Straight Man

integrated neighborhood.”
    “Right,” I say, indicating the television screen over my shoulder with my thumb.
    “We shouldn’t even be looking at places until I find out about my tenure next year,” he concedes. “Except it’s a buyer’s market right now. According to our realtor, now’s the time. Next year, who knows?”
    “Tomorrow, who knows?” I agree.
    “That’s the other thing,” he says, studying me carefully now. “All this talk about layoffs this year. If it’s last hired, first fired …”
    “April is the cruelest month, rumor-wise,” I remind him.
    “Well, if you hear anything, I hope you’ll let me know, because we really are considering taking the plunge. June thinks Allegheny Wells is a good investment.”
    “Sally, you mean.”
    “No, June. She’s been trying to get Teddy to buy out there.”
    Actually, she’s been trying to get Teddy to do this for over a decade, but Teddy can’t bring himself to spend that kind of money.
    “I just hate to see you give up your dream,” I tell Orshee.
    He looks blank.
    “Of living in an integrated neighborhood,” I remind him.
    “Oh, right,” he says. “Well, we’re looking at other places, too.”
    “And there’s always the chance that it will
become
integrated,” I remind him, getting up from my chair. “I understand Coach Green is looking to build out there.”
    “And it’s not like we’ll be here in Railton forever,” he adds.
    At this I can’t help smiling. “That’s what we all thought, kid.”
    Paul Rourke is collecting his mail in the English department office when I enter. He studies me over the rim of his reading glasses, and it occurs to me to wonder how long he’s had these. Also I note that there’s more gray in his hair and flesh in his cheeks than the last time I observed him carefully, which was maybe a decade ago. He has a dissipated look about him now, and I can’t help wondering if he’s become, like Billy Quigley, a solitary drinker. He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anybody in Humanities, probably. Maybe someone over in P.E.
    “Morning, Reverend,” I say. “Another beautiful day, praise God.”
    “Hello, dipwad,” he says, returning his attention to his mail, most of which he’s tossing directly into the wastebasket at his feet, unopened. “I caught your act last night,” he continues without looking up from his task. “It needs work.”
    Rourke’s position regarding me never varies. Despite the fact that I try to make everything into a joke, I’m never funny. Rachel stops typing at her word processor and watches us fearfully. To show her that everything is fine, that an outbreak of hostilities is unlikely between ustwo old former combatants, I give her a wink. She remembers, as everyone does, that Rourke once threw me up against a wall at the department Christmas party, and she hates to see the two of us in the same room. Maybe, if she’s half in love with me, she doesn’t want to see me injured.
    “Look up
dipwad
for me,” I tell her, spelling it. “I think I’ve been insulted, but I’m not sure.”
    To my surprise, Rachel clicks onto her dictionary program and actually consults it, out of curiosity, it must be, since she seldom follows my orders. If she did follow my orders, she wouldn’t even be here today.
    “I hear we may have a new neighbor,” I tell Rourke.
    He’s finished going through his mail now, and there’s only one piece he’s deemed worth opening. He reads the first paragraph of a document that’s at least three pages long, then drops the whole thing into the wastebasket. There must be things about me and my behavior that strike Paul Rourke as being as admirable as the way he’s just dispatched his mail strikes me. If so, he keeps his admiration to himself.
    “Our obsequious junior colleague? Has he told you about his dream of living in an integrated neighborhood?”
    “Just now,” I admit. “He thought he might have to give it up.”
    “What did you advise, being privy to all our academic futures?”
    I decide not to ask what he means by this. “I advised him to buy on the good side of the road.”
    “Does that mean he’s not on your list? Or do you want to see him not just fired but totally fucked?”
    “List?” I say.
    “You want the truth?” he says. “I half-hope you put my name on it.”
    I’m about to say “what list?” again when Rachel double-clicks out of her dictionary. “It’s not in