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It's easy to fall prey to the vicissitudes of high school, Tom thinks; one minute you’re the top dog, next you’re last week’s lunch with the spoiled milk.
Watching Mr. Gregory Hirsch narrowly miss getting hit in the face with a crumpled up worksheet, Tom knows the students are smelling curdled dairy. Or, as he likes to call it, weakness. He pauses in the hallway—a harmless interruption, when he’s just on a coffee break from grading papers for the next two periods—and listens.
“Hey, you—you should really take this more seriously, guys,” Greg says, fumbling to catch another ball of paper. “Oh, gross. Did you—did one of you guys spit on this? That's like, a health hazard,” he mutters, shaking the worksheet off of his palm and into the trash, then beelining for the hand sanitizer. He’s so intent on cleaning his hands that he doesn't notice Tom lurking just outside the doorway: perfect.
Greg leans on the edge of his desk and sighs wearily. “English is important to—to a full understanding of the world,” he starts. “That's why we read classics, and why we don't play video games on our phones while studying Greek tragedy.” He raises his voice for the second half of the sentence, and an awkward silence falls. “Come on,” he says, sighing a little again. He stands up again and walks around his desk to the whiteboard, picking up a marker and drawing a very squiggly line. He places an X on the line and turns to speak again. “This is about when Odysseus fights Polyphemus, the Cyclops. He loses a bunch of his men, y’know, cause the Cyclops eats them—”
A scattered chorus of “Gross,” rises from the students.
“Yeah, I know. Now, you're probably not going to get eaten by a giant Cyclops. Like, ever. That's just not statistically likely. But, the reason Odysseus got out was because he was clever and tricked the Cyclops into getting blinded and isolated by all his friends.”
“He’s a vicious monster, he doesn't have friends,” one student calls. Tom would bet his coffee money they're doing it just to be contrary.
“That's not the point,” Greg insists, waving his hands. “The point is that Odysseus used his brain to get out of a tough situation. But you know what he did next?” He pauses.
There's a long few seconds of silence before someone answers, “He goes home?”
Greg passes a hand over his face. “No, he doesn't—it's ten more years until he goes home. What he does next is, as they're sailing away, he tells the Cyclops his real name, and the Cyclops curses him. And he does that because…” He pauses again, in the hopes of someone having an answer. “He does that because he was prideful,” he finally says. “He wanted to boast his victory to the guy he just defeated, and it comes back to bite him later.” He draws a few more X marks on the line on the board. “Odysseus encounters a bunch of obstacles, and he does some pretty clever and outlandish stuff, but he also makes some stupid and egocentric mistakes that mess him up later. And obviously you guys will never be at risk of being mauled by Harpies, or what have you, but you might say something rude at work and someone stabs you in the back for it.” He shrugs. “So, like, that's why we're reading the Odyssey.”
Silence falls in the classroom, and Tom starts clapping slowly as he walks into the classroom. There's a short chorus of “Wambsgans!” from the students—he likes to think he's popular.
Greg startles like a deer when you lay on the car horn, and puts a hand to his heart. “Jeez, Tom, you scared me.”
“Oh, don't worry about little old me,” Tom insists, walking up to Greg and clapping him on the shoulder. “That was a wonderful speech. Great oration about the power of history and literature.”
“Uhh… thanks.” Greg offers one of those awkward smiles that brings out his dimples, and Tom wonders why the girls in the class aren't hard at work hoping he’ll smile at them like that.
Tom leaves his hand on Greg's shoulder and turns to the class. “That was a good speech, right?” There's some nods. “And Mr. Hirsch—” Tom rolls the name over his tongue like it's the best thing he's ever tasted. “—is trying his best for you kids, and if you don't appreciate that… well, I’m entertaining the idea of a pop quiz. How would you guys feel about that?” A chorus of groans is his answer. “Alright, alright, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Greg says quietly.
Tom slides his hand to the back of Greg’s neck and leans up to kiss his temple. “Anytime.”
He leaves the classroom to a chorus of oohs and gasps. He has papers to keep grading.
It's the last class of the day when the incident from earlier comes up. One of his students, on the more vocal side of the class, pipes up: “Mr. Tom, are you having an affair with Mr. Hirsch?”
Tom chokes on empty air, coughing into his elbow to regain his breath. “Excuse me? Did your mother raise you to ask rude questions like that?” he says, jokingly.
“But you talk about your wife all the time,” another student says.
Tom winces. “Actually… full disclosure, we’re not actually together anymore.” There’s a collective aww of disappointment. “All the stories I’ve told you were true, trust me, but they happened years ago.” He takes a sip of his coffee and adopts a thoughtful look. “I wish her the best, really. But we’ve both moved on and become different people since then. Better people, if you hooligans have anything to say about it. Now, who can tell me some of the things that led to the fall of the Roman Empire?”
