Michael Costaris
The Rub
I
The video is horrifying. Take morality out of it, simply view it as an objective document and it is impossible to come away with anything other than a visceral, unshakeable feeling of disgust. I’m not one of the legions who succumbed immediately to the animal instinct to destroy Mr. Grayson, but I felt its pull; it was something I had to actively resist. Even now, years later, I still have to fight it.
II
“Hello Rebecca.” His voice is pained and small. I offer my hand (instinct) and realize upon touching the clammy cold of his palm that he has given me his right one. I either give off a reaction or he too forgot its significance until we made contact, but he dashes it back and shoves it into his pocket.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I say (lying) as I guide him to the conference table. He sits and I say (a bigger lie), “Mr. Devlin will be joining us shortly.”
Sitting across from him, this shell of an already unimpressive man, I am struck by how durable the authority of a teacher is: I cannot stop myself from calling him Mr. Grayson.
“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Grayson?”
I am standing before he responds. Devlin is never earlier than thirty-minutes late (“It sets the precedent Rebecca.”) and I cannot take another moment of this torture: the video fills every silence.
“Thank you,” he says. “I would love one.”
I set to give Mr. Grayson the works: I boil the water, grind the beans, warm the milk (in two separate frothers) and am, for once, grateful at the needless complexity of this espresso machine.
It is Devlin’s idea to have me on this case. The thought process being that I, both a woman and former student, am the perfect prop to establish Mr. Grayson as respectable. Devlin can only think in optics and neglects how incredibly awkward this is for me. But I accept anyways because I have no other choice.
“I’m here.” Devlin arrives early (20 minutes late) and grabs Mr. Grayson’s coffee from my hands, sipping it on his way to the conference table. I recede comfortably into the wallpaper and watch the magic. Devlin does not stop talking. I hear the words hero and martyr and millionaire. Mr. Grayson grows perceptibly stronger during this spiel: his back straightens, the pallor fades and he looks at least three years younger when Devlin slides the contract over. He is so buoyed at this point, he signs happily despite our horrendous terms.
III
Mr. Grayson was my teacher but he was not my teacher. I mean this in the sense that every student has a teacher, who, through passion or apathy, irrevocably alters the course of their life. Mr. Elmore was my teacher. He wore a bandana to class. He had a tattoo. He smoked during lunch and if you asked, he would share. He taught core English and ignited my love of reading and writing. He deliberately spurned the classics in favor of his own, insane curriculum. We read (and love) Naked Lunch even though (because) it made no sense to us. We analyzed music videos from the nineties and read excerpts of his novels filled with swear words, sex scenes and characters taking drugs. He was a rock star and we idolized him.
He changed my life when he told me, after reading my first ever short story, “Do not be a writer.” He says this in my twelfth Grade Writer’s Craft class, after telling me the story is brilliant. “Be a lawyer Rebecca.” His eyes were bloodshot and he reeked of three-day-old marijuana smoke. “It’s all making up stories anyways. All bullshit.” He continued in this vein for twenty-minutes and when he started to compare jurors — “undiscerning retirees allergic to truth; hack fiction loving boomers needing to be told exactly what to do, and buy and think.” — to the audience that spurned his fiction, I decided to pursue law. Mr. Elmore, by simply existing, could not have made a better case against writing.
I recall this seemingly random anecdote now for two reasons.
One, Mr. Elmore is right. The law satisfies my creative urge. The truth arrives in an amorphous blob of data —thousands of call logs, interview transcripts, therapist notes and text messages— and it is my job to bend it into shape. I am the truth’s narrator. I become omniscient.
And two, the chaos that engulfed Mr. Grayson could not have happened to Mr. Elmore, or any of the other, less professional teachers. Mr. Elmore’s inner life blared right through the opaque facade of school. Nothing about Mr. Elmore could surprise. But Mr. Grayson is the opposite. He is indiscernible from the beige, cracking walls of the school. Watching him in the video is akin to watching a math textbook come to life. It’s unnatural; it feels wrong.
