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Ben Esra telefonda seni bosaltmami ister misin?
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The next week I emitted about fifty letters with CVs and paper abstracts to a wide range of researchers in a very narrow slice of research. I met Lucy and Phil for lunch on Saturday, and Lucy asked, “So you’re off to the fair tomorrow?”“Yes.”“It’s a pure-bred cattle call. As I’ve told you before, I think…yes…You’re basically to show off the wares for the guys and gals like Hollywood starlets. Basically you have to prostitute yourself. Not literally, but almost literally. Remember: There’s a flood of PhDs on the market before you whose degrees and best days are four or five years old and losing ever more luster each year. You two will probably not get a job offer anywhere good even with my help, quite possibly no job offer at all, and this year is your best chance to actually get one. You can best understand it as the perfect embodiment of Marxism as run by Marxists who never actually had to make a Long March anywhere but the line to the government-academia teat.”Phil shook his head and smiled, “Taiwanese intellectuals.”She smiled back, “Are more cultured than you two will ever be, so show respect to your elders. —As I was saying, the Marxist elite has it cushy and sweet, and they run the system like a New Class by exploiting the committed cadres and low-ranking Party members in a system so exploitative it makes a sweatshop in the current PRC look like brain-dead American pseudo-intellectuals’ fairy tales about Swedish social democracy. They just mint new PhDs like hyper-inflationist ministers of finance and mouth words about social justice while not doing a damn thing to ensure social justice in their own bailiwick as otherwise unemployable academics flood the market with shoddy intellectual wares and crap research. They want intellectual grunt workers who mouth the Party’s latest slogan and don’t talk back.”I smiled, remembering other tirades as her peculiar smile spread until even she couldn’t contain the laughter at the end. “I can never be sure how serious you are when you get that look on your face.”She laughed and nodded. “You should hear me in Chinese! Verbal ability can paint pretty pictures no one believes, not even the artist, can’t it? It’s the secret to academic success, even in the sciences, alas, so take to heart the facts I told you and laugh at the rest. It’s sweet cynicism to make the pill go down better, because as western and westernized intellectuals, there’s nothing more intoxicating than slightly world-weary cynicism, is there?”We then dined and retired to her house, and eventually I left to launch myself into the cold world outside the harsh, oppressive, alienating poverty of what I now saw was the cozy academic womb of grad school to fight red in tooth and claw for a meal ticket and post-doc servitude that, if I was lucky, would lead to the first well-oiled rung of a tenure track.The job fair lasted five days and I went to every interview I could finagle. By the end of it, I was sick of the universe and returned home to crash on my couch for a day before calling Lucy.“I’m really busy right now and can’t see you. Maybe next week.”Surprised, even a little shocked, I hung up. I spent the weekend preparing more application materials as the first refusals starting seeping back to me. Sunday I crashed in dismay on my couch and woke up in the gray dawn of a wretched Monday. Feeling the need for friendship, I called Lucy but was sent straight to voicemail. I got up and checked my email and saw a note from her saying to meet her on Tuesday in her office at 10 AM sharp. I, of course, had absolutely no desire to see Phil and there was no one else worth bothering with my presence, so I took the day off to listen to music and unwind, and I slept and woke early. I had never seen Lucy so cold. She glared at me and said, “On time. Good. We have a short meeting.” She led me into her office, where two administrative drudges sat in wait.The first faced me and after introducing himself and his colleague said, “We went through your materials, and we found several discrepancies and omissions.”“Falsified data, quite simply,” Lucy added.They glared at her and said, “We have yet to make a determination on that bursa escort point, but we would like to inform you that we are starting a full investigation and you will have an opportunity to defend yourself when notified.” He handed me a card. “You will probably desire representation, so…you might take this under advisement.”Startled, I asked, “So what exactly are you considering?”“Whether to strip you of your doctorate, of course. Other penalties might not be necessary.”I sat there numb as they prattled more administrative weasel chat and took their leave. I looked at Lucy, who glared at me furiously. “You should leave. Forever,” she said.“I didn’t do anything.”“Bullshit. I saw the evidence. You used me. You lied through your teeth, faked evidence, and set me up to be the fall girl when it came out.”“No, I didn’t. Won’t you listen to me?”“I’ve had enough of manipulative scheming liars fucking with my mind for one lifetime. Once is enough, twice is too much! Get out. Do not come in this building again, and never contact me again. Never speak of what we have done. Forget it ever happened. It was a mistake, a very gross mistake, and the sight of you sickens me. Remember, if I so much as see you where you shouldn’t be, I’m calling the police.”I looked at her for one moment until her face flushed and she seemed on the edge of screaming, so I simply said, “I didn’t do it. Good-bye.”