The Rest Is Silence Part 1

The Rest Is Silence.

C. L. GRANT.

C. L. Grant is executive secretary of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Like all SFWA's officers, he also is a working science fiction writer. He lives in New Jersey, has a bachelor's degree in history, a wife, two years of service in Vietnam, a teaching position in high school (until recently), and has sold twenty-three science fiction stories in addition to the following novelette, a story that suggests (like Tom Reamy's "Twills") that more goes on in high school than any of us remember.

Beware of dreamers: that would be my epitaph if I could have a grave to go to when 1 die. But all there is now is a rambling, shrinking house, and a fog that wisps away my words as I speak. 1 have committed suicide (unaware) and have been murdered for it (all too aware); but if I have to shift the unbearable blame for this madness elsewhere, it has to go to Julius Caesar, late of Rome and the Elizabethan state. After all, if he hadn't gotten himself so famously killed, Shakespeare would have never written a play about it nor would I have had to teach it. Yet he did, and 1 did, so here we are. And now I know all too well just where that is.

After the fact, events have a diabolical way of falling into place that makes a curse of hindsight and h.e.l.l for the present. Case in point: a Wednesday in October and a perfectly ordinary English Department meeting. Chandler Jolliet, the commandingly tall chairman, was quietly and efficiently razoring our confidence in our collective abilities. Apparently a virgin member of our troupe had decided not to concentrate on Julius Caesar's examination of power, but rather on the in-depth characterization of the conspirators, Brutus in particular. G.o.d forbid that we should deviate from the chartered lanes of the courses of study, but this youngster, fresh from college with stars in his eyes, had taken it upon himself to do just that, and we were all suffering for it. Jolliet's sycophants and friends were murmuring and nodding; and the rest of us, who had endured this

brand of tirade before, were daydreaming, planning our Christmas vacations and plotting a.s.sa.s.sinations of our own. And when the hour-and-a-half tantrum was over, we nodded our heads in sage obeisance and shuffled out, as slaves must have done before the overseer's whip. In the hall, however, the culprit, Marty Schubert, cornered me and Valerie Stem to press his case.

"I don't understand, " he said. " What's so holy about Caesar that I can't tally about something new for a change? I'm not saying Jollie's way is better or worse, but for G.o.d's sake, what the h.e.l.l does he have against me? What did I do that he hates me?"

"Not a thing, " Val said, guiding him gently by the arm away from Jolliet's open office door. "It's just his way of breaking you in." She looked back at me and smiled. "Eddie's been through it. So have I. You just have to grin and bear it."

"Why?" he demanded as anguish and anger gathered in his features like thunderclouds.

"Because we need the jobs, Marty," I said, not liking the sound of my voice, so recently like his, so recently crushed. "'There are too many teachers and not enough jobs. Val, me, and a few others, we've been around much too long to go hunting for other positions. Who'd hire us when they could have newcomers at half the salary? The only thing we can do is play the game, Sam. Play the game and hope he has a heart attack, or a lingering case of diarrhea. "

Marty stared, not quite sure if I were serious. Finally he decided I wasn't and laughed. But his cheeks were still flushed and his eyes glinting, as if he'd been repeatedly slapped. W

signed out in silence, and in the parking lot Val and I watched him slump to his car and drive slowly away. Val, her eyes hidden by uncut bangs as black as my mood, shook her head. "He's a smart kid, Eddie. It's a shame to see the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d do him in like that."

I could only shrug and she accepted that as a sign of the times under which we lived. We parted, silently, and I drove home much faster than I'd intended, for there was nothing for me there. The apartment was still the hospital-white, bare-floored cell I'd resigned myself to when I finally realized there was no place else for me to go. I wasn't clever enough to quit and enter business, nor was I ambitious enough to climb out of the cla.s.sroom into administration. Sometimes I entertained the spirit of Mr. Chips and envisioned thousands of ex-students tearfully waving goodbye at my retirement. A farce for all that: I could barely remember the names of kids I'd taught the year before, much less those I'd challenged in my virgin year.

It rained that night, if I recall correctly. My unlisted telephone continued collecting dust. The end of a perfect day. And the world kept spinning.

The following morning, however, with the sun barely risen, the telephone scared the h.e.l.l out of me by working.

"Eddie?"

"Marry, that you?" I was still asleep. I must have been, or his actor's deep voice would have identified him immediately.

"Eddie, listen, I can't go back. Not after what he's done to me."

That woke me up. "Whoa, son, hang on a minute. Don't let that creep get to you like that."

"I'm sorry, Eddie, but I can't do it. I understand your position, really, and I'm not kidding, but I've been thinking it over In fact, I haven't slept all night. I just can't go back and face him. Would you do me a favor and stop over on your way in? You can take my books and stuff in with you. My resignation too. "

Since I was still rather foggy, all I did was mumble an agreement, take a shower and fix myself some instant breakfast. I made a quick call to the school, telling the secretary I might be a little late, car trouble, and hung up before she could get too nosy. On the way to Marty's rented duplex, I kept the window rolled down. to wake me up. I was worried. Marty was one of the brightest, most dedicated teachers I had known, and somehow I had to keep him with us. If for no other reason than he actually liked the kiss he worked with, and they, in turn, held him in enormous respect.

