium for support. Now the crowd had quieted somewhat, trying to hear what was being said. Hundreds of cellphones were held aloft as onlookers tried to capture a record of the spectacle occurring before their eyes.

Suddenly, to everyone's further astonishment, a female professor stood up, tears streaming down her face, and yelled, "He promised he'd marry me too!" Sylvia's head jerked around in surprise until she spotted the woman who'd spoken.

Then another female faculty member jumped to her feet. "He promised me I'd get tenure if I slept with him!" she yelled angrily, pointing an accusing finger at Jefferson.

Then a young woman seated among the graduating class stood up on her chair. "He promised me he'd write off my student loans!" she yelled.

The crowd gasped at each outburst, transfixed by the drama unfolding before them, wondering what would happen next.

As each new voice rose to join the other accusers, Sylva's head had swiveled back and forth as though watching some bizarre tennis match. Now she snapped back around to confront Jefferson. "You bastard!" she screamed. "You've been lying to all of us."

Jefferson held his hands out toward her and took a step in her direction. "You've got to let me explain, Sylvia. It's not how it looks."

"Get back!" she screamed, gesturing violently with the pistol. The gun went off with an enormous bang that echoed over the quadrangle, amplified by the speaker system. Instantly screams rang out as people dove for cover. Jefferson stood there for a moment with a shocked look on his face. Then he reached down and touched the chest of his academic robe. When his fingers came away stained crimson, his face took on a look of confusion; then he slowly crumpled to the platform.

From his vantage point at the rear of the stage, it looked to Shale as though the entire quadrangle was in motion as people tried desperately to get away from the shooter. Panic-stricken people fell over chairs and tripped over each other in their quest for distance and safety. On stage, members of the faculty shoved one another as they scrambled down the stairs at the back of the platform. Several of them were pushed off the side and fell heavily to the ground.

In all the chaos, Shale found himself trying to make his way to the podium. A voice inside him kept urging him to flee like the others, but his sense of responsibility kept him moving forward. "I've got to try to stop this," he thought as he stepped toward Sylvia.

She was crouched over Jefferson's body. "What have I done?" she kept crying to herself.

"Sylvia!" Shale yelled over the din, and the distraught woman looked over her shoulder at him. Then she caught sight of a security officer scrambling up the stairs on the other side of the platform. She glanced once more at Shale with an expression of resignation, then turned back toward Jefferson. As Shale reached to grab her, she slipped the barrel of Annika's pistol into her mouth and pulled the trigger. There was a muffled explosion and a sticky mix of blood and brain tissue sprayed over Shale.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The story captivated the news media for weeks. The initial shooting and the panic it caused were sensational enough, but the story kept getting uglier and uglier as the investigations began. Not only had Magnus Jefferson been having illicit and inappropriate relations with employees and students of the university, but so, it was soon discovered, had his wife. Worse, many of those relationships were induced by offers of money or privileges; some had been coerced by threats of reprisals. Then it came out that Eric Solveig, the Provost, had acted as a sort of sexual procurer on campus, identifying potential victims and steering them to Jefferson or exploiting them himself. Those predations had apparently gone on for a number of years. Equally damning was the revelation that others in the administration had been aware of what was happening and had done nothing.

Desperate to try to salvage its reputation, the university demanded the resignation of virtually everyone in the upper level of administration. The trustees met and subsequently issued an abject apology on behalf of the institution. They also decided that Elliot Hall, the scene of such debauchery, should be torn down and another facility designated as the administration building.

None of these efforts, of course, were successful in limiting the scandal. A screen capture from the videographer's camera of Jefferson staring at his bloody fingers became the symbol for the "Graduation Day Massacre." The photo of the student standing on her chair became a meme for sexual harassment. Headline writers endlessly alliterated "president," "provost," "predator" and "pervert". Ultimately, the university wound up retiring those titles and switching to "chancellor" and "vice-chancellor of operations".

Knowing that a long trial could well keep the disaster in the public eye for years, the university quickly established a special fund to settle claims by the victims. Funding the trust wound up making a considerable dent in the university's multi-billion dollar endowment.

Shale's attorney was able to negotiate a special settlement with his employer. In exchange for a seven-figure payout, the university bought up Shale's contract and he agreed to leave the school. Shale couldn't blame them for not wanting to have him around - he would have been a constant reminder of that whole dreadful episode. For that matter, he had no desire to be an ongoing source of whispers and jokes on campus.