“I didn’t mean no harm, Ghaw-urge.”
“I’ll be damned!” Minerva stopped short. “It’s Eberhard! Superjock himself! How come you’re not out busting black skulls with the rest of the team?”
“The coach, he threw me off the team for breaking training. I told him I didn’t mean to hurt nobody. Honest! But the coach, he wouldn’t listen, and he says I can't play with the fellers no more.”
“Without Eberhard they’re sunk,” one of the SDS-ers remarked. “The team is dead!”
“Drummed out of the corpse.” Jonathan Relevant summed up silently.
“It don’t make no never-mind to me,” Big Dick sulked. “I thought them fellers on the team, I thought they was my friends. But-they ain’t. Here I am stuck, and not a one of them would help me. Not even Ghaw-urge. They ain’t my friends no more!”
“Let’s get the poor slob loose.” Minerva beckoned to two of the huskier boys.
They grabbed Big Dick around the waist, braced themselves, and tugged. A moment later he jerked free. He tumbled to the ground, his naked rear landing on the face of one of his rescuers and all but suffocating him.
Minerva handed him his tattered stretch pants. Big Dick pulled them on and verbalized his gratitude. “Them fellers on the team ain’t my friends no more,” he said. “You helped me, and now you’re my friends. I’m gonna stay with you ’cause you’re my friends.”
Big Dick Eberhard, All-American, had been radicalized.
He fell in beside Minerva as the group marched around to the front of the Science Research Institute. Jonathan Relevant went with them. He wanted to wash up, and that’s where his room was. But before he could enter the building, he was detoured.
“Psst!” A medium-sized man with a shock of unruly white hair emerged from the shrubbery and accosted Jonathan Relevant. “I’m Dr. Umpmeyer,” he informed him. He wore a shapeless tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows. “Philosophy department,” he added, fiddling with a hearing aid dangling from one ear. “I’d appreciate it if you’d come along with me, young fellow.” There was a slight New England twang to his speech.
“Come along where?”
“To a special Ad Hoc Faculty Committee meeting.”
“Why me?” Jonathan Relevant inquired.
“Because I want them to hear the radical student point of view.”
“I don’t think I’m qualified to give it,” Jonathan Relevant told him honestly.
“You look a dang sight more qualified than the rest of that scruffy lot!” Dr. Umpmeyer gestured toward the backs of the SDS-ers. “At least you’re clean-shaven and you’ve got a haircut. If I brought one of those unwashed longhairs, half the faculty would tune out before he opened his mouth. But you look respectable enough. You’re older than the others. You don’t look like you’ll go off half- cocked. Matter of fact, you remind me of myself when I was a graduate student.”
“But I’m not a graduate student.”
“Doesn’t matter. Will you come along?”
“Why not?” It was all part of the educational process. And Jonathan Relevant was trying to educate himself regarding Jonathan Relevant.
The faculty meeting was already in progress when they entered. A bald man with a sallow complexion and the look of a cadaver on an ulcer diet was speaking. “The responsibility of the faculty is to the university.” He belched loudly. “Our obligation as teachers is to remain loyal to the Harnell administration.” He burped a second time. “These students are behaving like anarchists and we cannot condone anarchy!” He broke wind loudly, emphasizing his point. “We cannot afford to further indulge the spoiled children of overpermissive parents in tantrums which disrupt the—-”
“Professor Rumpkis.” Dr. Umpmeyer identified the speaker for Jonathan Relevant. “Physics.”
“He ought to try a different brand.”
“Hmm?” Dr. Umpmeyer removed his hearing aid and shook it vigorously. “Goldang it! Every time that Rumpkis talks he makes this thing go out of whack. It’s very sensitive to tone, you know, and he’s so blasted flatulent!”
“. . . and so I say we should issue a statement supporting Chancellor Hardlign and the Harnell trustees in whatever steps they take to suppress this unruly rabble!” Professor Rumpkis concluded with a final, simultaneous, and most impressive oral and anal backfire. He sat down amid light and unenthusiastic applause, covered his mouth with both hands, and burped disconsolately behind them.
“What was that?” Dr. Umpmeyer was banging the hearing-aid receiver on his knee.
“HE SAID THE FACULTY SHOULD SUPPORT THE ADMINISTRATION IN QUELLING THE DISSIDENTS,” Jonathan Relevant shouted.
“Dissonance is the problem, alrighty!” Dr. Umpmeyer removed the batteries from the hearing aid and checked the terminal points. “Blast that gaseous old gasbag!” he muttered. “He does it every time!”
A rolly-polly, middle-aged woman had the floor now. “Mercy Altebopper. Psychology department,” she introduced herself. “I have the greatest respect for Professor Rumpkis.” A tic seized the right side of her face and her eye blinked violently. “But I am in complete disagreement with him.” Her cheek twitched and she winked again.
“What’s she saying?” Dr. Umpmeyer was tracing his wiring.
“SHE DOESN’T AGREE WITH THE LAST SPEAKER’S VIEWS,” Jonathan Relevant yelled.
“The speaker screws are all right. I checked them. That’s not where the trouble is.”
“The administration is insensitive to the opinions of students.” The tic abruptly switched to the left side of Mercy Altebopper’s face. “And the students know this because they are constantly ignored when they protest that which is most appalling in their classes.”
“THE KIDS ARE IGNORED WHEN THEY POINT OUT WHAT’S APPALLING IN THEIR CLASSES.”
“ ‘Falling on their asses?’ I don’t like to hear ladies use language like that,” Dr. Umpmeyer grumbled. “I know I’m old-fashioned, but it offends my sense of dignity.”
“It’s time that students and faculty both had a voice in the running of this institution. We must back the dissidents all the way. Their battle is our battle. If we turn our backs on them-— Well, think of their frustration. And such frustration breeds inhumanity!” Both sides of Mercy A1tebopper’s face were ticking frantically now. Her whole visage shook, and then her eyes crossed. She sat down and covered her crossed eyes with her hands.
“. . . FRUSTRATION BREEDS INHUMANITY," Jonathan Relevant finished yelling into the hearing aid.
“That’s true. ‘Frustration leads to insanity.’ But I don’t think Miss Altebopper’s that far gone yet. No indeed. That tic is a rather severe symptom, but I wouldn’t presume to say she’s over the line.”
“What we have here,” Jonathan Relevant thought to himself, “is a problem of communication."
“What we have here is a problem of communication.” Dr. Umpmeyer claimed the floor. “The administration is deaf to the students and the students are beyond listening to the administration. Most of the trouble in the world comes from folks not hearing what the other fellow is saying.”
Professor Rumpkis removed his hands from his mouth and got to his feet. Dr. Umpmeyer, annoyed, looked at him and pointedly removed his hearing aid. Professor Rumpkis sat down and covered his mouth with both hands again.
“Dang it! I lost my point.” Dr. Umpmeyer turned to Jonathan Relevant for help. “What was I saying?”
“ABOUT PEOPLE HEARING OTHER PEOPLE. . . .”
“Oh, yes. And there’s no reason for people fearing each other. Take this situation. The men who run this college aren’t monsters engaged in some kind of insidious establishment plot. And the students enrolled here aren’t blind nihilists out for blood. But the two sides don’t really listen to each other. That’s the trouble. So it’s up to the faculty. Our role must be as mediators. It’s up to us to establish ourselves as the line of communication between the administration and the students. Above all, we should avoid taking sides.” Dr. Umpmeyer sat down and turned to Jonathan Relevant. “Maybe it’s fence-straddling, but you agree with that, don’t you, young fellow?” he asked.