He opened his front door immediately when I knocked. He was dressed for work, but unshaven, and his breath as he welcomed me told me what he'd been thinking with. He was sober, though, and solemnly waved me to a chair.

"Marry, listen-"

"I know, I know, Ed. I'm cutting my career out from under me, right? n.o.body's going to hire a teacher who quit before Christmas for reasons like mine, right? You want me to last out the year, find another school and then tell him to shove it. Right?"

All I could do was nod, and he laughed at my confusion and the wind spilling from my best n.o.ble speech. To my surprise, he nodded too.

"Well, you are right. I've been sitting here watching the sun and the clock, and I've decided to do just that. I'm going to smile if it kills me, then do what I want when he's not looking. Maybe, " he added, grinning, "I can help drive him to that early retirement you guys are always talking about. "

"I wish you all the luck in the world," I said, returning the grin, though more relieved that he was still with us than responding to his humor.

"But listen, Eddie, " he said. "I'll tell you one thing: I'm not going to take that kind of abuse in public again. And neither is anyone else. " And for a frightening moment, his anger returned.

"Sure thing. Whatever you say, Marty," I said, standing quickly. "Just play it safe for a while, will you? See which way the wind blows. I doubt that Jollie's after your hide. He just doesn't like original thinkers, you know what I mean?"

"I think we'd better get going, don't you? The education of our nation's children lies perilously within our hands. "

"Yea, and verily," I said. "Onward. I'll meet you there. I think you'd better shave." ,

"Brutus was right, though," Marty said as he held open the door for me. "We all stand against the spirit of Caesar, but unfortunately, the spirit doesn't bleed."

"Come again?" But the door was shut before I could get an answer. And I didn't remember his remark until after Thanksgiving, when my own cla.s.ses were destroying Shakespeare's poetry. When the lines Marty had paraphrased came up in the discussion, I became unaccountably nervous, and I kept seeing Jollie draped in a toga. When I pa.s.sed the fantasy on to those I could trust not to run immediately to the boss, they laughed, and soon enough, Jolliet became Caesar, and Marty was an instant celebrity for inspiring the a.n.a.logy.

What a blow it was; then, when we received a party invitation from the old man.

I was sitting in my cla.s.sroom, commiserating with Val over an impossible malcontent who was disrupting her cla.s.ses, when our department bird watcher and sapling look-alike, Wendy Buchwall, scurried in waving a pink slip of paper. "You're not going to believe this," she said, "but we've been invited to a costume ball. "

"You're right, " I said. "I don't believe it. Who's pa.s.sing that insane idea around? It sounds like Guidance is on a new kick."

"No, him," she said, holding the paper in front of my gla.s.ses just long enough for me to make out Jolliet's pompous scrawl.

"Him?"

"The Man, Val. >'

"You're kidding. Cut it out. It isn't funny."

Wendy, obviously still unbelieving herself, handed her the invitation, and we sat for a quiet moment wondering if we'd stumbled into an alternate universe that delighted in perversity.

"It figures," Val said finally. "A Shakespearean ball, yet."

"That's ridiculous, " I said when Wendy handed the paper to me. I read it, blinked and hoped it would go away. "Hey, this thing is on the Friday over Christmas vacation. Brother, he sure knows how to ruin a holiday."

Wendy perched on the edge of my desk and shook her head. "There is absolutely no way I am going to drag my husband to such a farce. He'll divorce me. He'll have good reason."

"Dream on," Val said. "Unfortunately, I don't see how you can gracefully get out of it. Unless you're dying."

"Says who?"

"Says tenure, dear. We three unholies are bucking for that lovely piece of security. We're stuck. And," she added as Wendy turned to her, "if I remember correctly, we all advised Marty to play the game. What's he going to think of us if we don't go along? We, honey, are on the same team."

Wendy stuck out her tongue and pouted, kicking her heels against the metal side of my desk until I was more than tempted to dump her onto the floor. But Val, as usual, was right. The three of us had drifted into this valley high school at the same time, each running from a city faculty horrific in its brutality. All of us had at least ten years behind us, and it was a wonder that we were hired at all. Now we were facing the final step-no tenure this time and it was back to housekeeping for Wendy, a library for Val, and G.o.d only knew what for me. It was times like this that made me want to strangle the wag who said, "Them's that can't, teach."

I began doodling on the desk blotter. A noose first. When drew in a stick man, I couldn't decide who it was.

"I don't want to go," Wendy near whispered, sadly now.

"No choice," Val said. "No G.o.dd.a.m.ned choice."