Night School
by David Sandner and Jacob Weisman
As Robert’s grades dipped his high school math teacher, Mr. Crump, began appearing to him at night, sitting in the same style chair he had in the zoom classroom during the day. The streetlamp outside Robert’s window lit the teacher’s face in stark profile. He scrawled equations on a pad of paper that Robert couldn’t understand, equations that were most likely as unreal as Robert knew these tutoring sessions must also be. The pages were full of numerators and epsilons and strange squiggles, some looking suspiciously like Egyptian Hieroglyphics. When Robert awoke in the morning the chair had vanished, perhaps reappearing in the classroom back at school where Mr. Crump broadcast, but every once in a while a piece of yellow paper, penciled in gibberish, remained behind.
His daytime classes made almost as little sense to Robert. The online meeting grids of students in boxes made him feel more isolated than when he was offline, not less. The equations were simpler and if he’d kept up earlier in the semester Robert felt he’d have had an easier time inputting numbers and getting results now. Still, he had no idea how any of this might apply to real life, his or anyone else’s. It was a large class and Robert had no chance to talk to Mr. Crump between periods. Sometimes Mr. Crump would have a study period where students could come if they had more questions and needed help, but when Robert showed up at one, there was only a blank screen with “Charlie Crump” written on it and when he called out, no one answered. Finally, he gave up. Anyway, he didn’t really want to ask a question which might reveal how little he had truly understood for such a long time now. But at night he found he could talk. Not about that day’s equations but more about math in general and other topics, too.
“Math is like a river,” Mr. Crump said, “you just need to know how it flows.” Or, another time, “What you put into it is what you get out of it.” Robert wasn’t sure if Mr. Crump was talking about Robert’s lack of effort, or the act of balancing an equation.
“Do you dream of math?” Crump asked him one night. How could he answer him? Wasn’t that what this was?
“Yes,” he finally answered.
“Good,” said Crump. “You’re making progress.”
He got B’s that week on his math homework. The next week he got a few A’s. Mr. Crump, the real Mr. Crump – wasn’t he? – even wrote “Keep up the good work!” on the side annotation and appended a gif of a giraffe jumping up and saying “WOW!” Robert obsessed for a time about taking screenshots of the daytime Crump’s handwriting on the online white boards so he could compare it to the other Crump’s writing on the yellow sheets. He found the handwriting was similar, if not the same, although his Crump was neater, more meticulous, even if most of the writing didn’t really form words. Robert couldn’t make anything of the differences.
The nighttime Crump helped him organize his studies, dividing up his subjects into grids and plotting times of study, whether homework was due or not. The study periods were a guideline mostly, but Robert found himself following them as much as not.
Crump also discussed other subjects with Robert, such as the episodes of the original Star Trek series (78 episodes in 3 years—Crump really liked Mr. Spock) or baseball. “Zeno’s paradox,” said Crump, “states that in order for the shortstop to throw the ball to the first baseman that the ball must first travel halfway, and for it to get from there to the first baseman’s glove it must travel half way again to reach 3/4 of the way there.”
Robert nodded his head.
“And then?” prompted Crump.
“It must travel halfway again.”
Crump nodded approvingly. “At which point…?”
Robert tried to do the math it his head, then gave up and scribbled on a pad of paper. “It will have traveled 7/8ths of the way there,” he said,
“Exactly,” said Crump. “In this way the ball never gets to the first baseman. Perhaps it scoots under his glove for an error, but, if the math can be relied on, it simply never arrives. How would you explain this?”
Robert thought for a moment.
“Perhaps the ball only appears to arrive at its final destination?”
“Possible,” said Crump. “But how would you explain what happens when you run the problem backwards?”
“Backwards?”
“Yes,” said Crump. “Before the ball can get to the middle of your throw, it must first get a quarter of the way there, but before it can get a quarter of the way there it must get an eighth of the way there and so forth. Not only can the ball never get all the way to where it’s going, you can never really begin to throw the ball at all. In fact, it’ll never ever leave your hand.”
