Straight Man

  CHAPTER

  23

  From the faculty parking lot I can see that the TV van is again parked in one of the VIP spaces close to the pond, and once again protesters have gathered. In fact, it looks like there are twice as many of them. Not nearly as many people as used to protest the Vietnam War, but then again these people are protesting me. They are protesting the demise of a single goose. Still, they are chanting loud enough that I can hear them in the car with the windows rolled up.

  April, I remember from my own days as a sign carrier, is the best month for high moral dudgeon. Spring break is already over, so there’s no danger of having to interrupt the protest. The warming weather makes it seem right and natural to be outdoors. With finals a mere two weeks away, a good moral protest offers the requisite rationale for forsaking the dorm, the classroom, the library stacks. Lily and I courted through a series of protests—more worthy ones, I can’t help thinking—and I still remember the way my wife looked carrying a sign. Fierce. Beautiful. Strong. Good. I wonder if there’s some young woman like her in this gaggle of protesters, disturbing the moral focus of some young Hal with a sign.

  From where I sit in the faculty lot, I can see that in the distance several large steel girders have sprung from the ground over the weekend, the framework of Technical Careers. I’m reminded of my dream last week, the one of my suddenly Brobdingnagian house. That dream makes a different kind of sense to me this morning, my head still full of NyQuil cobwebs, a jailed Angelo, a weeping William Henry Devereaux, Sr., and a separated Julie and Russell. I guess I’ve been sitting there awhile when someone raps on my driver’s side door, causing me to jump about a foot. I see it’s Meg Quigley and that she’s mightily pleased to have caused me to jump. When I roll down my window, she says, “Are you going to sit there all morning?”

  “You have a better plan?”

  When she just grins at me, I roll up my window and get out, ashamed to have been caught in a reverie, something that seems to happen to me more and more. I check my watch, try to gauge how long I’ve been there, how much time has elapsed during this particular ellipsis. “You’re not afraid to be seen with me?” I say when she falls into step with me on the way to Modern Languages.

  “I’m seen with dubious characters all the time,” she informs me. “They should all be so harmless.”

  I’m not sure I like the idea of being thought harmless by a young woman as beautiful as Meg Quigley, but I let it go. “I hear you’re off to graduate school again next year.”

  “That’s the plan,” she admits. “My father’s, not mine.”

  “You could do worse,” I hear myself say, taking Billy’s part. Is this advice so wrong?

  “I’m not sure I want a Ph.D.,” she says, more thoughtfully, less combatively, than I expect. “If you were to hand me one right now, I’m not sure I’d want it.”

  “Get out of the profession altogether then,” I suggest. “You’re young. Do something else.”

  “If I do that, then I’ve wasted all his hard-earned money. An M.A. isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  “Then get the Ph.D.”

  “And waste even more of his money on something I don’t even want? Beggar him completely, so he can die happy?”

  “Somebody should be happy,” I point out.

  “Are you?”

  “Ecstatic. Can’t you tell? And I don’t even have a Ph.D.”

  She looks me over. “Your nose looks better, anyway.”

  I look her over too. God, this is one beautiful young woman. “Thanks.”

  We’ve arrived at Modern Languages. Meg’s office is located one floor below the rest of the English department, in a huge room with a dozen desks shared by twenty-four adjunct faculty.

  “I think I’m going to wait and see if he has a job next year.”

  I can hear the question in this statement.

  “I don’t see how your old man could be fired, Meg,” I tell her. “He’s been here since Christ was a corporal.”

  “He’s not on your list then?”

  This week, it occurs to me, is beginning just like the last one ended. Only worse. Now, instead of being offered a bite of juicy peach, I’m being accused. I’m Judas Peckerwood not only to Meg’s father but to Meg herself.

  “Did you know that he wanted to be a writer when he was young? Did you know he wrote a novel?”

  “Billy?” I say, genuinely surprised, though I don’t know why I should be. Virtually everybody in the English department has a half-written novel squirreled away in a desk drawer. I know this to be a fact because before they all started filing grievances against me, I was asked to read them. Sad little vessels all. Scuffy the Tugboat, lost and scared on the open sea. All elegantly written, all with the same artistic goal—to evidence a superior sensibility. Maybe I’m surprised about Billy because he hasn’t asked me to read his. I’ve always liked Billy, and now I like him even more. It’s a hell of a fine man who’ll write a novel and keep it to himself.

  “Tell Julie I’ll call her tonight.”

  “Julie who?” I say, genuinely confused.

  “You have a daughter named Julie?” she reminds me. “I was gone this weekend. She left messages on my machine.”

  “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

  Meg just looks at me. Like the list of things I don’t know is pretty comprehensive.

  “So you didn’t talk to her?” I say.

  “I know about her and Russell, if that’s what you mean.”

  I start to ask, then realize I don’t want to know Meg’s take on these events. “Russell seems to have disappeared,” I venture.

  “Not really,” she says. “He’s around.”

  “If you see him, tell him I’d like a word.”

  “Oh boy, a fight.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell him,” she says. “If I see him.”

