compassion

The Chool Bus (ch41)

CHAPTER 41: Buck Wellstone offers a different perspective on how Professor T can confound the extortion plot, reconcile with Ms Weiser, and cancel the court’s verdict over damages.

Buck Wellstone, troubled by the unjust outcome of Abigail Weiser’s lawsuit against Professor T, engineered a resolution not by the letter of the law, but through quick tactical thinking when reality hit Abigail in the purse. Namely, Professor T’s refusal to pay the court-ordered damages. Her plan was to cover attorney fees with that windfall. Instead, Professor T vowed to pay not a single penny. And now, she’s on the hook for Scheizer & Bok’s agreed upon fees. Without Professor T’s payment, she has no way of covering it. She realizes she’s in the same boat as her intended victim…she’s facing the prospect of financial ruin.

First, Buck and his dad have a conversation about post-y2k workplace dynamics the day after Professor T’s fateful court appearance…Buck’s embarrassing turn on the witness stand. So Buck placed a call to his dad in Texas. He knew his dad was interested in how the whole affair had gone down.

After three rings, Gilbert Wellstone picked up the phone and greeted his son warmly.

“Hey, Pops, it’s me,” said Buck.

“Well, if it ain’t the traveling prodigal cowboy,” said Mr Wellstone. “I was just settlin’ down on the porch swing with a brewski wonderin’ how your boss’ court date and your turn in the witness stand went.”

Buck was blushing, though his dad couldn’t see it as neither of them were partial to so called “face-time” apps on their phones. “Kind of embarrassing for me, and super-bad for Professor T.”

“Sorry to hear things didn’t go well for your boss, but why were you embarrassed?” Mr Wellstone was curious.

Buck’s face was heating up. “The prosecuting attorney seemed real interested in setting our testimony up as a way to reinforce the perception that Professor T was a sexist gaslighter holding Abigail Weiser’s career down, preventing her from advancing beyond the role of his assistant. Lots of yes or no questions. If i tried to elaborate in any way, he shut me down most ricky tick. I’m sure the judge could see how this belligerent line of questioning was frustrating and embarrassing to me. But i believe that was part of Scheizer’s strategy.”

“Sorry to hear it,” said Mr Wellstone.

“Thanks Pops,” said Buck. “But, this ain’t about me. The whole mess got me thinkin’…questioning workplace relationships in this era of ‘Title IV,’ and ‘Me Too.’ You know, how do we adjust to a ‘post-patriarchal’ workplace? I ask, because this dustup between Professor T and his office manager, Ms Weizer, seems to be a good example of the dysfunctional transition period we seem to be in the muddle of.”

“Take a breath, son,” Said Mr Wellstone. “Let me ask you this. You remember when Missy and i used to organize the Regional Rodeo parade every year?”

“Sure,” said Buck. “Missy Johnson always ended up doing most of the organizing.”

“She sure did,” said Mr Wellstone. “And you know why?”

“Good question,” said Buck.

“Because she was a whole lot better at it than me,” said Mr Wellstone. “Now, back then, folks sort of expected the designated Parade Master to stand up at the podium and command the proceedings. But Missy had the spreadsheets in her head before they even invented spreadsheets. I didn’t dismiss her input because she was a woman, and i didn’t step up to try and protect her from any heavy lifting. I just looked at the person standing next to me and said, ‘What do you need to do your best work, and how can we pull this wagon, together?’”

“But,” Buck was recalling a lunch conversation with Abigail after he signed on as a grad teaching assistant. “Abigale was at the end of her rope with Professor T by the time i joined the team. She was literally red-faced with seething frustration and anger over the good professor. I imagine years of frustrating workplace imbalances to be the cause.”

“Go on,” Mr Wellstone was intrigued.

“Well, i suspected there was more to the story,” said Buck. “And i found out later that Abigail had a major crush on the Professor in the early days of her time working with him. I asked her why she didn’t simply transfer out to another department. She said she was dutifully attached to the Media Studies students, and besides, there weren’t any openings in similar departments. She was sorta stuck.”

Mr Wellstone put his phone on speaker. “Didn’t any of this come out in the trial?”

“No,” said Buck. “And when i tried to work it in, the prosecuting attorney forced me to restrict responses to ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

“Well, it’s settled, now,” said Mr Wellstone. “Perhaps you should have shared this with the professor’s attorney before the hearing. It might have helped his case.”

“I got the feeling Professor T and his attorney went into that hearing overly-confident,” said Buck. “They didn’t even let me know what i should expect from the encounter.” He paused for a deep breath. “Jack Dean and Billie Schmidt were just as unprepared as i, and all of us were shocked at the outcome.”