Robert stared in silence.
“It’s a clever problem that has never really been answered,” said Crump.
“When I throw the ball from shortstop,” said Robert at last, “I don’t throw it to the first baseman’s glove. That would mean lobbing the ball, throwing a lollipop. Instead, I try to throw the ball so hard that if the first baseman doesn’t catch it the ball will continue to sail and ultimately roll into the dugout. But that doesn’t really answer the question, does it?”
“It’s an answer of a sort,” said Crump, not sounding completely unimpressed.
“That’s beautiful,” said Robert. “Zeno’s paradox?”
“Yes,” Said Crump. “It is.” He sounded wistful.
The next day, Robert looked up Zeno’s Paradox on the computer when he was supposed to be listening to his history teacher. He discovered that the paradox was exactly as Crump had described it, except, of course, Zeno had never seen a baseball game. He had presented the paradox about someone waking down a path. Zeno of Elea was an Ancient Greek Philosopher. He had written at least 39 other paradoxes, all of which were contained in a book published 2500 years ago that had since been lost. Only nine paradoxes remained, with the one about walking down the path and never reaching the end perhaps the most famous. There were other famous paradoxes ascribed to Zeno, including one with an arrow that seemed to prove that there was no such thing as time. He had a hard time understanding that one.
The daytime Crump drew a rectangle on the online white board while telling his class how pizza was square back in New York where he’d grown up. He then cut the chalk pizza into slices. “If I give a slice to Robert, how much of the pizza have I given him?”
“One ninth,” said Robert, noticing that Crump had not divided the pizza into anything resembling equal pieces.
“Very good,” said Crump. But the question seemed too simple to Robert to be taken seriously.
The other Crump taught Robert to play chess, explaining the movements of the various pieces. How the rooks could only move down or across, the bishops on a diagonal, how the queen was unfettered and how the King was not, and the special movements afforded to the knights. They studied openings and gambits and the benefits of attacking on two sides of the board at once.
When his school went “hybrid” and some students returned to classes on certain days, Robert joined the chess club. He still played baseball in the Spring, but now he carried books with him to games which he would read in the locker room before his teammates arrived. His teammates eyed his books suspiciously. His mates on the chess club showed equal bewilderment at the cleats and glove he carried.
Robert’s grades steadily improved, although they were not yet exceptional. He was passed out of his remedial math course with Crump and started taking math with Mr. Fenniman. Robert worried that he’d lose one Crump when he lost the other, but nothing changed and Crump continued to visit him late at night.
Being out of remedial math, he’d hoped things would be better in terms of what he would learn, but Mr. Fenniman had his own problems. He never seemed to be able to work the zoom technology correctly. One time while they were all supposed to be taking a quiz, keeping their hands in view of their camera eye, Mr. Fenniman’s screen blinked off and then on, then his mic muted and turned back on. He’d somehow double clicked everything. He thought he had blanked his screen and shut off his mic.
“If you don’t shut that kid up,” he yelled toward the door. “I swear to God!”
Immediately, Robert got pings from the private Discord server the class ran for itself, as everyone leapt on to rant about their teacher. Robert ignored it all. Mr. Fenniman shared way too much about his private life and did far too little teaching, so Robert already knew what he was yelling about: he had recently had a kid. One he clearly didn’t want, even though the school let him teach from home full time this term because of it, while most of the teachers were broadcasting from their empty classrooms on the days when they taught online. Sometimes he would talk about how wonderful “his little girl” was and how he loved her to death. Other times, he joked he would have to drug her or give her a drink if he kept losing sleep. The jokes were not funny. Robert couldn’t understand why Mr. Fenniman was allowed to teach the better students when Mr. Crump, who seemed fine, just overworked, toiled away. But Mr. Fenniman had seniority. He was about to retire, as he frequently told them. Everyone was waiting for that day.
