The Math Teacher Is Dead

by Robert Manners

“Him,” Sandra spat, turning on her cousin, “He said you’d never admit to being gay and wouldn’t be able to retaliate without admitting it.”

  “That was very stupid,” Danny said, turning to face Eric. All of the people at the table also turned toward Eric, even the kids at neighboring tables had stopped eating and talking in order to watch.

  “You think you’re so great,” Eric stood up and stepped around his cousin to look down at Danny, a vicious snarl disfiguring his pretty face, hatred glinting in his peridot eyes, “You think you’re some big-shot just because your family runs this rinky-dink little town. You think it’s fine that everyone calls me “Eric the Fag” at this school, but they think you’re the cat’s ass because you’ve got a pretty face and big shoulders and the town name. Well, you’re no better than me, Danny Vandervere, and now everyone knows it.”

  “I never heard people call you that,” Dannys said honestly, understanding a little bit of why the boy had attacked him, “I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

  “Who the hell are you to allow anything?” the boy screamed hysterically, “You’re a fucking slut. I know all about you from Derrick and Trent and Manuel. You see, I’m not above naming names. There’s a few other names I could mention, too, like…”

  “That’s enough!” Danny reached out and grabbed the boy by his shirt-collar, standing up and looming over him, “You will shut up now.”

  “You don’t scare me, faggot,” Eric sneered and then spit in his face, stepping back and straightening his shirt when Danny let go of him to wipe the saliva off his cheek, “I don’t give a shit what you think you can do. I don’t give a shit what any of you bitches think. I don’t give a shit what you think, Sandra. None of you assholes are my friends, and I will take great pleasure in telling everyone everything I know about everyone else. Fasten your seatbelts, cunts.”

  Eric turned and stormed out of the room with great dignity, much as Danny had stormed out the day before. But instead of whispers of surprise and conjecture, there was nothing but silence as everyone in the room watched him go.

  “I’m sorry, Danny,” Sandra was shaking her head sadly, “I didn’t know you turned him down. He told me you let him fuck you in the ass. And that you made fun of me.”

  “I would never make fun of you, Sandra, you know that,” Danny took her hand, “When have you ever heard me make fun of anyone?”

  “I know,” she wiped a stray tear from her eye, Danny couldn’t tell if she was really crying or just making a show of it, “But it upset me that you’d let him fuck you.”

  “You make is sound like a bad thing,” Danny laughed archly, swirling up some more pasta on his fork, “But I’m here to tell you, getting fucked in the ass is a lot more fun than some people seem to think.”

  The whole table roared with laughter and the break of tension rippled out through the rest of the room, allowing the rest of the lunch hour to pass as usual, but with more new things to discuss than had ever before happened in such a short period of time.

  14

  Three weeks later, Danny was in his room preparing for his first official date with Jeremy, the first time they were going somewhere as a couple. It was the Halloween Dance, and the costumes for Romeo and Juliet had been completed and delivered; all of the cast planned to wear their costumes to the dance in order to drum up interest in the play, which would be presented in a few weeks.

  Claudia Vandervere had decided on an Elizabethan English translation of the costumes, as would have been worn by the original Globe cast, rather than Italian Renaissance costumes such as Zeffirelli had used — Claudia thought the tights and short jerkins were “indecent.” And when she saw the initial sketches for the English costumes, she censored those as well, insisting that the boys not wear codpieces with their blousey trunk-hose, and the girls’ bodices should be cut just below the clavicle, several inches higher than was historically accurate.

  Despite these strictures, Danny looked insanely sexy in his costume. It was very dark red velvet, showing black or brown tones in certain lights; the close-fitting doublet had golden rose-shaped buttons set with glass rubies and a high collar topped by a starched white ruff, the tight sleeves were tied at the shoulder with dark-gold satin ribbons, allowing the puffy white shirt to peep through the gaps, and the cuffs were short pleated ruffles; the trunk hose fell to mid-thigh and were made of strips of velvet embroidered at the edges with gold, over a black satin lining, with black tights and tall shiny black boots over the knee.

