Straight Man

course it’s cruel, and its cruelty resides in its truth. Jacob is neither respected nor heeded in the university’s upper echelons. This is partly because the liberal arts are not themselves respected, partly because, for all his tough talk, Jacob has never been very good in the clinches, where most of the interesting administrative blows are struck. He’s known to be a nice, decent guy, the result of which is that he’s frequently told to bend over, assume the position. To let me know I’ve hurt his feelings, he drops his hail-fellow mask and says, “I’ll do what I can.”
    Having already used this line twice today, I’m not all that thrilled to hear it coming back at me. I don’t doubt Jacob’s good intentions, now that I’ve stung them into declarative life, but there’s the question of his follow-through, his priorities, which will realign themselves once the sting has worn off. I know this danger firsthand, having witnessed my own intentions soften, my own priorities reconfigure without much conscious aid from William Henry Devereaux, Jr.
    The dean pushes back his chair and stands. Our waitress reappears with the check. “I’ll get this,” Jacob grins.
    “It seems only fair,” I point out.
    “Oops,” the waitress says, startled by the unexpected sound of my voice. “I forgot to turn your ticket in to the kitchen.”
    I tell her to never mind.
    “Get the tip, will you?” Jacob says, enjoying himself again.
    I leave a pretty generous tip, considering. What I’m after is irony.
    The girl smiles at me brightly. “You’ns hurry back,” she says. So much for irony.
    When we’re out in the parking lot, Jacob says, “How come where women are concerned, they either don’t notice you at all or they want to rip your nose off?”
    “Let’s do this again soon,” I tell him.
    “How’s Lily?”
    “Good,” I tell him, adding, “How’s Jane?” in reference to his wife of eighteen years, who gave him the boot a decade ago.
    “Screw you,” he says.
    I decide, what the hell, why not send up a trial balloon? “Interesting rumors making the rounds these days,” I say, watching for a reaction.
    There is none, and that itself is a reaction. “You gotta love academe,” Jacob says. “Rumors are the manna of our particular desert.”
    “Hypothetical question,” I venture further. “Suppose an academic dean—say, of liberal arts—actually knew something for once. Would he share what he knew with an old friend?”
    “Is this an old friend who insults the dean and questions his integrity? Who can be counted on to be a pain in the testicles?” Jacob continues, for clarification. “Probably the dean would, at the right time.”
    “Would the right time be soon?”
    “Soon? I suppose
soon
is a good word.”
    “It’s true, isn’t it,” I tell him. “The job makes the man.”
    “What’s this I hear about your old man moving to Railton?”
    This stops me cold. I haven’t told anyone but Lily. “Where did you hear that?”
    “Your mother. She was wondering about the possibility of an honorary chair on campus. For William Henry Devereaux, she said. At first I thought she meant you. Which was why I laughed. Then it occurred to me she was talking about your father.”
    I smile and nod to acknowledge the insult, but otherwise ignore it. “And you said?”
    “I told her she should approach the chancellor. She said she already had his number.”
    “She’s got just about everybody’s number, believe me. Even my father’s. Not that it ever did her any good. Tennis Saturday?” I suggest, shifting gears.
    “Can’t,” he says. “I’m going out of town. In the meantime, you’re in charge. Just don’t do anything.”
    “Let me know if you get the job,” I say.
    To judge from Jacob’s reaction, this is a shrewd guess. He puts his index finger to his lips. “If I do, I’ll take you with me.”
    “No thanks,” I say. “I’m having too much fun right here.”
    I follow him out of the parking lot, and we get to the tracks just as the red lights begin to blink and the guardrail descends. Jacob guns his Regal and swings under the first rail and around the second. The last thing I see before the freight train comes between us is the dean gleefully giving me the finger.

CHAPTER
8
    My mother’s flat is in a section of Railton that was, once upon a distant time, monied. In the heyday of the railroad there were large public gardens, and the neighborhoods surrounding these gardens