3
He wondered for a moment if John Baker was leering at
him. There was something in the neat smile and the deadly sheen in his eyes
that suggested to Jim that maybe, just maybe, he found all of this commotion
slightly humorous. Indeed, in Jim’s deepest and darkest thoughts, he suspected
that this was the chance the boss had been waiting for. The perfect opportunity
to dredge him out like an irrigation channel, scraping out years of bile and
other emotional detritus. Payback day, perhaps.
He
was wearing his ‘official’ suit, the black number with the velvet trim and the
neatly pressed shirt. He was even wearing leather shoes instead of the clod
hopper workbooks he usually wore, with pristine dress socks. And his tie wasn’t
multicoloured and loud… just a simple economy shade of rusty red. He wanted to
talk ‘business,’ and had dressed for the occasion.
Only
he was wearing that self-satisfied grin, the sort of grin that Jim referred to
as the shit-eating grin. It was that grin he wore when he was bawling out his
staff, even though the glint in his eyes, like cold steel, told all that dared
look that this was a serious deed.
“I’ve
rang the union,” he told Jim.
“What
have they got to say?”
“Oh,
the usual.” The comment was delivered deadpan,
but was loaded nonetheless.
“What
is the ‘usual?’” Jim asked, noticing the emphasis he put on the word usual. Somehow,
in the last infinitesimal milliseconds, the word had developed several hundred
new levels of meaning, much like the shades in between black and white. “Do I
have a case?”
Baker
paused, his Adam’s Apple bobbing abruptly up and down. He diverted his eyes
momentarily, the movement magnified by his spectacles. A breath shuddered from
his chest, a hastily lost breath, followed by an equally hasty intake. Then he
looked up at Jim, his blue eyes hard and cold, lips pressed together tightly so
that they formed a jagged pencil line on his mouth. “It’s hard to say, Jim,” he
admitted, splaying his hands in front of him. “I mean… there were hardly any
witnesses…”
“Hardly
any witnesses?” Jim shot forward in his
seat. “What about all the kids standing around gawping?”
“Do
you seriously think students would make reliable witnesses?”
“…and
what about Andy?”
“He
arrived too late.”
“Too
late?”
“The
damage had been done.”
Jim
paused. What did that mean?
As if
hearing Jim’s thoughts, Baker continued: “He didn’t see how the altercation
began. He only saw the end bit… where you had Lachie… I mean, Lachlan in a
headlock…”
Jim
frowned, leant back in his chair, feeling it groan under his weight. A
thoughtful hand went to the side of his face, gingerly caressing the dark
purple smudge mark located there. “What you’re implying is that maybe I
attacked Lachlan. Is that right?”
Baker
once more caught a shallow breath. His eyes roved around the room in one swift
movement before centring on Jim. “You know what the legislation about this sort
of thing says…”
“The
Child Protection legislation? Yeah, I
know about that. What about Occupational Health and Safety? What about the legal rights of the victim?”
“And
just who was the victim in this instance, Jim?”
The
challenge was uttered so softly that at first Jim failed to hear. It wasn’t
until a few moments had fluttered past did Jim realise what had been said. And
it wasn’t for another few moments after that that Jim realised that the
challenge had been meted out. And now, John Baker sat on the far side of his
overly large desk, his left leg resting over his right, thin arms folded over
his even thinner chest, his eyes glaring across the space between Jim and
himself. It was his eyes that said the most. His cold, challenging eyes, firing
icy torpedoes of accusation in Jim’s direction.
There
was a bitter silence for several minutes, broken only once by the click of
Jim’s throat as he swallowed. At length, shaking his head, Jim pushed his chair
back.
“The
two of you have a history,” Baker offered, both as explanation and a further
riposte.
“Mm,”
Jim said, with a wave of his hand.
“Albeit
not a pretty history.” Another sally.
He
repeated the same guttural noise, the same gesture of his hand. He was now
staring intently at the floor, unable to look into his boss’ eyes… afraid
perhaps of seeing that shit-eating grin. A veritable red flag.
“And
you did cross the line.” The
matter-of-fact manner in which Baker related these points may have blunted his
tongue’s sword, but each checkpoint (Baker made a habit of counting off points
on his fingers) cut deeply nonetheless. And something in those deadpan thrusts
indicated to Jim that perhaps Baker was enjoying this. Enjoying this immensely.
“I
was defending myself, John. You understand that don’t you?”
Baker
may have understood that… but Jim very much doubted he was going to say so. He
was right, too. “That doesn’t justify what you did. You went too far.”
