The Hanging

by Wendy Hornsby

  The campus response was a universal “That’s fucking stupid” when new building and earthquake retrofitting continued while education spending declined. And, increasingly, the college president, Park Holloway, was the target for their anger.

  “Here we go again, inciting to riot!” My Uncle Max came out from under the pergola that fronted the administration building, arms held wide to us. I didn’t know how long he had been watching the activity on the quad, but from the big grin on his face it had been long enough to hear Kate.

  “Jesus, does it never end?” he said as Kate walked into his embrace and kissed his smooth-shaven cheek. “How many times have I bailed out you two already?”

  “Hey, Max.” Kate smiled up into his rosy face, gave him a last pat on the back and took a step back. “Thanks for coming.”

  “As if I could stay away. Nice to see you, Professor.” As he talked with Kate, he reached one arm out to reel me in.

  “How’s my girl?” he asked, planting a wet kiss on my forehead.

  “Just peachy,” I said, stretching up on tiptoes to return the favor, catching him under the fleshy chin. “You know we’d never start trouble without calling you, Uncle Max. It just wouldn’t be right.”

  “Hah!” he exclaimed with faux disdain. “I should be so lucky. Never a moment’s rest.”

  My uncle was my dad’s baby-half brother, as dark and round as Dad had been fair, tall and lanky. He was only a few years older than my older brother and sister, so he was as much big brother to me as he was uncle, especially after my brother Marc died. A noodge, an infuriating tease, and my head cheerleader, always.

  “Ready to beard the lion in his den?” Kate asked.

  Max patted his breast pocket. “All set. If things go well, then we all go to lunch, no harm, no foul, right? If not, I have notice of intention to sue, and a signed temporary injunction against Mr. Holloway from either preventing the installation of Sly’s work or removing it after installation.”

  “Temporary,” I said. “How long is temporary?”

  “Until we haul Mr. Holloway into court.” He looked from me to Kate. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Kate caught my eye. “See why we bring him along?”

  “I thought it was because he always picks up the lunch check.”

  “That, too.”

  When we went inside, I was surprised to see a woman behind the reception counter because on Fridays there was no receptionist anymore. But when she raised her head, I saw it was Joan Givens, director of the Foundation, the college’s fund-raising auxiliary.

  “Ah, Mr. Duchamps,” she said, addressing Max as she rose. “You found them.”

  Joan pressed a thick manila file folder tight against her small chest as she walked around the counter to join us. I thought that she might be disappointed that Kate and I had arrived. Couldn’t blame her. My uncle was charming and interesting and a great big flirt; Joan fairly glowed from the pleasure of his company. She was an attractive, intelligent woman, maybe edging past fifty, tall and slender and single. My uncle could do far worse.

  “Shall we go up?” she asked.

  As the others started up the stairs, I stepped into the enormous stairwell and pulled a video camera out of my bag. I turned it on, focused on the ceiling two floors above and shot some test footage.

  “What’s up, camera girl?” Max asked, leaning over the banister halfway up the first flight to check on my progress.

  “See that apparatus on the ceiling?”

  He craned his neck, following the direction my camera was aiming. “I do.”

  “It was installed last week to support Sly’s sculpture.”

  Empty, the device looked like nothing more than a metal eyelet in the center of a decorative ceiling plate, waiting for a chandelier.

  “What is that, twenty-five, thirty feet high? How are you going to get the sculpture up there?”

  “That’s an electronically operated cable that drops down—the switch is in a panel behind this door.” I tapped the locked cupboard door low on the inner curve of the stairwell wall.

  “The sculpture is being assembled on a frame in one of the Art Department galleries,” I told him. “It’s almost twenty feet long from top to bottom. Before the hanging ceremony, the assembled piece will be wheeled over and put in place in the stairwell, the cable attached, and fwoop, up it goes.”

  “Too clever,” he said, moving his focus from the apparatus down to me. “Let me guess, you’re making a film.”

