Maybe (Maybe Not) (11 page)

The students are thinking—well…OK.

Chairs are reset. Students stand ready. Music starts and they march. Chairs are removed. STOP! There is a pause in the action. The students are really thinking it over now. (
Do I want a chair to myself? Do I want to sit on someone’s lap or have someone sit in mine? And who?)
The class gets seated, but the mood has changed. There is laughter—giggling. When the game begins again, there is a change of pace. Who’s in a hurry?

When the number of chairs is sufficiently reduced to force two to a chair, a dimension of grace enters in as the role of sittee or sitter is clarified—“Oh, no, please, after you.” Some advance planning is evident as the opportunity to sit in the lap of a particular person is anticipated.

As the game continues, and more and more people must share one chair, a kind of gymnastic dance form develops. It becomes a group accomplishment to get everybody branched out onto knees. Students with organizational skills come to the fore—it’s a people puzzle to solve now—“Big people on the bottom first—put your arms around him—sit back—easy, easy.”

When there is one chair left, the class laughs and shouts in delight as they all manage to use one chair for support now that they know the weight can be evenly distributed. Almost always, if they tumbled over, they’d get up and try again until everyone was sitting down. A triumphant moment for all, teacher included.

The only person who had a hard time with this paradigm shift was the guy who won the first time under the old rules. He lost his bearings—didn’t know what winning was now.

As a final step in this process, I would tell the class we would push on one more round. “The music will play, you will march, and I will take away the last
chair. When the music stops, you will all sit down in a lap.”

“Can’t be done,” they say.

“Yes, it can,” say I.

So once more they marched and stopped—what now?

“Everyone stand in a perfect circle.

“All turn sideways in place, as if you were going to walk together in a circle.

“Take a single step into the middle so as to have a tight circle now, with each person in the group belly-side to backside with the person ahead of them.

“Place your hands on the hips of the person in front of you.

“On the count of three, very carefully guide the person onto your knees at the same time as you very carefully sit down on the knees of the person behind you.

“Ready. One. Two. Three. Sit.”

They all sat. No chair.

I have played the chair game in this way with many different groups of many ages in varied settings. The experience is always the same. It’s a problem of sharing diminishing resources. This really isn’t kid stuff. And the questions raised by musical chairs are always the same:

Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game?

Do we still have what it takes to find a better way?

S
ome tangible evidence of the secret life is often close at hand, or, in the case of men’s wallets, close behind. If a man wearing jeans walks toward you on the street, step aside and take a look at his stern as he passes you. You will notice this fat, squarish lump riding at an angle in a hip pocket. There is a permanent wearmark showing the position of the wallet, whether the man and wallet are in the jeans at the moment or not. Even underneath a suit coat, the leather lump and the wearmark are inevitably there.

Unlike women, who tend to change purses to match shoes or occasion, men usually have one wallet, worn under all circumstances, whether it be to clean out a septic tank or attend a wedding. Consequently, the effects of sweat, body heat, and time give the
wallet a warped, lumpish shape more like a detachable leather wart than a billfold. It fits one place on one butt for all seasons and occasions. I tried putting a friend’s wallet in my hip pocket and had this vague sense that all was not well with my world.

The importance of a wallet is emphasized by how a man feels when he has lost his wallet. It’s a major emergency far beyond the value of any one item and far beyond the fact that most of the so-called valuable stuff, which can be replaced, is not really the most valuable stuff at all. Considered in this light, wallets may serve as the common key to the bank vaults of the secret lives of men.

I was asked to conduct a seminar for the senior members of a department of the federal government in Washington, D.C. Held in the solemn marble atmosphere of one of those classic Greco-Roman office buildings. The participants came wearing facades as serious as the building.

Middle-aged men, in dark suits, white shirts, quietly patriotic ties, dark socks, and polished shoes. Whatever hair they had was short and trim. Respectable in every way, they came bearing serious leather briefcases. Their demeanor was impressive if not downright intimidating. These men were running the United States government. They had no time to waste on frivolous entertainment. The message to me was clear: This seminar had better be worthwhile.

“A simple request, gentlemen: Please take out your wallets and place them on the table in front of you.”

And out of that niche on their sterns came the fat old leather hamburgers—molded and moldy from years of use. They laughed. Their covers were blown.

“Now, please, take everything out of your wallet and spread it out on the table in front of you.”

I was surprised at how willingly they complied. Their interest was piqued—
they
didn’t
know
what was in there any more than I did.

The usual utilitarian items appeared: cash, credit cards, driver’s licenses, and membership cards. In many cases, several of these items had expired and were no longer valid.

The bulk of the remaining material had the makings of a scrapbook. Business cards that came from meetings of months and years ago. Odds and ends of paper on which were written lists of things to get or do or buy, names of mechanics and repair services. And mystery information—again and again the murmur would come—“I’ve no idea where this came from or what it means or why it’s in here.”