IV
Fuck, spoken with a trepidatious confidence, is the first audible noise. The screen is completely black and a long silence follows. They are testing the water. When it becomes clear there are no repercussions, no adults to quiet them, a horde of cackling pubescent voices join. The word is repeated. It grows louder with each successive utterance —(FuckFuckFuckFuckFuck)— until it becomes indiscernible from their high-pitched squeals of unhinged delight.
“Yo.” The voice of Mark Smelt, age 12. He owns the phone. The camera shows his shoe: a red and white, high-topped Nike Air-Max. “We’re about to fuck things up.”
The camera lifts. 292 Newton Road, the home of Richard Grayson, becomes visible. A light is on in the upstairs window. A 2006 Hyundai Sonata sits in the driveway.
“He’s home.” William Thacker —age 11; off-camera— finds this fact hilarious.
It is 7:03 pm on a Wednesday.
A middle finger enters the frame. Mark Smelt. He whispers, but with the intonation of a scream. “Mr. Grayson. We’re here.”
William Thacker also whisper-screams. “Bitch.”
Ethan Yau, 11, leaps into frame. He gives seven crotch chops to the house and then says, “Mr. Grayson’s such a lesbian.”
William Thacker joins the frame, twirling chaotically with both middle fingers out. Ethan Yau exits and reemerges in the background during this scene. Behind William Thacker’s hypnotically flailing limbs he is visible approaching the basement window of the home. He squats beside it, stares, transfixed, and then waves frantically beckoning everyone over.
The next moments show rapid, nauseating images of Mark Smelt’s thigh and then, eventually the ground.
The boys whisper.
“Can you see?” Ethan Yau.
Chamber music plays. Faint but audible. A woman’s voice can be heard. She appears to be in pain.
“Look.” Ethan Yau again.
Mark smelt leans forward. The camera tilts and shows his shoe once more.
“Oh.” It’s Mark Smelt. The voice of a child now, the bravado gone. “Oh no.”
The camera is lifted with purpose by Ethan Yau and pressed against the basement window. The music grows louder. The screams grow louder. The image is fuzzy and then everything crystallizes in a moment of adjustment.
Richard Grayson lays on a bed. His knees bent. He is nude from the belly-button to the quadriceps. A cellular phone rests against his right thigh, illuminating his genitals. His penis is erect. His right hand mechanically strokes it and his left hovers above, holding a sock. His mouth is half open and his tongue darts in and out.
His eyes appear lifeless.
He completes after a minute: shuddering joylessly and clasping the sock over his penis. He lays still, eyes shut and chest rising and falling.
The phone still plays.
He abruptly stands and then shuts the phone off using his right hand. He slides off the bed. His limp penis rests atop a prodigious bush and he waddles, pants around his ankles, out of frame.
The video ends.
V
The video is shot at 7:08 PM on Wednesday, November 9th, 2018.
At 7:13 PM the video is sent to BOYzzzzz an iMessage group with thirty-three members. The video is accompanied by the message: NSFL.
By 8:00 PM the video is on three-hundred-and-eighty-five unique devices.
At 8:04 PM University of Michigan Student Arnold Jennings, the older brother of Tyler Jennings a student of Richard Grayson at Humbermede Collegiate Institute, sends the video to a WhatsApp chat with 29 members, including Rebecca Cauldry a pre-law student with no prior affiliation to Humbermede.
