Fives and Twenty-Fives (5 page)
The crowd will come around the corner at any moment, and I wonder if my flatmates will appear with it. I wonder if I should go onto the streets if only to see this thing. This revolution.
Then I think of Lester, his picture on Facebook in my mind’s eye, and I wonder if he will help me, if he even should. I wonder where Mulasim Donovan can be found, if not on Facebook. I write down a note in the dark. Universities. Newspapers. Places to look for him.
As requested, please see the attached excerpt from my Official Military Personnel File, and the substantial leadership instruction (equivalent to over thirty semester hours) I received as an officer-in-training at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Again, I ask that you apply this instruction as a transfer credit so that I may be excused from Management 901: Leadership Dynamics and Business Ethics.
Respectfully,
Peter Donovan
The classroom has stadium-style seating with chairs built into tables. Concentric semicircles rise up from the podium on carpeted terraces. A wealthy alum, his name bolted to the door on a bronze plaque I’ve never read, paid for the renovation as part of Liebert’s endowed professorship of business ethics and leadership.
The university designed this lecture room for modern, multimedia instruction, but never ran that idea by Liebert, apparently. He has thirty years of tenure, so no one can complain that he doesn’t have an e-mail account and refuses to prepare PowerPoint presentations. Even the whiteboard annoys him. He laments constantly on the demise of chalk.
Liebert stalks up and down the terraces, hunched over with his hands clasped behind his back. Wild, gray hair shifts slightly from one side to the other as he glances at our laptop screens to make sure we’re not checking our e-mail or streaming videos, while, at the podium, Paige Dufossat briefs the weekly case study. The semester is almost over. We’ll submit our final papers in a few weeks, and I’ll start my winter internship at Poydras Capital, a downtown investment firm.
I’m still savagely hungover from my night with Zahn. Knowing Liebert’s habits by now, I’ve hidden
Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere
inside the casebook
.
It’s the only thing that keeps me from putting my head down on the table and passing out. I spend the class reviewing the dimensions and handling characteristics of the twenty-eight-foot, sloop-rigged Pearson Triton, in response to the line I have on a Katrina wreck at West End. The harbormaster might let me have it for free if I move it at my own expense.
I haven’t read the case study, but glean from the sparing attention I give Paige’s brief that it’s about a fast-food chain expanding into the Chinese market. Now she moves to her conclusions, the moment when she can only fail. It’s Liebert’s practice to destroy any ideas that aren’t his own. We all know it by now. She grasps the podium and, using only the muscles of her neck, throws her long, brown hair over each shoulder while bringing her gaze back to Professor Liebert.
“So, in my opinion,” she says stoically, “the executive’s lack of empathy for a foreign culture and his unwillingness to adapt to the Chinese mind-set led to these difficulties in supply-chain management, which in
turn
led to the stalled expansion effort.”
She knows what’s coming next. I can see it on her face. Or maybe it’s just the default state of her delicate features that I mistake for fear. Her appearance doesn’t exactly scream, “Ruthless business executive,” like that of some of the other girls in our class. Most of her female classmates arrive on campus in heels and power suits, but Paige is more of a T-shirt-and-jeans type who eschews makeup. It works for her, allowing her pale blue eyes and her slight, upturned nose to stand out.
I can’t recall offhand the eye color of any other classmate. Nor can I imagine any other classmate citing “lack of empathy” for a business failure. Paige can’t expect Professor Liebert to respond favorably to any of this, which makes it an interesting choice. I wonder where she’s going with it. I close the casebook and its clandestine rider, sitting up for the first time in an hour.
Liebert reaches the front of the room, places one hand on the podium, close enough to Paige’s hand to make her uncomfortable, and says, with his back turned to the class, “Was it empathy that he lacked, Ms. Dufossat? It seems to me the executive had ample empathy. He recognized the feelings of his Chinese colleagues, certainly. He simply refused to accept their mediocre standards. Refused to conduct the affairs of his firm, of his employer, in that way. Is it empathetic, Ms. Dufossat, to acquiesce to mediocrity? Is it
leadership
?”
Paige knows not to answer. She purses her lips, taking a step back from the podium. But as Liebert moves to take her place, something in the curt nod Paige gives him catches my attention. I recognize it only vaguely, hidden behind those slender limbs and that button nose, as a compact “Fuck you.”
“A leader would’ve changed the Chinese approach,” Liebert says confidently. Stating the obvious and yet the essential. “A leader needs empathy, of course, to know the mind-set of his subordinates. But a good leader would use this knowledge to alter their mind-sets. Leadership, kiddo, is changing your subordinates so that they are better equipped, better motivated, to achieve the goals you set.”
I groan involuntarily, fighting a wave of nausea. I reel my legs back under the chair, plant my elbows on the table, and bury my face in my hands. When I pick my head up, the whole class is looking at me.
“Thoughts, Mr. Donovan?” Liebert smiles.
“No, just a little sore,” I lie. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Please, Mr. Donovan. I’ve been hoping to hear from you at some point in this semester. Given the extensive leadership experience I’m told you have.”
“Really, it’s not a big deal.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Donovan. You’re a veteran, correct? You were an officer in the . . .
which
branch of the service was it?”
“The Marine Corps.”
“And you have experience overseas? In Iraq?”
“Yes.” He knows all of this, and it’s starting to piss me off. My classmates shift in their seats to get a better view, sensing, as do I, that this line of questioning will continue for the remainder of the session.
“And so we should assume that you needed the principles of leadership when relating to that foreign culture, correct?”
“Not really,” I say with a shrug. “I had a gun.”