“Hmmm,” Mr Wellstone wasn’t quite sure what Buck was looking for, but pressed on. “Look, Son, you just got to reduce it down like grain into malt syrup, it’s all about basic eye-to-eye respect. Don’t talk over your female coworkers. Don’t take credit for their elbow grease. Treat them like teammates, peers, not fragile antiques or competitors you gotta beat. And if someone on the team talks smack, well, you gotta use your voice to level the floor. And by all means, make sure to clearly, and compassionately make your boundaries known. If your policy is never mixing work with romance, don’t do things to encourage workplace crushes.”

Buck made a barely audible nodding acknowledgement.

“You’ll be fine, i have no doubt,” said Mr Wellstone. “The fact that you’re callin’ your old man to discuss it tells me all i need to know about your character. You’re gonna do just fine. Just remember: you and your co-workers, regardless of gender, race, religion, or attitude about bull-ridin’ are powering the same work-place engine. Just step in time with them… you’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” said Buck. “Thanks, Pops. I think i just needed to hear from you. It’s a lot of pressure, trying to navigate the technology-supercharged workplace. I’m sure Professor T will figure it out, eventually.”

They made their fare-thee-wells and disconnected the call. With that, Buck went back to contemplating ways to help Professor T navigate his painful conundrum.

***

So, Abigail is tricked by her unscrupulous lawyers. In time, they turn the case over to a collection agency to recover trial costs she can’t pay. When she breaks down in tears over lunch, Buck instantly conceives the strategic value of her situation.

Buck recalled a similar meeting with Abigail once he was accepted as Grad Assistant in the department. He reflected on the depth and intensity of Abigail’s seething vindictive feelings toward Professor T, and so Buck hatched a plan and ran it by his dad over the phone.

Knowing that the clock was ticking, Scheizer and Bok’s firm was nearly ready to turn the case over to collection, and mere months before filing a civil suit, all the while charging 20% interest on the outstanding balance. Buck found a way to meet with Professor T’s attorney, and share his idea. They knew that Professor T would never bow to the court’s decision vis-à-vis damages to Abigale for egregious conduct in which he never actually participated. As well, they knew Professor T’s deep sense of benevolence would not allow him to watch this long-time comrade…even if she did agree to proceed down a wrong-headed, greedy culture-war lawsuit against him…suffer financial ruin at the hands of pettyfogging swindlers and their transparent extortion racket.

Buck put his plan into motion…Professor T’s attorney used Abigail’s distress to persuade Professor T that paying her legal fees would be an act of charity rather than surrender. Overcome by pity…and simultaneously pressured by Billie and Jack to kick the focus-group tour back into gear…Mork Thompson finally relents, pays Abigail’s exorbitant fees with interest, and secures the release of both himself and his former administrative assistant from financial ruin.

NEXT WEEK:
Back on the road go the Forks in the Cool Bus. First stop, South Florida, Key Largo, and Key West.

GO BACK => Preface and Chapter Links

Audiovision: The Cyrus Delusion

People love stories! Coherent frameworks for making sense of the often-unintelligible chaos of existence. If a truly good story is unavailable, a vapid stinker will do. And this desperate embrace of the easily digestible is what we might call the Deification by Default… the human brain settling for any compelling fiction, no matter how empty.

And the believers… they congregate in concrete echo-chambers, modern-day amphitheaters for a new kind of spectacle. Their gaze is fixed on an angry face projected onto a giant, 16k screen, a digital idol spitting vitriol like a croaking raven or territorial baboon.

They see our guy up there. And what a Guy. He is not merely human… he is a creature of pure, unadulterated id, a walking monument to the most cherished American religion… Getting Away With It. He is a living testament of the belief that consequences are for them. That rules are for suckers, despite the fact that he’s been tried and convicted of transgressions that would usher lesser mortals into country club prisons. And so on. The universe, in its indifference, allows such animals to prosper. This particular specimen has been fined millions for frauds so brazen, so loud and brassy, they transcend mere criminality and achieve a perverse kind of art. He’s the zero-sum game personified, a playa whose existence dictates that for him to win, others must lose. He is a babbling font of perpetual-grievance, forever the victim, endlessly fueling his sad tale of victimhood and defiance. He can’t even stand up straight, a physical manifestation of his moral scoliosis. He is covered in a fine orange paste, a desperate veneer masking the gray, clammy, countenance of a moldering corpse.

And the people… the God-fearing, the church-going, the hands-praying people, look at this babbling, orange vessel, and astonishingly proclaim: “Yes. Him. He is our champion.” Not so much admiration as an act of religious conviction… a leap of, what Mr. Bierce’s sarcastic dictionary might define as: “FAITH, n. The acceptance without evidence in the words of one who speaks without knowledge of things inexplicable.” It is the suspension of critical thought in favor of comforting delusion, the embrace of narrative that fills a void, regardless of its factual basis or internal consistency.

