It had all started innocently enough. A faculty brunch of ordinary proportions save for the invitation of the new students. An open bar guaranteed the competition would be fierce. My postdoc and I were seated at a table on the patio so we could observe from a safe distance, obscured by the fronds.
We dressed for the occasion. I had picked out fresh sweatpants and a short-sleeved Oxford, a row of pens in the pocket protector clearly marking me as an alpha male. My postdoc wore Birkenstocks and camo shorts, the cargo pockets bulging with fresh hors d'oeuvres. His t-shirt was emblazoned with the silhouette of an exotic dancer. Underneath, text read I only got a Ph.D. to impress chicks. The stress of early rising had exacerbated a chronic ptosis, lending a lecherous sheen to his countenance.
Workstudies had taken to giving us a wide berth, which was making drink renumeration problematic. We were falling victim to an unspoken prejudice of the worst kind. Legitimate film may paint university faculty as perverse beasts preying on the supple flesh of the undergraduate, but those of us working under the keen eye of human resources knew the nubile coed for what it truly is. Their fruit was not forbidden; it was unripened. Like violins, Scotch, or albacore, it could not match the pleasures proffered by a seasoned professional.
No, the true perversity on display here was of a different sort. The deans had arrived. There is nothing more irresponsible and depraved than an academic well past his creative prime. Each had become a shell of his former self, a sad totem of comb over and bad tweed. Their smooth mannerisms betrayed something unspeakable lurked on the inside. It was as if they were once giants, but their heads and frames had been shrunk to mortal size by a ghastly voodoo. Now they were nothing more than yes men for the money changers, pining for the glory days of discovery and relevance. The sort of small bureaucrats who would offer a plump baby to save their own hide when the barbarians came over the walls. In ten thousand years their descendants will be surfacing on moonless nights to take our livestock, returning with them to their underground lair for experiment and companionship.
"Heads up," my postdoc mumbled, consonants visible over the top of his daiquiri like tiny cumulonimbi. "Gerbil glover at twelve o' clock."
"Hush," I said. "You'll bring them down on us." But it was too late. By the time I glanced up, we had been jumped.
It was none other than my department chair. He had broken away from a gaggle of undead, proceeding in a straight line from there to here. I tried to maneuver my postdoc to take the blow, but he had already fled. They had a history, those two.
"I didn't see your grant submission at OCG," the chairman said, showing his incisors. "The deadline is Friday, you know."
Any response whatsoever brought with it certain damnation. Of course I answered immediately. We're scientists. Contemplation is for the weak.
"I'll have the final draft there presently," I said through a clenched smile. "Not to worry, chief. This one's in the bag."
The rat bastard had set me up. Woozy on cheap campus single malt, my defenses lowered. I had been broadsided by karma, cosmic revenge for a past transgression too involute to contemplate.
It was a solemn duty to inform my postdoc of the pending disaster at earliest opportunity. This arrived later in the week. I found him at the bench, carefully shaving the expiration dates off our chemicals using an enormous Bowie knife.
"Listen," I said. "They're on to us. The fascists are expecting a grant submission by Friday. Under ordinary circumstances I would say we set the building on fire and blame the lax building codes, but this time our backs are to the wall. Honor is on the line!"
My postdoc seemed unfazed by my urgency. I imagined a similar calm on the faces of the Triceratops when that great flaming rock came screaming across the Cretaceous sky, insufficiently informed to understand their reign had just come to an end.
"What kind of a grant is this?" he asked, drawing dark hosiery out of his sandals.
"An R01. The richest of the rich. The kind of grants climate scientists fake data to get so they can buy summer homes in the Hamptons. It's that kind of money."
A lesser man might have pondered the alternatives, or the consequences. But this was no time for meekness.
"As your postdoc, I advise you to buy a new laptop and get off campus for 48 hours."
"We can buy a MacPro AirBook," I replied in haste.
"What's that?"
"Top of the line," I explained. "It comes with more RAM than the entire country of Denmark. The CPU heat sink is the size of a ferret. It can attach USB devices against their will and the WiFi is mutagenic at sixty paces. It only costs eighteen thousand dollars with a student ID."