“Go and be gone with you.”I slunk out of the building before word came to expel me bodily, and to have something to do I went to the library and thought. And thought. And thought some more. I considered my options, which I realized was pointless without advice, and looked several times at Weasel No. 1’s card. Finally I called the number on it and made an appointment. The next morning I was shown into a drab office to meet a middle-aged woman whose looks had clearly faded as her life curdled in the maze of academic administration. She listened to my tale of woe and asked questions for an hour.She finally said, “Let me check your file. Fortunately for you, the mill grinds exceedingly slowly here, so you have plenty of time. However, you’re in limbo, you know. Proceedings have been started against you and you are essentially unemployable in academia with the black question mark they’ll automatically put beside your name if you apply anywhere. Any stipends you might still be drawing are frozen, and your university privileges are revoked. You’ll need to make plans to find a job somewhere; I suggest not using any references from the university. You’ll probably be restricted to blue-collar labor, so if you’re a typical academic I am truly sorry that I am not sorry at all that you might actually have to sweat for a living, but life sucks and then you die and doing something with your hands besides scratching your ass is a fate worse than death, I know.”“Whatever. Just give me an application form.”She warmed to me then and said, “That’s the spirit. I will be reviewing the records and seeing what options you have. I’m not optimistic about your chances, but we shall see. And remember, I am on your side.”“For how long?”She smiled sadly, “Only until you’re proved guilty. They have never put pressure on us to screw anyone over. We’re probably too powerless to be worth it, to be quite honest, but at least I can advise you if nothing else.” Two days later we met and she said, “I have to say, your chances are very slim. It’s almost airtight, the evidence they have against you.”“I recorded all my data in files as I generated it. It was automatic so I couldn’t have faked it…well, that way,” and I grimaced. “Perhaps a computer error? Faulty program?”She nodded, “That is a possibility. If you can find someone to help, I’d encourage you to pursue that option. He would need to get permission from us as well as you to access your files, which are frozen, and who knows what he could find in the computer system in this place? It’s several dozen legacy systems patchworked together by underpaid computer science undergrads doing the work as extra credit or punishment, but if you can find anyone brave and whip-smart enough…”She laughed hollowly and I sat up. “I think bursa escort bayan I can.”“I hope he’s good.”“She is.” Sally greeted me with a hug and a smile and said, “Who died?”“Me.”She stared for a second and said, “I was joking. What happened?”I told her the basic outline and she nodded as I filled in the details. She thought for a minute and said, “All right, I’ll help out. I’m sure it’s just that someone who skipped out of class the day that lesson came up screwed the pooch for you somewhere in the system. I can even think of two dozen candidates off the top of my head, but there are probably two hundred others who crapped in the system even worse. I’ll need a letter of permission, basically a limited power of attorney to represent you for all computer-related matters so the administration will let me dig around in things. You’ll be liable for any extra pay owing me beyond the basic schedule here…” and she slid over a worn sheet of figures, “But the period of payment is negotiable. I’m very flexible, just make sure you pay me some time before I retire.” The next Monday I met with her again and she looked at me fixedly. “This will be a problem. People hate you, you know. And we need to talk long and hard and openly about your personal business.”“That’s fine…though I don’t see why…”“Dr. Chang, she has tenure, right?”“Yes.”“So her future isn’t threatened by this. You were her lover then, weren’t you?”“One of them, yes. Why?”“One? One? Interesting. Because she hates you viciously, and it’s not just disappointment or feeling tricked. The way she speaks of you, I figured you had been intimate. But what do you mean by ‘one’?”“There were two of us.”“Did you two know about each other for long?”“We were an item, all three of us, for a few months.”She stared at me for a moment and said, “You’ve certainly broadened since we were together.”I smiled sadly, “Yes.”“Tell me about it. I need a time frame here, first of all.”I did so, and she took detailed notes, occasionally going astray for salacious details in full salacious detail. Finally she said, “So all three of you were doing…everything…in every possible incredible combination…like middle-aged divorcées always do…and…was it just the three of you?”“Most of the time.”After a long stare, she laughed and said, “So two men weren’t enough for her.”“Actually, we convinced her to let a woman join us.”She nodded, “Yes, we’ve all been there.”“Sounds like you’ve broadened too.”“Oh yes.” She smiled happily and said, “All right. Dates and times and names.”I gave her what information I could and she glared at the paper and said, “Mary…who?”“Just Mary. We met her by sheer chance in a bar.”“I see. You meet someone and fall into bed with them by sheer chance! No name, no phone number, no address, no occupation, no god-damn last name even?”“Nope.”“Idiots. How can you sleep with someone and not even know their last name? You’ve all been tested, right?”“Yes.”