By now the man was weeping, and Danny was weeping right along with him, while Ash sat back in a corner of the sofa and looked at the both of them with consternation. Richard shared a few more memories of his lost love with the boys and then fell into a deep silence, shaking his head and sighing.
“Would you like something to remember him by?” Richard asked Danny after a while, “A souvenir or something?”
“Yes, please, if it’s not any trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Richard smiled a sad smile and stood up to go rummaging around in the tall secretary desk in the corner. He came back after a few minutes with a slide-rule, made of heavy white Bakelite with brass rivets encased in a clear plastic carrying case, “This was something he had in college. He kept trying to teach me how to use it, but I never understood. I tried, too. But I don’t have a math mind. I don’t know if you can use it, but I think it represents him well.”
“Oh, thank you,” Danny took the slide-rule and gazed at it lovingly, vowing to himself that he would learn how to use it in honor of Mr. Janacek’s memory; he put it in his pocket and threw his arms around the older man, hugging him tight, “Thank you so much, it has meant so much to me that you would share these things with us like this.”
“Thank you for listening,” Richard said, patting Danny clumsily on the back and watching Ash’s face as he did so, “It was nice to have someone to talk to. But if you boys will excuse me, I think I need to get drunk right now, and I’d rather be alone to do it.”
“Of course,” Danny said, letting the man go and fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief and his calling card, “Thank you again for your time, and for the coffee. And please, I hope you’ll keep in touch, send me a card or an email when you get where you’re going.”
Danny and Ash headed for the door with Richard behind them; Ash went out first, and Richard put his hand on Danny’s arm to hold him back for a moment.
“That boy is in love with you,” he whispered, “And I don’t think you’re in love with him. Unrequited love can be dangerous. Be careful of his feelings, OK?”
“Yes, sir,” Danny nodded, not quite taking in what the man was saying but wanting to acknowledge it, “Thank you.”
Danny caught up with Ash and opened the car door for him, getting in on the other side and driving back to Ash’s house. They sat in silence again, staring forward and listening to Nina Simone crooning “Little Girl Blue,” thinking their own thoughts.
“Thank you for going with me today, Ash,” Danny said after he pulled to the curb and killed the engine.
“It’s OK,” Ash replied.
“What do you think life will be like?” Danny was worried about the future, in which losses like Richard’s happened all the time, where love could become dull and then disappear, or turn in on itself and become dangerous.
“I don’t know,” the other boy shrugged, “But I don’t think we’re supposed to know, you know? Not knowing makes it an adventure.”
“You’re right,” Danny turned his head and looked into the boy’s eyes, noting that he’d kept his long fall of black hair tucked behind his ear the entire time they were together, “I hope you’ll be part of my adventure, Ash. You’re a good friend.”
“OK,” Ash looked slightly embarrassed but also pleased.
“I don’t want to go home yet,” Danny looked around the interior of the car as if searching for a clue, “Would you like to go for a drive?”
“Where to?” Ash wondered.
“Just driving. Let’s go down to Eureka and up the Coast until we find something interesting to look at.”
“Sure,” Ash smiled at him.
Danny turned the car back on, exchanged sorrowful Nina Simone for ebullient Ella Fitzgerald, and headed south on Mill Road toward the highway, then west to the Pacific and an afternoon’s adventure.
12
The following week, Danny noticed people at school acting differently; he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was an odd feeling in the air. He heard a lot of whispers in the hallways and the lunchroom, even in class. He wondered if it was a display of grief for their dead teacher, but he thought that unlikely — if so many people were affected by Mr. Janacek’s death, there would have been a greater showing at the funeral.
It was late on Wednesday when he realized people were whispering about him. Before, when he’d walk down a hallway, people would call out greetings to him; now, though some still called out greetings, many more would turn to a neighbor and whisper something. And when he spoke to people directly, some of them seemed slightly distant — not his particular friends, but the wider circles of his acquaintances seemed to be pulling away from him.
It was on Thursday in gym that he had to admit there was something seriously wrong: nobody met his eye in the locker room, nor during gym class; and when he entered the showers, there was a mass exodus and he was suddenly alone in the room. He tried to talk to Henry, Tommy, or Derrick about what was happening, but they actively avoided him and he wasn’t able to get a word alone.
Danny was completely baffled by this behavior, unable to even guess why people were suddenly avoiding him. He got dressed in a thoughtful silence in the empty locker-room, trying and failing to puzzle it out. He got in line at the cafeteria and noticed that the people in front of him put distance between themselves and him; he went to sit down, choosing the jocks’ table in hopes of getting some information from his athlete friends about what was going on.
As soon as he sat down, the other boys left the table. Stupefied, Danny watched them go, one at a time but one right after the other; instinctively, he reached out and grabbed the hindmost by the arm, pulling him back to the table and standing up to tower over the boy. He’d caught Keith Potter, a fringe athlete who wasn’t terribly good at anything but had managed to get onto the varsity baseball team as an outfielder.
“What’s going on?” Danny demanded, staring down into the boy’s pimply frightened face.
