16. HARRISON
HARRISON
Harrison was pissed off. Like, seriously pissed off. The rock climbing with Zane had been fun for as long as it had lasted. But only about an hour in, Harrison had received an email summoning him to see Dean Hoffman.
Harrison would have ignored the email, but something about the seething, angry tone of it made him reconsider. After all, as much as Harrison didn’t respect Hoffman, he did acknowledge that he was his boss and it was wise to not overtly go out of his way to anger him.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Harrison said, wiping his face with a towel. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this meeting. Hoffman’s been trying to ride my ass for months. This feels… different somehow.’
Without further ado, Harrison and Zane hopped into Zane’s Porsche 911 and made it back to campus in record time.
With the sound of Zane’s car roaring away, Harrison took a moment to compose himself before he entered the Dean’s building.
It was the oldest building on campus and had been maintained to a very high standard – no doubt using up plenty of the budget that could have gone toward improving the student accommodation.
Okay. Let’s get this shit over with.
Just keep it cool.
Whatever you do… stay fucking cool.
Harrison took a big breath and walked through the heavy mahogany entry doors and made his way toward Hoffman’s office. Harrison stood outside the shut door and knocked.
No answer.
Harrison knocked again. And then another knock.
‘Jesus. Where is this asshole?’ Harrison muttered, feeling angry at the possibility that Hoffman had taken him out of his rock climbing and then not even bothered to show up.
‘You may enter,’ came the voice from inside Hoffman’s office.
Harrison rolled his eyes. Another Hoffman power game. It was getting very old indeed and Harrison wasn’t sure how much longer he could deal with this situation.
Stepping inside the office, Harrison waited as Hoffman stood with his back to him as he picked a book off the shelf. The office itself was pretty much a standard college office. Wall to wall shelving full of books. A comfortable and tasteful couch in one corner. A large desk.
But the one thing that separated this from a normal office was the large, gold-framed portrait of Dean Hoffman than hung on the wall. It was grotesque and spoke to Hoffman’s enormous ego that he would even contemplate such a thing.
When Hoffman turned around, Harrison noticed that his mostly bald head was looking shinier than ever. Not only that, but Hoffman’s strands of remaining hair were looking thinner than ever.
Just shave it all off, man.
Own it.
Harrison sensed that Hoffman was toying with him.
But the fact that Hoffman was simply not speaking was beginning to border on very strange behavior indeed.
What the hell was Hoffman expecting Harrison to do?
Hoffman was a fifty-five-year-old man in a senior management position, he should have been far, far better than this.
Then, with the atmosphere getting tangibly intense, Hoffman focused his grey-blue eyes on Harrison…
‘You’ve had a good run, you really have,’ Hoffman said, taking delight in the sound of his own voice. ‘But like your publishing record, all good runs come to an end.’
‘Wait, what the hell is this?’ Harrison interrupted, not appreciating Hoffman’s tone. ‘You call me here out of the blue, and you’re going to start talking down to me like this? It’s not acceptable.’
So much for keeping your cool.
Fuck it. This asshole has gone too far…
Harrison was angry. He wanted to tell Hoffman exactly what he thought about him. It was time to put this arrogant sonofabitch in his place.
But Hoffman had other ideas, and he had plenty more to say too…
‘Calm down, darling,’ Hoffman sneered. ‘All I’m saying is that you need to rethink your approach. You need to work harder. Do more around the place. Be a good boy and play by the rules. You’re not the hot shot author so much now, and I’m not the soft Dean who hired you.’
Harrison was seething with anger. This was simply not acceptable. In all his years working at the college, Harrison had never faced criticism like this. He did work hard and the students appreciated him. This was Hoffman talking out of his ass for his own reasons, whatever they were.
But Harrison knew that he had to keep his anger under control. The last thing he wanted to do was make a tricky situation a hundred times worse. Instead, Harrison attempted to reason with Hoffman. Surely that had to be worth a shot?
‘Dean, respectfully, I do work hard,’ Harrison said, ensuring to keep his voice calm and in control. ‘My student appraisals are amongst the best in the faculty. Hell, they’re amongst the best in the whole damn college.’
But Harrison’s words were falling on deaf ears.
Not only was Hoffman unmoved, but it seemed like he had something else he wanted to get off his chest.
‘We can work this out,’ Hoffman said, moving closer to Harrison. ‘We’re both adults. I’m sure we can come to some kind of… arrangement.’
Hoffman ran his thin, spindly fingers up Harrison’s arm and grinned a horrible, sleazy smile. Harrison felt totally repulsed and immediately backed away.