The hands that go up are most of the same people, but it's a bigger number than at the start of the class, so Tom counts that as a win. He’s also counting his smooth evasion of the question as a win, but that had caught him off guard. Maybe he’ll spring a pop quiz on them next week anyway.
A few minutes after the final bell rings, there's a timid knock on his open doorframe. He looks up to see Greg’s lanky frame, his head ducked slightly to lean in the doorway.
“Hey, Tom,” Greg says quietly. He’s got the same kind of awkward smile on his face that he had earlier, but a soft version, one that Tom likes to think is especially for him.
“Gregory Hirsch,” Tom says, drawing it out. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Come in, come in.”
Greg closes the door behind him and perches on the edge of Tom's desk, his long legs crossed and feet knocking against the wall. “Thanks for earlier,” he says. “They really stopped, uh, ribbing me about, like, my height and stuff? I think they really respect you. Although, I could’ve done without the students gossiping for the rest of class.” He rolls his eyes.
“I know what you mean,” Tom laughs, his face warming. “One kid asked if we were having an affair.”
Greg’s eyes widen. “Dude, are you—you're married?” He stands up like he doesn't know what to do with his limbs. “I didn't know that,” he says, and he sounds… uncertain? fretful? panicky? Tom’s not sure.
Tom waves him back over. “Calm down, it’s all in the past. Shiv—Siobhan and I split up a few years ago.” He looks at Greg’s nervous hands and smirks. “What’s it to you, anyway?”
“Uh, nothing,” Greg says, running a hand through his hair and sitting back down. “I mean, I’m sorry about that…”
Tom catches Greg's hand in the middle of one of his nervous vacillations. “Hey, don't worry about it, buddy. It was… well, it was as amicable a split as can be expected.” He smiles tightly.
Greg turns the grip around to squeeze Tom’s hand. “That's good. So there's no… Siobhan Wambsgans wandering around, hunting middle-aged history teachers down for revenge? That's not a very common name.”
“Oh, no, no.” Tom takes his hand back and waves it graciously. “She never took my name.” He hesitates for a moment on his next sentence. “She’s still Siobhan Roy.”
Greg blinks at him slowly. “Did you—did you say Siobhan Roy? Like, like Shiv Roy, daughter of—”
Tom winces. “Yes, Shiv, daughter of Logan Roy, massive media tycoon.”
“Dude.”
Tom sighs. “Yes, I know, I could’ve had it all and—”
“She's my cousin!” Greg blurts out.
“Bullshit,” is Tom’s immediate response. He looks Greg up and down. “You're not a Roy. Besides, you're here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re here too,” Greg retorts. “And anyway, it’s like once removed or something, so we’re not very close, but… yeah, my grandpa is Logan’s brother. They hate each other’s guts, though, so.” He shrugs.
Tom looks at Greg with almost a new sense of respect. “Is that a little bit of spine in the family, Gregory? Well, good for you, making your own way in the world.”
Greg’s smile is lopsided and charming, and imperfect, and real, and it’s everything Tom loves about him.
Tom scoots his chair closer, resting a hand on Greg’s thigh. “To tell you the truth,” he says, “I’m glad I’m not in that world anymore.”
“I’m glad too,” Greg says. He looks away and clears his throat a little awkwardly. “So, uh… you’re on the Greece and Rome unit, huh? How’s that going?”
Tom rolls back to his desk and slaps the pile of papers. “Good, good. Now that we’ve moved on to Rome, they’ve stopped asking me about Odysseus. I decided to throw a wrench in the works and have them write a paper on Emperor Nero.”
Greg raises an eyebrow. “Wow. Nero, huh?” he says dryly. “I assume you’re leaving out the old story about Sporus.”
“Of course, Gregory, who do you take me for?” Tom scoffs. “Besides, I think I condemned that to never be brought up again the instant I used it as a pickup line.”
Greg smiles. “I remember that. That’s how I could tell you were really drunk at the faculty party.”
Tom shudders. “I’m just glad that wasn’t your first impression of me.”
“Nor was it the last.” Greg’s gaze slides to the whiteboard and the weekly calendar Tom has set up. “So… how many papers do you have left to grade?” he wonders aloud. “Cause, like, I was thinking…”
“You were thinking…” Tom prompts him.
Greg blushes a sort of splotchy shade of red, and Tom hears angels sing in some far-off cloud. “Would you, I mean… could you be persuaded to, like, go out for dinner with me?”
“Could I—” Tom laughs breathlessly. “Yeah, you can twist my arm.” He holds out his pinky, and Greg rolls his eyes, and when he twists Tom’s arm (very, very easily), Tom knows he’s absolutely head over heels. It’s a long way to fall, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Tom is not going to rush this.
And so, at the end of the evening, he kisses Greg, all six foot seven of him, soft and slow, and the next day he gives his students a pop quiz on the fate of Nero’s wife.