Straight Man (25 page)

“Am I right?” Dickie wants to know.

“Absolutely,” I assure him.

“So, I say, make use of it. Every problem contains its own solution. That’s the first rule every administrator learns.”

“How many rules are there altogether?” I ask. I’m not an innocent, but I can play that role.

He ignores me. “Ignore all smart-ass questions” may be one of the other rules. “And it’s not like we don’t have more serious problems to attend to,” he says.

“No,” I agree. “It’s not like that.”

“Speaking of which,” Dickie says, as if this digression has just occurred to him. “This rowdy department of yours. How many grievances do you have pending right now?”

“Just against me,” I ask, “or against Teddy when he was chair?”

He shrugs, generous. “The two of you.”

“I’ve lost count,” I admit. “Fifteen? Twenty? Most of them are nuisance grievances.”

“Nuisance,” Dickie says, leaning forward to stab my tweedy shoulder with an elegant index finger. “That’s the word. That’s the right hmm-hmm word for them. And so’s the union that nurtures them, though you may not agree with me.”

No doubt about it. Now we’re getting somewhere. Because Dickie would not have made such an observation without having done some research. Sometime last night it’s occurred to him to wonder just who I am, this guy he wants to stab through the throat with an ice pick. I must be somebody, so who the hell am I? He’s made a call or two, and he’s learned that I was not in favor of union representation when the vote was taken over a decade ago. He may even know that I’ve been an outspoken critic of the kind of egalitarian spirit that has pervaded the institution since the union’s arrival. Or it could be he’s known these things about me for some time. Maybe last fall he wondered just who
the hell this “Lucky Hank” guy was who was writing academic satires for the newspaper. Maybe he wanted to put an ice pick in the throat of this Lucky Hank character too. Regardless, if he’s taken the trouble to find out about my attitude toward the union, he’s also learned that I’m unpredictable, a genuine loose cannon. What he’d like to know now is just how loose. Can he afford me as a friend?

“These things go in cycles,” I decide to say. “Every academic union should be tossed out after five years.” Then, before Dickie’s grin can spread too far, I add, “Then at the end of the next five years, all the university administrators should be booted out and another union voted in.”

“That’s pretty cynical,” Dickie says, as if cynicism were a character trait he’d never have suspected in me until this moment. “Now, I believe in continuity and vision.”

“Vision’s good,” I agree.

“Take this place. You may be right about things moving in cycles,” he concedes. “This nuisance union, as you call it, has had our institution by the hmm-hmm for a long time. But anybody with vision”—he pauses here to point to his own right eye, which has narrowed with significance—“can see that things are changing. Forces of nature, Hank, pure and simple. We’re fresh out of baby boomers. The colleges that survive the decade are going to be lean and mean. Efficient.”

“Efficient?” I say. “Education?”

“You bet.”

“Higher education?”

“Lean and mean.”

“Well, it’s always been mean,” I concede.

“And it’s gonna get lean. Soon.”

I try not to show how little I like the sound of this.

“Nobody can stop what’s going to happen,” Dickie assures me. “You can’t stop a tidal wave. All you can do is find high ground and take your friends with you.”

Here it is again. I can be Dickie’s friend if I want to be.

“You’re saying I get to save my friends? Watch my enemies drown?”

Dickie contemplates my question. “Here’s what I’m saying. I know there have been lots of rumors, so I’ll tell you what I can. The sad truth
is that the chancellor has given me a mandate. Not just me. I wish it were. But it’s systemwide. All the campus executive officers. Every one. I have to come up with a plan to reduce staff and costs, across the curriculum, by twenty percent. There’s no guarantee that such a plan will have to be implemented. But it has to be drawn up. Twenty percent.”

I can’t help smiling at this. “If we’re going to save Hank Devereaux’s friends and drown his enemies, we can cut a lot more than twenty percent.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Dickie advises, apparently concerned for my self-esteem. “You’re widely respected on this campus. You’re a gifted and popular teacher and a well-published author. You may think that those of us on this side of the pond don’t know who our good people are, but we do, believe me. I in particular keep my ear to the tracks.”

When Dickie says this, I can’t help thinking of William Cherry, who apparently did exactly this and had his head borne away and deposited in Bellemonde. For a moment I picture this happening to Dickie.

“Did I say something funny?” he wants to know.

