Straight Man

are you?” I ask him.
    He’s quiet for a moment. “Anyhow,” he says finally. “The real reason I wanted to drive you home—”
    “Oh, Christ,” I say. “Here we go.”
    I know what’s coming. For the last few months rumors have been running rampant about an impending purge at the university, one that would reach into the tenured ranks. If such a thing were to happen, virtually everyone in the English department would be vulnerable to dismissal. The news is reportedly being broken to department chairs individually in their year-end conferences with the campus executive officer. According to which rumors you listen to, the chairs are being either asked or required to draw up lists of faculty in their departments who might be considered expendable. Seniority is reportedly not a criterion.
    “All right,” I tell Teddy. “Give it to me. Who have you been talking to now?”
    “Arnie Drenker over in Psychology.”
    “And you believe Arnie Drenker?” I ask. “He’s certifiable.”
    “He swears he was ordered to make a list.”
    When I don’t immediately respond to this, he takes his eyes off the road for a microsecond to look over at me. My right nostril, which has now swollen to the point where I can see it clearly in my peripheral vision, throbs under his scrutiny. “Why do you refuse to take the situation seriously?”
    “Because it’s April, Teddy,” I explain. This is an old discussion. April is the month of heightened paranoia for academics, not that their normal paranoia is insufficient to ruin a perfectly fine day in any season. But April is always the worst. Whatever dirt will be done to us is always planned in April, then executed over the summer, when we are dispersed. September is always too late to remedy the reduced merit raises, the slashed travel fund, the doubled price of the parking sticker that allows us to park in the Modern Languages lot. Rumors about severe budget cuts that will affect faculty have been rampant every April for the past five years, although this year’s have been particularly persistent and virulent. Still, the fact is that every year the legislature has threatened deep cuts in higher education. And every year a high-powered education task force is sent to the capitol to lobby the legislature for increased spending. Every year accusations are leveled, editorials written.Every year the threatened budget cuts are implemented, then at the last fiscal moment money is found and the budget—most of it—restored. And every year I conclude what William of Occam (that first, great modern William, a William for his time and ours, all the William we will ever need, who gave to us his magnificent razor by which to gauge simple truth, who was exiled and relinquished his life that our academic sins might be forgiven) would have concluded—that there will be no faculty purge this year, just as there was none last year, just as there will be none next year. What there will probably be next year is more belt tightening, more denied sabbaticals, an extension of the hiring freeze, a reduced photocopy budget. What there will certainly be next year is another April, and another round of rumors.
    Teddy steals another quick glance at me. “Do you have any idea what your colleagues are saying?”
    “No,” I say, then, “yes. I mean, I know my colleagues, so I can imagine what they’re saying.”
    “They’re saying your dismissing the rumors is pretty suspicious. They’re wondering if you’ve made up a list.”
    I sigh dramatically. “If I did, it’d be a long one. If we ever start cutting the deadwood in our department, we’re not going to want to stop at twenty percent.”
    “That’s just the kind of talk that makes people nervous. This is no time to be joking. If you’d trust me, tell me what you know, I could at least reassure our friends.”
    “What if I don’t know anything?”
    “Okay, be that way,” Teddy says, looking like I’ve hurt his feelings now. “I didn’t tell you everything when I was chair either.”
    “Yes, you did,” I remind him. “I remember because I didn’t want to know any of it.”
    When I see that I’ve hurt his feelings, I give in a little. “I have my meeting with Dickie later this week,” I tell him, trying to remember whether it’s tomorrow or Friday.
    Teddy doesn’t react to this. In fact he doesn’t seem to have heard it. Talk about paranoid. He’s watching his rearview mirror as if he suspects we’re being followed.