by Calvin Wolf
The Rebel
1.0
My boss leaves his office while adjusting his suit and tie, a big smile plastered on his well-lacquered, corporate face. He has an important meeting with a major investor who wants to sink millions into Midland’s Educorp campuses. I know this because my lawyer called early this morning to explain the ruse to me. Technically, this meeting would not be strictly legal, but Educorp loves any chance to get more revenue.
As my boss hurries down the hall, I dart to his door and slip a credit card between the deadbolt and its receiver before it clicks. I ease through the doorway and into the office, quiet as a mouse. As a former executive, I know that a locked office door means you don’t often secure your computer. Redundancy, you know? I have a pair of woolen gloves in my pockets, holdovers from winter, and I slip them on.
Sure enough, the computer is unsecured. No password needed.
I open the apps and thank my lucky stars that my boss has set everything to remember his password automatically. Within seconds, I have accessed his Educorp email. I search for my name, and find several chains of emails. I am tempted to read them, but my lawyer warned me against doing so - it would waste time.
Quickly, I copy and paste, right click and save, and screenshot. My heart pounds as I grab photos and text from various sources. I copy all of my boss’s folders onto my flash drive, which will automatically encrypt after this first use. In my mind, I run over any plausible excuses I might give if my boss suddenly returns, finding me sitting at his desk.
The clock on the wall ticks loudly. I am a felon now, I think. I remind myself that I am doing this for Madison. And myself. And my wife.
Am I trying to get back what I had? Am I trying to hurt Educorp? Revenge? Something new? The files finish loading and I swiftly remove the drive from the USB+ port. Silently, it encrypts itself, protecting me if someone should swipe it from my hand and seek proof of my activities. I wonder if I should find some sort of liquid to pour on my boss’s hard drive, like in the movies. Does that even work?
I slip off my gloves and jam them into my pockets, burying the flash drive. After a second at the door to listen for footsteps, I bolt from the office and let the door click, locked, behind me. I practically dive back into my cubicle, stress sweat forcing its way through my pores.
“Where you been, bud?” Raul asks. He wheels over in his swivel chair and I see actor makeup on his face, a touch he likes to use when he has to record video lessons for rich kids.
“Restroom. Bad stomachache today, for some reason,” I lie. Raul chuckles and regales me with a story about jalapeno poppers and how they once gave him such bad heartburn that he thought he was having a heart attack. “I ended up eating antacids like they were Skittles. Grossest thing ever.”
He wheels back into his cube and begins recording again, apparently creating a lesson about understanding plot and theme. I wonder if the kid whose parents are paying for this lesson will even watch it. As Raul does his best acting, sounding quite enthusiastic and upbeat, my heart continues to jackhammer in my chest. I wait for police officers to show up and arrest me for corporate espionage.
As far as I know, my boss is still embroiled in his meeting with my lawyer’s well-paid actor, eagerly discussing student fees, stock prices, and profit margins.
From the burner phone given to me by my old friend in corporate, I send a text asking for as much data as he can give me, sent to a throwaway email account I created last night. I tell him that I’m all in, and that my lawsuit will be filed this afternoon. Moments later, during which I can scarcely breathe, he responds that he is up to the task.
Give me until after lunch. Tell your lawyer to move fast - Educorp is on the defensive cuz theyre facing other lawsuits. One in Kentucky and one in Rode Island.
I forward all this communication to my lawyer and tell him that I’m going to lunch. I will not be coming back to work. Quietly, I begin to collect my things from my desk, stuffing them into my leather satchel. When my bag is as full as can be, I ignore the rest of the knicknacks and begin deleting files from my computer. In the two months I’ve been working in this cube, I have accumulated a lot of files.
When I finish deleting the files I stand up and prepare to depart with my satchel, making a clean getaway. Instead, Raul is standing there, shocked. “What’s up with your cubicle?” he asks. He is confused, and I look at him with wide eyes.
“Buddy, let’s go to lunch,” is all I can say. It is eleven forty-eight.
2.0
“Educorp is kicking my daughter out of her school, so I’m suing the bastards,” I say over a fast food burger. Raul is now an accomplice in today’s deception, and I’m pouring on the emotion and friendship pretty thick. Hopefully, he won’t rat me out as soon as lunch is over and he returns to the office. Fortunately, he seems to be on my side.
“You have my support, man,” he replies through a mouthful of fries. “You got a lawyer yet?”
