A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall by Will Chancellor Page A

given a wide berth in a basement office where he could read the scorching reviews of “Classical Liminality,” the paper he had naively supposed would be the first chapter of his groundbreaking book, with amusement and whisky. He marveled at how far over his head the critics were aiming. He was sprawled on the floor while scholars shot at ten-foot phantoms. Had the mandarins only known how much pride they gave him by caring, something he had long since stopped doing, they might have dismissed him in a word.
    Years passed with fewer and fewer offers to go out for a drink. And then strong encouragement from his mentors to do anything other than drink. His last remaining drinking companion was Bill Dennison, Caroline’s father, who was in the process of being managed out of his role as president by the trustees.
    In her life, Bill had been bronze and absent. With Caroline’s death, Bill’s gaze dropped a few degrees every day. During their bourbon-soaked afternoons, he kept his chin to his chest as if he were trying to prevent someone from choking him. When Burr looked closely, he could see a fist knuckling at the man’s wattles, a phantom hand prying up that once-proud chin.
    President Bill Dennison quickly grew old, pale, and clatty. He said his office was the only place he still felt free because it was a place he knew was about to be taken away. His hands, always curled in near fists, shook with fear and with pride, like a child holding a cicada. He looked Burr squarely in the eye for the first time in their relationship. And when he did, Bill found a man on his level.
    Owen eventually did take two lives: his mother’s and his only surviving grandparent’s. In hindsight, Bill had given a few months’ notice, but he never said anything specifically about his plan.
    Mountains take. Cliffs take. Dennison’s car was found off Highway 1 by a team of rescue divers a month to the day after his last drink with Burr. He left behind a letter on his desk stressing to the trustees that Burr, nepotism aside, was his natural successor.
    Once Burr caught wind of his father-in-law’s last request, he asked to be removed from consideration. Burr suggested his best friend and fellow young luminary Gerard Gaskin for the post. The board, who’d had Gaskin, MBA holder and faculty senator, in mind all along, congratulated themselves on an amicable transference of power. The trustees extended a ninety-nine-year lease to Burr on his father-in-law’s residence, thinking that it would be fitting that Owen grow up in the home his grandfather had a hand in constructing.
    With Bill’s death came the realization that Owen would have no one else’s account of Caroline. The portrait that would hang in Owen’s mind would have to be painted by Burr’s shaking, foolish hand. He would have to sing the lullabies, her songs, even though he couldn’t force out a note.
    Burr spent his first month in their new house scavenging for photos, dangling Bill’s books by the spine in case a portrait of Caroline was marking a page, then dropping them to the floor. Caroline was only smiling in two pictures—crushing, because she had dozens of smiles that would now fade and disappear, impossible for him to recover and for his son to learn.
    Burr’s academic career had run aground. He was called before a committee tasked with managing the transition of administrations, certain he would be negotiating severance and extended benefits for Owen.
    Rather than talk about his drinking or read disgruntled letters from his seminar students, they framed the meeting as early tenure review. Later he would realize that no one had any intention of promoting him to associate; tenure review was merely a polite pretext for them to illustrate his downfall. In the words of the provost, “Institutions cannot invest in speculation.” They said his thinking was undisciplined, code for not publishing in