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Retaking College Hill Proved Startlingly Prophetic

By Walter Donway

April 27, 2024

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The often-violent campus demonstrations predictably are framed by students in terms of clashing identity groups (e.g., antisemitic), the West (the U.S. and Israel) versus its “victims” (Muslims, Palestinians), alleged colonialism…that is, all the themes of postmodernism.

The often-violent campus demonstrations predictably are framed by students in terms of clashing identity groups.

Our excerpt from Retaking College Hill is about Damian Kossack who returns to his Ivy League alma mater after a stint in the U.S. Navy to find a campus obsessed with fashionable leftwing causes and “diversity” and the students self-righteously politically correct and ready to enforce their views. His father, Konrad, dean of the College, is under attack for slighting “diversity,” with few faculty supporters other than Damian’s former philosophy professor, William Dyson.

Damian, however, soon gains a couple of allies when his Navy Seal buddy, Jules Knight, arrives for a visit, and he meets a beautiful, startlingly bold Israeli girl, Jessica, who proves to be much more than just a student who stops people crossing the college green to sign a petition about “global warming.”

At Dyson’s excited reunion with Damian, he says, wearily: “It’s all gone to hell, Damian. Even compared with three years ago. And bad enough, then.”

But he has some good news. He has invited the renowned scholar and crusader against “the diversity delusion” and other postmodernist sacred cows, Isabel Fairfield, to speak on campus. The question is how students will react to Fairfield. Her ideas and powerful critiques have been met on several campuses with violent attempts to prevent people from hearing her. As the day for Fairfield’s visit to campus approaches, Damian, Konrad, Jules, and Dyson see more and more ominous signs of trouble.

On the night of the speech, they have to be slipped into the lecture hall through the backdoor—the main entrance blocked by violent protestors. Fairfield will have to speak to an empty hall, with her words piped to the audience outside the hall who came to see her.

Here’s an excerpt:

 

Chapter 16: The Bird

Isabel turned to them. “You said I can open and close the mike connection to speak, then hear, but I tell the guards outside when I am ready to entertain questions?”

“Correct,” called Dyson.

“Okay, let’s hear what’s out there.” She flipped a switch so that they heard suddenly the noise of the crowd and loud rhythmic chanting. It sounded like ‘black lives matter.’ Some shouts were ‘no white supremacy on campus.’ It was the roaring of a storm around the building.

Isabel was saying: “Okay, good evening. I hear concern, out there, with the sanctity of black lives, so let’s talk about that.” She immediately began describing three horrific murders that week of blacks in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston. One had been a five-year-old boy, another a pregnant woman and her boyfriend. She said, “The killers were black gangs.”

The roar of the storm amplified. Chants. She said: “Can you tell me what Black Lives Matter has done to protest those terrible murders?” After a moment, she said, “I don’t know, either. But I do know who rushed to the scene and is seeking the perpetrators. The police.”

Now, the pounding of bats and fists on the doors was incessant. Damian wondered if they could be battered down. He looked at the others, sitting up tensely, eyes on Isabel.

“Violent black deaths are a top priority for this country,” she said. “Last year, there were 6,000 homicides with black victims. And 52 percent of all homicide victims of all races were black. Vastly out of proportion to the representation of blacks in the population. When the homicide victim was black, however, almost nine out of ten times, the killer was black, also. Almost uniformly young black men in gangs. “Tragically, high rates of black-on-black killing have been the norm in our country for well over a century.”

She paused, flipped the switch, and they heard what it must be like to stand directly at the bottom of a waterfall. Deafening. Obliterating all else. And yet, the pandemonium had a pulse. “No campus fascists. No campus fascists.” And faintly, “Ho, ho, ho, Isabel Fairfield’s got to go!” Like a tiny thread in a tidal wave of noise, Damian thought he heard sirens.

The switch abruptly chopped off the sound. They heard it instead as a continuous distant thunder and crashing of surf.

“The people in our society concerned day and night with these crimes, with arresting the killers, with preventing the violence, are the police. That is simply a fact. When the police are active and focused, especially with intense concentration of manpower on certain neighborhoods and certain times of day, certain groups—mostly gangs into drugs—the chief beneficiaries are blacks. It is their only systematic defense against an epidemic of black homicides.”

Suddenly, Damian started. A tremendous, echoing thud rang out through the building. “Sounds as though they hit the doors with some kind of battering ram,” said Jules, cocking his head. “A few more like that and they may be in here.”

He asked: “I wonder what the orders of the guards are in that contingency?”

Dyson called, his voice shaking, “Maybe we should get out of here, now, Isabel.”