I tell him that I do, and that he’s taken the case pro bono. Well, sort of. After the fifteen grand, that is. When I whisper the name, Raul is suitably impressed. “I’ve read about him in the local news. He’s got some clout,” my coworker confirms.
We talk about Educorp’s vast legal resources and ponder what their strategy might be. Raul says he thinks they will try to settle out of court.
“Once they know you’re serious about getting into a courtroom, they’ll offer you a check. Will you take it?” he asks. I haven’t thought this far, and wonder the same question. I know I probably will, but I decide to play the idealist. I insist that I will fight for restitution, not quick cash.
“They’ve got a long reach, these guys. They’ll probably track down all of your old coworkers, underlings, girlfriends, et cetera. Anyone who’s got anything bad to say about you, they’ll find it. You really gonna hang tough all the way to being in front of a jury?”
“Hell, yeah,” I reply, my bravado mainly artificial.
“You’re brave. Nobody can say otherwise. And if they ask me anything after your suit is filed, I’ll play dumb. We never had this lunch.”
After another handful of fries, Raul promises to pass along anything helpful he might find or overhear. We dump our trash and wander out into the hot, bright parking lot. Raul will be returning to Educorp’s offices, while I will venture off into the land of unemployment.
“Educorp’s been screwing people over for years,” Raul says, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. “They helped ruin the public schools and they’re bleeding people dry. I work for ‘em because I need a job, but they’re some real sons of bitches. If you ever need anything, you call my cell phone, okay? I may not have much, but I can give you some cash for meals or a place to crash. The media will come looking for you, and I do live a little bit out of town, you know.”
As men, the emotional stuff is not first nature, so we awkwardly circle around and eventually hug each other. We promise to stay strong. I agree to take him up on his offer, should I need it. I promise that, if I win, I would not forget him.
“I hope things go back to the way they used to be, back in the day,” Raul says. “I’ve wanted to get married and have some kids, but I can’t. The economy sucks and there’s no good deals anywhere, not for those of us who aren’t rich.” He climbs into his sedan and cranks the engine. Suddenly overwhelmed by the heat, I shuffle into my Ridgeline and am soon bathed in air conditioning.
I have never been unemployed, and I suddenly panic. I did not have the luxury of time, to talk things over enough with my wife. Is she pissed off? Will she leave me? I cannot believe that I am quitting a paying job in order to sue my employer, one of the most powerful corporations in the United States. Will we end up homeless? My mind starts to think that sending Madison to public school might not be so bad.
Should I call it off? Call off the lawsuit?
Maybe, just maybe, I could call it off, get my fifteen tho
usand back, and go back to work like nothing ever happened. I mean, I only copied stuff onto the drive - my boss doesn’t know for sure that someone was on his computer. I could redecorate my cubicle and go right back to what I was doing. Madison could go to public school for a year, and then we would figure something out. I would work hard and find another way to rise back to the top.
I can do it. It just takes hard work. This is America, after all. Land of opportunity.
The engine sputters and almost dies, and I snap back to reality as my eye catches the fluttering RPM gauge.
My old car never did that. Did I get ripped off?
I put the Ridgeline in gear and head downtown, to drop off the flash drive. I know nothing will ever be the same again.
3.0
“It’s done,” my lawyer says over the phone. My wife is in the bedroom, with the door locked. She wants to be alone. I do not know if she is too angry to look at me, or too sad about the situation with Madison. She is not speaking to me much. I am afraid.
“How did it go?” I ask, not knowing what else to say. I feel like I need alcohol to ebb the stress away, but I resist.
“We filed and they know about it. They are professionals, so they didn’t react much. My source says there was a little bit of fear, so that’s better than nothing. They are already facing other lawsuits, so they have motivation to take this one seriously. Do you want me to send out a feeler and see if there’s interest to make this a class-action lawsuit?”
I say that that’s fine. My lawyer detects the fear in my voice and tries to calm me, insisting that all will be okay. “Take a drink and get to bed early. Take care of yourself and take care of your family. That flash drive you gave me has excellent stuff. My staff is already drawing up lists of people to contact. We should have plenty of favorable witnesses.”
“That’s great,” I whisper.
“Seriously, take a stiff drink and make it an early night. I need you and your family to be well-rested and looking good. The quintessential, all-American family. Image matters, and your image will be in the news as soon as this goes public. A former principal railroaded after he is assaulted by an entitled parent, just to make the company look good? It’s front page stuff.”
I bid my attorney goodbye and turn off my phone. In the kitchen, I pour a tall glass of whiskey and sip it. Max wanders past, looking for a snack, and I can tell that he detects the fear and stress between his mother and me. “Hey Dad,” he murmurs. I greet him and tell him he can have a snack cake. He loves snack cakes.