  He had a sword, a golden basket-hilt rapier in a black leather scabbard hanging on a gold-embroidered black leather belt, and a jeweled main gauche stiletto (actually a letter-opener) tucked into a sheath behind an embroidered black velvet purse hanging on his hip. He had several jeweled rings on his fingers and a heavy gold chain draped over his shoulders.

  There was a matching cap with a white peacock feather in a jeweled brooch that Danny didn’t want to wear, as he preferred having his hair loose, and a short black velvet cape to drape over one shoulder that would be too fussy for dancing; he’d even unbuttoned the doublet nearly to his sternum, allowing his neck to breathe easier. He didn’t want to get overheated in a crowded room.

  In all the years he’d been fencing, he’d never actually worn a sword, and was surprised by how difficult it was; he was finding the costume party a good opportunity to rehearse wearing the thing as he made his way through the house and down to the first floor, trying to keep it from banging on the stairs and knocking things off of tables.

  On the first floor, he encountered a dozen small children in costume trooping through the foyer into the main hall, where a casual sort of haunted house had been set up, with cackling mechanical monsters and dry-ice fog, the servants dressed up as zombies serving punch and cookies to the trick-or-treaters and their attendant parents; as the guests left, Mayor and Mrs. Vandervere distributed little wrapped goodie-bags to each of the children and shook hands with each of the parents, performing their civic duty with a very graceful show of hospitality.

  Danny stopped in the hall to have his costume admired by Mrs. Espinosa and the girls, then drew his sword and slashed it quasi-threateningly at a gaggle of delighted, squealing five-year-olds. He had a moment of confusion when trying to get into his car, unable to quite figure out how to get in with the sword, and eventually had to take the whole belt off and throw it in the back seat.

  When he picked Jeremy up, he got out and put the belt back on to show off the ensemble to Jeremy’s parents; they had accepted their son’s sexuality, complete with boyfriend, quite easily, having long suspected that their son was gay and only concerned that he be happy.

  Jeremy’s costume, as Mercutio, was all black with flashes of white, severe and almost priestly, which made his slim body even slimmer and his softly pretty face even prettier. It was smooth wool serge with jaquard ribbon trim, but otherwise exactly like Danny’s, with silver buttons and sword instead of gold, and no jewels but a silver heraldic medal on a thick Byzantine chain.

  “Oh, God, you look amazing,” Danny said to Jeremy, moving close and taking his hands, but not kissing him, not sure that his parents were quite ready for displays of affection yet.

  “This costume is hot,” Jeremy smiled up at him.

  “You’re telling me,” Danny flashed his eyes, a roguish smirk curling his lip.

  “No, I mean, I’m melting in this getup. Does it have to be wool?”

  “Open your doublet a little,” Danny started undoing the top few buttons, “You’ll be able to breathe better. And we can take our sleeves off later, it will be cooler.”

  “Stop it,” Jeremy whispered, grabbing Danny’s hands at the third button, “Or we’ll never get to the dance.”

  “Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair,” Danny let him go and turned toward his parents, sweeping into the deep theatrical bow he was learning for Tybalt, “I’ll have Jeremy home by midnight.”

  “You forgot the ‘forsooth,’” Jeremy teased him.

  “L
et me take a picture of you boys,” Mrs. Sinclair said, bringing up a little red digital camera and aiming at them. Danny threw his arm around Jeremy’s shoulder and grinned happily as the flash went off, “That’s lovely. You boys have a nice time tonight.”

  When they arrived at the dance, which was held in the girls’ gymnasium (as most of the school dances were, since it smelled nicer than the boys’ gym), they had their picture taken again, this time by the professional photographer hired for the event; standing in front of a beautifully painted graveyard backdrop, they got to pose twice, once in a formal date pose and once in costume-character, with their swords drawn and pointed at the camera.