“Let’s see if they’ll hush to hear me attacked,” said Isabel. She said into the mike: “I want to hear your objections, refutations, and questions. The guards manning the mike at the table may now allow questions and comments. If it gets a little quieter, everyone can hear the arguments against what I have said.”

She flipped the switch. Sound of a subway train a foot from your ear, thought Damian. They heard a voice, another voice, a few words drowned out. A voice apparently near the microphone, a mechanically distorted screech, “White racist bitch…”

She said into the mike: “A little quieter and the crowd can hear what is wrong with my statements.”

“White cunt…”

A succession of resounding impacts on the doors.

“Get in there and stuff her mouth…”

“Those doors won’t take too much more,” said Jules. “And we may not even have time to escape if they burst in. They’ll come howling down those aisles.”

He got out of his seat. Walked to the curtains behind the stage and slipped through.

“He’s leaving?” asked Dyson. “By himself?”

“I doubt it,” said Damian.

For a moment, the little group sat listening to the nonstop roar and the battering. Damian sensed that they felt a new fear because one of them had left. As though to leave them to their fate.

Jules walked in carrying a black canvas bag. He stopped a few yards from the group. Astoundingly, Isabel was speaking again, saying, “Well, then let me talk about something that troubles so many of you. It is the issue of oppression.”

They stared at Jules. He had unzipped the bag. He took out a heavy military-style vest and slipped it on. He glanced up, peered back at the bag. He lifted out a heavy revolver, checked the magazine, and jammed it in his belt.

Almost simultaneously, Damian and Dyson, gasped: “No, Jules!”

“Didn’t come to watch her be ripped apart by a howling mob of animals.”  He was lifting other items out of the bag, jamming them into the pockets of the vest. “I’m not going to watch what might happen to her.” He nodded his head toward Fairfield. “Not without a fight.”

It was irrelevant, but Damian asked it. “Where in hell…”

“I snuck it in here over a week ago,” said Jules, zipping shut the bag. “I knew the closer we came to the event the tighter security would get.”

He crossed the room and back through the curtains at a trot.

“Jesus Christ!” snapped Dyson. “Where did you get him? This is a disaster! Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They heard distinctly a wild thudding on the doors and splintering. It was the first indication that the doors were done for. Isabel stopped speaking and turned to them. “I think the doors are going,” she said calmly.

Dyson asked, incredulously: “Police don’t know it?  Guards don’t know it? No one coming in to deal with the crowd when they burst in?”

Damian had his phone out. In a moment, he cried loudly into it. “Dad? Where are you?”  And then, “So you can see what is happening out there?”

They were all staring at him, except Isabel, who seemed to be looking at her notes.

Damian almost yelled: “Dad, what the fuck are the guards doing?  The doors are going down!  We can hear them splintering.  You think that mob wants to get in just to get Isabel’s autograph on copies of her book?  What is the president…”

Then, he pressed speakerphone. They heard: “Damian, I have been begging him. He won’t take my calls anymore. Get out of there–if you even have time.”  And then, he barked, “Wait! Wait! A bomb just went off outside the door to the building. Smoke. I can’t see a thing, now! Christ, another one! I smell tear gas, now.”

The battering on the doors had stopped. They heard from outside a change in the sounds of the crowd. Now, screams. No more chanting. Yells of warning.

Konrad was still on the line. He said, “Okay, the crowd is chaotic, trying to get away from the building. People are going to get stomped, now. This is like a herd…”

And then, he was saying, “I think you have time to get out, now. Go!  For Christ’s sake. This lecture is officially over.”

“Okay, Dad,” said Damian.

“Damian, wait! Wait!  One second. Be very, very careful when you exit. There’s going to be an attempt. I’m almost sure of it. I’m not sure who or exactly how, but there’s a decision to get someone. Watch Isabel Fairfield, but watch Dyson, too. He’s a target.”

“Well, get the fucking police back there!”

“I’ve tried. No way to convince them. But I know. From here, you would think the campus is in flames. They set fire to a couple of cars parked over on George Street.”

Someday, in another life, Damian would make his father tell him how. But now, he just snapped, “Okay, bye!” He jammed the phone in his pocket.

“Let’s go!” shouted Dyson. “Just go!”

Jules appeared, running. He went straight to Isabel. Took her arm. Damian could not tell if she came willingly. Jules didn’t seem to care. Damian no longer could see the gun. Jammed into the vest somewhere, he assumed.

The elevator seemed almost to rock with tension. They could do nothing for the few seconds that it slowly descended. No one spoke. The girl from the pre-law society was sobbing. “I’m so, so scared!”

Isabel tried to put her arm around her shoulders. Jules held her. So she said, “I think you’ll be all right. Just be sure not to stand close to me, okay?  I’m serious. That goes for everyone.”

“I loved what you said,” commented Jules. “I’m getting all your books.”