But after a wave of bashful laughter from the class, Liebert keeps after me. “I sense you’re a little reluctant to discuss this. So let me put it to you another way: You’re using your veteran’s benefits to pay tuition, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then, as taxpayers, I believe your classmates are entitled to the benefit of your experience, no?”
The laughter is more effusive now, as my classmates attempt to placate their professor. They’re younger than me, fresh from undergraduate life and eager to share their experiences, interning here and traveling there. They couldn’t possibly conceive of how badly I want to break Liebert’s arm just now.
I consider walking silently from the room, going to the registrar, and withdrawing from the class. But that would only confirm me as the troubled veteran. It’s my fault for writing a letter citing my military experience, I decide. Professor Liebert’s smug grin is a just punishment.
My classmates are grinning, too. Empty vessels awaiting the master’s touch. All except Paige Dufossat. She stands stock-still behind Liebert and watches me warily. Nervous, perhaps, that I might deflect Liebert’s assault back onto her. Or maybe she’s keeping faith, under the impression that we’re a team now. Either way, she’s mistaken.
These thoughts distract me for a moment, and I stumble back into the discussion a beat behind the action. “I’m sorry. Would you mind repeating the question?”
This time the class doesn’t laugh.
Liebert steps away from the podium and gestures for Paige to take his place. “All right, then. Let’s reframe. Ms. Dufossat asserts that empathy is required of a leader. From
your
experience as a veteran, as someone who’s led men, soldiers, in wartime, would you agree with her?”
She stares me down, those blue eyes striking against her brown hair. Maybe she’s right. Maybe we are a team in this.
“Well, first of all, I led men
and
women. Not just men. And we don’t call ourselves soldiers in the Marines. Soldiers are what you call people in the Army. But in any case, yes: I agree with Paige. Empathy is a good quality for a leader to have. Maybe essential, even, though I’m not sure I’d want to go that far.”
Paige’s blue eyes narrow, and I notice a something like a smile spidering across her tight lips. Professor Liebert starts to speak again, but I’m no longer listening. I see his lips moving, but I’m elsewhere.
I’m listening to Gunny Stout give the mission brief, standing in my body armor on the hard dirt of the convoy staging area, just inside the wire at Taqaddum. Watching how the faces of Zahn and Marceau and Gomez and Pleasant brighten as he speaks to them, just as surely as they frown when I take over.
And then I’m back in a Quantico squad bay with a shaved head, desperately willing myself through to graduation and commissioning, having known from the first day, when the sergeant instructors herded us across the scalding parade deck, frothing like rabid dogs, that I was inadequate to the task. I’m muddling through, watching better men than me wash out or break their legs and receive medical disqualifications. I’m on the endurance course, bringing up the rear, staggering across that red clay in the brutal summer heat while the other candidates, the real leaders, the scholarship athletes and the presidents of their fraternities, muscle their way over the endless hills. I’m laboring under the weight of my pack and rifle, panting and frantically trying to catch up. Sweat pours down my face while the sergeant instructors run alongside me, screaming. “What’s happening back
here
, Little One? Can’t meet the standards,
runt
?”
Then I’m back at the beginning. Before Quantico. Back at college, with the on-campus recruiter, applying for Officer Candidates School. He tells me his quota is met for the year, and though I probably don’t have a chance at getting past the selection board, he’ll start my application package. Afterward, I call my father in hope that I might get a word of encouragement. But all I get is a grunt and an admonition to pack extra socks.
“Leaders must have a strong sense of the great responsibility of their office,” I blurt out, interrupting Liebert. I must be yelling, barking it out like a drill instructor, because Liebert cuts off midsentence.
“Leaders must have a strong sense of the great responsibility of their office,” I continue. “Because the resources they will expend in war are human lives.”
After a moment, Liebert smiles. “Go on, Mr. Donovan.”
“That’s something you memorize at Officer Candidates School. And it’s true. So true that I think my experience in the military might not apply here. Unless there’s a line item on a balance sheet for human lives we haven’t learned about yet. So, I was wrong. And I’m sorry I tried to get out of your class.”
Paige’s lips have loosened slightly, and she’s looking at me with her head cocked to the side.
“Though Paige is right,” I say. “When you truly lead people—which, for the record, I don’t think I ever really
did—
you make them believe that you care. That you know how they feel. And often you do. But in a war, to empathize too much with the people who might die on account of the decisions you make . . .”
Professor Liebert and all my classmates stare at me until they understand that I’m finished.
“Well,” Liebert snorts, “Mr. Donovan certainly has a point. And thank you, Ms. Dufossat, you may be seated. Now, moving on, the text for next week . . .”
He goes on for a little while, but I don’t listen. I come to with the noise of books and backpacks signaling the end of the session. I stand, rub my eyes, and start gathering my things. It takes me a moment to notice Paige Dufossat sitting next to me. Her original seat was across the room, and I don’t know what she’s doing here.
She looks up at me with her fierce, strangely delicate face, as if someone carved that absurd little nose out of marble, and says, “Thanks, Pete.”
“Sure,” I say with a shrug. “No problem.”
She touches the cover of my book. “You sail?”
“No,” I say honestly. “Never set foot on a sailboat. Not in my whole life.”
“Oh,” she says, pushing her eyebrows together in confusion.
“See you next week,” I say, turning my back on her. It’s easier to turn my back on a pretty girl with Gunny Stout on my mind.
I walk out through the student lounge adjacent to the classrooms and grab my winter coat off the hook next to my in-box. A flat-screen television mounted above the couch plays footage from Tunisia. Police in the night. Riot gear, body armor, and the outline of weapons. Civilians stand in stark relief against flames. I look away.
Got a few days off
next week.
After work today I’ll be headed up to New Orleans.
