Day 19

When Danny returned to school on Wednesday morning, he was greeted like a conquering war-hero, still utilizing the walking stick and enjoying the displays of sympathy it elicited. During gym, he spent his hour on the weight machines, unable yet to take part in calisthenics and definitely forbidden to run or jump. He also managed to draw Derrick, the blond trumpeter, into the laundry room for a quick but highly satisfactory tussle amongst the discarded towels.

He later availed himself of the grief counseling service, but didn't find it very helpful: the counselors were young and very earnest psychiatric interns doing their clinical hours; and though the young woman he ended up speaking with was very soothing, listening closely and offering fairly practical platitudes about how to adjust to the loss of a teacher, Danny did not trust her sufficiently to reveal his sexual relationship with Mr. Janacek, and so found the talk a little frustrating.

Thursday, he went without the walking stick, swam laps for gym class, and invited Tommy Williams, second-string of the gymnastics team, into the back of his SUV for a leisurely fuck after lunch, taking so long about it that he missed chemistry class. In drama club, he rehearsed his lines with Anna MacAllan, the dumpy brunette who was playing Lady Capulet, and supervised Jeremy and Jack Butler, the handsome blond perennial lead who had not surprisingly been cast as Romeo, in their fencing practice. He and Jeremy took the streetcar to the Aunt Ems after that, and had their afternoon tea, making out as usual in Danny's room before being driven back by Oscar.

On Friday, the school closed to allow students and staff to attend Mr. Janacek's funeral. The majority of students simply took this as a bonus day off, but quite a few did show up at the Pine Street Episcopal Church, the oldest and largest of the town's places of worship (which includes five Protestant churches, two Catholic chapels, a synagogue, and a tiny mosque); since it is the Vanderveres' official family church, it is beautifully built of white granite in the Gothic style and richly appointed with tapestries, stained glass windows, marble statues, and mahogany pews with velvet cushions; far grander than the usual small-town church, it tended to be the venue chosen for weddings and funerals by people who did not belong to a church of their own.

Danny sat at the second row right in the gated Vandervere pew, accompanied by his Aunt Claudia, who had to be there due to her position as school-board president, and all three of the Aunt Ems -- Aunt Mathilda, because she was also a member of the school board as well as the tenure committee and the library committee, and Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Maude because they attended every funeral in town, almost as a hobby.

The deceased's family in the front left row, which Danny studied closely during the service, consisted of an elderly foreign-looking woman who was probably his mother, a younger man who looked a great deal like Mr. Janacek and might be a little brother or cousin, and a handsome middle-aged ginger-blond man who Danny supposed was the teacher's partner.

The closed-casket service was very dry, the deceased completely unknown to the priest who officiated, and the eulogies were circumspect, Mr. Janacek's peers dancing around the manner of his death with euphemisms and elisions that left a very confused picture of his life. None of the family spoke, though they warmly thanked all those who did; and in the open-mic segment at the end of the service, some of Mr. Janacek's more devoted students came up to the altar and tried to say nice things before breaking down and weeping.

Danny was forced to the altar by Aunt Claudia, who felt that a Vandervere must take part in the public display, and as his student Danny was the most appropriate candidate. He had tears streaming down his face, but kept his voice even and calm, reiterating what had already been said: that Mr. Janacek was a good teacher, a man who took pride in inculcating knowledge, who took extra pains with his students, and who made learning a pleasure.

When Danny came down to greet the family, he took a good look at each of them and told them individually how sorry he was for their loss, using all the appropriate formal phrases he'd been taught by the Aunt Ems and making them sound spontaneous and natural. Mr. Janacek's mother (he could see the resemblance at once, as soon as he was in front of her) was very sweet, his younger male relative (a nephew perhaps) was surly and uncomfortable, and the supposed partner didn't meet his eye.

There was no reception afterward, nor a graveside service as Mr. Janacek was to be buried in his native Minnesota, in his family plot in a small farming town outside of Duluth. Danny greeted his fellow students and his teachers as he left with the Aunt Ems, returning with them to the Pine Street house four blocks away. After lunch, when Myrtle and Maude retired for their afternoon naps and Mathilda returned to work at the town library, Danny went into the study and settled himself at the massive baronial desk to make some phone calls.

"Hi, Ash, it's Danny," he said, connecting his first call.

