CHAPTER 39: The Forks return home for the holidays, and Professor T copes with a disappointing verdict in his troubles with Abigail Weiser.
Upon arrival at home base for the holidays, the Forks each made their way to their respective domiciles with friends and family anxious to hear of their exploits on the road. As Professor T was unpacking in his bedroom, the doorbell rang. When he answered it, a man served him legal papers informing him he was being sued for damages by Abigail Weiser, a long-time close work associate who had once carried a torch for him (Professor T) but secretly harbored simmering resentment for the rebuff after it became abundantly clear he was fully committed to separating work from romance. This sentiment, and maybe a touch of sociopathic greed, allowed her to be taken in by the idea that Title IX could be leveraged for a fat payday.
Enter former classmate and ethically dubious attorney, Brian Bok, Esquire. Ms Weiser booked a meeting with Mr. Bok and his partner Francis Scheizer for a consultation vis-à-vis her wish to acquire her “pound of flesh” from Professor T. And they (Scheizer & Bok) happily took up the case. She confided her complaint, and together, they cooked up a scenario where Professor T’s traveling companions would be forced to testify against him on a charge of groping the day they were to depart for Montana.
REMINDER: The scene has Abigail tripping and falling into Professor T’s arms at the very instant of the gang’s arrival on their way to the university’s cafeteria for lunch the day of the Forks’ departure. But this was no accident. Her timing was such that the witnesses couldn’t actually tell if Professor T was acting maliciously or altruistically. Too many question marks, and too awkward a scene for anyone to press for clarification. Of course, he wasn’t trying to grope her, and he had no impulse for manipulating her, a most competent administrative manager, into putting her ambitions on hold for his benefit. Be that as it may, Ms. Weiser, with the ethically dubious Scheizer & Bok, was suing for damages to the tune of $350,000…compensation for five years of career stagnation directly attributable to Professor T’s gaslighting and sexual harassment.
Professor T automatically perceives this as a conspiracy to extort him and pledges to fight the charges in court. With Buck Wellstone by his side, Professor T endeavors to confront the shady attorneys in their office, whereupon Scheizer and Bok encourage Professor T to “settle out of court.” It is a crudely transparent shakedown and Professor T refuses to relent. At this point, the extortionists begin baiting Professor T to call them out as “pettifoggers,” “swindlers,” or “thieves.” In the heat of this conflagration, Bok invites Mork T to assault one of them. Bok, an Ichabod Crane-esque personage, always offers these titillating provocations standing behind Scheizer, because his frail anatomy would not hold up to a physical assault. But Scheizer, with his gin blossom and pasty layers of bakery-dough-colored extra padding, could withstand a blow or two.
At this point, Buck Wellstone was shaking his head in bewilderment. He couldn’t believe the cartoonish encounter he was witnessing. Gently, he was able to lead Professor T away from the confrontation before something regrettable could happen.
***
On the day of the hearing, in the courtroom, Scheizer and Bok brought the university’s HR representative to testify regarding the Zoom hearing, where Professor T lost his composure and blew his stack, sending the Zoom meeting’s audio into a blast of speaker-shredding distortion. The discipline committee passed a verdict unhelpful to Professor T’s case, resulting in a bureaucratic process known as “chronic low performance”…a procedure that comes with suggested measures for correcting undesirable conduct in order to avoid dismissal…something they can do to tenured faculty now.
This, however, failed to check Professor T’s confidence that “truth and justice” would prevail, at which point Professor T’s legal counselor commented that that sort of outcome would be “nice for a change.”
As Francis Scheizer began his opening remarks, Professor T noticed the presiding judge was an eminent legal practitioner who happened to be betrothed to a woman Professor T had mistakenly barged in on in the ladies’ dressing room of the university’s sports complex. It was an accident. After all, who hasn’t absent-mindedly walked into the wrong restroom, only to about-face as soon as the mistake was apparent? But Professor T didn’t notice the absence of urinals in the space until the lady in question emerged from a stall with only a towel covering her private bits. He excused himself right away, but this particular lady was one of those bathroom-obsessed culture-war activists who made a point to shame Professor T with this incident…a prominent talking point featured in her many speeches against anyone, but especially trans women, invading female restrooms.
Scheizer continued this courtroom assault employing remarks dripping with bombastic sentimentality and faux emotional gravity, preying on the judge’s sympathies using this abominable bathroom invasion to great effect with a host of culture-war activists in the gallery nodding in solidarity. They called Professor T a “predator,” a “misogynist,” and a “sociopathic manipulator of coworkers,” preying on trusting souls with his bogus career advice and unfulfilled promises of personal advancement.
“Heartless… calculated… utter villainy!” opined Scheizer, with extreme emotional gravitas.
Professor T’s associates were called to the stand, and since he was so confident truth and justice would prevail, neither he nor his counselor offered any advice or coaching on how to respond to Scheizer’s belligerent yes-or-no questions. And so, Scheizer took every opportunity to harass Billie, Jack, and Buck to their red-faced embarrassment. And when the prosecution finished spewing all the bile they had in reserve for this workplace predator and his hapless character witnesses, Professor T’s attorney had no cross-examination questions for the witnesses.
It is easy to see where this leads. The verdict was delivered for the plaintiff, with seventy thousand dollars awarded for damages. The judge calculated one year of back wages, sufficient for Abigail to recover her lost time. Seventy thousand was considered a fair wage for a year in the position she felt she was deprived of by Professor T’s manipulative villainy.
Upon the judge’s announced verdict, Professor T displayed the countenance of someone astonished that an outcome this absurd could be rendered…it had to be a mistake. But the judge was not sympathetic to Mork’s cause, as he was not convinced something disreputable hadn’t happened between the defendant and his administrative assistant in the professor’s office before the arrival of witnesses.
As the litigants and onlookers filed back out into the street, Professor T again confronted Scheizer and Bok to let them know they would receive not a single quarter, dime, nickel, or dollar from him…even if he had to file for personal bankruptcy.
And so…Professor T refuses to pay damages, and the law office of Scheizer and Bok in turn refuses to waive Abigail’s attorney fees as promised, so now she too is on the hook for their exorbitant fees…which, of course, she can’t pay. Now, she risks her own professional and personal ruination as public sentiment begins to favor Professor T’s point of view. And why set this tragic wheel of futility into motion? Vindictiveness? Maybe, but responsible law practitioners aren’t supposed to be running extortion rackets either, and with the final outcome showing Professor T AND Abigail Weiser victimized by Scheizer and Bok, it may be safe to conclude truth and justice failed to carry the day.
NEXT WEEK:
The Forks take a holiday pause while Professor T scrambles to recover from his unfortunate holiday justice gift.
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