  The gym was elaborately decorated with streamers of shredded gauze, cotton-wool cobwebs in the corners, phosphorescent ghosts hanging from the ceiling, and Styrofoam gravestones and gargoyles peeping out of the dry-ice fog that obscured the floor. The lights were covered with green and purple gels, casting creepy shadows all around, and the mirror-ball that hung from the central scoreboard over the area cleared for dancing had been meticulously applied with tiny decals so it looked like glowing bats were flying around in swirling circles.

  Danny and Jeremy greeted friends as they made their way through the crowded gym, and were eventually engulfed in the new clique that had gathered around Danny over the last three weeks, referred to by the other students (in tones of greatest respect) as The Gays.

  Danny’s outing at the hands of Eric Bettancourt, and Jeremy coming out in Danny’s wake, had an unexpected after-effect: eight more boys and five girls came out in the following week, some in couples and some as singles; and though Danny had always been as socially promiscuous as he’d recently been sexually promiscuous, preferring a free-range approach to socialization instead of belonging to a single clique, he became an irresistible magnet for these newly out-and-proud kids: they clustered around him like apostles, looking to him for inspiration and leadership.

  He felt socially limited by this clique, but he accepted his responsibility to it with good grace, giving his lunch hour over to it and setting precedents and policies with his behavior. There was some talk about starting an official Gay/Straight Alliance club, but so far nobody had experienced homophobia or bigotry since coming out, rendering a club meant to combat homophobia and bigotry rather redundant. There may have been homophobes and bigots at Vandervere High, but with Danny Vandervere as the figurehead of the group, they must deem it wise to keep such beliefs to themselves.

  The Great Coming Out hadn’t drawn everyone into the open: the Jocks, to a man, had elected to remain closeted. It was fine for Danny Vandervere, Henry told him, to be out and proud since the Trust would pay for the college of his choice and he didn’t need scholarships; and it was almost expected for drama students and music students and liberal arts students to be gay; but being an out gay athlete could be a very expensive endeavor, considering the homophobic attitudes of many college coaches and recruiters.

  Two other boys that Danny knew about from experience had also remained closeted, afraid that their fundamentalist Christian parents would find out. But Danny had instituted a strict No Outing policy on his new clique, explaining to them that coming out was a very important personal-growth experience, and to take that out of the individual’s hands was vicious and hypocritical.

  Eric Bettancourt was the only one who did not benefit from this new regime: he was persona non grata at lunch, in class, even at home (the Bettancourts were seriously considering sending him back to his mother or parking him on another relative); the salacious gossip he was so ready to divulge to all and sundry died on his lips, eliciting absolutely no interest from the other students. He had taken to cutting school, only showing up once or twice a week, and apparently stoned or drunk when he came. Danny had expressly forbidden anyone from actively persecuting him, but the silence with which he was greeted everywhere he went seemed just as cruel.

  But Danny wasn’t worried about Eric, he was having too much fun being public with Jeremy and their romance. He had even given up fucking around, partly because the secrecy that made it easy was gone, but mostly because he wanted to be celibate for Jeremy’s sake (though only in the coital sense, he had no intention of giving up masturbating): if and when Jeremy was ever ready to take that step, Danny wanted it to be special for himself as well as Jeremy.

  Danny and Jeremy had a wonderful time at the party, dancing until they couldn’t breathe, taking off their outer sleeves so the white billowing shirts glowed in the blacklight, then taking rests on the bleachers with The Gays; and when the slow dances came on, he almost wept from the joy of slow-dancing with someone for whom he cared deeply and to whom he was physically attracted, in front of everyone, completely out in the open.

  The party started winding down at eleven, the teachers and parents who attended as chaperons encouraging kids to get home before midnight — and if they didn’t want to go home yet, encouraging them to stay and help clean up (which guaranteed almost all of the students would be gone by 11:30 at the latest).

  Happy, sweaty, and giggling, Danny and Jeremy made their way out of the dance and headed toward Danny’s car at a quarter after eleven, hoping to allow themselves some private time before Jeremy had to be home at twelve. But as they approached the car, they saw something laying on the ground in front of it, apparently a pile of dark clothing.