The human brain is funny about credulity. It needs reasons, rationalizations, even if they’re entirely bogus. The brain conjures prestige labels to slap onto zircon-encrusted baubles in order to justify worship. So, in this desperate search for legitimacy, the people dug up a relic from the annals of biblical history. They found Cyrus the Great. Cyrus! The Persian! And they told themselves, with remarkably straight faces, that this tangerine-hued Nero… was the new Cyrus. They called him a “flawed vessel,” which is precisely what you call a boat that has already sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Very well: “VIRTUE, n. In a king, that quality which keeps his subjects from sharpening their knives.” It is not necessarily about moral uprightness or inherent goodness, but about the practical efficacy of governance, the ability to maintain order and loyalty through action, not just rhetoric.

Cyrus II was a profoundly practical man, a shrewd statesman and a brilliant conqueror. His actions were dictated by strategic advantage and pragmatic necessity. Tolerance? It was not a deeply held philosophical conviction but a calculated policy. He observed the Jews moping by the river, exiled and dispossessed. Click-click-click went the imperial abacus, weighing the costs and benefits. He permitted them to return home. He didn’t smash idols or persecute local religions. Why? Because it was simply cheaper than cleaning up the inevitable riots and rebellions that religious intolerance would provoke. Mercy? A merciful conqueror, in Cyrus’s view, was one who spent less on garrisoning ruins, who avoided the costly and protracted business of subjugating a rebellious populace. Generosity? A king who hoards all the gold for himself, who starves his populace and his armies, soon finds his head in a basket, a grim lesson in the economics of power. Cyrus understood math, the cold, hard logic of imperial administration.

And now, our guy. The Cyrus of the Golden Commode, a man whose reign is marked by ostentation and vulgarity rather than strategic brilliance.

On Tolerance: Cyrus the Great managed a vast, multi-ethnic empire, understanding that stability required a degree of accommodation. Our modern Cyrus, however, manages a cable-news cycle, a perpetual loop of manufactured outrage. His entire machine runs on intolerance, a relentless jihad against phantom gremlins labeled “wokeness,” creating divisions rather than bridging them.
On Inclusivity: Cyrus the Great let diverse peoples in on the grift of empire, integrating them into its functional framework. Our Cyrus, conversely, wages a cultural war on letters… specifically D, E, and I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)… and openly dreams of an America built solely of pale, northern European peoples. He welcomes an imagined homogeneity while demonizing actual diversity.
On Compassion: Where Cyrus the Great understood the practical value of a measured mercy, our guy’s philosophy can be succinctly summarized as: “Fuck the doomed.” There is no pretense of empathy, no concern for the less fortunate, only a brutal, unvarnished disdain.
On Wisdom: Cyrus the Great was a strategic genius, a master of statecraft. Our guy’s intellectual prowess, by his own proud admission, extends to being able to identify the difference between a camel and an elephant.
On Fortitude: Cyrus the Great was a formidable warrior and empire-builder. Our guy’s most celebrated display of “fortitude” was his aggressive and ultimately successful war against the Vietnam draft.
On Generosity: Cyrus the Great understood the strategic importance of a king’s generosity. Our guy’s much-vaunted “generosity” extended to giving billions to Argentina… a country, not coincidentally, where many unhappy Germans went for a long vacation in 1945 and conveniently forgot to go home. Astonishing Coincidence?

So, what is this comparison, this desperate attempt to link a modern figure with an ancient legend? It is not history… it is a pet-rock fad, a shabby attempt to pass off an empty metaphor as genuine good, to assign a false provenance to something entirely unworthy. It is a magical story for magic junkies, a comforting fable for those who have abandoned the pesky demands of reality for the soothing embrace of fantasy. It gives us a new definition, a diagnosis of a collective delusion… sound familiar?

Now, back to our Bierce-esque sarcastic dictionary: “CYRUS-COMPLEX, n. The political hallucination wherein one mistakes a bankrupt casino boss for a Persian philosopher-king.” It is the fond, almost childlike belief that a man who cannot manage a golf score without cheating can, in fact, be trusted with an empire… a testament to a complete divorce from logical reasoning. It is a bedtime story for those who, having consciously abandoned reason and critical thought, must now shop for their saviors not in the marketplace of ideas, but in the remainder bin of historical analogies, grasping at any discarded narrative, no matter how ill-fitting or absurd.

It is all very, very silly. And so on. The endless, circular dance of self-deception continues, with profound and often tragic consequences for the bewildered animals who crave a story, any story, to light their way.

And… there it is… warts and all.

I got a black bomb…
It’s tickin’ away…
Gonna take it out…
…on the Blue Highway!

