are you dogmatic?

Maybe I'd better have a chat with this student, I thought. Perhaps if I explain things, s/he'll rest easy.

Of course. I leaned around in the seat and gave herim a big smile . . . admiring the shape of hiser skull.

"By the way," I said. "There's one thing you should probably understand."

S/he stared at me, not blinking. Was s/he gritting hiser teeth?

"Can you hear me?" I yelled.

S/he nodded.

"That's good," I said. "Because I want you to know that we're on our way to Linguistics to find the Universal Grammar." I smiled. "That's why we registered for this class. It was the only way to do it. Can you grasp that?"

S/he nodded again, but hiser eyes were nervous.

"I want you to have all the background," I said. "Because this is a very ominous assignment -- with overtones of extreme academic danger . . . Hell, I forgot all about these books; you want one?"

S/he shook hiser head.

"How about some Eliot?" I said.

"What?"

"Never mind. Let's get right to the heart of this thing. You see, about twenty-four hours ago we were sitting on in the back of the Texas Showdown Saloon -- in the patio section of course -- and we were just sitting there under a hackberry tree when this uninformed dwarf came up to me with a pink cellphone and said, 'This must be the call you've been waiting for all this time, sir.'"

I laughed and ripped open a book cover that foamed all over the classroom while I kept talking. "And you know? He was right! I'd been expecting that call, but I didn't know who it would come from. Do you follow me?"

The student's face was a mask of pure fear and bewilderment.

I blundered on: "I want you to understand that these students are my classmates! Class-mates! They're not just some dingbats I found on the Drag! Shit, look at them! They don't look like you or me, right? That's because they're linguists. I think they're probably Minimalists. But it doesn't matter, does it? Are you dogmatic?"

"Oh, hell no!" s/he blurted.

"I didn't think so," I said. "Because in spite of their framework, these people are extremely valuable to me." I glanced over at my classmates, but their minds where somewhere else.

I whacked the back of the deriver's seat with my fist. "This is important, goddamnit! This is a true story!" The course swerved sickeningly, then straightened out. "Keep your hands off my fucking Adger!" my classmates screamed. The student in the back looked like s/he was ready to drop right out of the class and take hiser chances in Philosophy.