“Barn door. You’re lucky it didn’t hit you in the face. This time.” She shook her head and said very quietly, with a significant glance around, “Right, I’ll get started tomorrow. Remember, stay off campus and out of sight. Find a job and a hobby. I’d say find a new girlfriend, but it sounds like they drop namelessly into your lap just for the asking, so learn their names in the future, okay? And don’t tell anyone we were lovers back in high school, or my integrity will be called into question. I’ll be documenting everything and I’ll let you know as things come up.”We shook hands and she leaned in before I left and said, “Take care of yourself, and stay quiet about this. Your reputation will go straight to hell in a fucking Easter basket if they find you guilty, but until then it’s hush-hush and you don’t want to do or say anything that might hurt your reputation now or in the future. And really, I’m so sorry about Lucy. I liked her a lot even though she hates you, but remember, she thinks she has every reason to hate you. Just forgive her for it and make peace with the situation.”I nodded and she smiled. “And do you need your laptop? And can I get access to your link at your apartment this afternoon?”“Is that necessary?”“I’m escort bursa thorough. As you might remember.”We smiled at the memory of her learning about sex with me and teaching me as she went along, and she added, “And tell no one about me, even that you are involved with me in a professional capacity.”“Why?”“Just in case. I hate blabbering. Don’t, okay?”I nodded and she smiled, “Good man!” I went to the library for the day and found she had, as agreed, left my apartment key under a rock in the flower bed near my apartment door, and then I heard nothing from anyone for two weeks. I received a call from Sally on the same day I learned my father had gone into the hospital for heart trouble. Suddenly my troubles seemed not so much doubled as diminished by real life, and I went in a daze to Sally’s office the next day as I considered how quickly I could leave and what I needed to take and what to store.“Thanks for coming in on a Saturday.”She shrugged, “It’s a complicated case. I’ve been knee-deep in it. You brought your laptop?”I handed it over as I asked, “How is it complicated?”“You’d need a three-week course in the architecture of the computer network here to even begin to grasp the mind-altering up-fuckedness of the whole system. I think I found three spying systems on my second day delving around your department’s system, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s all a SNAFU after some scammer planted key trackers and other things throughout your department network. Thanks to that, I have full cooperation from the department to just look around at my leisure, and I swear, there’s so much…just…shit on stilts in there.”The starry look in her eyes disappeared and we laughed and she said, “Really, except for Dr. Chang they’re a little less hateful about you after some of the things I found, but they want to make sure anything like that could really have happened that way from illegal access…and if I can trace everything out to the guilty parties, the bonus will keep me in deep clover.”We went over the easier parts that she had found, and she asked more questions about the three of us and our foursome, and after she finally seemed to have satisfied her curiosity with every salacious detail, she said, “Wish I’d been there.”“I didn’t know you still care.”“Are you kidding? I love good porn!”“Whereas in high school, it was, what, unrealistic jerk fodder for guys unable to get a real woman?”“Lay off. It took, what? Two weeks? Three? of wheedling finally to get you to taste me.”“But at least I liked it straight off.”She smiled and gazed years into the past, and finally snapped back and said, “Mm, yes.” We walked down the hallway with staff pictures, and suddenly I stopped and stared. “Oh, hey.”“What?”“Who’s that?”I pointed at a picture of an awards ceremony and Sally said, “Mary Galloway. She’s a recent grad.”“She’s also really good in bed. With both men and women.”Sally stared and said, “Are you sure?” I nodded and she said, “That ice queen?!?”“What?”“Just the rumors. Huh. Amazing! I never would have thought of her doing that…” She was lost in thought for a minute and then a worried look crossed her face and disappeared. She then said, “So, again, I’m so sorry about your father. When are you leaving?”“Tuesday or Wednesday.”“I won’t be done with your laptop by then. I’ll contact you when I’m done. It might be a long while though.”I shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t really matter much now.”“Send me your address or an email when you get there or something.” However, life is not always so easy. I arrived a couple of days before he passed on, and for the next three months, I was buried in wrapping up his estate and his business matters, all complicated by great differences in state laws, wrangling with his widow and my mother over the pickings each demanded, both of them vicious and petty and cruel, and working part-time at a liquor store in the belief that if I saw winos every day I’d lose any desire to become one. I stashed my bequest and gritted my teeth and gladly left his old house to the widow and decamped for an apartment in a different town without a forwarding address so I would never have to see them for at least a year. And I then discovered that once the dragging business of death was finished, the dragging business of life was waiting patiently for me to get started so it could laugh at my puny efforts to make something worthwhile of myself.

Ben Esra telefonda seni boşaltmamı ister misin?
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