Joel Ohren

Buboes Burst at Slurry U. Joel Ohren

Slurry University President Sukonov promised himself the last word. Not the penultimate word, the last word. The final word. Resign? Screw the Regents. Go gently into that good night? Fools, do they not hear my laughter, Sukonov wonders, as he plots the demise of Slurry U. And so, amidst laughter, Slurry U. descends into the abyss. The descent begins when third-year sophomore Parks and Recreation major, Skitter, chances upon a politically explosive sculpture in his dorm's shower. Made of dung, it is a face of four races, each one a caricature: the African-American nose large and menacing, the Asian eyes absurdly slanted, the Hispanic goatee dingy & dirty, and the Caucasian mouth pearly white. The descent into the abyss picks up speed when Black Lives Matter and rival grievance gangs work the sculpture - shit-face as Skitter christened it -- to their own political ends. Protests and violence mark the school semester as bubonic plague from shit-face spirits away student, professor, and administrator alike, culminating in the greatest media sport's extravaganza of all time: Slurry U.'s own Bubonic Super Bowl. If Slurry U.'s football coach Marty Martem had had notice of President Sukonov's machinations, Martem would have applauded, if not lent a hand, both of which he did in time. He had to. To salvage his career and redeem a zero-win season that was threatening, not in the least, his bed of thriving cheerleader sex. Join Skitter and his new-found love, Gretchen, as they navigate the politics of racial grievance, the demonic mischief of President Sukonov and his confidante/mistress Lush Luscious Ph. D., and learn a truth of contemporary academia - that even in plague times, a third-rate institution like Slurry U. can still turn a buck.