"Oh, hi," the other boy responded, a little distantly.

"I didn't see you today at the funeral."

"I didn't go."

"Listen, Ash, I wanted to apologize to you for my mother's behavior the other day," Danny had been feeling guilty about that ever since Tuesday afternoon, but hadn't been able to make contact at school; he didn't know if Ash was avoiding him, or if it was just their different schedules that kept them apart.

"There's no need," Ash assured him, his voice warming, "We can't be held responsible for our parents."

"I'm glad of that," Danny laughed, relieved, "I'd have a lot to answer for. What have you been up to the last few days?"

"Oh, just stuff," Ash said vaguely, "Some painting, some drawing. Nothing much."

"I'd really love to see more of your work," Danny told him earnestly.

"Sure," the boy responded without much enthusiasm.

"Are you busy tomorrow?" Danny wondered.

"No, why?"

"Well, I was hoping you would do me a favor? I want to go pay a condolence call to Mr. Janacek's partner or housemate or whatever he is, and I was hoping you'd come with me."

"What for?" he didn't sound resistant to the idea, just curious.

"I don't know," Danny shrugged, leaning back in the tufted leather chair and looking up at the white rhinoceros head that hung over the intricately carved stone fireplace, flanked by the heads of four different varieties of gazelle, "Because you were there, you know what it was like, and you're in the investigation with me. You're the only person I can really talk to about what happened, and I need some company and support facing the people in Mr. Janacek's life."

"OK," Ash replied simply, "You want to pick me up, or should I come out to your place?"

"I'll pick you up," Danny said happily, "Maybe you'll show me your room."

"Why?" Ash seemed perplexed by the suggestion.

"You've seen mine, I want to see yours," Danny answered in a sultry voice that made the other boy laugh.

They chatted for a few more minutes about addresses and times, weather and school happenings, then Danny hung up and called Jeremy, with whom he made lovey-dovey small talk for nearly an hour, enjoying himself immensely. Once finished there, he went into the music room and attempted a difficult Rachmaninoff piece he'd been working on until tea arrived, and his Friday rolled along as it always did... change for dinner, eat with and be ignored by his parents, exercise his horse, a couple hours of reading, and so to bed.

*****

Ash and his mother lived in the middle of a row of brown-shingled townhouses grandly named Oakhurst Court, which was situated in the western side of the old town, replacing a much larger Victorian house that had burned down in the early 70s.

The houses were small but spacious, utilitarian in design, and Ash's mother carried that through into the decor with serviceable but unexceptional modern furnishings: a beige tweed sectional sofa facing a television cabinet with a low glass coffee table in the middle and a recliner to one side completed the sunken living-room, a chrome-and-glass dining set filled the area between the living room and a high breakfast bar enclosing the kitchen. The pictures on the walls were obviously bought with the furniture from a discount store and gave no clue to the personalities that lived in the house.

Ash seemed detached from this part of the house, showing Danny around with a single wave of his arm; then they climbed a narrow flight of stairs into a wide hallway, turning back toward the front of the house into a single door plastered with various signs and stickers warning visitors to keep out.

"It's kind of a mess," Ash warned before opening the door and leading Danny into the room.

"Wow," was all Danny could say at first, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the riot of colors and shapes that jumped out at him. There was a double mattress without a frame or headboard on the floor, with tangled sheets and blankets in primary shades of red and blue strewn across it; on the opposite side stood a wooden easel with a violently colorful kind of fantasy landscape half-finished on it, surrounded by little tables and stands full of painting supplies, its edges bristling with sketches on several different kinds of paper, from watercolor bond and ruled notebook leaves to diner napkins and sticky-notes. Other furniture was lost under a drift of clothes, both clean and dirty, as well as piles of coffee-table picture books and glossy art magazines.

The walls were crowded with more paintings and finished sketches, as well as museum posters, all stuck to the walls with colored push-pins; the mirrored sliding closet doors were also covered with pictures, mostly ripped from magazines but also postcards and snapshots of friends from Colorado, all taped to the doors with colored masking tape and leaving only a small oval for reflection. Dozens of large origami animals rendered in bright Japanese paper hung by clear nylon threads from the ceiling, waving gently in the air current that came from the open door. With its single window covered by a reproduction of an illuminated parchment manuscript, it was like being inside a kaleidoscope.

"I know, it's gross," Ash said, dismally.