“Not at all,” I assure him. “Let me see if I understand. I tell you who to fire and you just do it. You think that’s something we can get away with?”

Dickie leans back on the arm of the sofa, locks his fingers behind his head. His armpits, I notice, are not even damp. I, on the other hand, am sweating, and this may be one of the things that Dickie is enjoying. Because he clearly
is
enjoying himself. “I don’t think you fully comprehend. It’s
not
doing it that we can’t get away with,” he says, pausing to let this sink in. “Because if we don’t do it, somebody else will. Somebody who may be less discriminating than we are.”

“I get it,” I say. “It can be done well or badly. That’s our choice.”

“And you wouldn’t tell me who to fire, Hank. I wouldn’t burden you that way. You wouldn’t want such a thing on your conscience. Besides, that’s not what you’re paid for. If such a thing has to be done, it’ll be effected by people whose job it is. No, you’d simply suggest a set of criteria. On the basis of those criteria, I’d be advised who is indispensable to your department, so I don’t compromise your mission. After consulting with the academic deans, I would make recommendations
based on your advice. The president of the university would act on
my
recommendations. The chancellor on his.”

“All of which would be based on mine?”

He shrugs a concession. “Why would I want to ignore your recommendations? You’re the expert. If I went off on my own, I could find my hmm-hmm in a sling.”

“I see how that could happen.”

He nods, rocking gently, hands still behind his head. “Hank, I’ll be honest. I know a little about you. Heck. I know a lot about you. I know you’re on record as saying your department is full of burnouts. Now’s your chance to fashion the kind of department we could all be proud of.”

“
I
said the English department was full of burnouts?” I ask. It’s true I’ve thought it often enough, but I can’t think of who I’ve said it to that would have repeated it to Dickie Pope.

“Never mind.” He waves this off. “You did, and you were right. Remember. This is just us. Just you and me. Nobody knows what gets said here. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point something out to you, because I know you’re a man of integrity and this might not occur to you. You want to know the best part, from
your
standpoint? Number one. There’s no guarantee 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 yours and liked it. Anyway, take the weekend to think things over. Talk it over with Lila.”

Better and better. I can feel my grin spreading, buoyed by the fact that he’s gotten my wife’s name wrong a second time. He’s taken the trouble to research me, but even so he’s making mistakes.

“I always discuss everything with Lila,” I tell him. “Lila’s one shrewd cookie. You think
I’m
smart? You should meet my Lila. In fact, I don’t know where I’d be without Lila. If I ever do write another book and make a lot of money, I’m going to buy a yacht and name her the
Lila
.”

Dickie Pope is staring at me, bewildered now, perhaps even convinced I’m insane. When we shake, he doesn’t let go of my hand right away. “I’m not sure I’ve done a good job of convincing you of the gravity of the situation, Hank. And I do want you to understand that there
is
a storm coming. A real gully washer.”

Since we’re right by the window, which affords a sweeping view of the campus all the way to the duck pond, I offer him our entire tenured academic landscape with a sweeping gesture. “Not a hmm-hmm cloud in the sky,” I observe.

On my way back across campus, I see Bodie Pie slip into Social Sciences via the back door and remember she wanted to talk to me, so I follow, risking the possibility that I’ll get lost in the building’s legendary labyrinths. Social Sciences, the newest building on campus, was built in the midseventies, when there was money for both buildings and faculty. According to myth, the structure was designed to prevent student takeovers, and this may be true. A series of pods, it’s all zigzagging corridors and abrupt mezzanines that make it impossible to walk from one end of the building to another. At one point, if you’re on the first floor, either you have to go up two floors, over, and down again or you have to go outside the building and then in again in order to arrive at an office you can see from where you’re standing. The campus joke is that Lou Steinmetz has an office in the building but no one knows where.

If I’m the most embattled program chair on campus, Bodie Pie, of Women’s Studies, runs a close second, and Bodie takes her troubles to
heart, which makes her situation far worse than mine. She can usually use some cheering up.

“I don’t think I could work in these conditions,” I say when I arrive at the open doorway of her dismal office. Women’s Studies is in the basement, almost entirely below ground. There’s a long, horizontal window in Bodie’s office that affords a narrow view of the sidewalk outside, as well as the feet and ankles of people who pass by on it. “Don’t you have a secretary, at least?”