‘Fine, have it your way,’ Hoffman said, clearly furious at his advance being knocked back. ‘See how long you last. There are authors who would do anything for your job. And if I have anything to do with it, that’s exactly what will be happening!’
Harrison was livid. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Not only was this incredibly unethical, but it was the clearest sign yet that Hoffman’s problem with Harrison had never been to do with his work - it was all part of some twisted plan to sleaze onto him.
‘You know what, you can go to hell,’ Harrison said, turning and storming out of the office, slamming the door behind him to the sound of Hoffman’s cringe-making high-pitched laugh.
What had started out as a wonderful morning had suddenly turned into something else altogether. This was the last thing that Harrison needed.
The only comfort Harrison had was the thought of going home to Sammy. If anyone could make Harrison feel better, it was his special boy…
* * *
Harrison was seething with pent up anger on the walk home from the Dean’s office. He simply could not believe what Hoffman had done or how he had behaved.
In all his years in academia, Harrison hadn’t personally witnessed anything like the way Hoffman had just acted. It was enough to make Harrison want to hand in his resignation and never step foot in a college again.
But as mad as he was, Harrison knew that Hoffman was out of line and there would surely be a way of showing this to some kind of disciplinary committee or the board of directors. Something had to be possible. Despite feeling like giving in, Harrison truly didn’t want Hoffman to win.
I should have kept my cool.
But he kept pushing me and pushing me.
Hoffman’s lucky he doesn’t have a busted lip…
Harrison kept consoling himself with the fact that upon his arrival home he would be met by Sammy.
In all likelihood, Sammy would have a fresh snack or tasty new treat to present to Harrison for a taste-test. It might not totally solve the situation with Hoffman, but it would at least be a pleasant distraction from what had just gone down.
Upon arriving home, Harrison swung the front door open and called out to his darling boy…
‘Sammy! Sammy! You’d better have a sweet little cake for me to eat!’ Harrison said, doing his best to sound as positive and happy as he could. ‘If you haven’t made a cake, I might just have to put my mouth on your booty-cake!’
Harrison laughed a big, bellowing laugh.
But rather than hearing any response from Sammy, all Harrison could hear was silence. This was strange. All the lights were on. There was no note or message from Sammy to say that he wouldn’t be home.
However, as Harrison walked through the hallway and into the kitchen, he was met by a sight that immediately wiped away his optimism.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Harrison barked. ‘You’d better not be doing what it looks like you’re doing!’
The guilty look on Sammy’s face said it all.
Harrison stood before Sammy with his hands on his hips and a furious scowl on his face.
Sammy was sitting at the table with his phone in one hand and Harrison’s iPad in his other.
Not only was Sammy on his social media accounts, but he appeared to be frantically typing responses, comments, and uploading videos.
‘Aren’t you even going to attempt to explain yourself?’ Harrison said, his voice booming across the room. ‘Answer me!’
‘But… I… it… I…,’ Sammy said, all the while still typing on his phone and even holding the iPad up to take a selfie. ‘I can exp-’
‘No! Enough! You’ve quite clearly gone against every damn rule we’ve agreed upon,’ Harrison roared.
‘And for all I know, you’ve been doing this the whole time!
Is this what you do? Wait until I’m safely out of the way before going behind my back and carrying on with all the social media crap that got you all strung out? ’
Sammy looked tearful, but he still wouldn’t stop touching his phone.
‘Get to your fucking room!’ Harrison bellowed, this time the severity in his voice prompting Sammy to spring to his feet and run at a hundred miles per hour to the safety of his bedroom. ‘Bring me back that phone! Now!’
But Sammy didn’t stop to give his phone back.
Instead, Harrison heard Sammy slam the bedroom door and click the lock.
That disobedient, bratty little boy…
This was the last fucking thing I needed.
What the hell am I meant to do now?
Harrison was livid. After going through the terrible meeting with Dean Hoffman, the last thing that Harrison had anticipated was coming home and finding Sammy like some zombie on his phone, manically typing comments and doing the exact thing that made him so unhappy before.
‘Breathe. Take a moment. Don’t make things worse,’ Harrison said to himself, trying his best to calm down. ‘The boy can wait. But right now it’s time to burn some of this anger off.’
Without further ado, Harrison changed out of his clothes and got into his running gear. It wasn’t going to make his problems go away, but a hard and fast 5KM run would sure as hell help clear his head.
Harrison would run and run hard.
And then on his return home he would sit down with Sammy and find out exactly what was going on. Well, that was the plan anyhow…