Straight Man

any of this will come to pass. This particular legislature’s not enamored of higher education, it’s true, but in the eleventh hour, they may see the light. But if they don’t, there’s still no way you’re going to be seen as the bad guy. There’ll be some bellyaching at first, no mistake, but it’s going to be clear that this was mandated from the top, not the bottom. You’ll catch some flack from a small handful of people, but not like the flack I’m going to catch. And what I’m going to catch isn’t going to be anything like what the chancellor’s going to catch. We’re the bad guys, not you. We do the deed, we eat the hmm-hmm, you come out in good shape. Which is fine. We eat a little hmm-hmm, but everybody wins. The institution wins. The students win. And, if a little deadwood gets whittled away, the taxpayers win.”
    “We get trim,” I say thoughtfully. “Lean and mean.”
    “The idea appeals to you, Hank, I can tell,” Dickie says. “And it should, considering the alternative.”
    “Ah, the alternative. The alternative doesn’t look nearly as good,” I admit. “And I don’t even know what the alternative is.”
    “Sure you do,” Dickie assures me. “A smart guy like you knows that if you don’t assist me in these serious deliberations, I’ll have to go elsewhere for the advice I need. And somebody else’s criteria might not be yours. If I were to ask, say, Phineas Coomb, who’s always in here busting me about what a hmm-hmm-hmm you are, who knows? He might advise me to require the Ph.D. for all professorial ranks. Such criteria, evenly applied, would not benefit you, Hank. What’s that screwball degree you’ve got?”
    “A master of fine arts?”
    He nods. “Not a Ph.D. What if I’m advised everybody should have one? It wouldn’t be a good thing. Not for you. Not for Lila. Not for our students. Hell. Not even for me.
I
wouldn’t want that, Hank.”
    “But if you
had
to …,” I continue.
    His face clouds over. He’s finally had enough. Apparently he doesn’t like me stepping on his lines. I note with satisfaction that a spot of perspiration darkens one pit before he can put his arms down. “You can’t help yourself, can you?” he says. “This goading thing.”
    Every muscle in his face confronts the task of what the hell to do with a man like me. He finally knows exactly what to make of me, but he can’t seem to act on what he knows.
    “Well,” he says, rising, under control again. “Maybe I’m asking too much here. This is a lot to digest. Heck, I felt the same way back in February when I got the news. Imagine my situation for a minute, if that’s not too much to ask. I came here from an institution that just went through the same dramatic downsizing that’s being discussed here, the result of the same financial exigencies. You think
I
ever want to go through such a thing again?”
    I have to admit, Dickie is pretty good. His carefully calculated sincerity is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. By asking me to consider his situation, he’s asked for sympathy even as he’s reminded me that he’s done this once already, lest I doubt his resolve.
    As I’m ushered to the door, Dickie’s book-lined wall again attracts his attention, and he goes over to it, scanning the shelves, his hand raised, in the general area where my book was located, where he apparently remembers seeing it last. “I know I’ve got your book here,” he says.
    The fact that he’s wrong about it is oddly heartening.
    Finally he gives up, turns back to me, to the book’s author, who stands before him, poor substitute for the book, the object he’s hoped to put his hands on, to use, who knows, for flattery? for kindling? I force myself not to look down at my coat pocket. Dickie’s got a strange look on his face, like maybe he knows what’s happened to this book he’s looking for. Or maybe he’s reconsidering the possibility that occurred to him this morning and was too hastily rejected—that he could just stab me in the throat with an ice pick. “I hear you don’t write anymore,” he says, which is, in truth, about the last thing I expect him to say.
    “Not true,” I inform him. “You should see the margins of my student papers.”
    “Not the same as writing a book though, right?”
    “Almost identical,” I assure him. “Both go largely unread.”
    “If it weren’t for lawyers and cops, I’d have time to read,” he tells me. “I started that book of