The Rest is Silence - Charles L. Grant, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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C. L. GRANT
The Rest Is Silence
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 hell 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. God 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 assassinations 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 God's sake, what the hell 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
bastard 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 classroom
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 hell 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? Nobody'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 noble 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 classes 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 passed 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 analogy.
What a blow it was; then, when we received a party invitation from the old
man.
I was sitting in my classroom, commiserating with Val over an impossible
malcontent who was disrupting her classes, 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 passing that insane idea
around? It sounds like Guidance is on a new kick."
"No, him," she said, holding the paper in front of my glasses 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 God
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 goddamned choice."
"It's the principle of the thing," I said, suddenly angry. " don't know why
the hell we let that man push us around like this. Christ, we're like children
as far as he's concerned."
"Principle," said Val in her maddeningly calm way, "does not put bread on the
table."
And silence. I remembered when I had been as idealistic as' Marty Schubert,
and mourned myself those days. I began to see just why he had reasons for
hating me, and I wondered if, in fact, he had. Right then, it suddenly
mattered very much. Not only did I care that he understood what I was doing
and why I didn't fight` the world as he did, I was also a little frightened.
For the last two:, weeks, pranksters of a most unfunny lot had been dumping
 mutilated fowl on our doorsteps. Mine (two barn owls) were missing their
hearts, Wendy's and Val's their entrails. Jolliet, too, had been similarly
victimized, and although we had been passing the incidents off on some kid who
was too eager to delve into the literal meanings of the occult in
Shakespeare's more gruesome moments, I couldn't help thinking of Marty, his
rage, and those tears in his eyes.
"My God," I finally shouted, getting out of my chair and 'w tossing the pencil
into the wastebasket. "Whose damnable idea was this in the first place?"
"Mine. "
I looked up and Marty came in, hands clasped in front of him _
like a marching priest. Wendy jumped off the desk and punched
him twice on the arm, hard. He laughed and ducked playfully
away from her further attack. Val threw an eraser at him, and
stalked around until I slumped against the chalkboard and glared:
at him. "Traitor," I said.
Marty smiled innocently. "I thought you wanted me to go` along with him."
"Oh, brother," I said. "That was the general idea, yes, but."" did you have to
go for assistant god? A Shakespearean ball?` Jesus, Marty, couldn't you have
done better?"
He glanced around at the three of us, shrugged and appropriated my chair.
Immediately he sat, his feet were crossed on: the desk's top, scattering
several papers. "But Willy is his=
favorite man. All I did was kind of ease him around until he fell into it
himself. He, uh, really didn't care for it at first. It took a lot of
talking." He smiled again, but this time there was no mirth, and I knew he was
lying. Jollier would have died before going through a year, a goddamned day
with Lear, Hamlet and all the rest of the bloody crew. Marry, for his own
reasons, knew exactly what he was doing. I didn't know if the women caught on,
but I didn't like it and abruptly lost the will to banter any more. The game
had turned sour; I wanted to spit.
"I wish you hadn't done it," I said.
Marty shrugged his indifference to my opinion.
Val, meanwhile, was mimicking an ultra sensuous walk up and down an aisle,
tossing kisses to the pale green walls. "I'm not ashamed to say that Cleopatra
would suit me just fine."
"You'll make an asp of yourself," I said.
"You'll go to hell for that, " she said and blew me a kiss, a real one, and I
couldn't help but admit to myself that she could easily slay my bachelorhood
dragon.
"Too obvious," Wendy said, off on a track of her own. "Why not beat the
bastard at his own game and go as the conspirators? Who knows, maybe the Ides
of March'll come early this season."
"That's the spirit," Marty said, abandoning my chair and heading for the door,
a little too quickly. "I might be Marc Antony. "
"But he was a double-Grosser," Wendy said.
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