The OK Corral?

Fred, meanwhile, had decided on toast and eggs for breakfast, and though he burned himself twice ~ once on the frying pan, and once again on the coffee pot, and had a terrible time getting the eggs out of pan, mostly because he hadn’t oiled it enough, his breakfast was quite good. He decided that real butter melted into hot toast was so much better than whatever they put on the toast at the hospital, no matter what was served with it. After eating, he left the pan soaking in the sink, rather hoping Myrtle would get the thing clean when she came to make supper.

He spent much of the day watching daytime television and wound up getting rather passionate about the shortage of homes for stray cats, not only in the city, but also in more rural towns such as his. He comforted himself with peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch, with a big glass of milk, then took solace in an afternoon nap that pretty much consumed his day. He had only just had his wash when he heard Myrtle’s key in the door.

As luck would have it, after a rather harrowing and surprising day at the office, Myrtle went at that pan with something of vengeance when she got there. Then she cooked them a lovely spaghetti dinner as she pondered whether or not to tell Fred about what happened with Mr. Pelham and Professor Dilby in her office. They enjoyed a lovely supper, and after a couple of glasses of red wine, Myrtle divulged all. Whereupon, lips loosened by a combination of light pain-killers and red wine, Fred confided his continued worry over the visit in his hospital room from Mr. Grieves.

“Did he say anything about your job to worry you?” asked Myrtle in concern.

“No, nothing direct,” he answered slowly. “It... it’s just that he was being so darned nice,” explained Fred. “It just seemed so odd somehow.”

Myrtle wasn’t sure what to say, except to be reassuring. “I’m sure it’ll all be fine,” she said. “Why don’t we go for a little walk?” she suggested.

And so they did, getting just to the corner again, to get Fred his exercise. Myrtle knew she should go home early because she was really tired, but after the wine, she wasn’t sure she should drive. So when they came in from their walk, Myrtle made tea and they talked some more. When they looked up at the clock on the stove, it was really late and Myrtle decided that fatigue and wine was a bad combination to drive on, so she helped Fred get ready for bed, then made herself a temporary bed on his new couch. She borrowed Fred’s clock radio and set it to get up very early so she could go home to shower and change before work. It was really nice to have someone to talk to and spend time with, but this was getting a bit awkward, she thought. However, she was really tired and just wanted to sleep, so she decided to think about it tomorrow.

If getting ready for work on Monday was hectic and rushed for Myrtle, it was more so on Tuesday. She left the coffee maker ready to just turn on for Fred, and rushed out the door to her little home in the woods. There she showered, dressed and grabbed another protein bar. Myrtle knew that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and wasn’t exactly happy with the way things were working out. She hoped for a relaxing day at the office so she could give things more thought and figure out a better way to manage this relationship and its demands, in concert with her other responsibilities.

Alas, when she arrived at her office, a few scant minutes late, there was Mr. Pelham again, in her office, quite caught up in a heated argument with Dick. It actually turned out to be a good thing Myrtle was late, because Pelham had returned to berate her some more for his misfortune. Dick just got there first. After a long, drawn out hearing the previous day, he had been dismissed from the teaching staff of the college for verbally abusing his students and shirking his responsibilities. Several students had gone there to have their say, yet Pelham was still apparently determined to blame Myrtle for everything. He was now yelling threats at Dick that he would sue for wrongful dismissal.

Myrtle was just plain fed up with being blamed for the whole thing by both the Dean and Pelham. All she’d done was offer comfort to some upset students and a few words of advice and warning to Mr. Pelham. So much for being the voice of reason, she huffed at herself. Dick was standing up for her, arguing to Pelham that he was the author of his own undoing. As the whole scene played out, there were several students gathering around the door of the office, listening to the argument with interest, and amusement.

Myrtle really just wanted to drink her coffee and do her work, but here she was, first thing, on nothing but a protein bar, having to deal with this Gunfight at the OK Corral. Beyond annoying, she thought. Why didn't this crazy man just go away? Both Dick and Pelham glanced her way a couple of times, and the students behind her edged closer, watching. Pelham, red faced from arguing with Dick, turned a scathing glare on Myrtle, while Dick only sighed, a little pathetically. Myrtle wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She looked around at the little gathering of mostly grinning students and wanted to laugh, once more, a little hysterically. Finally she put her coffee down on her desk, took a deep breath, put her hands on her hips and glared back at Pelham.

“I have had enough of you!” she declared. “You have insulted your students and blamed anyone but yourself for your own foolishness. You and you alone are to blame for what has happened to you. You get out of my office now, and you never, ever come back, or I’ll call the police,” she yelled. Then she cleared her throat and lowered her voice to an angry growl. “I’m not talking college security either, mister. I’m talking the cops. If you think you have troubles now, you don’t have much imagination!”

As she finished there was a smattering of applause amongst the students, and the look on Pelham’s face turned to surprise, then indignation. Then his eyes suddenly widened in fear, which surprised Myrtle, until she turned and saw that Professor Dilby had entered her office again. In fact, he stood very near her, his gaze obviously directed at Pelham. Even Dick backed away as Professor Dilby approached the unfortunate man. In fact, because Dick was behind him, there was nowhere for Pelham to back up. Professor Dilby walked right up to him and leaned into his face.

“I thought I told you to get out,” he said quietly.

Again Myrtle could not see Professor Dilby’s face, but she could see Pelham’s, and he looked quite terrified. In fact, Dick’s eyes were very wide as well. Once again Pelham squirmed around the venerable professor, then made his way through the gaggle of students, which they did not make easy, jostling him back and forth and laughing the while. Professor Dilby followed Pelham’s retreat, and only then did Myrtle get a glimpse of the deep darkness in the professor's eyes. If she was impressed by his saving her before, she was all the more so now. She had thought him a harmless, addled old man, but clearly this was someone it wouldn’t pay to cross. Myrtle was tempted to back off herself, but once Pelham had exited her office, Professor Dilby stood up tall, took a deep breath, and turned a most kindly gaze upon her. She frankly could have fainted. But she only smiled at the professor and made her way to her office chair.

By now her coffee had gotten a little cold, but she pulled the lid off it and took a deep drink. When she looked up, the professor had turned a funny little smile on the students that had them nodding and departing her office. Even Dick just sort of nodded in their general direction and toddled off. She had wanted to thank him, but the only one left in her office besides herself, was the kindly professor, smiling down at her.

“Myrtle, would you have a pencil I could have?” he asked.