Straight Man

few days in her absence, could not have imagined this. I look like a B-movie commando, my face smudged darkly with perspiration and grime, my clothing grayed with fibrous muck, my hair matted with sweat. I have a candy wrapper stuck to my elbow. I could be convicted of murder, looking like this, and I’m not talking about killing ducks. I’m visited by an insight not unlike the one I entertained last week when I saw myself on TV holding Finny (the goose, not the man) up to the cameras. This isn’t funny.
    I’ve cleaned up a little when someone tries the door, and I hear Gracie curse mildly. Then the door rattles more violently, and I hear Jacob remark that it seems to be locked from the inside. I’m tempted to let them in and be done with it. Having admitted to myself the possibility that I am a man in trouble, I know only one thing for sure: I’m not going back up into that ceiling.
    “Why would it be locked from the inside?” Gracie wonders.
    “How should I know?” Jacob says. “Maybe June Barnes is dealing crack again.”
    “June, are you in there?” Gracie raises her voice to the door.
    “No, I’m right here.” I hear June’s voice down the hall. A door closes, June coming out of her office, locking the door behind her. “And I heard that crack crack, Jacob.”
    “Crack crack? Who who? Me me?”
    “Come away from there, Teddy,” I hear June say. “We’re going home.” I can picture this. Teddy, keeping a vigil outside my office door, awaiting my return. Somebody’s gone inside, reported that my satchel is still there, which means that I must be around.
    “I can’t understand it,” he says. “Where can he have gone?”
    Apparently all the commotion has distracted Teddy from his own problems.
    “He’s probably playing handball with that defiler of young womanhood.”
    “Racquetball,” her husband clarifies.
    “I’m telling you,” Gracie says. “He was up in the ceiling.”
    “Jesus,” Jacob says.
    “That piece of paper dropped out of the ceiling.”
    Silence.
    “It came
out
of the ceiling,” Gracie repeats. “I saw it drop. It fell right past me.”
    “You people are all certifiable,” Jacob says.
    “I really need to use the little girls’ room,” Gracie says. “I’m not kidding.”
    “Oy,” June says. “I knew that somewhere in this country there had to be a woman who still uses the term ‘little girls’ room.’ ”
    “Use the little boys’,” Jacob suggests. “There’s nobody in there. We’ll stand guard.”
    “Check for me,” Gracie says. “Make sure.”
    I hear the men’s room door creak open and then shut again. “All clear,” Jacob says.
    Then the door opens, shuts, and opens again more violently. “Goddamn you, Jacob,” Gracie says. There’s a soft thud, as of a purse makingcontact with a dean. “Finny’s in there with his dick in his hand, as you well know.”
    “I didn’t think you’d mind Finny,” Jacob says, aggrieved innocent again.
    “Damn,” Gracie says, jiggling the women’s room door one more time, just in case she was hallucinating before. “All right. I’m going to use the one downstairs.”
    I hear the men’s room door open again. Finny exiting.
    “I’m sorry, Finny,” Gracie says. “I didn’t see anything.”
    “Now you’ve really hurt his feelings,” Jacob says.
    It’s the double doors I hear swinging open now, signaling Gracie’s exit.
    “I can’t understand where he can have gone to,” Teddy says again.
    “He’s insane,” Finny says. “Last week I caught him outside my classroom door, making faces at my students.”
    “He certainly seems to have captured your imaginations,” Jacob says. They’re all moving down the hall now. “Gracie believes he’s in the ceiling. You’re seeing him outside your classroom.”
    “If we had a dean who took things seriously …,” Finny begins.
    “He’d have killed himself years ago,” Jacob finishes.
    “Maybe I should drive out to Allegheny Wells and check on him,” Teddy proposes halfheartedly.
    I hear an office door open and close somewhere down the hall.
    “Jacob,” Billy Quigley says. “Are you aware that Gracie is going around telling people that you two are getting married?”
    “I asked our pal Hank to be best man,” Jacob tells him by way of rebuttal. “But if he’s going to kill ducks and crawl around in the ceiling, I may need to rethink my options.”
    “I don’t think he killed that goose,” Teddy says, with what sounds like