Audiovision: Truth vs Power

So a wise man, or a man who was at least passing for wise, started talking about truth. And the first thing he did, the clever bastard, was admit that nobody has the first clue what it is. We’re all just monkeys with car keys, little fizzing bundles of electricity piloting meat-suits around the planet, and we haven’t even figured out what the fizz is. Consciousness? Human thought? We don’t know what’s running the projector, but good lord, the movie is colorful, brief, and loud.

And yet…

Out there in the great electronic shrieking festival… pow! slap! kick! BOOM! you’ve got no shortage of bloviators, of sidewalk saviors and cable news prophets with shellacked hair, their faces glowing in the 4k pixel bath, absolutely convinced they’ve got the universe on a leash. They are selling Truth like it’s a used car, a timeless, irrefutable, low-mileage beauty that can be yours for the low, low price of your own brain. And the loudest dealership on the whole cosmic car lot is, of course, religion. These fanatics, these apostolic holy rollers with their eyes spun back in their skulls, insist their particular brand of Truth is the only one that gets you to the bliss of heaven. Just have a little faith, they say. Which is a five-dollar word for blind credulity.

And so on…

Sometimes, you see, you have to do more than just believe. Sometimes you have to get up from the couch and move your feet. Take Vlad Dracul III. There was a man who put his convictions on a stick. A very long, sharp stick. He wasn’t playing around with faith and hope. He was a man of action, a walking thunderhead of revenge. Why? Was it because the Ottoman Turks read the wrong magic book? Nope. It was because his own father traded him and his brother like hockey cards to the Sultan, who was not a nice man. It was because while Vlad III was learning to hate in a Turkish dungeon, his father and brother were being tortured and murdered by his own people.

This sort of thing can change a boy’s outlook…

Vlad’s truth wasn’t a holy whisper in his ear; it was the hot, screaming fact of betrayal, and his answer was a field outside Târgoviște decorated with two thousand screaming, writhing, shish-kabobbed exclamation points aimed at a merciless sky.

That was his dark sermon… that was his truth…

Now, let’s rewind history to Simon the Zealot, a different cat altogether. For him, the truth was a revolutionary tinderbox just waiting for a match. He saw this Jesus fellow, this Nazarene miracle man, and his synapses started to crackle with visions of Roman eagles falling out of the sky. He saw the critical mass, the juice, and he wanted to turn the power of popularity into a revolutionary battle-cry. He was trying to shove a prophet shaped like a question mark into a political hole shaped like a sword. This, you might imagine, made the local authorities a little jumpy. While Simon was trying to crown a savior king, the Romans were sharpening their nails. Was Judas the real betrayer? Or was it the man who tried to turn a movement about turning the other cheek into a bar fight with an empire? As a wise old Chinaman is supposed to have said, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” Simon may have changed his tactics, but his all too mortal king wound up in the same place as Vlad’s unfortunate enemies: pinned to a piece of wood, proving a point about the interaction of truth and power.

Undeniable truth? Not so fast. It’s a road, not a motel. Anyone who tells you they’ve checked in and unpacked is either running a con or they’re so lost they think the lobby is the entire universe. The best we can do is what that magnificent, gloomy German filmmaker suggests: you can actually stare into the void until misty clouds of undifferentiated nothingness take shape and stare back. Who knows? You might find something interesting in there. Mostly, you’ll just see yourself, your own egocentric story reflected in a million broken pieces. But if you can lose yourself, as the poet from Detroit once said, you might stumble over a shard of something real. Something inspiring. Just be wary the winds of power can short circuit your heartfelt illusions.

For now, until we actually begin to understand the wellspring of consciousness, could we please interrupt the merry-go-round of inherited cruelty, this endless cycle of pain passed down by people who were taught to be main characters in a story written by a mysterious, all-powerful Sky-CEO who actually cares to keep a running tab on every thought, every misdemeanor, every everything. The horror show starts when these people realize… and they usually do… that the Sky-CEO, in fact, isn’t watching and doesn’t care.

Anyway… what if we tried something else? A little compassion… a little kindness… a pinch of skepticism and doubt. After all, the points of light seen in the dark night are mostly distant clusters of billions of stars and their satellites. That the universe allows for individual micro-particles such as you, me, astrophysicists, theologians, filmmakers, schizophrenics, etc. a glimpse of itself is nothing short of miraculous. What we know (we’ve learned quite a lot over the last couple centuries) amounts to no more than a quark, on a barnacle, attached to a massive seagoing cargo barge. We’re as good as bats experiencing hearing loss, we’re constantly bumping into reality in the barely audible darkness.

But so what?

Don’t be afraid…
Keep stumbling…
We’ll see you there…
Fishing for ecstatic truth…
…in the gallery of the void.

Loopcircus