Simon Said by Sarah Shaber Read Free Book Online

Andrus, Marcus Clegg, and himself.
    Marcus Clegg held a joint appointment in the departments of psychology and history. His research in both fields was brilliant, original, and meticulous. Despite his accomplishments, Marcus probably wouldn't be welcome at a major university. He just didn't fit into any standard academic niche. Kenan College was happy to have him move between his lab, where he studied the neuroanatomy of rats in the context of behavior, and his crowded office in the history department, where he was finishing a book on the recantation of Galileo.
    Marcus's views on psychology and psychotherapy were unfashionable, too. He was a social liberal only because he believed that either the carrot or the stick would solve any problem known to man, but that the carrot was more humane. Buying off the masses was just plain more acceptable to him than locking them up. He was especially critical of talk therapy, which he believed encouraged self-pity and helplessness. "I hate to hear people whine," he once told Simon. "I don't want to spend years listening to the same people try to figure out why they can't get on an elevator without having an anxiety attack. I want to get them on that elevator—as soon as possible. And never see them again."
    Simon was glad that Marcus was in town. He was the only one in the room with whom Simon had a personal relationship. Marcus was about ten years older than Simon, and he still cultivated a sixties' image. He wore Birkenstock sandals with socks practically all year, wire-rim glasses, and his brown hair curled over his collar. He professed to be a radical, but he had an essentially conservative nature. The man worked hard at his job, adored his wife of fifteen years, and was devoted to his four daughters. He spent most of his free time with his family at soccer games and Indian Princesses meetings and other such family events. Simon was jealous as hell of him.
    As always, Walker Jones presided paternally at the head of the table. White-haired, dignified, and poised, he reminded Simon of Walter Cronkite. He had been department chair for twenty years and took it just as seriously today as he did his first week on the job. Vera Thayer sat rigidly next to him, poised like Athena determined to defend Troy from the Greeks. She wore her business suit like armor and her beehive hairdo like a helmet. All that was missing was a sword and a shield. Alex Andrus was pacing in front of the windows, carefully balancing a well-worn chip on his shoulder.
    Andrus was on his second career and was sensitive about it. After being passed over for captain twice, the navy refused to renew his enlistment contract. He was a fanatic Civil War hobbyist, so he went to graduate school to get his doctorate. He worked hard and produced dozens of articles published in Civil War journals and magazines. Most of them were bibliographies and catalogs of artifacts. He was a popular teacher because he taught the Civil War anecdotally and adhered to the standard southern line that slavery had not been the cause of the Civil War. If Simon had not come to Kenan and won the Pulitzer Prize, Andrus would have been a sure bet for tenure.
    Simon kept his mouth shut around Alex. He disliked the man, but he also despised his attitude toward southern history. Simon was a devoted southerner. He wouldn't live anywhere else in the world. But he hated the unquestioning idolatry of most of the South toward the Civil War experience. He believed that the decision to secede was indefensible from any standpoint, whether social, economic, or military. It was even more irresponsible to keep fighting once the odds against the South became clear. Many thousands of young Southerners died unnecessarily for "the cause" long after it was hopeless. In any other nation in the world, everyone from Jefferson Davis to General Lee would have been shot for treason after the surrender at Appomattox. Then what the outmoded economics of slavery didn't do to delay