Transcript, ‘Mocha French’ November 9th, 2018 -- 8:04 PM
Arnold: check this out lol ✓✓ 8:04 PM
Rebecca: wut is that ✓✓ 8:04 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 1: wut the fuck am i watching??? ✓✓ 8:06 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 2: who is that ✓✓ 8:08 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 3: wut???? ✓✓ 8:08 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 4: yuck. ✓✓ 8:08 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 1: look at that bush ✓✓ 8:09 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 3: who is that ✓✓ 8:10 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 4: y am i watching this ✓✓ 8:11 PM
Arnold: its my bros math teacher rubbin one out lollollol ✓✓ 8:12 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 5: ewwww ✓✓ 8:12 PM
Rebecca: im like legitimately concerned ✓✓ 8:13 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 1: lol the bush ✓✓ 8:13 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 6: sock technique on point hahahaha ✓✓ 8:13 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 6: like a fuckin ninja with that sock ✓✓ 8:13 PM
Rebecca: y do u hav this? ✓✓ 8:13 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 4: ur fuckin nuts ✓✓ 8:14 PM
Rebecca: how did u get this Arnold? ✓✓ 8:14 PM
Arnold: he sent it to my bro! ✓✓ 8:15 PM
Arnold: hes making the whole class watch it and calling it extra credit ✓✓ 8:15 PM
Rebecca: that is fucked ✓✓ 8:16 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 4: ya wut the fuk? ✓✓ 8:16 PM
Rebecca: that is assault ✓✓ 8:16 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 7: absolutley ✓✓ 8:16 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 5: tnot funny arnold ✓✓ 8:17 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 8: isnt ur bro like 12? ✓✓ 8:18 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 6: jesus arnold wuts wrong with u ✓✓ 8:18 PM
Rebecca: thats assault arnold its not funny ✓✓ 8:18 PM
Arnold: i no its y i sent it so fucked ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 8: why did u think this was funny ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Arnold: i didnt say it was funny ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 6: u totally said it was funny ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Arnold: i didnt think its funny ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 5: u said lololol dude ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Arnold: it wus autocorrect ✓✓ 8:19 PM
Unknown University of Michigan Student 9: wuts wrong with u ✓✓ 8:20 PM
Arnold: im tramatized ✓✓ 8:21 PM
Arnold: im not thinking straight ✓✓ 8:21PM
Arnold: its tramatic ✓✓ 8:21 PM
Arnold: wut should i do ✓✓ 8:21 PM
Rebecca: u call the police? ✓✓ 8:22 PM
Arnold: obv ✓✓ 8:23 PM
Arnold Jennings does not call the police but forwards the video to his mother.
Susan Jennings is the first parent to access the video. At 8:32 PM she forwards it via email to forty-four other parents with the subject line: Mr. Grayson (Math Teacher) of Humbermede Disturbing Video. She includes a trigger warning for sexual abuse in the text of the email.
At 9:03 PM the answering machine of Humbermede Collegiate Institute reaches capacity.
At 9:14 PM the personal voicemail of Veronica Melon (Principal of Humbermede Collegiate Institute) is at capacity.
At 9:18 PM the police are called for the first of eighteen times.
At 9:20 PM the video is messaged to local news station CJOH-TV-8.
At 9:46 PM Veronica Melon messages Richard Grayson.
Transcript, ‘Richard Grayson’ November 9th, 2018 — 9:46 PM
Veronica Melon: Do not come in tomorrow. ✓✓ 9:46 PM
Richard Grayson: Is something wrong? ✓✓ 9:52 PM
The message is never answered.
At 10:05 PM Mr. Grayson is taken into custody by local police.
VI
I receive an email on my work account from Mr. Grayson. I ignore it. I have become the de facto lawyer of the entire small town I escaped and about once a month, a message comes in requesting my legal expertise: 'My neighbor is burning logs when I hang out my laundry and I know it’s on purpose; A garbage truck clipped my side-mirror; I’ve been arrested for shoplifting from the Wal-Mart.' I typically answer, in some cases even send a typed letter on Devlin, Carlaw, and Burke stationary because I like this invented, superstar version of myself better than the real, glorified waitress to rich lawyer assholes version of myself and am desperate to keep her alive in the minds of my former acquaintances. But today, I am busy with Devlin, who has me spell-checking his briefs (he does not trust computers) and it is only when I get home at midnight and see Mr. Grayson's face on every news channel, learn that he is apparently a rampant pedophile who has defiled thousands of students, that I respond. This seems like a Devlin, Carlaw and Burke case.
VII
November 11th, 2018
Three social workers hijack the Rememberance Day assembly and deliver a four-hour presentation on sexual assault. By the end of this presentation, it is likely that any student who had not yet watched the video of Mr. Grayson masturbating has done so.
November 12th, 2018
Mr. Grayson is released from detention following a message from the law firm Devlin, Carlaw and Burke.