  “Sly: The Artist and His Work,” Joan said with unexpected enthusiasm. “We’re going to premiere it at the hanging ceremony. We’re very excited.”

  “Another guess,” he said. “You want some ‘before’ footage?”

  “That’s right.” I reran the images I had shot of the empty stairwell. Disappointed, I turned off the camera and put it away.

  The light was too low. I would need to come back late in the day when I would have the afternoon sun shining directly in through the big glass front doors, if there was any sunshine that afternoon.

  As I started up, Kate came down to meet me. She slid her hand around my elbow and leaned her head close to mine.

  “Mags,” she said. “Just a word of caution. When we’re in there, remember that Holloway doesn’t want to talk to us. And when he doesn’t like a topic, he does this feint maneuver: drops a big name like a bomb hoping to dazzle folks into forgetting the business at hand. You know the kind of thing, ‘As Bill Clinton told me one day on the back nine of the Annandale....’ It’s just bait to get people to ask about his time in Congress and the people that he knew. If he tries to pull that shit, don’t let him get away with it or we’ll never get him back on topic.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” I said.

  I heard loud male voices coming from somewhere above, emphatic voices, maybe, rather than angry. The only distinct words I heard were, “There are limits, Park, there are limits.” A man came out of the president’s office looking grim. He was round, mustachioed, wore a bad toupee; I had never seen him before. When he saw Joan, he switched on a perfunctory smile.

  “Hello, Joan.” He held out his hand toward her. “Headed in to see Park?”

  “Yes,” Joan said. “Will you be around this afternoon? There’s something I want to discuss with you.”

  “Let me guess, does that something have a dollar sign at the beginning and a lot of zeroes at the end?”

  “I’m not asking you for a donation,” she said, returning his smile. “This time.”

  Max reached the top and Joan introduced him.

  “Max, I’d like you to meet Tom Juarequi, the chair of the college Board of Trustees. Tom, this is Max Duchamps.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Juarequi said. He moved in closer to Max as he wagged his head toward Joan. “Watch your pockets around this one. Every time I see Joan, it seems I walk away a poorer man.”

  “But richer for your generosity,” she countered.

  “So you say,” he said. Then he dropped his chin and lowered his voice. “Sorry, I haven’t left Park in a very happy frame of mind for you. If we can’t plant a money tree in one of his landscaping projects, I don’t know how we’re going to get through this fiscal year.”

  Kate introduced me to him when we reached the landing.

  “Ah, you’re our movie maker,” he said, offering his hand. “It’s a real feather in our cap to have you on staff this semester. I hope you can be persuaded to stay around longer.”

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  He seemed to be hovering. An attractive woman came out of Holloway’s office and I understood that he had been waiting for her to finish with Holloway. She was introduced as Melanie Marino, another member of the Board of Trustees. She looked no less grim than Juarequi had when he walked out of that same door, but was not as quick as he to shed her mood. She was cordial to us during introductions, but only just. The two Board members were on their way to another meeting where yet more unhappy f
iscal news would be discussed, and she seemed eager to get it over with. I did not envy them their job.

  As we filed into the president’s conference room, Park Holloway entered from his adjoining office. He must have overheard the conversation in the hallway, but declined to join in it.

  Holloway was a compact man with a full head of silver hair. With his great haircut, the beautifully tailored blue pinstriped suit, perfect skin and straight white teeth, he looked as if he’d been professionally waxed and polished. Untouchable.

  As he greeted us, the politician’s experience working a room was manifest. But even as he shook each hand and offered a targeted remark, his attention was clearly focused on Uncle Max. He was telling me how much he was looking forward to the student film festival in April, but he was already extending his hand toward Max.

  Uncle Max was a Great White among Southern California’s legal sharks who regularly swim in the ponds of celebrity misbehavers. TV talking heads loved Max, and he loved them right back, so it was no surprise that Holloway recognized him.

  “You’re Max Duchamps?” Holloway asked, not unfriendly but certainly curious.