“I, uh, um,” the boy stammered, terrified, his eyes darting around the room looking for rescue.
“Tell me why everyone is moving away from me,” Danny demanded, a flush of anger building up in his chest and behind his eyes.
“Let me go,” the boy pleaded, trying to pull his thin arm out of Danny’s grip.
“TELL ME!” Danny screamed at the boy, shaking him like a rat. In his peripheral vision, he could see that the entire lunchroom had gone quiet and was watching him.
“You’re a fag,” Kieth whispered, bracing for the blow he knew would follow.
“A what?” Danny spluttered, surprised into letting the boy go, watching him scuttle away to the safety of a cluster of his baseball teammates. He looked around the room at all the faces looking back at him, guarded frightened faces, some even accusatory, some merely intrigued by the unfolding drama.
Danny stood stock still for a moment, trying to process this: the whispers he’d heard were rumors flying; and for the first time in his life, the rumors were about him. People were talking about him behind his back. He wasn’t so much concerned about having his sexuality discussed, but that people would gossip about him absolutely stunned him.
Without thinking about what he was doing, Danny strode across the room on a path created by retreating students, walked up behind the podium that stood at the far end of the room for school announcements, and turned the microphone and speakers on.
“Have you people lost your mother-fucking minds?” he bellowed into the microphone, causing a scream of feedback that silenced all conversations in the room, “Have you forgotten who I am?”
Three hundred and some-odd students rolled their eyes, settling in for the famous I’m a Vandervere, you can’t treat me like this speech that was heard in some variation by every student who ever went to school with a member of the Vandervere family.
“I thought you guys were my friends,” Danny surprised them by taking an entirely different tack, an emotional sob in his voice, “I thought you like
d me for me, not for my name. I’ve never traded on my name, never forced people to be nice to me because of it. I’ve gone out of my way to be likable and friendly to all of you. And this is how you repay me?”
Danny wiped a tear off his face and watched as a furtive sense of guilt infected his audience, and people started turning to each other as if to assure themselves that they hadn’t been wrong to try and ostracize him.
“If you wanted to know if I am gay, you could have just asked me,” Danny made eye contact with various of his particular friends, all of whom had the grace to lower their eyes, “That you would gossip about me behind my back… well, it hurts. But since you’re so interested, yes: I am gay. I am not ashamed of it. The only reason I never said anything about it is because I didn’t think it mattered. I guess I was wrong. And I am not alone in this, there are at least a dozen other boys in this school who I know for a fact are either gay or bisexual. I won’t tell you who they are because I have a sense of honor, it’s for them to tell you. But if you think you can ostracize me for being gay, you have another think coming.”
Danny watched as the suspicious glances started, everyone wondering who else was gay, and the boys with whom Danny had already had sex were studiously avoiding being seen.
“So, I’m gay,” Danny went on, “And if you are my friend, that won’t matter to you. But if you are not my friend, if you can’t be friends with a fag, or if you have some kind of problem with gay people in general, I have to ask you this: do you really think you can afford to have Danny Vandervere for an enemy?”
With one last sweeping glare at the assembled students, Danny turned off the microphone and stalked out of the lunchroom, intending to get in his car and leave for the day. But he was only a dozen yards down the corridor when he heard someone calling his name; turning around, he saw Jeremy running toward him.
“You’re my hero,” Jeremy gasped, throwing his arms around Danny’s neck and kissing him passionately.
Danny leaned into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Jeremy’s waist and hoisting him up onto his toes, playing for an audience that was buzzing with surprise and conjecture, but not anger or fear. They were still visible to the lunchroom, and all eyes were focused on their little romantic drama.
When they reached the point in the kiss where it would have to either end or segue into making out, Danny pulled back and looked Jeremy in the eye; the other boy’s face was open and dreamy, his soft mouth wet and his big brown eyes looking up at Danny worshipfully. Danny gave him a little kiss on the nose and pulled away, putting his arm possessively around the boy’s shoulders and looking around at the crowd of students watching them.
The faces looking back at him were blank and impossible to gauge. Danny decided to resume his original intention of leaving school, allowing the students to get over their surprise and spread the information around to the few people who hadn’t been in the lunchroom or the hallway at the time. Pulling Jeremy along with him, he marched down the corridor and through the front doors of the school.
They walked in silence for six blocks until they came to a little coffee-house on Pine Street, halfway between the school and the town square, a popular meeting place for after-school socializing. Though they were truant, none of the staff challenged their presence, and though it was a counter-service establishment, one of the girls came to Danny’s table to take his order — some perqs of being a Vandervere were useful and pleasant, and Danny tended to make use of them, though not to excess.
“I can’t believe they did that to me,” Danny said finally, sipping his cappuccino thoughtfully, “I can’t believe I had to pull my name out on them.”
“Are you OK?” Jeremy asked solicitously, “That was pretty dramatic, I’ve never seen you like that.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life,” Danny shook his head at the memory.
“It was really hot,” Jeremy gave him a through-the-lashes look.