November 13th, 2018
Mr. Grayson is officially suspended by Humbermede Collegiate Institute.
November 14th, 2018
Aspiring social media influencer Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke, and Humbermede student, posts a video on Tik-Tok calling for the abolition of all male teachers. The video, a thirty-second clip of her speaking over the score from the 2003 film Seabiscuit, cites an unverified statistic that 89% of all sexual misconduct cases in education involve males.
The video is shared two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand times.
November 15th, 2018
Mr. Grayson travels to Toronto and meets with Devlin, Carlaw and Burke. He officially signs a contract to be represented.
November 18th, 2018
Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke appears on the local news as an expert in a panel discussing pedophilia in the public school system. During the panel she stands, stares directly into the camera and states: “100% of men are not pedophiles but 100% of pedophiles are men.” She clips this moment and posts it on her Tik-Tok.
It is shared three-hundred-and-thirty-seven-thousand times within two days.
November 19th, 2018
Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke changes the name of her social media accounts to onehundredpercent.
November 21st, 2018
During another panel on a syndicated news network, Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke is asked whether she is really advocating for the abolition of all male teachers. She responds, “You will find out.”
November 23rd, 2018
Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke announces a protest scheduled for the following Friday.
November 27th, 2018
Students at Humbermede arrive at school with pieces of duct tape across their mouths. The symbolism behind this gesture is debated greatly, but the image, all agree, is undeniably powerful.
November 28th, 2018
Mr. Grayson is officially terminated.
November 29th, 2018
Students across Ontario arrive at school with pieces of duct tape across their mouths. The new protest slogan, “We are the voice of the voiceless!” further obfuscates the symbolism of the duct tape.
November 30th, 2018
Ethan Yau initiates a conversation with Mark Smelt and William Thacker on iMessage.
Transcript ‘Astro Boyz’ (Ethan Yau, Mark Smelt, William Thacker)
Ethan Yau: guys ✓✓ 3:12 PM
Ethan Yau: u see the duck tape everywhere? ✓✓ 3:12 PM
Ethan Yau: wuts happening? ✓✓ 3:13 PM
Mark Smelt: I have hired council and suggest you do the same. Please refrain from contacting me further at this time. Thank you for respecting my wishes, Mark. ✓✓ 3:18 PM
Mark Smelt exits the chat.
Ethan Yau: the fuk? ✓✓ 3:19 PM
William Thacker: i did nothing ✓✓ 3:19 PM
William Thacker: u cant even see me in the video✓✓ 3:19 PM
Ethan Yau: whatd i do ✓✓ 3:19 PM
William Thacker: u filmed it bro ur fukked ✓✓ 3:20 PM
William Thacker exits the chat.
At 3:39 PM Ethan Yau makes four phone calls to his parents.
At 3:43 PM the video is deleted from Ethan Yau’s phone.
At 3:50 PM Ethan Yau retains council.
At 3:52 PM Ethan Yau’s lawyer sends a message to Mark Smelt’s lawyer (the contents of which are privileged.)
At 4:58 PM William Thacker retains council.
November 31st, 2018
Devlin, Carlaw and Burke file a lawsuit against Ethan Yau and the Chester Region District School Board.
VII
The presence of lawyers, as they always do, frighten everyone into silence. Mr. Grayson is not teaching. December is a quiet month. Ethan Yau, Mark Smelt and William Thacker are suspended. Sandra-Tenor Sherbrooke is purported to have signed a six-figure deal with a Chinese Tea Company and no longer posts about Mr. Grayson. Her brand —posting teacher misconduct stories, bizarrely unrelated memes and the occasional gluten-free recipe— thrives across all major platforms. A future presents itself in this quiet: the boys returning in time for second semester, graduating on pace; this episode a blip in their otherwise unblemished lives. Mr. Grayson returning too; bent, twisted and severely battered but not quite broken and still living a life in approximation of normal. Perhaps, in this future, Cheryl Darning would have made good on her ninth-grade aspirations and become the third Canadian female astronaut. We will never know. Callum Sanderson kills this future on the evening of January 22nd, 2019.
