Nicky turned toward me and rolled his eyes. “So I say to Miss Rheingold, ‘Can we answer a question with a question?’
“And she says, ‘Only if you answer the question that you use to answer the question.’
“So I say, ‘What question are those guys working on?’ Meaning you guys.
“And she says, ‘Is that your answer?’
“And I say, ‘No, no. That’s just a preliminary question, leading to my answer.’
“So she says, ‘Where do you stop?’
“And I say, ‘I think that’s the answer to this question.’
“And so she says, ‘Very clever, Nicky. Very clever.’ You like that, Barber? ‘Very clever.’ And then she says, ‘Go ahead and join that group if they have no objections.’ So here I am.”
He looked around the table slowly.
“And I know you don’t have any objections, right?” he said.
I wanted to be a strong leader, but I was scared to death of Nicky Furman. I didn’t want anyone, especially Patti, to know that, so, trying mightily to give the impression that the question of Nicky’s joining our group was of no interest to me whatsoever, I said, “I think the important thing is that we should get right to work. Everybody agree?”
There were silent nods from everyone.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve been doing some reading, and here’s what I’ve got so far. Everything we see, everything in the world—well, in fact, everything in space and everywhere—is made up of smaller parts. Everybody knows that from the movie, right?”
“Sure,” said Matthew, “smaller and smaller parts.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And Barber’s parts are the smallest in the room,” said Nicky.
Matthew ignored this remark, other than rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, and I tried to ignore it too.
“Well, the smallest parts are atoms, right?” I said.
“The smallest in the school,” said Nicky.
“Except for the parts of atoms,” I continued. “Like the nucleus and the electrons.”
“Barber’s parts are so small they’re atomic,” said Nicky.
Matthew just sat there, staunchly ignoring Nicky.
“Here’s an idea I had,” said Marvin. He immediately got our attention, since none of the rest of us knew what he was like, what he thought or felt, what he might have to say, and we had all, without realizing it, been sitting in anticipation of the first time he would open his mouth. Even Nicky was interested. He turned from Matthew to see what Marvin had to say. “Remember what Quanto said,” said Marvin. “Most of an atom is empty space, and everything is made of atoms, so most of us is empty space too.”
“Barber’s head is all empty space,” said Nicky, but even he must have felt that his interruption of Marvin wasn’t welcome, because he spoke in an oddly subdued way.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 597, Mark Dorset considers Rhetorical Devices: Maieutics (“Midwifery” Responding to a Question with a Question) from this episode.
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🎧 597: Nicky turned . . .