“MR. SUMMERS,” I asked, after the meeting ended, “what happened to Robby? Did he do something wrong?”
“Yes, Peter, he did,” said Mr. Summers, in a voice with the timbre that I’ve long recognized as exactly right for grave pronouncements, one that I’ve often wished I could produce when a situation warrants it, as more and more situations have since I’ve assumed the responsibilities of an adult and, therefore, have required more and more often the services of lawyers and plumbers, professionals who are alike in practicing a mystery in the manner of medieval guildsmen, guarding jealously the tricks of their trade, and charging the client for every second of their time, including time spent correcting their own mistakes. That grave voice combines the voices of the bassoon and cello, and there are times when only that voice will do, as, for instance, when I’m forced to say, “Albertine, I’m afraid we’re going to have to sue the plumber.”
“What did Robby do?” I asked. I had been puzzled by this question throughout the meeting, because the manual didn’t specify any rules that Robby might have broken. Most of the manual was, in fact, given over to the procedures for the meetings, and since Robby’s offense had been committed outside the meeting, in one of the humility sessions, it couldn’t have had anything to do with those procedures. The only other section of the manual that might be construed as a set of rules or laws, it seemed to me, was the list of Tars Traits. “Did he violate one of the traits?” I asked. Then, exhibiting a trait of my own, one that has become more prominent over the years, I attempted a little humor to camouflage the gravity of the situation, as my mother used to add a spoonful of sugar to her spaghetti sauce to diminish the bitterness she found in the taste of tomatoes. “Did he refuse to roll with the swells?” I asked, grinning.
Mr. Summers’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared. His jaw muscles rippled. The veins in his neck stood out. His face reddened. After a long and terrible silence, he said, in a voice made tense by his effort to control it, “What do you mean by that, Peter?”
“I just—I—I didn’t really mean anything—I was just making a joke,” I said.
“Making a joke. Oh, yes. You’re quite the humorist, aren’t you? You weren’t just ‘making a joke,’ Peter. You were being sarcastic, weren’t you?” he said, accusing, not asking. The veins in his neck were more swollen, his face redder.
“Sarcastic?” I asked, shaken.
“Yes,” he said, “sarcastic. It seems to me that often, much too often, there’s a hidden meaning in what you say.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Oh, yes, you do. Oh, yes, you do know,” he said at once. “You know very well what I mean, Peter. Are you going to tell me you don’t remember the way you said that you and your mother put covers on the manual to try to make it thicker? Hmm? Do you think I don’t know that you were mocking me when you said it would help make the meetings run smoother if the Tars knew what to do before we asked them to do it? Ha!”
The way Mr. Summers was treating me baffled, hurt, and angered me. I knew that I would begin to cry if I didn’t get a grip on myself somehow. “Mr. Summers,” I began, “I—”
“Don’t ‘Mr. Summers’ me that way,” he said, twisting the left side of his mouth in a sneer. “I know what you mean by that. ‘Mr. Summers. Mr. Summers.’ I know what you mean. I know what you mean when you say, ‘Aye, sir,’ too. ‘Aye, sir. Aye, sir.’ It’s all in the way you say it. You’re saying you think there’s something wrong with me. You’re questioning my leadership. You think I don’t know what you think, but I do. I know just what you think—you think you’re pretty smart, that’s what you think. You think you’re a lot smarter than everyone else, don’t you, Peter?”
I was still baffled and hurt, but now anger had taken the upper hand, had taken a firm grip on me, a grip like that of an instructor, say a tennis instructor, who grips one’s arm and pushes it firmly in a direction it does not really want to go. Anger gripped me and pushed me in a direction I didn’t really want to go, pushed me past one of the milestones on the road from childhood to adulthood. In an instant of bitter recognition (which, in memory, resembles heartburn) I saw that Mr. Summers had perverted the relationship that should have existed between us, that he was using his status as an adult, an adult in a position that was supposed to command my obedience and respect, to hurt me, make me feel small, insignificant, and wrong for being what I was. However, some sweet came with the bitter. Mr. Summers’s anger had taught me that I could fight back with humor.
“Aye, sir,” I said. Mr. Summers’s head really seemed about to explode. A wonderful calm came over me. I looked Mr. Summers in the eye, and, drawing on whatever gland it is that secretes chutzpah, I grinned.
“Nobody likes a wise guy, Peter,” he said, his lips trembling. “A Tar does not act like a wise guy.”
“I’ll add that to the traits,” I said.
Instantly, all the blood drained from Mr. Summers’s face. It was, for me, an exhilarating sight. Whatever else might happen, the blanching of Mr. Summers marked a victory, a small victory certainly, one likely to be reversed by a punitive counterattack, but a victory never to be forgotten.
In Topical Guide 230, Mark Dorset considers Humor as a Weapon from this episode.
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