"Not at all, it's amazing!" Danny walked further into the room, his adjusting eyes separating the pictures on the walls for individual enjoyment, appreciating the influences of the artists chosen in the posters, and thinking of some book titles that Ash might like as gifts, "It's so personal and, well, colorful! It makes my room look like a motel."

"I'm a slob when I work," Ash stooped to pick up an armload of clothes, looked for somewhere to put it, and then piled it on top of another garment mound, "I was planning to do some laundry today, but I got involved in the painting and forgot."

"Would you like some help?" Danny offered, "I like doing laundry."

"That's OK," Ash blushed, mortified by the thought of Danny handling his dirty clothes, his smelly socks and stained underwear, "I'll do it later. Let's go."

The boys drove silently across town in Danny's big black SUV, listening to a Nina Simone CD, appreciating the lyrics to "I Put A Spell on You" during the short ride instead of talking.

Mr. Janacek had lived in a pretty little Victorian cottage in the northeast quarter of town, on a narrow tree-lined street of similar small cottages. It was painted white with dark blue and yellow trim, and had red and yellow roses blooming late in the unfenced front yard, a climbing rose trained up the side of the small millwork porch, and a little yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked out front. Danny stepped up on the porch rang the bell, Ash right behind him.

"Yes?" the handsome blond man from the funeral answered the door, looking bleary-eyed and smelling strongly of beer and coffee.

"Hello, my name is Danny Vandervere, and this is Ash Phillips. I was a student of Mr. Janacek's."

"You found his body," the man burped and narrowed his eyes at Danny.

"Um, yes sir," Danny admitted, taken aback.

"What do you want?"

"I wanted to offer my condolences, first of all. But I also wanted to talk to you about Mr. Janacek. I hope to learn more about his life."

"Hmph," the man snorted suspiciously, but stepped back from the door and gestured for them to come in.

The living room they entered was a little cramped, crowded with overstuffed traditional furniture designed for a larger room, covered in green and white chintz or rose-pink corduroy. There were floral botanical prints on the walls and a pink-and-green imitation Persian rug on the floor, and the little brick fireplace was screened with a folding brass fan. There were china knick-knacks scattered around, mostly little dogs, and bud vases with silk flowers in them. It all looked oddly effete... not as if a woman lived there, but as if a man had tried to approximate a feminine room.

"Can I get you something to drink?" the blond man asked wearily.

"No thank you," Danny gave the man a sunny smile as he sank in among the dozen or so throw-pillows on the deep chintz sofa, "I am sorry, but I'm afraid I didn't hear your name at the funeral yesterday."

"They didn't say my name," the man said sourly, nursing a hurt, as he settled into the massive wing chair beside the fireplace, "As if after twelve years I was just a casual passerby. Fuckers. But my name is Richard Lyon. Please don't make the obvious joke."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Danny said, though Ash had no idea what the joke would have been, "And I'm sorry I brought up a painful subject. I thought since you were sitting with the family that you were an accepted part of Mr. Janacek's life."

"I was sitting at the front because I sat myself down at the front, next to Paul's son; the little shit asked me to leave, but Paul's mother, Marta, was at least decent to me."

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lyon," Danny reached across the small space between them and grasped the man's hand consolingly, "I didn't even know Mr. Janacek had a son."

"He came out late, after going the whole 'Maybe marriage and fatherhood will straighten me out' route. His wife and son were pretty bitter about it, as usually happens, and turned their backs on him. I'm surprised that little shit came to the funeral. Marta probably insisted."

"That's terrible," Danny commiserated, "Can you tell me what Mr. Janacek was really like? I'm finding I knew so little about him."

"What do you want to know?" the man looked at him strangely, cocking his head to one side, and suddenly blurted out, "You're the kid he was fucking, aren't you?"

"Um," Danny said, stunned, completely unprepared for Mr. Lyon to know about him and certainly unprepared to have his relationship with Mr. Janacek revealed to Ash.

"It's OK, I don't mind," Richard said calmly, "But the pieces just fell together with you asking what he was like. Kids don't care what their teachers are like when they're not teaching. But they care about the men they're fucking. Sometimes, anyway."

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lyon, I didn't know you two were together, or I would never..."