  The English department office has a window with a view of the duck pond. June Barnes and Orshee are watching the protest rally from the open window, and Rachel glances up at me when I enter. Rachel is always a frightened-looking woman, and she’s got her reasons, but this morning she looks genuinely terrified. Exhausted, too. There’s more gray in her hair than I’ve noticed before, more than there probably should be for a woman in her—what?—late thirties. Her eyes are darkly circled and puffy. Her whole face is puffy now that I look at it.

  “Come look,” June says, noticing me. “This is delicious. Dickie’s at the microphone.”

  I study the two of them standing there at the window. Something about their proximity, their posture, suggests that Orshee is about to slip his hand up under the back of June’s sweater. No doubt this is projection on my part. A minute ago, as I held the door for Meg Quigley, my own fantasy hand made this same journey up the small of Meg’s back to where her bra strap would be if she wore one. Which she doesn’t.

  “He’s standing on a box,” June continues. “Apparently, they couldn’t adjust the mike stand. God, he’s a tiny little toad.”

  Orshee titters nervously at this remark. He’s only a couple inches taller than Dickie, and as an untenured member of the faculty he’s not sure of the wisdom of laughing at a joke made at the expense of the CEO. Of course, not laughing could be unwise as well. “We’re on the third floor,” he reminds June. “We’re looking down on him.”

  As I said, the serious competition in an English department is for the role of straight man.

  “I look down on him no matter what floor I’m on,” June responds, giving it a whack, since it’s all teed up.

  Rachel hands me a fistful of message slips and mouths, “We need to talk?”

  “Why don’t you two go someplace else,” I suggest. “I need some quality time with my secretary.”

  “Our offices face the wrong way,” June explains. Neither moves from the window. There are many advantages to being the chair of an English department, but giving orders isn’t one of them. Actually, you
can give all the orders you want, as long as you don’t mind them being ignored.

  “Let’s go in here,” I suggest, and Rachel follows me to my inner office, closing the door behind her. I riffle quickly through my messages. One from the dean, apparently back from his job interview, who would appreciate an audience. So would Finny. Herbert Schonberg wonders if I would return his call at my earliest convenience. My mother would like me to call her at her earliest convenience. “You must be holding back all the ones with the good news,” I tell Rachel.

  When I look up, I see that Rachel is in genuine distress. “I think I’m going to puke?” she says, surprising me with the word. I’ve learned a good deal about Rachel from reading her stories. I know about her lower-class roots, how hard she’s worked to learn manners, polite behavior. Her diction will still betray her, but only rarely. Her clothes, her posture, her gestures—all learned and practiced—are flawlessly mimicked middle class.

  “Sit,” I tell her. “If I had a window, I’d open it.”

  She sits, leans forward, her head between her knees, trying not to hyperventilate. Seeing her in this intimate posture inspires in me a set of complex emotional responses, foremost among them, irrationally, guilt. I lock the door so we won’t be interrupted. Whatever this is about, it can’t be good, I conclude.

  Finally, swallowing hard, she looks up and breathes deeply. When she speaks, though, her voice is a barely audible whisper. “Wendy called me this morning? Your agent?”

  Now the guilt I feel is no longer irrational. Seeing Rachel’s distress makes me understand how wrong I’ve been to send her stories to someone without her permission. Wendy is not a cruel woman, just busy and tactless and honest. She believes, not unreasonably, that any writer who can be discouraged should be discouraged. I’ve failed to imagine the effect such a woman would have on Rachel.

  “Look—” I begin.

  “She wants to represent me?” Rachel blurts, bug-eyed with horror. “What should I do?”

  “Rachel,” I say. “This is wonderful. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m … scared?” she says, like she’s not sure this is an emotion she’s entitled to.

  “What did she say?”

  If anything, this question induces even greater fright. “She said the stories were … terrific?”

  Wendy has said a lot more than this, I can tell. She’s praised Rachel just this side of catatonia.

  “Hell, I told you they were terrific. I’ve been telling you that for over a year.”

  “Yes, but …”

  I can’t help grinning at her. What I’m recalling is our previous conversation on this same subject. “What makes her the final arbiter?” I ask again.

  “Who is?”

  “I am. I keep telling you, but you won’t pay attention.”

  “She said some of the stories are rough? What does that mean?”

  “That they need work.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Only if you don’t want to do the work.”

  “I do want to do the work?”

  I can’t help wondering if, after publishing a book of stories, Rachel’s personality will become more declarative, whether she’ll learn to let her voice drop. “Rachel,” I tell her. “Enjoy this. Brag about it. Call up that jerk you were married to. Say I told you so. They’re the four most satisfying words in the English language. You could rupture something trying to keep them inside you.”

  There’s a commotion in the hall, and someone tries the inner door I’ve locked. I go over to the other door, the one that opens onto the hall, open it a crack, and peek out. The camera crew has arrived and they’re setting up lights and a couple umbrellas.

  “They called earlier?” Rachel says. “They want to interview you?”

  “Trapped like a bug,” I declare.

  “I should have told you about that first?” Rachel laments.