Most had some little tiny scraps of paper on which were written those numbers you are not supposed to carry in a wallet: pin numbers for bank-card machines, long-distance credit-card codes, the combination to a safe, private phone numbers, computer-access codes, locker numbers, and Social Security numbers. All
written as tiny as possible on tiny pieces of paper, as if microscopic detail would confuse the finder of a lost or stolen wallet. Most men had to get out their reading glasses to read their own hieroglyphics; their eyes, like their memories, needed help. And again came the murmur—“I don’t know what this is for.”

And sure enough, a certain cultural myth proved to be based on fact—several men did indeed have a condom in their wallets. Still wrapped in the original packaging, but like much else in the wallets, showing signs of having been there a long time—like since junior high school—and provoking about the same level of raucous locker-room joking as they had in junior high.

Almost all of the men carried photographs. Worn, faded photographs. Nothing recent. Just the pictures of their children and wives when they were young. Little boys and little girls, posed and smiling in vulnerable innocence. Wives in hairdos of another time. Family groups: a mother and father once young, now old or dead and gone. Dogs. Cats. And a goat—supposedly a picture of a family pet, though the other men claimed it was his most recent girlfriend.

These photographs changed the atmosphere in the room. The men shared them, told the where-are-they-now stories—some of joy and accomplishment, some of sorrow and failure. The only recent photographs were of grandchildren, which of course led
to the swapping of tales of precocious promise and pride.

In the meantime, the men had, of their own volition, loosened their ties and taken off their suit jackets as they opened up their privates lives without me.

Not everyone was willing to share everything. I noticed some items being discreetly withheld—the photograph of a current lover—a state secret? Who knows? Even the bank of the secret life has safe-deposit boxes.

One man—the oldest and most respectably dressed of the lot—a man who, I learned later, was within a week of retirement, had not opened his wallet or relaxed enough to remove his jacket. He had not eliminated himself from the group discussion, but he was not sharing. His colleagues teased him into emptying his wallet.

For openers, he took out three brand-new condoms. There was a razzing cheer from the group. They gave him a standing ovation.

He held up his hand for attention and said, “You’re never too old, boys—never give up hope.” And the ovation continued.

As our seminar rambled on toward its close, I was amazed and amused to notice that every one of them—no exceptions—carefully put everything back
into his wallet—every last scrap. And, out of long-practiced habit, each man leaned slightly forward and to one side and replaced this old talismanic scrapbook back where it belonged. These were not just wallets after all. A wallet is a life preserver—found, as usual, under the seat.

W
hen I think of staff meetings, board meetings, or time served on almost any committee, I think of the one man who triumphed over “meeting madness.” The man whose style I sometimes wish I had.

David Dugan was his name. Though he had a college degree in civil engineering, and though he read history for pleasure, he enjoyed the pose of the simpleminded common man. Popeye was his model.

While in college, he had started as right defensive tackle on the football team for four years. After college he made his living as a heavy construction contractor, specializing in sewer systems and pipelines. He ran his life and business the way he played football—straight ahead up the middle, full power, nothing fancy.

Plainspoken in his conversation, he used one adjective: “sumbitch.” After you got used to it, you
didn’t notice when he spoke of his “sumbitch” wife and his “sumbitch” kids and his “sumbitch” friends any more than when he spoke of the “sumbitch” government and the “sumbitch” Russians. He varied the tone a little, but it was all “sumbitch” to him.

I met him at a poker game. I liked him right away. He came to church the next Sunday saying he’d never heard a sumbitch poker player preach. He stayed on to become an active member of the church. We found him kind and generous behind his facade. His laughter kept us loose in tense moments, and his resources kept us in business when we needed help. Dugan’s way was large, and he didn’t hold back when it came to his part in the life of the church. If we had some trash to haul, he’d drive up in a four-ton dump truck. He sent a road grader to move some gravel around, and to fetch a Christmas tree he sent a diesel truck hitched to a Low Boy trailer—the kind used to transport bulldozers. For Dugan there were very few of life’s problems that could not be addressed with heavy equipment and a go-get-’em attitude.

Dugan lured me to his construction site one fall with the promise of being allowed to drive a D8 Caterpillar tractor. Sitting in his office trailer drinking coffee, he astonished me by throwing open his briefcase to reveal bundles and bundles of hundred-dollar bills, and a .38-caliber pistol. It was like being in a movie when the bank robbers were about to split the
loot. Not to worry. He explained that because his projects were often far from town and he had to hire a lot of temporary labor, he made his payroll in cash. He was bonded to carry as much as half a million dollars. And licensed to carry the gun to protect himself.

Because he was often away for long stretches of time, Dugan refused an invitation to serve as an officer of the board of trustees. But when he was in town, he came to board meetings anyhow. He thought he ought to contribute to the life of the church beyond just sitting in a pew, and he wanted to know what was going on from the source, not the newsletter.

As is often the case, “Member of the Board of Trustees” sounds like an important honor, when in fact, the work of a board is more often mundane than not. During the year when Dugan attended meetings, the board’s entire time and energy was devoted to a leaking roof, parking problems, and the difficulty of getting wholesale prices for paper towels and toilet paper. Dugan never said a word. He listened—with chagrin written on his face.