Straight Man

morning.”
    “Congratulations. Where in Texas?”
    “This particular offer didn’t come from Texas. It came from out of the blue.”
    In truth, I’m surprised. Jacob is a fine fellow, but not a distinguished one. I wouldn’t have thought even a lateral move would be all that easy.
    “How come you were on the market to begin with?” I ask, since this has been puzzling me. Most of us who came to the university twenty years ago continued to make applications for years after we arrived, but then tenure and promotion locked us in place and we gave up.
    “Because Dickie shit-canned me back in October,” he says, smiling at the effect that this intelligence has on me. He’s enjoying himself, it occurs to me, and I can understand why. He’s taken a fall and landed on his feet. My unflattering view of his marketability was probably a view he himself shared. He’s as surprised as I am. Also, he’s kept his firing a secret, something nobody who knew him would have suspected he was capable of doing. His reward is that he can announce his firing and triumph over adversity in the same breath.
    “How come you didn’t tell your friends?” I ask, realizing too late that this is a straight line.
    “I did,” he assures me. I can see that his spirits are absolutely irrepressible. This must be one hell of an offer he’s just received, from the kind of institution that will make all of us jealous when we hear. I can’t imagine how such a thing has transpired, but apparently it has. “But enough about me,” he grins. “Let’s talk about you. I understand you had your talk with Dickie last Friday?”
    “You might have told me what was coming.”
    “I thought you knew. It’s been going on for weeks. You were the last one,” he admits.
    “That kind of hurts my feelings,” I admit.
    “Lots of reasons though,” he says. “You’re a lame-duck—pardon the term—interim chair. Also, the Vatican views you as a genuine loose cannon. Unpredictable and therefore dangerous. Anyhow, don’t feel bad about being last. I was first, and now you know why.”
    “So you think it’s going to happen? The twenty percent?”
    “I got news for you. Twenty percent is what everybody’s hoping. What not many people know is that there’s also a thirty percent scenario, depending on what the legislature does.”
    I shake my head. “Even as the concrete is being poured on a new Tech Complex?”
    “That’s right. I’d be careful, too. Another duck dies, and you could end up in one of the footers.”
    “Does any of this make sense to you?”
    “Sure. Think about it.”
    Actually, although my public posture is incredulity, a picture has been forming in my head over the weekend. The whole university is being reorganized, duplicate programs eliminated, the academic missions of each campus redefined. Technical Careers will be the center of our particular campus.
    “You must be relieved to be shut of the whole mess.”
    Again Jacob appears to consider his response carefully. “I’m not shut of it quite yet,” he says. “What I’m hearing is that you will be shut of it before I will. This afternoon, is what I’m hearing.”
    “My troops are in mutiny,” I concede. “I could maybe rally them. I’m told it’s still possible. The question is, should I?”
    Jacob meets my eye and shrugs. “Honest Injun? I don’t see how it matters.”
    I nod. “Once again, you’ve failed to cheer me up.”
    What’s really depressing is the idea of Jacob leaving. He’s been a reasonably well-intentioned, lazy, honorable, mildly incompetent dean, and that’s about the best you can hope for. And he’s been a friend I’ll miss. Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel.
    “I doubt this will cheer you up either,” Jacob says, “but what the hell, I’ll ask. How would you feel about being my best man?”
    I blink at him, thinking, What an odd metaphor. I recall Jacob saying last week that if he got the job, he’d take me with him, but he couldn’t have been serious. Then it occurs to me, it’s no metaphor. Jacob is getting married.
    He risks a weak smile. “Gracie will kick, but she’ll get over it.”
    I must look stupid, staring at him as I am. He seems to have forgotten that I know nothing about the woman, whoever she is, that he intends to marry. I had no idea he was dating, much less serious about anyone. And why would Gracie have been commissioned to