Tapper Jones

By Thomas E. Hall

Tapper Jones has landed his dream job as a professor at an idyllic Midwestern college. His dream is shattered when he discovers that he has entered a snake pit: a history department at war. Tapper’s chances for advancement and tenure depend upon a handful of ethically-challenged senior professors, some of whom did not want him hired in the first place, who spar continuously over trivial issues. Success requires Tapper to walk a fine line, further complicated by his growing love for Katherine, the department chair’s niece. Tempers in the history department escalate, and when they finally explode Tapper must gamble his future by choosing sides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas E. Hall
• Release date: Jan 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9780615849195

Thomas E. Hall

Thomas E. Hall was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in the suburb of Royal Oak. He attended the University of Colorado as an undergraduate, and was a graduate student at the University of California - Santa Barbara where he received his MA and PhD in Economics. He has been an economics professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio since 1982 and teaches classes on macroeconomics, business cycles, and the Great Depression. He has written several articles in applied macroeconomics, and authored Business Cycles: The Nature and Causes of Economic Fluctuations (Praeger, 1990); The Great Depression: An International Disaster of Perverse Economic Policies (University of Michigan Press, 1998, with J.D. Ferguson); The Rotten Fruits of Economic Controls and the Rise From the Ashes, 1965-1989 (University Press of America, 2003); Aftermath: The Unintended Consequences of Public Policies (Cato Institute, forthcoming 2014). In addition, he has written two novels, The Quadrangle (2003) and Tapper Jones (2013). He lives in Wyoming, Ohio with his wife Chris. They have one adult son.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It would probably be their last time alone together, so a twinge of desperation lurked in his kiss. He’d kissed her soft, familiar lips often the past several months. The thick blonde hair exuded the lemon fragrance of her shampoo; her shallow breathing when she was aroused never failed to excite him. He wished he had the energy for another go, but he was depleted. No doubt she was willing, but then she was nearly twenty years younger than he.

When their lips finally parted, he brushed his fingers against her cheek. Well, Jessica, good luck.

She rubbed her hand gently against his crotch and smiled, the moisture on her lips glistening in the morning light flowing through the window. We’ll see each other at the ceremony, won’t we? I want you to meet my parents.

His grin disappeared. Your father won’t shoot me, will he?

She giggled. He doesn’t know. And I’m not going to tell him. Are you?

I hardly think so.

Her hand, still on the front of his pants, gently squeezed his bulging manhood.

So long, Tim. Let’s stay in touch.

Absolutely, Jessica.

He felt a twinge of guilt the instant he said it. They would exchange emails for a year or two, but that would dwindle away. Hopefully, she would move on to her new life with pleasant memories of their time together. After what they had shared, it was sad it ended this way. But he’d been around long enough to know that people drift in and out of one’s circle of friends and acquaintances. Few friendships turn out to be permanent.

He wondered if she knew any of these things. But her young, innocent green eyes showed no sign that she did.

He suddenly felt morose, but forced a grin. If I’m ever in Minneapolis, I’ll call you. And you do the same if you’re coming down this way again.

She smiled even more widely, exposing her straight white teeth. I’d like that.

He reached past her and cracked open the door. After peering out to make sure the office suite was empty, he pulled it open wide enough that she could leave. Their lips touched one last time as she passed, then she headed toward the hallway. He enjoyed the image of her shoulder-length blond hair bouncing while she walked, her long tanned legs, the firm round rear-end covered by the pink shorts she’d put back on just minutes before. She had nothing on beneath them because her black lace panties were safely stowed in his pocket, a souvenir to remember her by.

When Jessica reached the suite’s outer door, she turned and blew him a kiss. Then she was gone, the sound of her footsteps drifting away. When he could no longer hear her, he emitted a long sigh and closed the door. Reclining in his office chair, he set his feet on his desk and felt both satisfied and sad. Satisfied because her ability to please him was extraordinary, sad because he would miss her. But she was leaving town for the right reason—she was graduating and would start a new job in two weeks. Besides, no deep emotional attachment existed between them. Their connection was about sex, and they both knew it.