“You have football camp tomorrow?” I ask cheerfully, and he nods. We talk about football for a bit, and he heads off to play video games in his room, a snack cake in cellophane dangling from his hand. We usually don’t let the kids eat snacks in their room, but I don’t have the energy to argue with him.
My wife comes out of the bedroom and her eyes are teary.
“Do we really need to do this? Is it the right thing?” she asks.
“Yes,” I reply. “Otherwise, they were going to keep screwing us over. You know that.” I don’t know if she knows it, but she hugs me. The hug shows that she knows it. I hug her back and promise her that everything will be all right.
“I have a law degree. I can help,” she says, her voice growing stronger. “I will call the lawyer tomorrow.” I tell her that she doesn’t have to do that, but when my wife puts her mind to something there is no stopping her. She will become part of the legal team, whether they want her to or not. This makes me smile.
“Let’s go to bed,” she says, and we make love for the first time in months.
4.0
“You loved the system just fine,” the lawyer sneers, and my palms begin to sweat. I am on the stand and the jurors are burrowing into me with their eyes, all one thousand of them. The jurors are all former teachers and students, jurors whose fates I once held in my hands. How did my lawyer let all of them get on the jury? They’re not my peers. Some of the jurors are eating pizza.
“No, I didn’t love it,” I reply. I look down at my lap and see that I am not wearing any pants. Or underwear, for that matter. I try to pull the bottom of my button-down shirt over my penis, but it doesn’t want to stretch. I look back at the lawyer, and we forget about my penis.
“Then why did you work for years as a principal? You were the boss, the man in charge. And now you want to blame the system? You were the system!”
“Not true! I had so many supervisors above me. It was follow orders or lose your job. I have a family!”
“Did the teachers and students you left in the dust not also have families? You did what you did because you could, and you did not care about who you hurt!”
I am crying now, and the jurors are still eating pizza. A car drives up to my witness stand and parks, and my parents get out.
“What has happened to you?” my father growls after he exits the car. He is taller than me, always taller than me, and I hope he does not notice that I somehow forgot my pants. My mom is suddenly by his side and announces that I can go home with them. “Be our boy again,” she pleads. “We can have Thanksgiving, and it will snow. Just like you always wanted.”
“But they hurt my family,” I say, pointing at Educorp’s legal team. They sit behind a huge, oaken table. One of them is wearing a racing jumpsuit with Educorp logos on it. I didn’t know that the NASCAR guy was a lawyer, too.
My mother says that my family is in the car, and to give up this silly trial. My father threatens to whoop the NASCAR guy’s ass. I look down and see that my shirt has lost all of its buttons and is now flapping open. I wonder if the women in the jury think I have “dad bod.”
“Yeah, get in the car and get out of here!” yells Gunderson from the galley, behind the legion of reporters. “Educorp will find you! They’re in every town!”
Witches from a Disney movie swoop in through the courtroom doors, but I am unfazed. I spy a stapler on my legal team’s table and wonder if I can sneak over there and staple my shirt back together. And borrow some pants.
“Your honor, he stole all the evidence,” the lawyer says, and the judge orders me arrested. I notice that the judge looks like someone I have seen on TV. A wave of bailiffs descend upon me, and they turn into monsters as they grab me.
“No! No! No!” I scream, and I roll and twist and break free. Pantsless, I rush for the jury box, hoping that the myriad of jurors will protect me from the monsters. Surely they will! Humans are humans and monsters are monsters. I dive into the throng of jurors and they scatter away from me like minnows. The monsters are coming and the jurors will not help me.
“Protect the pizza!” someone yells, and I cannot blame them. Pizza is good. Monsters grab my ankles and pull me back down several steps. I grab at the juror chairs but my hands pass right through them. I can’t get a grip!
The monsters spin me around to face them, and they are zombies. Zombies from years past - an old teacher, an old friend, a neighbor from when I was a kid. “You’re bad for America,” they say through rotting death and dead eyes. Their horrifying faces move in to bite, slowly enough for me to see every rotting square inch. I scream, but they hold me fast. A mouth closes over my eyes and
4.1
I wake up, drenched in sweat. My phone has been buzzing and chiming, and I see that it is lit up with messages. The entire screen is covered with notifications. My stomach churns as I sit up in bed and grab the phone, awaiting my fate. Educorp is beginning to respond, and they are not happy.
ACT II