"Denmark? Do we need that much RAM?"
"Absolutely."
"I'll call the bookstore."
Continue to Part III
We dressed for the occasion. I had picked out fresh sweatpants and a short-sleeved Oxford, a row of pens in the pocket protector clearly marking me as an alpha male. My postdoc wore Birkenstocks and camo shorts, the cargo pockets bulging with fresh hors d'oeuvres. His t-shirt was emblazoned with the silhouette of an exotic dancer. Underneath, text read I only got a Ph.D. to impress chicks. The stress of early rising had exacerbated a chronic ptosis, lending a lecherous sheen to his countenance.
Workstudies had taken to giving us a wide berth, which was making drink renumeration problematic. We were falling victim to an unspoken prejudice of the worst kind. Legitimate film may paint university faculty as perverse beasts preying on the supple flesh of the undergraduate, but those of us working under the keen eye of human resources knew the nubile coed for what it truly is. Their fruit was not forbidden; it was unripened. Like violins, Scotch, or albacore, it could not match the pleasures proffered by a seasoned professional.
No, the true perversity on display here was of a different sort. The deans had arrived. There is nothing more irresponsible and depraved than an academic well past his creative prime. Each had become a shell of his former self, a sad totem of comb over and bad tweed. Their smooth mannerisms betrayed something unspeakable lurked on the inside. It was as if they were once giants, but their heads and frames had been shrunk to mortal size by a ghastly voodoo. Now they were nothing more than yes men for the money changers, pining for the glory days of discovery and relevance. The sort of small bureaucrats who would offer a plump baby to save their own hide when the barbarians came over the walls. In ten thousand years their descendants will be surfacing on moonless nights to take our livestock, returning with them to their underground lair for experiment and companionship.
"Heads up," my postdoc mumbled, consonants visible over the top of his daiquiri like tiny cumulonimbi. "Gerbil glover at twelve o' clock."
"Hush," I said. "You'll bring them down on us." But it was too late. By the time I glanced up, we had been jumped.
It was none other than my department chair. He had broken away from a gaggle of undead, proceeding in a straight line from there to here. I tried to maneuver my postdoc to take the blow, but he had already fled. They had a history, those two.
"I didn't see your grant submission at OCG," the chairman said, showing his incisors. "The deadline is Friday, you know."
Any response whatsoever brought with it certain damnation. Of course I answered immediately. We're scientists. Contemplation is for the weak.
"I'll have the final draft there presently," I said through a clenched smile. "Not to worry, chief. This one's in the bag."
The rat bastard had set me up. Woozy on cheap campus single malt, my defenses lowered. I had been broadsided by karma, cosmic revenge for a past transgression too involute to contemplate.
It was a solemn duty to inform my postdoc of the pending disaster at earliest opportunity. This arrived later in the week. I found him at the bench, carefully shaving the expiration dates off our chemicals using an enormous Bowie knife.
"Listen," I said. "They're on to us. The fascists are expecting a grant submission by Friday. Under ordinary circumstances I would say we set the building on fire and blame the lax building codes, but this time our backs are to the wall. Honor is on the line!"
My postdoc seemed unfazed by my urgency. I imagined a similar calm on the faces of the Triceratops when that great flaming rock came screaming across the Cretaceous sky, insufficiently informed to understand their reign had just come to an end.
"What kind of a grant is this?" he asked, drawing dark hosiery out of his sandals.
"An R01. The richest of the rich. The kind of grants climate scientists fake data to get so they can buy summer homes in the Hamptons. It's that kind of money."
A lesser man might have pondered the alternatives, or the consequences. But this was no time for meekness.
"As your postdoc, I advise you to buy a new laptop and get off campus for 48 hours."
"We can buy a MacPro AirBook," I replied in haste.
"What's that?"
"Top of the line," I explained. "It comes with more RAM than the entire country of Denmark. The CPU heat sink is the size of a ferret. It can attach USB devices against their will and the WiFi is mutagenic at sixty paces. It only costs eighteen thousand dollars with a student ID."
"Denmark? Do we need that much RAM?"
"Absolutely."
"I'll call the bookstore."
Continue to Part III
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