Besides, the loss wasn’t all that serious. When classes started in the fall, he’d find a replacement easily enough. Once again campus would be filled with thousands of attractive, young, single women. Hooking up with a new one would be as easy as catching fish from a barrel.

Chapter 2

Aristotle once said, ‘the roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet,’ intoned the tall man at the podium, his deep aristocratic voice booming over the loudspeakers. Gray hair protruded beneath the mortarboard atop his head, and the gold tassel hanging beside his left ear stood out in the mid-morning sun. From the neck down, a crimson academic gown covered his slender frame.

During your time here, we have taken that advice seriously. Outstanding faculty have challenged you, expected the supreme effort from you, elevated your ability to think to heights you thought unimaginable just a few years ago. The speaker paused for a moment, and when he resumed his voice was even deeper. "And I think you’ll agree that the fruit is, in fact, very sweet."

A diminutive man in his early sixties seated a few yards behind the podium exhaled loudly through exposed teeth and rolled his eyes behind the large sunglasses resting on his nose. A smile crossed his face, but inside he fumed. In fact, Murray Silverman, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, felt like screaming.

The global village anticipates great things from this class, continued Doctor Lawrence Wells, the President of Central Illinois State University. You will use the astounding portfolio accumulated during your time here to make the world a more magnificent place. You will alleviate global hunger, sickness, and poverty. You will lift humankind to incredible heights. You will accomplish nothing less than solving the problem of scarcity everywhere.

Silverman inhaled sharply. For God’s sake, Larry, spare us the bullshit, he thought. These kids had trouble dragging their asses out of bed to show up for 11 a.m. classes. Most of them spent their four-years here playing intramural sports, drinking enough booze to float a destroyer, hurling their guts out in the alleys behind the bars, and getting laid as often as they could. The campus library might as well be in Mongolia for all the times most of them set foot in it. And they’re going to save the world? Who wrote this idiotic speech? That air-head son-in-law of yours?

Silverman stared at Wells.

Or was it you, Larry?

Realizing his smile had disappeared, Silverman immediately restored it. After all, over 10,000 people were facing him on this special day. Those parents in the grandstands had shelled out thousands of dollars in tuition payments to put their children through college, and many of the students had run up a mountain of student-loan debt to boot.

Above all else, keep smiling.

So as you depart from these hallowed grounds remember that the university will forever be an integral part of your heart and soul, your very essence of being…

Silverman sighed out loud, not caring if the wealthy alumnus beside him noticed. He’d long considered President Wells a harmless man who never missed the chance to make a complete fool of himself while trying to play the high-powered intellectual. And Wells was always at his worst during the spring graduation ceremony when he had an audience of thousands.

In reality, Larry Wells was a tuba-playing music professor who had somehow defied the odds and climbed to the top of the administrative ladder at CISU. As far as Silverman was concerned, Wells was the worst kind of academic: a pompous, incompetent fool—convinced he was brilliant—armed with a Ph.D. and a phony British accent. It was an ugly combination.

The university plays a major role in our world for it is both the creator and conduit for new ideas…

Silverman knew the dislike was mutual. During the past few years Wells had been hinting that Silverman should resign his deanship and return to full-time teaching or retire. Wells claimed that Arts and Sciences needed fresh blood at the helm. But Silverman knew the real reason Wells wanted him out: so Larry could promote his son-in-law who was the chair of the geography department. Plus, Wells had never forgiven Silverman’s wife Anna for reaming him out at that infamous reception during homecoming weekend two years before.

But Silverman had no intention of resigning unless forced, and that was not going to happen as long as his former student Glen Ormsby waved his big fat checkbook under Wells’s aristocratic nose. Silverman glanced with pride at the new Ormsby-Silverman College of Arts and Sciences building visible beyond the far end of the stadium. Ormsby, who credited the education he received from his former economics professor Murray Silverman with being key to his success, put up the money for the structure but insisted that both their names be on it. Money was the lifeblood of modern higher education, and to a college president like Larry Wells, fixated on leaving a legacy of grand expensive buildings, the green stuff was as enticing as raw meat to a dog. And no CISU alum had a larger checking account than Glenn Ormsby which was Silverman’s ace in the hole. But the much larger source of money to the university was before them: the thousands of parents and their children who paid huge amounts of tuition.