  “Don’t be silly,” I say. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I killed the duck?”

  “No?”

  “How come?”

  “Because you didn’t? Because it wouldn’t be a very good joke?”

  It’s a wonderful thing to be perfectly understood, especially by a woman you could fall in love with under the right circumstances. Especially when the circumstances aren’t so terribly wrong. “Do you realize, Rachel, that if you published a book, our department secretary would be more distinguished than the faculty she serves?”

  I really should stop terrifying this poor woman, but I can’t help myself. Besides. Only part of her is terrified. Rachel’s fine secret heart is singing, because it has to be. My own is humming backup.

  “Will they hate me?” she wants to know.

  “They already hate you. For helping me.”

  “That reminds me?” she says, opening the three-ring binder she’s brought in with her, and extracting from it a thick booklet that I see is a copy of the English department’s operating paper. She hands it to me open to the page that describes the procedure for the recall of a department chair. She’s highlighted in yellow the passage she wants me to consider, which states that a three-fourths majority vote is required.

  “Huh,” I say. “I thought it was two-thirds.”

  “So does Finny? I heard him talking?”

  “It would be unusual for Finny to be wrong about something like this,” I say, checking the date on the front of the booklet.

  “It hasn’t been two-thirds since 1971, when Professor Quarry was recalled?”

  I vaguely remember this. It was Jim Quarry who hired Jacob Rose and me. No wonder they recalled him. What I can’t remember is how I voted. “How many voting members of the department are there?”

  “Twenty-eight?”

  “Make thirty copies,” I suggest. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  She hands them to me. Thirty copies. Amazing.

  When she’s gone, I peek out the door again, and I see that the crowd has swollen. Missy Blaylock has arrived and is doing her endless sound check. “You’re sure he’s in there?” I hear someone ask. “That office right there,” somebody else says, and everybody turns and looks right at the door I’m peeking from behind.

  I take a deep breath and step into the hall and the lights. Quickly Missy has me by the elbow and draws me toward the camera. Down the hall, placards are bouncing up and down and last Friday’s chant is raised again. “Stop Devereaux! Stop the slaughter!” My colleagues, the ones who aren’t in class, have come out into the hallway to witness this spectacle.

  “We’re here at the Railton Campus of West Central Pennsylvania University talking to Professor Henry Devereaux, chair of the English department. Professor, last Friday you threatened to kill a duck a day unless you got a budget. Early this morning a duck was found hanging from a tree limb here on campus.” (“Goose,” somebody corrects.) “Do you have any knowledge of the incident?”

  “No comment,” I tell her, and there’s a groan from the gallery.

  “He did it,” somebody shouts. “Look at him.”

  “Have you received the budget you demanded?”

  I confess that I have received no budget.

  “Is there a causal link between that fact and the dead duck?”

  “Goose!” somebody yells, exasperated. I search the crowd for Tony Coniglia.

  “No comment.”

  “We’ve just spoken with Richard Pope, the campus executive officer. Dr. Pope says he feels certain you are innocent of this crime.”

  “How could he know that?” I point out. “Unless he did it himself.”

  This wild inference throws Missy completely off stride. “Are you saying he’s involved?” Incredulity.

  “He doesn’t have a budget either,” I point out.

  “Do you think there will be further killings?”

  “Do you think I’ll get my budget?”

  When the light goes off on the camera, someone shouts, “Murderer!” and a new chant goes up. Lou Steinmetz makes his way through the crowd. Somebody
yells, “Bust him!”

  Lou turns on the demonstrators, tells them to disperse, which they do, somewhat reluctantly. To me, Lou Steinmetz is beginning to look old, like a man who knows he isn’t going to have many more opportunities to crush a student revolt. Turning the key on a radical English professor might offer slender compensation. “A moment of your time, Professor?”

  “Not now, Lou. I’m busy.”

  “I could insist.”

  “You could try.”

  “Yes, I could.”

  “Except I’m connected all the way to the governor,” I tell him. “You could bust me and throw me in the slammer, but I’d be back on the streets with all the other scum before you completed the paperwork.”

  Lou studies me seriously. He’s almost sure I’m joking, but not quite.

  “How about I come by and see you this afternoon after my class?”

  When he’s gone, Missy comes over. “I still have to talk to you about that friend of yours,” she tells me.

  Actually, I don’t like the fact that Missy wants to talk to me about Tony Coniglia. I left them, two happily naked, consenting adults in Tony’s hot tub. If Missy Blaylock has regrets—and I can’t imagine she wouldn’t—I hope she doesn’t express them to me, especially if she’s trolling for sympathy. “This really weird thing happened after you left?”

  “It was all pretty weird before I left, thanks.”

  But she’s too serious to be diverted. “Get him to tell you about it,” she says. “If he doesn’t, I will.”

  “Okay,” I say, though I have no intention of following through. Tony and I are scheduled for another of our racquetball matches this afternoon. If he brings up the subject of what transpired, or didn’t transpire, after I left, fine. Otherwise, I don’t want to know.

  “Between us,” Missy says, her voice lowered, “did you off this duck?”