“You’re so sweet,” Danny smiled and took his hand, holding it on top of the table; Jeremy started to pull away with a glance at the counter servers, but remembered that the whole hiding thing was over with; he picked up Danny’s hand and kissed it. Danny laughed, exhilarated by the freedom, but then sobered quickly, “I just don’t understand why people were turning away from me. Is it really that big a deal?”
“That’s what I was always afraid was going to happen to me,” Jeremy said, shivering a little, “You never understood what I was afraid of before. I don’t have the Vandervere name to protect me.”
“But it just doesn’t make sense, Jeremy,” Danny insisted, “I’ve known most of these people all my life. You only came two years ago, you don’t realize what it’s like to have always lived here. I’ve been friends with some of those guys since kindergarten. I can’t believe something as inconsequential as being gay would turn them against me. There has to be more to it.”
“Can I ask you something?” Jeremy looked at him very seriously, “You said you know for a fact that a dozen other boys in school are gay.”
“Yeah?”
“I know you said you weren’t going to name names, but I’m curious how you know.”
“Oh,” Danny sighed sadly, “I didn’t want you to know this, but I won’t keep secrets anymore. I’ve been, well, promiscuous is probably the best word. I know they’re gay, or at least bi, because I’ve had sex with them.”
“While we’ve been together?” Jeremy frowned.
“Yeah,” Danny admitted, “I’m sorry.”
Jeremy looked at him for a long thoughtful moment, “It’s OK. It’s not like we have been having sex all this time. That would have made a difference.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s going to be like that anymore,” Danny leaned his head on one hand, “No boy will dare be alone in a room with me after today.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jeremy reached across the table and stroked Danny’s cheek, “You’re pretty persuasive, gorgeous face, rockin’ bod, smooth talker. It’s taken all I have to resist you.”
“Why do you resist me?” Danny asked, enjoying having the cards on the table like this.
“You remember that book you gave me that you liked so much? Gaudy Night? That mystery book that didn’t have a murder in it?”
“Dorothy L. Sayers. It was about love, not about murder,” Danny smiled at him.
“The main character said something about the lord guy she was afraid to fall in love with. Something like ‘if I ever gave in to him, I’d burn up like straw and there’d be nothing left of me.’”
“I think you’ll remember that she didn’t burn up like straw,” Danny laughed, “They lived happily ever after.”
“People usually do in books.”
“It happens in real life, too,” Danny stroked Jeremy’s soft brown hair.
“Nevertheless,” Jeremy sat back and smiled mysteriously at Danny.
“You’ll let me know when you are ready?”
“You will be the absolute first to know.”
13
When Danny showed up at school the next morning, he was completely taken aback by the greeting he received: dozens of people clustered around, apologizing for their behavior and begging his forgiveness. They had reacted in that hostile manner because they’d been told Danny was lying to them, making fools of them, and laughing at them behind their backs. They were told Danny was cruel to people he perceived as gay in order to cover up his own sexuality, and that he’d raped some boys who resisted him. They were even told he already had AIDS and herpes and was infecting everyone else he could.
“But who would have told you that?” Danny wanted to know. And each and every time he asked, the answer was either Eric Bettancourt, Sandra Bettancourt, or someone who’d heard it directly from them. Before homeroom was over, Danny had the entire rumor mapped out, exactly how it had spread out from Eric and precisely which of the Populars’ clique had abetted him by spreading it.
When lunchtime came, Danny boldly took h
is tray to the center table and placed himself at the head of the Populars. Most of them had the sense to look ashamed of themselves, but Sandra and Eric stared back at him in challenge.
“So I’m curious,” Danny said between bites of shrimp fettucine, “What did I do to turn you cunts against me?”
“How dare you use that word?” Sandra huffed, her head held high.
“Eric I kind of understand,” Danny shrugged, “since I turned him down when he made a pass at me last week. He’s new here, he wouldn’t comprehend the risk; and he’s an asshole. But you, Sandra? Why?”
“How do you think it makes me look that a boy I dated turned gay?” she insisted.
“I don’t think it damages your reputation,” Danny said reasonably, “In fact, it rather enhances it, that you are beautiful enough to attract the affections of a gay boy. Is that the only reason you risked social oblivion and hurting your family’s business?”
“What do you mean?” Sandra looked frightened.
“It would take very little effort for me to make sure people didn’t invite you to parties, or talk to you at lunch, or vote for you as prom queen. It would take little more effort to make Bettancourt’s the most un-cool clothiers in Vandervere; it would take only slightly more effort than that to have someone at the Trust raise the rent on your father’s store. You remember what Felicia Goode’s father did to her when she insulted me and broke up with me in public last year? She was grounded for a month and lost her allowance for the rest of the year just because I might have taken revenge on him for her treatment of me. Imagine what your father would do to you if I actually did take revenge.”
“You wouldn’t!” she gasped, horrified.
“No, I wouldn’t,” Danny admitted, smiling gently, “But it must have occurred to you that I could. What made you take that chance?”
The Math Teacher Is Dead Page 11