So the university gave them a good show at the end. Even though Silverman had been attending graduations for nearly thirty years, he remained impressed by the visual feast. A sea of academic gowns covered the football field, the front rows occupied by faculty wearing the colors of their alma maters, while behind them the graduates swirled as one mass of black caps and gowns and happy faces. Their families and friends occupied the stadium’s grandstands, light-colored clothing dominating on this lovely, warm spring morning. To Silverman, the visuals were perfect. The problem was the audio.

The human mind is a powerful, yet fragile instrument, proclaimed Wells. It must be used wisely for the greater good.

The graduates were bouncing a multi-colored beach ball among themselves. Each time it descended, a student would hit it, sending the sphere high into the air. The ball was slowly making its way toward the front of the crowd, and if it landed on the stage, Silverman or some other university VIP would have to decide what to do with it. The previous year a beach ball had landed in the lap of the dean of the education school. When she yanked a pen from her purse and stabbed the balloon, she was loudly booed.

So as you conclude your odyssey of the mind at Central Illinois State University…

Silverman relaxed a bit; Wells always invoked this line near the end of a graduation speech. None too soon.

As the beach ball descended toward the graduates, a tall beefy young man with a bloated, pink face rose to his feet, his right arm prepared to strike. Silverman recognized him immediately: Jared Ignand, the ne’er-do-well president of the worthless, party-hearty Beta Theta Delta fraternity.

And, no doubt, drunk as usual.

Fuck college! Ignand yelled as his fist connected with the ball. But his aim was not true. Instead of propelling the ball vertically, his ham-fist launched it into a screaming line drive headed toward the stage. It stopped a few yards short when it connected with the back of the head of a faculty member seated in the second row, knocking off his mortarboard and eyeglasses.

The crowd gasped, but Wells kept talking.

Silverman couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud because the affronted person was the chemist Herb Rosen, the biggest jerk (which was saying a lot) in the College of Arts and Sciences. Rosen, who drove around town in a $100,000 Porsche with personalized Illinois license plates proclaiming him a GENIUS. So deluded, he actually went into a funk each year after the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced because he thought his research had been overlooked yet again.

Well done, Ignand, thought Silverman. After five sad-sack years here earning your bachelors in phys-ed, you’ve finally done something right.

On his feet, Rosen screamed obscenities at the students. The students responded in kind.

The testy situation was diffused a few seconds later when Wells finished his speech. While the crowd applauded, Rosen bent down to retrieve his eyeglasses and graduation cap—his dignity wounded and his face beet-red. Silverman knew that first thing Monday morning Rosen would be trying to make a capital offense out of the incident. But by then Ignand would be gone, heading home to Milwaukee where he would slowly drink himself to death.

The next item on the program was the awarding of degrees. While the commencement marshals moved into position, Silverman searched the front row of the grandstand on his left. It took a moment to find her, but his beloved Anna was there, her small dark round face radiating the pride she always showed over her husband’s high status on this special day. He smiled and blew her a kiss, which she returned.

Silverman almost always smiled when Anna was around. His Little Beauty, she was the Guatemalan he’d met thirty-five years ago while serving in the Peace Corps. He’d been an idealistic twenty-two year-old, just graduated from college, serving as an orderly at a medical clinic on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Anna was an eighteen-year-old orphan who arrived at the clinic one day suffering from a compound fracture of her right leg.

Amazed at her ability to stoically bear the pain he knew must have been excruciating, he’d been instantly attracted to her large dark eyes and circular face. The attraction was mutual, in fact they couldn’t take their eyes off each other. Now, after thirty-four years of marriage, they were still infatuated with each other and had produced a joint legacy of six successful sons who in turn had sired fourteen beautiful grandchildren.