  “What the hell?” Danny wondered, thinking someone was playing a practical joke by leaving a fake corpse in his path, and so walked up to the thing expecting something funny, or attempting to be funny; he turned on the tiny LED flashlight on his keyring and pointed the wide beam of blue light at the pile.

  “Oh, shit!” Jeremy screamed when they saw what it was.

  Eric Bettancourt lay on his side, his pale green eyes open in an expression of surprise, his face paste-white; there were two neat diagonal slashes on his neck, one on each side like bloody gills, severing both the carotid and the jugular. He was dressed in a black monk’s robe, and a grotesque red leather mask was perched in his fair hair; Danny recognized the costume, Eric had apparently been at the party all night without anyone knowing it was him. There was a large metal box-cutter laying in his open right hand, completely coated with blood.

  “Oh, my God,” Danny whispered.

  “Did he do that to himself?” Jeremy wondered, trying to encapsulate the horror of a dead body with logic.

  “It looks like he might have,” Danny was dizzy and felt like throwing up; the smell of blood was strong and nauseating, there was a huge pool of it all around Eric’s body, and great splashes on the grill and headlights of Danny’s Explorer. He had apparently died right there, and not very long ago; reaching out hesitantly to touch the body, selecting a dry space on the clothed arm, he discovered it was still fairly warm.

  “What do we do?” Jeremy wondered, completely baffled by the novelty of the situation.

  “I’ll call 911,” Danny responded, fishing his cellphone (which he now kept on his person at all times) from his hip-purse, fully knowledgeable of the procedure since his experience with Mr. Janacek, “and then we’d better get back into the dance and let the principal know what happened, and make sure to keep everyone out of the parking lot. The police will want a clean scene.”

  15

  Danny sat by himself in a guidance counselor’s office, crying quietly into a paper tissue, waiting to be interviewed by a police officer. He felt incredibly sorry for Eric: he hadn’t liked the boy, didn’t think anybody could really like someone so chronically unhappy and unpleasant; but for his young life to be cut short like that, to take away all his potential to grow up and improve, was just horribly sad.

  And he felt guilty, wondering if Eric had committed suicide because of the ostracism that he’d attempted to inflict on Danny but ended up reaping for himself, wondering if there had been anything he might have done to make the boy’s burden easier… wondering if, had he shown Eric some kindness, the boy might still be alive.

  “It makes me
very nervous,” Officer Pete Kelly walked into the room and seated himself behind the desk across from Danny, “when a person finds two dead bodies on two separate occasions within the same month.”

  “I don’t feel nervous so much as persecuted by Fate,” Danny replied, drying his eyes and pulling himself together.

  “Perhaps Fate is getting back at you for being beautiful, intelligent, and rich all at the same time.”

  “Don’t forget ‘hung,’” Danny looked at him sourly.

  “More information than I needed,” the officer laughed and opened his notebook, “So how did you know this victim?”

  “I went to school with him, to start,” Danny said with a sigh, “And he was the cousin of my friend Sandra, whom I used to date last year.”

  “He outed you to the whole school three weeks ago?”

  “You work fast,” Danny was impressed, “Yes, he did. I think he meant to revenge himself on me for turning him down for sex. But it sort of backfired on him.”

  “Being outed is just the sort of thing that makes people angry enough to kill,” Officer Kelly suggested.

  “I was angry at first,” Danny admitted, “But after a while I just felt sorry for him. He didn’t really have any friends, I think he was trying to make a name for himself by taking on someone essentially untouchable, David-and-Goliath style; but he ended up with everyone hating and ignoring him. It must have been hard for him, small towns aren’t the best places to make social gaffes of that degree.”

  “You didn’t want him dead, though?” the policeman persisted.

  “No, not at all,” Danny frowned at the man, “And I was at the dance in full view of three hundred people. I have one immediate witness for my actions between the time I left the dance and the time we found the body, and several distant witnesses. Ironclad alibi, I call it.”

  “Even ironclad alibis sink sometimes,” Officer Kelly reminded him.

  “Like the USS Monitor,” Danny nodded.

  “What’s the USS Monitor?”