VIII
Callum Sanderson: Aspiring DJ, aspiring influencer, D-student, ex-boyfriend to Sandra-Tenor Sherbrooke and host of the twitter account PervertedMaleTeachers. Callum takes credit for the duct tape idea. He maintains he is the first to call Mr. Grayson a pervert. He maintains Sandra-Tenor Sherbrooke stole this idea and every other idea related to the ‘onehundredpercent’ movement and that he should be the face of a Chinese Tea Company. His rage manifests in a maniacal desire to break news on the Mr. Grayson story and right these perceived wrongs. He does this by comparing the pixelated, barely visible phone screen at 2:32 of the Ethan Yau video to, what one must assume is a lifetime’s worth of pornography, until he finds a video titled BBW NERD TAKES MONSTER WHITE COCK. It is, incontrovertibly, what Mr. Grayson watched the night of November 9th, 2018.
Cheryl Darning: Aspiring astronaut, chair of the ‘Women in STEAM’ committee and one of 150 students to record a perfect score in the Tenth Grade Euclid Math Contest, Cheryl Darning, by most accounts, is on track for big things. She credits this to her ninth-grade mathematics teacher. Though he is universally despised by for the fact that he grades homework (thus forcing students to actually do it), Cheryl finds herself thriving with this consistent practice. For the first time in her life, she succeeds in math. This scholastic confidence seeps into all of her other courses and she finishes the year on the honor roll. That summer she begins to formulate her plan to become Canada’s first female astronaut (after a google search she revises this to third). The following year, she musters up the courage to ask her former ninth grade math teacher to supervise a ‘Women in STEAM’ club. He agrees. The club proves incredibly unpopular (never surpassing one member) but these weekly meetings are the highlight of her week. She begins, at the urging of her teacher, to enter Math Contests on weekends. Cheryl’s parents, Lydia and Kevin Darning, call this teacher a ‘miracle worker’ and on three instances he is permitted to drive her to Waterloo for their Gauss Contest. This is done above board. Both teacher and parents file the appropriate paperwork. There is nothing factual to suggest anything inappropriate in this relationship, except for her uncanny resemblance to Zenya Frost.
Zenya Frost: Age 23, successful entrepreneur, and self-described performance artist, Zenya Frost is the star of three-hundred-and-ninety-four films including BBW NERD TAKES MONSTER WHITE COCK.
January 22nd, 2019
At 8:02 PM Callum Sanderson posts a side-by-side image of Cheryl Darning and Zenya frost with the caption ‘twinsies’ on the PervertedMaleTeachers twitter account. He continues, posting more than forty images of Mr. Grayson and Cheryl Darning taken from the 2016 and 2017 Humbermede Yearbook. At 8:56 PM Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke tweets: Developing story at Humbermede.
At 9:02 PM she messages Callum Sanderson.
Transcript of messages Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke and Callum Sanderson
Sandra S-W: r those pics real ✓✓9:02 PM
Sandra S-W: on twitter ✓✓ 9:02 PM
Callum: ya ✓✓ 9:03 PM
Sandra S-W: thats fucked ✓✓9:03 PM
Callum: i no ✓✓ 9:04 PM
Sandra S-W: hes actually a perv cant believe it ✓✓9:04 PM
Sandra S-W: so fuked ✓✓9:04 PM
Sandra S-W: can i post on 100p?? ✓✓9:04 PM
Callum: let me have half the account and deals and stuff u got ✓✓ 9:05 PM
Sandra S-W: huh ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Callum: partners we can work together and share money and stuff ✓✓ 9:05 PM
Callum: u can hav my stuff too that i got from pervteachers ✓✓ 9:05 PM
Sandra S-W: no ducking way ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Sandra S-W: duckin ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Sandra S-W: ducking ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Sandra S-W: fuk i meant fuck ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Sandra S-W: and also u hav nothing on perv teachers u got like 8 followers ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Callum: it was my idea neways ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Callum: u sole it ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Callum: stole ✓✓ 9:06 PM
Sandra S-W: how was it ur idea ✓✓ 9:07 PM
Callum: i wus the one who said mr grayson was pervy ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Callum: and the duck tape me i always talk about duck tape protests ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Callum: it wuz all me ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Sandra S-W: fuck off im gnna post neways ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Sandra S-W: was just being nice asking ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Callum: re-tweet mine from mine at least ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Sandra S-W: no ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Sandra S-W: ur names 2 dumb ✓✓ 9:08 PM
Callum: ill change it ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Sandra S-W: kk ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Sandra S-W: to wut??? ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Callum: idk ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Callum: 100% but like no letters just nums??✓✓ 9:10 PM
Sandra S-W: stop tryin to steal my shit ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Sandra S-W: make it like maleteacherssuck or sumthing ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Sandra S-W: but not as dumb as that ✓✓ 9:10 PM
Callum: kk ✓✓ 9:10 PM
At 9:15 PM Callum Sanderson renames his account to Maleteacherssuck. At 9:19 PM onehundredpercent begins to retweet all fifty-two images of Cheryl Darning, Mr. Grayson and Zenya Frost. At 9:45 PM the story is reported on in the Guardian. At 11:54 PM onehundredpercent crosses one million followers.