Silverman’s grin widened when he thought about what he and Anna would be doing that afternoon. Four years ago, during the drive home from the post-graduation reception, Silverman felt randy after two glasses of champagne. Anna proved a bit tipsy too, and when Murray set his hand on her thigh and gently squeezed, she responded by massaging his manhood. By the time he pulled the car into the garage, they were panting like a pair of teenagers, and the moment they walked in the house he announced, It’s time for Dean Silverman to award Anna an honorary doctorate! Screaming in delight, Anna ran toward the bedroom with Murray in hot pursuit. It had become their annual post-graduation ritual.

Silverman glanced at his size-six black wingtip shoes and quietly chuckled. He was a diminutive man, but if the old wives’ tale about shoe-size and size of the manly torpedo were true, it certainly didn’t apply to Murray Silverman. He was clearly a statistical outlier! In fact, when Anna first saw him in his male glory, she’d exclaimed Oh, Moree! Like a horse!

Silverman heard the crowd stir with anticipation and turned his attention back to the podium where the head commencement marshal was instructing the graduates to form lines. Everyone was here for this climax of the ceremony, although it would be a long drawn-out one as over 1,500 people were scheduled to walk across the stage. Assembly-line education moved into action as the graduates lined up on both sides of the stage. Each student held a slip of paper bearing their name which they handed to a marshal in exchange for an empty diploma case. Their actual diplomas arrived in the mail a few weeks later. The marshals would alternate reading names over the public address system while the graduates walked across the stage. The assembly-line was unrelenting: one graduate every five seconds, twelve per minute, 720 per hour. It would go on for more than two hours, but this is what the graduates and their families wanted.

While the students moved into position, Silverman glanced down at the faculty seated in the front rows. The mathematicians sat in the middle of the first row, the brilliant and irascible Mel Jenkins towering above the rest in his orange gown and white mortar board. Not a bad bunch, thought Silverman. They do their jobs well and don’t cause trouble. In fact, if every department ran so smoothly, my job would be easier.

He was surprised to see the history faculty sitting directly behind math. That must have been unplanned. Bad blood existed between those departments since that softball game a few years ago. Silverman didn’t know the details, but he was sure Mel Jenkins was involved. Jenkins didn’t suffer fools, and history had their share of those.

In fact, over the past few years no department in Arts and Sciences had caused Silverman more trouble than history. They couldn’t do anything quietly, every decision was a fight between the department’s two opposing factions. Who got what office, who taught which courses, in what classrooms, at what times, who got the biggest raise. It was endless. The department had a new assistant professor coming on board in the fall, a promising young historian with a funny name that Silverman couldn’t remember. Silverman was concerned that the opposing groups would try to draw the new man into their camps, which would not be good for an untenured faculty member. Hopefully, he’d have enough sense to keep his nose out of it.

Maria Beltran.

Professor Tim Rutledge’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker as he announced the name of the first graduate to walk across the stage. She was a small young woman with dark hair and olive skin, a bounce in her step, and a smile on her face. She waved her diploma case over her head.

Silverman sighed. One down, 1,527 to go.

He settled back in his chair to watch the assembly line at work. The moment Miss Beltran reached the middle of the stage the second marshal read the name of another woman who headed across in the opposite direction. A few seconds after that Rutledge read a name, and a young man started across.

The parade was in full swing. Silverman watched the happy faces, never ceasing to be amazed at how few of them he recognized. As dean of the college, he had surprisingly little direct contact with students. The ones he recognized were students he’d seen wandering the hallways or met in his dealings with various student organizations.

His attention was drawn to a tall, attractive blond woman standing at the edge of the stage waiting for her name to be read. Professor Tim Rutledge was holding her hand and smiling at her, and she was smiling back. Then he released her hand and read her name.

Jessica Brenner.

She strolled across, her long blonde hair flowing beneath her mortar board, a huge grin on her gorgeous face.

Silverman raised his eyebrows. The look that Rutledge and the woman had shared didn’t resemble any student-teacher connection he’d ever seen. He’d heard rumors that Rutledge dabbled with female students. But there had never been a complaint or accusation of improper behavior, and until that happened there was nothing Silverman could do about it.