“Too
far?” Jim hissed, all fear of meeting Baker’s eyes now evaporated. He raised
his eyes, seeing Baker’s hand raised; he had indeed been checking points off
with his fingers. “Look at my face, John, and tell me that I went too far. You
see this cut—” Jim laid his finger on the butterfly strips that criss-crossed
over his right cheek—“that was Lachlan’s Harley Davidson Ring. And I have a
lump on the back of my head the size of an egg from where that bastard king hit
me. Both of those shots—and probably five or six more—he got on me before I
even thought of retaliation! And then his dead shit friend Benny Gooding
decided he’d have a go. Two on one, John… and it probably would’ve been a lot
worse if I hadn’t retaliated. All of
those kids would’ve liked to kick my arse.”
“I
wonder why,” Baker muttered dryly, a hand roving up to his face to conceal a
smirk.
“And
what do you mean by that?” Jim retorted.
“You’ve
had it in for those boys ever since you got here four years ago!”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit
nothing! You’ve constantly derided them,
hackled them, and insulted them. Did you expect nothing to happen because of
it?”
“I
never insulted them, John, and you
damn well know it. And I’m not the only one in this school who has had run ins
with them.”
“The
point, Jim, is that you over reacted!
You totally lost control in front of a large and impressionable group of
children! You broke Benny’s nose and
almost broke Lachlan Murray’s neck!”
“Would
you rather they’d broken mine?”
“Stop
being so dramatic, Jim. For Christ’s sake…” Baker rose from his seat, and paced
the floor. “You have to see this altercation from the Department’s side. We’ve
a public image to maintain.”
“Lachlan
had a switchblade.”
Baker
closed his mouth.
“He
threatened to cut me.”
“We
searched him. We found nothing. All I know is that Andy Johnson saw Benny
Gooding with a busted nose and you and Lachlan wrestling…”
“I
didn’t start the altercation.”
“You
may have exacerbated it.”
“How?”
“You
told the boys to clean themselves up.”
“I
told the boys to clean their area up.”
“That’s
not what I’ve heard.”
“Well
that’s what happened.”
“Look—what
happened before is immaterial. What really matters is that this whole thing is
cleared up to the satisfaction of everyone involved. You, the school and the
students involved.”
“By
making me a scapegoat?”
“What?”
“That’s
what is happening, isn’t it?”
“I
never—”
“You
don’t have to say anything.” Jim got
slowly to his feet. “Ever since Tuesday you’ve given me nothing but empty
assurances. ‘Everything’s going to be fine,’ you’ve said it over and over again—but
is it? Everything isn’t fine! It’s not! I can’t even go to the fucking pub without
catcalls from the street.”
“This
is a small community… you’ve got to understand.”
“And
I’ve heard nothing from you defending my character. All I’ve had is empty
promises and a lot of silence.”
“I’ve
made a few phone calls…”
“So
have I. The Union said students can be witnesses.”
“Hostile
witnesses, maybe.”
“But witnesses
nonetheless!”
“Look…
you’re making a mountain out of a molehill!”
“And
you’re being a stubborn, arrogant prick.”
Baker’s
cold eyes suddenly narrowed. “Insulting me isn’t going to help you.”
Jim
stared back, the hairs on the nape of his neck teased by some invisible fingers.
“What are you going to do, fire me?”
“And
give you an avenue for an unlawful dismissal lawsuit? Come on, Jim!
I didn’t come down in the last shower you know! Consider yourself on indefinite leave with
pay.”
“Why
won’t you help me?”
“I am.
I’m giving you stress leave and the pay to go with it. I can’t do any more.”
“You
can defend my reputation!”
“How? By saying that you drink three beers a night
instead of four? Damn it, Jim! Stop being obstinate! You’re lucky you haven’t had your sorry arse
dragged off to jail!”
“That
would have suited your purposes though, wouldn’t it? You would have liked a better pretext for
firing me, wouldn’t you?”
“Look…
our past disagreements mean nothing. This is entirely different!”
“Maybe,
maybe not. But any undermining of the foundation is good, now, isn’t it?”
For a
moment, Jim felt sure that Baker was going to acquiesce with him. But at the
last moment, he lowered his eyes, and said, with a voice softer than snow and
devoid of any emotion: “please leave Mr. Hallaron… before either of us say
something we might regret.”
Jim
held out his hands in resignation. “Fine,” he replied. “I know when I’ve lost.”
He
backed out of the door, surprising himself by closing it gently. He further
surprised himself by grinning at the secretaries as he sauntered out of the
office, sure without a doubt that they had listened to more of that exchange than
they would care to admit.
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