Mr. Online Shakespeare Strikes Back

Ray Mort is Mr. Online Shakespeare. He began acting strangely around me on Day One, in September 2005, and made me cry for my first tenure evaluation, on February 14, 2006. Early in my quest for justice, on social media, I worried that Ray Mort, Suzanne Labadie and Eric Abbey would seek to sue me for naming them, but they have not. Because they are guilty and I have the documentation to back my claims. There is no documentation to back the claim that I was ever a bad teacher or suddenly crazy dangerous.

Teachers are not necessarily good people.

My former English teacher co-workers did not appreciate my views on pedagogy, especially about students not actually reading and the low number of sections of online Shakespeare we needed to offer Oakland County residents.

Teacher peers also did not enjoy my use of the phrase “putting students first,” which they assumed was already done.

I have practiced an uneasy balance of documentation and diary in my social media accounts.

One day, in 2008, on campus at Land of Motown Community College, I found a letter in my mailbox, a most peculiar letter.

I knew it was trouble, like recently when the mail lady knocked on the door to deliver a notice to quit.

This is not good news.

Some envelopes clearly feel like death.

~ * ~

My life took a wrong turn about two decades ago.

I drove a U haul through lower Manhattan the weekend before 9/11, and I swear, it seems like I picked up some very bad juju.

Bad luck that I still have not shaken.

My deceased husband took this picture of the no longer erect as of 9/11 World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan. This picture was on the fridge up north for years, along with a picture of a couple monkeys he used to visit at a zoo in New Zealand. I swear, on some level that I do not understand and never will, these pictures became woven into my fate.

~ * ~

It took me a while to get a picture of the physical movement behind this letter.

The group was small and rarely met. It was divided into two camps with me poised between aggressors and sheep.

One of the sheep told me: Mr. Online Shakespeare got our initials at the top, then he wrote the letter.

Far worse behavior than I had previously ascribed to peers: the entire English department committed mass plagiarism!

And got away with it.

I sit in terror, today, April 13, 2019, because I dared to question the turf of Mr. Online Shakespeare, who lost a daughter and his wife to death by the same disease.

I accidentally stepped on Mr. Online Shakespeare’s toes on Day One, in 2005, when I said my husband and I did not want children.

~ * ~

I’ve made such a mess of my life, with so much unwanted help.

~ * ~

This letter was the beginning of the eventual Land of Motown Community College sexist Gaslight bogus mental health care witch hunt, launched officially four years later, in 2012, after more turf wars, me without allies or protection.

I did see it coming. I tried peace, change, grievances, to leave.

~ * ~

I have become such a monumental failure.

I lost a 100K a year tenured union teaching position because I spoke out against Roman numeral outlining.

“Rather,” I said, according to Mr. Online Shakespeare, unable to keep my mouth shut, “most students do not embrace the traditional Roman numeral outlining, which is so last millennium, I can’t blame them.”

Naive, a dreamer, I under-estimated Mr. Online Shakespeare’s anger and willingness to retaliate.

Writing tip: Uh, way too much quoting me, Mr. Online Shakespeare.

Write your own essay in defense of offering too many sections of automated online Bard studies taught by you.

Which allow you to spend time on your boat on Lake St. Clair.

While collecting a paycheck.

I really should have seen this retaliation coming.

Michigan poet and novelist Jim Harrison tried to warn me.

I saw Jim Harrison speak at Michigan State University. I maneuvered to be near the front of the line for book signings. Nervous, staring in his blind eye, I spurted out that I loved him. I was quickly ushered along.

Jim Harrison. The Beige Dolorosa. Novella. Found in the collection entitled, Julip (which will be the name of my next female dog).

In which an academic is framed by a small group of cutthroat English teachers at a small college in the midwest and loses his livelihood.

Cutthroat academics and academic clowns were favorite subjects of the author, who was raised in Reed City, Michigan, where my peers eventually had me jailed.

“A world that had welcomed me for three decades had shown me the door, and at fifty I owed that world nothing but my contempt, which in itself was too worthless to be indulged. The idea that I was not alone in this experience was just another worthless humanist gesture that would cripple me even more. This was not a barricade I could man with anyone else but the dogs that surrounded me, their faces cocked into question marks.”

~ * ~

I am a failure and quite stupid.

I was warned, but I ignored the warning.

I thought the world didn’t apply to me, evidently.

About ten years after bully teacher Ray Mort first darkened my path, in 2015,
former state of Michigan attorney general ,Bill Schuette, on his failed quest to become governor, sent the Michigan State Police to harass and ideally silence me.
Same horror story. Still ongoing in 2019.

~ * ~

Why me? Why not me. Thanks, Joe Biden.

Why? Will it even end?

If I knew Shakespeare, which I don’t, I’d maybe have a better ending for this essay.

Something wicked this way came.