Well, thought Silverman, if there ever is a complaint against Rutledge, I’ll take care of it. I run a clean ship. I’ll see Professor Timothy Rutledge hanging by his testicles from the tree outside my office window.

Chapter 3

Three months later

Salty sweat burned Tapper Jones’s brown eyes while he hefted the last box from the trunk of his Chevy Malibu. Each box heavier than the one before, this one felt like it was full of lead. He used his hip to prop the box against the car while he closed the trunk lid. Then, with a grunt he lifted it into both arms of his six-foot tall slender body and covered the short distance to the back door of Theime Hall.

The outdoor temperature surpassed a hundred degrees, and the humidity made it feel like a steam bath. Unsteady on his feet, he just wanted to get this job over with.

The cool air inside the building felt good, but Jones still had to climb the stairs. The elevator was at the other end of the building, but the close-in parking was at this end. He’d hauled hundreds of pounds up these stairs, on the hottest day of the summer no less. And for this he’d spent nine years in college and earned a doctorate? What was wrong with this picture?

Breathing deeply now, Jones reached the second floor and made the now-familiar trip along the hallway, past empty classrooms, toward the suite where his office was located. The building was nearly deserted since classes wouldn’t start for another week.

Suddenly, a door to his right opened and a small woman in her twenties emerged. She was dressed in a short dark skirt that stopped mid-thigh on her shapely legs, and a tight white t-shirt accentuated small, firm breasts. Her hair was mussed up, as if she’d just gotten out of bed, and her face was flushed. She offered a shy smile while passing, and he nodded in return. Before resuming his journey, he made note of the door she’d emerged from. It led into a suite of faculty offices.

Jones’s office was farther along the hallway and when he finally arrived, he set the box down hard on the desk and, utterly exhausted, collapsed into the desk chair.

His ordeal had begun a week earlier in New York when he emptied the contents of his apartment into a rented trailer hitched to the back of his Chevy and said goodbye to the many friends he’d made while in graduate school. The first stop was his grandparents’ house in Western Pennsylvania where he spent a few days before continuing on to Balliol, Illinois which would be his new home. When he arrived, everything had to be unloaded into his apartment and office. And he’d had the misfortune to do it during the worst heat wave of the summer.

Hopefully, getting tenure wouldn’t be this difficult. Ever since his freshman year in college, it had been his dream to be a college professor. Now he had jumped the first hurdle, and the next one, and perhaps the more difficult of the two, would be to turn this opportunity into a permanent, tenured position. That meant a huge amount of work during the next five years while he taught and published papers. He intended to do everything humanly possible so he could complete his dream. And to honor the memory of his deceased parents who had supported him along the way.

Tapper Jones has arrived!

He opened his eyes, unaware he’d dozed off. A tall man of about forty was standing in the doorway with a grin on his handsome face. Dressed in khaki shorts and a dark t-shirt, he stepped forward and offered his hand.

Tapper Jones groggily stood and shook it. You’re Tim Rutledge, aren’t you? he said.

Rutledge nodded. That’s me. It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry if I woke you up. I didn’t realize you were asleep.

I was just resting my eyes, said Jones, feeling a little embarrassed. I must look awful. I probably stink, too. God, it’s hot out there!

One hundred and two degrees, said Rutledge. I saw it on the internet. Hell of a day to be moving in. If I had known, I would have helped. He paused to clear his throat. I was working in my office.

Rutledge glanced around the small room which caused Jones to do the same. A file cabinet and two empty metal bookcases awaited the contents of the boxes. A desk, chair, and computer table completed the furniture.

This was my office for a while, said Rutledge. It’s small, but you have a nice view of the lawn out back. By the way, Dr. Jones, I was glad to hear you finished your dissertation.

Jones grinned. Thanks. He opened the last box he’d carried in and removed a bound document which he handed to Rutledge.

Rutledge opened the cover and read the title page out loud: "The