XVIII
The perception among most, is that Mr. Grayson is a pervert: the similarities between Cheryl Darning and Zenya Frost are too potent a coincidence to ignore. Even I, upon witnessing this, feel my pity calcify into judgment. Luckily for the sake of me and his other lawyers, the law does not deal in perception but facts; and the facts of this case are unalienable.
Fact 1: it is illegal to film a man masturbating in his own home without consent.
Fact 2: the illegality of filming a man masturbating in his own home without consent is compounded by the act of sending it to thousands upon thousands of people.
Fact 3: Ethan Yau has (had) an incredibly wealthy family.
Fact 4: One can quite easily manipulate two lawyers to turn on a third when it benefits the interest of their clients.
Fact 5: The Chester Region District School Board is also incredibly wealthy.
Fact 6: The money, when it comes, is obscene.
XIX
This is how it ends:
Mr. Grayson moves to Portugal. He does not teach. He does not need to. He sends me postcards every year at Christmas. He seems to be happy.
Ethan Yau, Mark Smelt and William Thacker are expelled. This delays their graduation by one year. The three boys end up in University. The delay means they are old enough to drink in Freshman year. They appear, from what I can see on their Instagram, happy.
Norman Yau delays his retirement as a consequence of the settlement. By my most recent calculations, he should be able to comfortably retire at the age of ninety-seven. He is, I imagine, profoundly unhappy.
Sandra Tenor-Sherbrooke has more than ten-million subscribers across all of social media accounts. She no longer posts about teacher misconduct and instead chronicles her ongoing difficulties living with celiac disease. Her sister account, ‘onehundredpercentglutenfree,’ has spawned three cookbooks. She is currently working on a podcast which she describes as Call Her Daddy meets Red Scare. She, according to her twitter bio, is ‘gr8ful.’
Callum Sanderson studies business at Canada’s thirty-third worst University. He never pushes Maleteacherssuck past thirty-nine followers. His Instagram suggests he has not abandoned his dreams of DJing. I don’t really care if he is happy.
Cheryl Darning jumps from her bedroom window and breaks her right femur, left ankle and right wrist. This jump is attributed to acute stressors and after a three-month period of observation at CAMH she is released back into the care of her parents, where she remains today. She does not currently attend University. There were inquiries from her parents about a lawsuit but Devlin, Carlaw and Burke declined. I explained that in cases like Cheryl’s, where no single entity can be deemed wholly responsible, it is incredibly difficult to extract money. When I explained this, they did not appear happy.
And me. I’ve done well since bringing this case to the firm. I am now the specialist in cases of this type. Whenever a man is (wrongfully, I am legally obligated to say) labeled as perverted, abusive, deranged, predatory or generally disgusting, I am lucky enough to represent them. I work a lot but I’m pretty rich. I think I’m happy.
Michael is a writer and screenwriter living in Toronto, Canada. His fiction can be found in The Baffler and BULL.