"Hey, I said it's OK. Paul and I have been... had been together a long time. We had our code for extracurricular activities: no kissing, no anal, no strings. We used to sometimes go up to the cruising park together, split up for a couple of hours and then compare notes when we got home. If I'd gone with him last Friday, maybe he wouldn't be dead."

"Or maybe you'd both be," Ash pointed out reasonably.

"I hadn't thought about it that way," the man looked at Ash in surprise.

"If it's any help, he stuck to the rules with me," Danny told Richard.

"I'm sure he did. He was an honest man, if nothing else. He even confessed to me about you... oh, a couple of weeks ago. He didn't say your name, though, just that you were a student. And now I see you, I'm amazed he was able to stick to the rules at all," the man stood up and turned to leave the room, "I need another beer, I'm nursing a pretty epic hangover, 'hair of the dog' with strong black coffee. Sure you wouldn't like something?"

"Some coffee would be lovely, if it's no trouble," Danny said, and Ash assented with a nod. They both watched Richard navigate around the furniture and through a draped archway into a dining room containing a reproduction Queen Anne suite with purple-mauve paisley slipcovers on the chairs and hand-tatted lace on the table.

"I didn't want you to know about that," Danny said to Ash while they were alone, "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Ash looked at him curiously, "Are you ashamed of it?"

"Well, no," Danny said after thinking it over, "I guess I just worry about people thinking ill of me."

"Nobody thinks ill of you," Ash looked very steadily and seriously at Danny, "They'd think ill of him."

"But it wasn't his fault," Danny said sadly, looking at his hands, "I seduced him."

"Oh," Ash said, then looked at his own hands until Richard came back with a tray of large coffee mugs, white with pink roses on them, and a matching creamer and sugar sugar bowl.

"Tell me, Mr. Lyon," Danny began as the older man set the tray down on the oval marble-topped coffee table and resumed his seat, "How did you and Mr. Janacek meet?"

"Can we dispense with the 'Mister' stuff, Danny? I'm Richard, he was Paul. Otherwise it's very confusing for me."

"Alright, Richard," Danny gave a naughty smile, like a child using a swear-word for the first time, "How did you and Paul meet?"

"In a bathhouse, believe it or not," the man smiled fondly at the memory and sipped his coffee, "A funny old place in Berkeley. Poor Paul was a hopeless size-queen, and, well, I have a big dick. We hit it off sexually, we started seeing each other and got to talking after sex, and found we had a lot in common. We fell in love, you could say, and moved in together, a little apartment in Noe Valley. Paul was teaching at San Francisco City College and I was working the men's accessories counter at Nieman Marcus, so it was convenient, and we had the whole gay world there at our feet."

"What brought you to Vandervere?" Danny thought their life sounded like a fairy-tale.

"Paul was recruited by Miss Mathilda Vandervere, she read a paper he wrote about how mathematical probabilities and mystical astrology were compatible studies... it was a puff piece for a pop-sci magazine, but it made some very impressive arguments. Is Mathilda a relative of yours, Danny?"

"She's my great aunt," Danny replied proudly.

"Scary lady, but very cool to us. Anyway, the school was offering way more money than City College, and tenure, and free rent on this cottage, so we decided to take a leap and see what happened. I got a job at Bettancourt's flogging tailor-mades, we found the cruising park and the gay bar, and we snuggled up together in rural bliss."

"That sounds wonderful," Danny sighed, tears starting to form in his eyes as he thought about this life ending in tragedy.

"I guess," Richard shrugged, "It was fun for a while, but I have to say it started to get boring after a couple of years. I'm used to cities, lots of people, and the society up here, though pretty populous for a small town, gets stale after a bit. Since the cottage was part of Paul's employment, I'm planning to move back to the city... not San Francisco, but maybe Seattle or Portland, something different."

"Can you tell me what about Paul you fell in love with?" Danny asked after a long pause.

"His kindness," Richard answered without having to think about it, "He was the kindest man I ever knew. Would give a beggar the coat off his back, if someone didn't stop him. He was always bringing home stray animals and nursing them back to health and adopting them out. Kindness is a lot rarer and more valuable in this world than anything else."

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. He 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 china cabinet in the dining room. He came back after a few minutes with a slide-rule, made of polished balsa wood with brass levers 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 Nina Simone for Ella Fitzgerald, and headed south on Mill Road toward the highway, turning west to the Pacific and an afternoon's adventure.
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