“Oh, I love hearing that!” Then, she said: “You bombed ‘em?”

“What bombs?” asked Jules.

“Oh, sure, someone in the crowd must have set them off.”

The elevator door finally rolled open and they surged for the opening. For a second, they were jammed into the exit. Someone stepped back and they shot out as though from a burst cork. Dyson led along the dark tunnel. They reached the door. He bent and peered out. Then, he rapped hard with his knuckles. In a moment, the door swung open. It was a guard.

“Okay, professor. About time. I think we got a break, though. I don’t know what in hell happened out front.”

Dyson turned. “We all go. Isabel comes last, behind us.”

“No,” said Isabel. “I don’t…”

“Yes!” roared Dyson.

A police barricade had been erected in a semi-circle around the two cars that had brought them. Police were at the barricade protecting the area. Damian noted there were half a dozen police. At least they had guns on their hips. Damian saw what looked like flames reflected on a dark brick wall.

Isabel had come up, now. She stood next to Jules, looking out at the crowd. There were some catcalls, some half-heard slogans. With Jules next to Isabel, Damian as casually as possible inserted himself between Dyson and the crowd. Dyson did not seem to notice. Suddenly, Damian wondered: What the hell are we waiting for?  Let’s get in the car! He turned to find a guard.

He saw that Jules had a hand thrust inside his vest, scanning the crowd, the windows of nearby buildings, their roofs. His body half-shielded Isabel.

And then, Isabel screamed. Damian whirled to look. At the same moment, he glimpsed a man about three deep in the crowd with what looked like a long silver straw in his mouth. Bizarre: a colorful tiny bird hovering in front of Isabel’s face. She had reached up with a cry and seized it. Back to the crowd, he saw nothing. No straw, no man. Just a wild commotion where he had been. Isabel had not thrown away the bird. She had turned to Jules, holding out her hand toward him. Incredibly, her face seemed calm, inquiring. In her palm… Not a bird. Orange feathers fletching a small dart. Jules was bending his face over it.

Then, Jules had his arm around Isabel. She was leaning against him. She still did not look panicked.

After an eternity that was a few seconds, Damian surged toward her at the same time as a guard and a cop. He heard Isabel ask: “Curare?”

“Don’t know,” said Jules. A cop was hovering beside him. He had heard. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“She would be dead,” said Jules. “It could be curare, curare type 3, or something worse. She’s reacted very quickly. Unless curare goes into an artery, it takes longer than that to show an effect. This was almost instantaneously.”

“What then?” snapped Dyson.

“I’m calling Newport Naval to scramble a helicopter with the tropical medicine bag. If they get here in 25 minutes, she might have a chance.”

“I don’t know,” said the cop. Jules had dialed. He shouted a name into the phone. In a few seconds, he said,

“Jules. Need you to scramble a helicopter with the topical medicine pack. You got my location from the phone. Do it now. When you get closer, I’ll give you ground conditions. We have police to clear for landing. You got about 20 minutes.”

The policeman was frowning at him. Jules said, “Navy SEAL on leave, officer. I’ve been to the Naval base several times this week about matters.”

“They’ll come?”

“They are coming.”  The cop glanced over at Isabel. She was kneeling. Her face was a sheet of paper, thought Damian. Her eyes were unfocused and distant. She seemed calm except that her breasts were heaving wildly. Her hands hung at her sides, open, not fisted. She looked up at Jules. “Should I call my daughters, do you think?  Last time?”

“You couldn’t say much in your state. Might make for a terrifying memory.”

She nodded.

“I don’t think a helicopter from Newport,” said the cop, glancing at his watch. “Helicopter…”

“It will be a CH-47F Chinook. Fastest bird in the world. About 315 miles an hour. Par is scrambling in under five minutes. Everything is in there. Usually, of course, they’re going out over the water. Soon as you hear, you guys start clearing this green. Although I think the size and noise of Chinook descending probably would make even giant sloths go humping away.”

He glanced at Isabel. She had lowered herself to lie on her back. Her chest was pumping crazily. She gazed up at them. “If I do die,” she said, sounding like a runner interviewed crossing the marathon finish line, “tell Emily and Charlotte I wasn’t scared, no pain. I was thinking of them. I just didn’t have time… “She gasped, “Ok, got it?”

“Get a respirator,” asked Jules. “You carry one?” “Nope. Let me radio the guard station.”  The cop turned and scurried toward his car looking very, very scared,” thought Damian.

Prof. Dyson and the others had stood by silently, watching. Stunned, thought Damian “Now, Dyson came toward him. He looked furious, thought Damian. He stopped in front of Damian, hands on his hips. “Didn’t your dad say that an attempt might be made on me or Isabel?”

