“Uh-oh. You make it sound like it’s over.”
“Over? Lord, no! I’m just saying, you’ve done remarkable things here. Built the Anthropology Department into one of the best in the country. Created a forensic facility that’s known around the world. Just when I think you’ve topped out, you go and prove me wrong.”
He reached down and opened a manila file on his desk—a near-identical twin to the one I’d just illegally photographed—and took out a piece of stationery, thick and crisp and never folded. He made a show of reading it, then stood—at this point, he’d been sitting for all of sixty seconds—and strode toward me, the paper in his left hand, his right arm outstretched. “By golly, I just want to be the first person to shake hands with the Professor of the Year!”
I shook his hand and stood, a move made awkward and slightly perilous by the vigorous shaking he was giving my arm. “Well, thank you. I’m honored. UT has plenty of great professors, so it means a lot to be singled out by my students.”
His brow furrowed. “UT? Students? What are you talking about?”
My brow furrowed. “Well, you just said I’m UT’s Professor of the Year, so—”
“UT, hell!” he all but shouted. “U.S.! You’ve just been named National Professor of the Year! For the whole damn country!”
“Me? Are you sure?”
“Good God, man, of course I’m sure. Here, read it for yourself.”
He handed me the letter. The stationery felt even richer than it looked—thick and stiff, with a soft texture that was closer to fabric than to paper. CASE, read the logo at the top. COUNCIL FOR THE ADVANCEMENT AND SUPPORT OF EDUCATION. The letter was actually addressed to UT’s president, not the provost. “It gives me great pleasure to inform you that Dr. William Brockton has been chosen as U.S. Professor of the Year,” the letter began. “This is a great honor, not just for Dr. Brockton, but for the University of Tennessee as well—a tribute to the outstanding climate the university provides for teaching, research, and academic service.”
“Well, I’ll be,” I said. “This is a nice surprise. Like I said, I’m honored—even more, now.”
“We’d like to make a big deal of this,” he said. “Put you on the front page of the News-Sentinel. Get you on ‘Alive at Five’ on WBIR.”
I shrugged. “Fine with me,” I said. “I always have a good time with those folks.”
“But I think we ought to go bigger,” he said, holding a hand in the air in front of us, as if to conjure the image. “Picture this. Neyland Stadium. Halftime at the Homecoming game. A stage at the center of the field, the fifty-yard line. One hundred thousand people watching as I hang a medal around your neck.” I nearly smiled at his phrasing and intonation—had he actually emphasized the word “I”?—but suddenly a dark cloud cast a pall on the glowing scene as I remembered: Satterfield. With Satterfield gunning for me, I’d be a sitting duck at a halftime ceremony. Immobilized at midfield, I’d be a human bull’s-eye, smack at the center of a huge, oval target.
“That’s a really nice offer,” I said, “but I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with that.”
“But . . . of course you would,” he said. “This is your big moment, Bill. Yours and UT’s. You can’t possibly pass it up.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can. And I do. Like I say, I’m deeply honored, and I’m very grateful to UT for providing such a supportive place for me all these years. But standing there in the middle of the stadium, in the glare of the spotlight? Can’t do it.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, his tone somewhere between cajoling and scolding. But I was already on the way out, one hand raised in the air to wave good-bye and, in the process, to snatch away his glittering fantasy.
PEGGY FIXED ME WITH AN ODD, INTENSE STARE WHEN I walked into the departmental office a few minutes later. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Ish,” I said. “Okay-ish. It’s been a strange morning.”
She raised her eyebrows, inviting me to elaborate, but I didn’t want to go into it. “Tell you later,” I said. “Hold my calls, would you?” And with that, I retreated—from her office, and from the interaction—leaving her looking hurt and rejected as I began the hundred-yard run the length of the football field, to my sanctuary. My hideaway. My self-imposed exile. Was it my imagination, or did she mutter Yeah, right as I started down the hall?