Craig Smith - Cold Rain

If a teacher is lucky, there’s always one student who can jumpstart a flagging discussion or, in my case, a flagging semester. That was Denise Conway for me, and in various ways I let her know I was proud of her.

Whether in response to my encouragement or because of her own unexpected excitement for all things literary Denise liked to drop by my office two or three times a week. She had an idea for one of the required papers and we talked through that. Another time, she wanted to talk about changing jobs. Did I have any ideas? Jobs? As in no more dancing? She was, she said, starting to feel like a piece of meat. I talked about student worker programs. One day, she came in looking exhausted. There had been trouble at the club the night before. The police had come. One of the patrons had gone to the hospital, one to jail. Walt was there. Walt had crawled under his table. I told her Walt wasn’t the man for a crisis. No argument there, but the student worker thing was looking better and better. I made a call across campus and got her set up to meet someone.

The next day Denise dropped in to tell me Buddy didn’t want her to quit her job at The Slipper. Could I believe that?

I made a point of asking her some hard questions about the relationship and what she thought the future might hold.

‘You know,’ I said finally, ‘when you’re into something like you are, a business like that, it feels like you don’t have options. People make you believe you can’t do something else. But you can do what you decide you want to do, Denise. It might cost. It might even bruise you, but you alone have the power to change your own life, if that’s what you want.’

Denise missed the next class. The day following that, I got a call from Leslie Blackwell in Affirmative Action.

Could I come across campus and talk to her?

We made an appointment for the following morning.

As a rule I didn’t talk much with Molly about what went on at school. It was my way of separating my realities, and she was okay with that. She knew Buddy Elder was taking my class, but not that he and I had squared off in my office. I told her Buddy’s stripper girlfriend was taking my Intro to Literature class but that was the extent of it. I certainly didn’t tell her I had been summoned to appear at the office of Affirmative Action. It was simply not Molly’s world.

She had no interest in it.

Affirmative Action operated under the control of the university president as an investigatory agency.

Through its work, the president’s office monitored every aspect of the university’s compliance to federal law regarding civil rights, including sexual discrimination.

Are departments hiring a racially and culturally diverse faculty? Are women treated without bias, provided with the same opportunities, paid according to the same scale as men? Affirmative Action’s mandate was to investigate, and naturally the office intruded into business that various professors and departments considered their own.

At that stage, however, most of us were used to investigations. Though it was a bit intimidating getting The Call, most of us had learned to pass it off as part of the modern landscape. Having been interviewed a couple of times in cases relating to Walt, I was actually used to it, and I had no reason to believe this would be any different. All the same, I did not know Leslie Blackwell and decided to check her out through the university website the evening before our appointment. I discovered she was an acting director and new to campus that fall, complete with a doctor’s degree in law. I recall thinking that might not be a good thing for Walt, and my first impression of Dr Blackwell the following morning confirmed it.

Leslie Blackwell was a beautiful woman, thus had endured more than her fair share of unwelcome advances. Young enough to want to nurture her career, entrenched enough in bureaucratic matters that she had confidence, she would be, I thought, the kind to confront threats of legal action head-on, and take Walt through every hoop, from complaint to early retirement. Poor Walt.

I had it figured almost perfectly. In fact, I only missed the object of Dr Blackwell’s new passion in life.

She placed me at the side of her rather imposing desk, smiled prettily and wasted no time informing me that two of my students, Denise Conway and Johnna Masterson, had charged me with sexual harassment.

While I tried to fathom what in the world had precipitated a complaint, Dr Blackwell informed me that it was her job to investigate, that she needed to ask me a few questions in an attempt to verify the statements of the two women, and that I should be aware that sexual harassment was a federal crime, punishable by imprisonment in a federal facility.

Leslie Blackwell’s queries came with all of the subtlety of a concussion grenade. Did I sometimes use the phrase bodacious ta-tas to describe female breasts? Of course not. Was I in the habit of talking about talent when I meant the woman had large breasts? Not at all. Had Denise Conway ever been in my office? Certainly. Did I talk about how much I liked her hair? I had commented on it once, as I recalled. Had we talked about the possibility of her dancing in the nude while I watched? Once, I believe. Maybe a couple of times.

I found myself crossing my legs and settling my hands squarely in my lap at this point. I expect Leslie Blackwell got that from a lot of men.

Had I ever been to a bar called Caleb’s with Denise Conway? Yes. Had we ever discussed the kind of movies she liked to see? Yes. Had I invited Johnna Masterson to my house? Yes. Had I invited other students? Of course. Had I ever told Buddy Elder I thought Johnna Masterson had extraordinary talent? I had. Had Johnna presented to the class a story called ‘Sexual Positions?’

Yes. Which was about underage sex? Yes. Was oral sex involved? A couple examples of it, as I recalled, neither to completion. Had I told the class it was delightful? No. I said it was funny as hell.

Did I refer to it, Johnna’s story, in later classes by title? I had. Had I talked to Walt Beery about Johnna Masterson’s breasts? The topic came up. Had the word, and excuse her please for being so blunt, tits come up? Yes, it usually did when I talked with Walt. And bodacious ta-tas? Walt said tits, I said the other. She scribbled excitedly. Hadn’t I denied using that word?

No. I wasn’t in the habit of using it. But sometimes I did use it?

‘Use what?’

‘The term bodacious ta-tas.’ It actually looked like it hurt her to say the word.

‘Depends,’ I said, doing my best Bill Clinton, ‘on how one defines sometimes.’

More notes. Had I tried to get Denise Conway to give up her job as a dancer, promising her I would arrange to get her something on campus in Work Study?

I said I had made a call to Work Study to help her set up an appointment. Had I ever asked Denise about her relationship with Buddy Elder? Yes. Did I ask if they lived together? Yes. Had I inquired about their living expenses, who paid for what? Yes. Had I ever suggested that Buddy Elder was in trouble in my class?

No. Had I asked her if the men she slept with were all pigs? Yes. Had I made jokes to Denise Conway about adultery? Yes. Incest? No. Had I told my class that in the Old Testament adultery applied only to married women, that married men sleeping with unmarried women committed no sin whatsoever? Yes.

Had I called it the Golden Age of Patriarchy? Guilty.

Had I ever made jokes about homosexual monkeys?

‘Chimps.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Homosexual chimps,’ I said, ‘tossing quarters on the shower floor.’

After a moment of murderous contemplation, Dr Blackwell asked me if I thought such humour was appropriate?