I had no more success at Stephen Hall’s unadorned slab of chartreuse wood, but Gene Dalby’s door was open and Gene was sitting at his desk, wearing a rumpled white shirt and khakis, bare feet propped, gray laptop resting on a skinny stalk of thigh. He typed, hummed tonelessly, wiggled his toes. A pair of huarache sandals sat near the legs of his chair. Coffee bubbled in an old white machine. A single window to his left framed rooftops and the northern edge of the campus botanical gardens. From a boom box on the ledge came supernatural guitar licks and a bruised voice. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Crossfire.”
I said, “Uh, hi, Professor Dalby. Could we talk about my grades?”
Gene’s head turned. Same bony pencil face and jug ears and rebellious ginger hair. His temples had silvered. Black-framed half-lens reading glasses rode the center of a swooping, askew hook of a nose. He grinned, placed the specs on the desk, did the same with the laptop. “No way. You flunk.”
Jumping up to his full, ostrich-necked six-four, all loose limbs and oversized hands and bobbing head, he clasped my shoulders and shook his head in wonderment, as if my arrival heralded the second coming of something. Gene is one of the most outgoing people I know, a paragon of unadorned friendliness, hyperactive maestro of the thunderous greeting. His good cheer is nearly constant, and he avoids complexity. Unusual traits in a psychologist. So many of us were introspective, overly imaginative kids who got into the field trying to figure out why our mothers were depressed no matter what we did. In grad school a lot of people found him too good to be true and distrusted him. He and I always got along, though it rarely went beyond off-color jokes and casual lunches.
“So,” he said. “Alex. How long has it been?”
“Awhile.”
“Light-years, man. Here, sit— Coffee?”
I took a side chair, accepted a mug of something strong and bitter and vaguely coffeelike. He kicked the sandals under the desk. The office was tiny, and his size didn’t help. He hunched like a pet confined by a cruel owner.
“Working during the break?” I said.
“Best time, less distraction. Besides, back when I was in practice I used to see fifty, sixty patients a week. That was real work. This academic racket is legalized theft. Nine months a year, make your own hours.” He laughed. “These guys love to complain, but it’s a paid vacation.”
“When did you make the switch?” I said.
“Three years ago. Sold the practice to my associates and presented the department with an offer they couldn’t refuse: They take me on part-time, no job security, no benefits, and I carry a heavy teaching load, in exchange for a clinical full professorship and no assignment to committees.”
“No publishing treadmill.”
“Exactly, but the funny thing is even though I didn’t plan to, I’m doing research anyway. First time in years. Asking questions that really interest me rather than churning out garbage in tribute to the tenure gods. And I love the teaching, man. The kids are great. Despite what the idiot pundits say, students are getting smarter.”
“What kind of research are you doing?” I said.
“Political attitudes in little kids. We go out to grade schools, try to gauge their perceptions of candidates. You’d be surprised how much little kids know about the scumbags who run for office. I feel like I’m home—social psych was always my first love. I went into clinical because I also liked clinical and I thought it would be nice to help people and allthat. But, mainly, because I needed to make a buck. Married with kids— unlike you, I never went through the swinging bachelor stage.”
“You’ve got the wrong guy there, Gene.”
“I don’t think so, man. I distinctly recall you being a departmental love object. Even the girls who didn’t shave their legs looked at you thatway.”
“I must have missed it,” I said.
He grinned. “Listen to him, that coyness—all part of the charm. Anyway . . . you look great, Alex.”
“You too.”
“I look like I always did—Ichabod Crane on methamphetamine. But yeah, I’m doing what I can to stay in shape, got into long-distance hiking. Jan and I did the John Muir Trail last summer, Alaska before that.” He turned the volume down on Stevie Ray.