  “Based on the face I saw in the mirror when I shaved this morning,” Max said, returning his grip, “I would have to say that’s most likely the case, yes.”

  “Welcome, sir. Welcome.” Holloway let him take his hand back.

  I saw Holloway raise his eyebrows in puzzlement, maybe in concern, as Max put a hand on my shoulder and guided me to a seat at the far side of the big table. Max always sat with his back to the wall and with the closest exit within his line of sight.

  “Are we all here, then?” Holloway asked, looking at Kate.

  “Lew Kaufman is coming,” Kate said. “It wasn’t easy getting to the front door.”

  “Ah, the demonstrators.” With a sweep of his hand, he gestured for everyone to be seated. “Please.”

  He took the chair at the head of the massive custom-built table, a table so large that it had to be assembled inside the room. After smoothing the front of his jacket and checking the knot in his yellow tie—nervously, I thought—with a vague sort of smile on his face, he watched the others settle in as a general might assess the opposition taking up positions around a battlefield.

  Kate, head of the Academic Senate, chose to sit at the foot of the table, facing Holloway across the vast, polished walnut no-man’s-land. Joan claimed the chair to Holloway’s immediate right, the seat of honor if this were a formal banquet. She smiled in a perfunctory way at him before turning her attention to the placement of her file folder on the table squarely in front of her.

  We heard heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs and Lew Kaufman, breathless, shambled in.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Lew nodded his greetings and apologies to everyone. “Damn nuisance out there. Don’t get me wrong, I support the effort. Just very happy when we finally got everyone on the buses and cleared out. Had to wait for a final head count, insurance, you know. Hate to leave someone downtown. Hello, all. Hello.”

  He leaned across the table to shake Max’s hand, leaving behind a smear of something on Max’s palm that looked like terra cotta.

  “Max, God, good to see you, man. Thanks for being here. Means a lot to the boy, you know. A lot.”

  Noisily, Lew folded his lanky frame into a chair beside Kate, thereby declaring his allegiance to the faculty camp. He rested his elbows on the well-waxed tabletop, rested his chin on his hands, and glared at Holloway, who declined to meet his gaze.

  The fifth campus regular to enter was the very ill-at-ease-appearing Hiram Chin, the interim academic vice president. Chin slipped in through the president’s private office door, a familiar there, and offered handshakes and greetings to everyone before he took the seat on Holloway’s left flank.

  During the two previous meetings I’d had with Chin, once when I was hired and again when I appealed for funds for film editing software for my students, I found him to be very intelligent and extraordinarily articulate. He was distinguished-looking, scholarly; he told me his graduate work was in art history. Scuttlebutt was that Holloway used him as a buffer between himself and his increasingly militant faculty—Chin playing Cheney to Holloway’s Bush—so I wasn’t surprised to see him at this meeting. Chin was better qualified for the president’s job than Holloway, who had never taught in the classroom.

  Max and I were the two lesser-known quantities to Holloway, so to break the tension perhaps he aimed his focus on the two of us.

  “Slumming, Professor MacGowen?” he said, flashing a smile that was not without some charm. The dimples, I suppose.

  “You could say so,” I answered without correcting him. In no way was I entitled to add Professor to my moniker. I folded my hands in front of me and looked into his eyes.

  “I’ve been watching out for Sly’s interests since he was nine years old,” I said. “It’s a habit by now.”

  After a deep breath, Holloway tapped the table in front of Joan. She had strummed the edges of the file in front of her with a long fingernail—thrrp, thrrp, thrrp—during all of the settling in, apparently much to the annoyance of Holloway, who looked at the file as if deciding whether to knock it to the floor or move it out of Joan’s reach. Instead, he addressed Kate.

  “Kate, you asked for this meeting. Why don’t you explain what brings us together this afternoon?”

  She nodded assent, took a breath and began.

  “There seems to be some confusion on your part, Park, about the terms of the award given to Sly Miller for the installation of his artwork,” she said.

  “Is there?”

