Straight Man

me a while. “Anyone,” I say. “Why was Blair right to be surprised, given my public threats?”
    No one moves or speaks, not even the boy whose hand had been in the air and ignored for so long. In the end it’s the bell ending class that breaks the silence.
    “Because,” I explain to them, without conviction, “it was a comic, not a serious, threat. Because the man who threatened to kill a duck a day until he got a budget was wearing a fake nose and glasses. Because it makes no sense to carry out a comic threat to serious consequence.”
    Needless to say, we end where we began, unpersuaded. My argument, that comedy and tragedy don’t mix, that they must remain discrete, runs contrary to their experience. Indeed, it may run contrary to my own. These students have watched this very class begin in low comedy and end in something, if not serious, at least no longer funny. They file out, sullen, confused. Bobo is last. He stops at my desk as I’m stuffing the essays into my satchel. “You can flunk me if you want,” he says, “but that was a shitty thing to do to her.”
    “Congratulations, Bobo,” I say, looking up. “You’ve just articulated a persuasive ethical position.”
    Back in the halls of the English department, people have begun to cluster outside their offices in anticipation of the department meeting that’s twenty minutes away. Paul Rourke has come back, as promised, and is caucusing with Finny and Gracie at the far end of the hall. Teddy, returning from class, head down, disappears quickly into his office, pulling the door closed behind him. There’s no sign of June or Orshee.
    Rachel, to my deep regret, has gone to pick up her son at school. She’s left a swatch of messages and a personal note in her elegant hand: “Good luck? Call me tonight? Let me know how it turns out?” I can’t help smiling. Question marks even in her Post-it notes. Perhaps it’s not all insecurity though. Rachel knows ambiguity when she sees it, knowsthat good luck in this instance may mean my opponents win. She may even suspect that I’m considering not distributing the guidelines for the recall of a department chair that she’s located and reproduced for me. “Sorry about the ceiling mess?” the note continues. “I’ve called the physical plant? They’ll replace the tile tomorrow?”
    Sure enough, there’s a large rectangular tile missing from the ceiling directly over my desk where one of the asbestos removal workers charged with detoxing Modern Languages apparently stepped through. The jagged shards of the tile are sticking up out of my wastebasket. It’s actually a relief to see both the hole in the ceiling and the tile in the wastebasket because I’d been puzzling over why the air in the room seemed full of suspended dust. What I can’t help wondering is if there’s anybody still up there. When I stand on my desk I can almost see up into the dark cavity in the ceiling. All seems to be quiet. Apparently asbestos removal workers keep sensible hours.
    I’m still standing on my desk staring into the darkness, when the phone at my right heel rings. I can see that it’s Rachel’s outside line that’s blinking, but I climb down off my desk and answer anyway. If it’s for me, I can always pretend to be somebody else. “I was hoping to reach Rachel Williams,” says a vaguely familiar voice.
    “Wendy?” I say, placing it.
    “Hank Devereaux?” my agent wants to know.
    I admit it.
    “Well, I guess you’ve become a celebrity after all,” she says. “I can’t believe the play that duck story is getting. There may be a TV movie of the week in it if we play our cards right.”
    I can’t tell if she’s joking. “Wendy,” I say. “You know how fond I am of you, but how about I just give you Rachel’s home phone?”
    “Long day?”
    “This day is already the worst month of my life,” I assure her, “and it’s not over yet.”
    “Actually, I just called her at home.”
    “Try again. You probably caught her in transit. She picks up her kid at school about now.”
    “I’m on my way out myself. I may have to call her tomorrow.”
    “I’m glad you decided to take her on,” I say, fishing a little, maybe. “She said you liked the stories.”
    She pauses before responding. “I not only liked them, I sold them.”
    “When?”
    “About twenty minutes ago.” When I don’t say anything right away, she says, “That’s a very unprofessional thing I just did. Telling you before the