“Yeah,” said Damian. What’s it matter, now?

“One of us!” snapped Dyson.

Damian nodded. Had this horror unbalanced one of the most rational minds he knew?

“And so you!” said Dyson, jabbing his forefinger at him. “You, stood in front of me, blocking a shot, and so Isabel…” He pointed at her, his arm extended, forefinger stiff, “got shot instead!”

“Prof. Dyson…”

“You did!”

I didn’t fucking shoot the dart at her, Damian thought.

Dyson was saying, “You ought to try using your brain once in a while to identify unintended consequences!”

“Like your getting hit?”

“You don’t think I would have preferred it?”

“Not part of my calculus. My dad said watch out. Jules was with Isabel. I was with you.”

At that moment, like the arrival of raucous angels, a clattering roar seemed to roll across the heavens from the south. Almost instantly, it grew louder. Drowning out Dyson’s anathema.

Damian turned. The cops had mostly cleared the green. He thought: if only they had been so aggressive during the talk. Well, beautiful woman, dying bravely, U.S. Navy to the rescue. It tended to make a man of you.

Jules was on his phone. “Right down. Come slow. A few stragglers.”  Then, he said: “Actually, we don’t have five seconds to spare.” And then, “Yeah, hi doc. Seems more powerful than curare. Might be type 3, though.”

He listened and said: “She lost consciousness. Chest is barely moving. Might be too late. But…”

As Damian looked up, the helicopter dropped like a stone to within 15 feet of the green. The giant beams of its ground lights showed scattering figures. Then, the helicopter revealed a black opening. A guy in fatigues was climbing out. No bag. Oh, backpack. The man pivoted, then seemed to drop till he held the edge of the door with one hand. Then let go.

It was a paratrooper roll onto the green. He came out of the roll on his feet and was running. He did not greet them. He flung down his pack. Dropped to his knees. Bent over Isabel. He ripped her blouse with both hands, buttons flying. A knife came out, slipped under the strap between her bra cups, and whipped upward.

Checked her pulse, lifted her eyelid, and stuck his stethoscope three places. He made a face that seemed distinctly unhopeful. A few cops and guards had gathered in a half-circle, gazing down.

“Just got to give you the combined,” he muttered, as though speaking to Isabel. “No time for differential.” There was no digging in his bag, no searching. Without looking, he reached in and withdrew a plastic case. He put the hypodermic needle against Isabel’s neck. She was motionless.

He sank the needle and depressed the plunger. They watched as though something would happen instantaneously. The bare breasts had ceased to heave, barely moving.

The medic had his phone out. “Need the respirator. They can’t locate one. Got cops and cop cars, but no respirator.”

He turned and gestured at the green. At a dead run, Jules dashed to stand beneath the hovering Chinook. A face appeared. Jules looked up and nodded. The bag dropped. Jules caught on the run.

When the mask was over Isabel’s face, they saw her chest rise and fall.

The medic looked up at Jules. “We don’t know what it is. We may never know. What I administered was an antidote for half a dozen generic hellish neurotoxins common to tropical animal and plant poisons.

Jules nodded. “Chances?”

The medic looked down at the pale face, pale chest, and delicate breasts. “Might recover. The big risk is to her sight.”

“What?” said Damian barging forward.

“Blindness,” said the medic. “Sight gets hit by the neurotoxins first.”

“Are you taking her?” asked Jules.

“No. The blended antagonists to the neurotoxins either make the difference or not.  Rhode Island Hospital will cope, now.”

They stood up. Jules said to a cop who still watched: “Give me a blanket. We can get an ambulance, now.”

“It’s down,” said the medic. Jules and Damian turned. The Chinook had dropped to the green. Damian was getting used to the engulfing racket.

Jules shook hands. “Fantastic response time.”

“Never good enough.”

Jules clapped the medic on the shoulder, “Okay, buddy!”

Then, he took the brown blanket from the cop and knelt beside Isabel. He seemed to gaze at the bony, muscular, pale chest with compact small breasts. It was a body made for action, incessant movement. Not for a fight.

Damian gazed down thinking: She thrust herself into any arena of battering rage and seething resentment, made herself the bullseye of intimidation–they scoffed at mere ideas, mere logic, mere words. She acted as though the medium of the transaction was obvious–evidence and logic. And now, at an institution consecrated for two centuries and more to the life of the mind, she had gotten her answer from the new creed of Postmodernism.

Jules was shoving the blanket beneath her, lifting her onto it. Then, he pulled the rest over her chill pale body. He lay on the pavement beside her, raised on one elbow, the fingers of his other hand tenderly trailing through her blond hair.

With the heavy, many-pocketed vest riding up slightly from Jules’s waist, Damian glimpsed the blue gunmetal.

 

 

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