  “Out of fairness to all,” she said, “especially to the recipient of the award, we want to make sure that we are all very clear that the winning artist was assured that his work would be displayed, in perpetuity, in the lobby of this building.”

  “His work,” Holloway said, giving the first word pointed emphasis. “I believe the language in the original proffer was ‘his or her original work.’ Am I correct?”

  “Yes.” Kate nodded. “It has been brought to our attention that you have said that you intend to remove the artwork produced by Sly Miller in a year’s time.”

  Chin up, Holloway looked down his nose at Lew. “You mean the work produced by the Art Department?”

  Lew, inarticulate with sudden anger, could only sputter. Kate laid a calming hand on his wrist and faced Holloway.

  “What are you suggesting?” she said.

  “We agree, the competition was for an original work of art,” Holloway said, calmly. “We all know that though the young man, Ronald Miller, provided an original draft or design sketch, the actual work is the product of the efforts of the Art faculty and several other students.” All eyes were on Lew. “It seems to me that, to save face, we should go ahead and give the award, as planned. But to keep a fraud on permanent display would be—”

  “Fraud?” Lew half rose from his chair before Kate got a grip on his shoulder and impelled him down again. “You ignorant troglodyte. You pathetic—”

  “Lew,” Kate warned. But he pulled away from her and got to his feet.

  “Yes, Sly had production assistance,” Lew seethed, arms thrown wide. “But so fucking what? Do you think that Rodin dug a hole in his backyard and cast his own bronzes? Or that Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel all by himself? You—”

  From the cant of Kate’s head as she glared at Holloway, I knew he was in trouble. I had never seen Kate lose control in a meeting, but more than once I had seen her opponents whimper as they slithered away in defeat after she let loose with whatever was brewing inside that head.

  When she said, “Lew,” again, quietly, he heard something in her voice that made him stop ranting and drop back into his chair.

  Sitting straight up, hands primly folded on the table in front of her again, Kate trained her pale gray eyes on Holloway’s face. After a pause to let the air settle, she began.

  “The award was granted
to Sly Miller by a committee nominated by the campus community and approved by both the Academic Senate and the Board of Trustees. By a letter parsed by the college district’s legal counsel and then issued by the Board, and which reiterated the original terms of the proffer, Mr. Miller was informed that he was the recipient of the award based on the sketches and model he presented to the committee. There is nothing in the terms about producing the finished work without assistance.”

  Lew thrust a hand toward Max. “That’s a legal contract, isn’t it, Max? A binding, legal contract.”

  “I’d have to see the documents,” Max said.

  Joan riffled through the papers in the file on the table in front of her, found what she was looking for, and started to rise. But Max put up a hand and forestalled her. I knew he had read the documents involved; Kate had faxed them to him when she called him that morning. Based on what he found in them, he was prepared to begin legal proceedings on Sly’s behalf if the conditions spelled out in the documents were in any way breached.

  Holloway cleared his throat. “I remember a similar situation when I sat on the oversight committee of the Smithsonian.”

  All heads turned toward him. Kate glanced at me, rolled her eyes—here it was, the feint.

  “A work by Rembrandt that had hung in the National Gallery for many years was determined to be—”

  “Mr. Holloway,” Max cut in. “Do you have personal counsel?”

  Holloway, just getting wound up in his diversionary tale-telling, still had his mouth open, prepared to say something more, when he furrowed his brows and looked at Max as if he had suddenly spoken in a foreign language.

  “Have you personal counsel, Mr. Holloway?”

  Holloway furrowed his brow as he asked, “A lawyer?”

  “Lawyer, attorney, shyster,” Max said, nodding. “Mouthpiece.”

  “Of course.” Holloway’s face was vivid. “But—”

  “Now I am just speaking as a friend here, not offering advice, you understand,” Max said. “As I read the situation, the institution, its officers and representatives made a binding commitment to Sly Miller.” Max leaned toward Holloway, and in the very friendliest tone said, “Sir, do not let the boy hear you call him Ronald.”