“I believe it’s time,” Crump said one evening, “for you to think about colleges.” Robert had been thinking about college and he explained this to Crump – that his family had no money set aside for him and that his grades weren’t all that good on average, so much so that he was thinking about attending the local Junior College, assuming that his parents would continue to allow him to live at home.
“There might be other options,” Crump told him. “You still have another year to improve your grades and earn a scholarship. You could get a job. Or if your parents have money that they’re not willing to spend on you, you might consider killing them.”
“What?” Robert asked quietly, not so much shocked as plain surprised, certain that he’d misheard.
“Only if they have money that they’re not willing to spend,” Crump assured him. “Do you know if they have an insurance policy?”
“Um,” said Robert. This conversation had turned in an unsuspected direction.
“It’s alright,” said Crump. “I’m merely suggesting that you consider all your options. Many students don’t feel comfortable with such things. That’s understandable.”
It had been a long time since Robert had considered that Crump might be a figment of his imagination, but he considered it now. He considered the fact that he was seldom tired in the morning despite the nighttime visits; that Crump’s comments, like this latest example, weren’t always appropriate for a math teacher, or any normal person; and that Crump paid more attention to Robert, both as a student and as a person, than any adult ever had in his experience.
If he wasn’t real, though, what might he be? He could be a devil or a demon of some kind: Hamlet’s father on the ramparts with a quest for revenge that would set a series of disastrous events into motion. Rational thought, though, argued otherwise. It was more likely that Robert himself suffered from some form of delusion or schizophrenia. Had Crump really ever told him anything that his subconscious mind didn’t already know? He knew from reading a book, The Minds of Billy Milligan, a biography of a multiple personality, much like the more famous Sybil, that some personalities seemed to have access to information to which the principal personality was unaware.
He’d read the book because it was by the same author as Flowers for Algernon, a book that Robert adored at the same time it terrified him. Robert identified with the main character, Charley, a mentally challenged participant in an experiment that boosted his intelligence to superhuman levels, only to discover that the gains were temporary. The terrifying part was when Charley was still intelligent enough to understand what was happening to him as his diminishment proceeded.
Robert thought about the book often, but also what would happen when he or Crump left. Would Crump disappear when Robert graduated? Would Crump follow him if or when he went off to college? If Crump were just a manifestation of his own intelligence, though, would it even matter. If he was of supernatural origin, perhaps a particularly lesser devil, on the other hand, Robert could be missing out on the chance of a lifetime.
“My parents don’t have any money put away,” Robert said to Crump, “and there aren’t any relatives who would pitch in.”
“A pity,” said Crump. “An orphan with money looks really good on a college application. We’ll have to find another option for you.”
Mr. Fenniman disappeared and a long-term sub appeared, Mrs. Wong. She apparently had been a full-time teacher and then retired, but liked picking up what she liked to call “gigs” in between travelling to places like Bali and Puerto Rico to “sit on the beach and not think about math at all.” But she turned out to be a really good teacher. She spent about two days trying to follow Fenniman’s outlined plans for the semester, then she jettisoned it.
“This is crap,” she told them cheerfully, and they got to work.
The dispirited students didn’t seem to mind her change of direction. But Robert actually appreciated the fact that he began to learn things again. And his grades continued to be fine, mostly A’s. Around the time Mrs. Wong appeared, his school went live again after a surge, with an option for hybrid, and many students returned to their classrooms, but Robert stayed away then, afraid if he returned it would make Mr. Crump disappear.
“I’m an alien,” Mr. Crump told him. Robert looked back nonplussed. “I know you’ve been wondering. I’m not a devil or anything, that’s ridiculous.”
“Being an alien isn’t?”
“No, of course there are aliens, math tells you that. The question is simply whether they have reached you or not. If they travel by…material space, then they almost certainly would never arrive, right? Space is infinite and travel, like Zeno’s paradox, has too much to overcome to ever get much of anywhere. In a hundred years, a full lifetime for you, how much space could be covered travelling the speed of light? In a thousand years? A million? In every case, infinite space would be infinitely bigger and there would be an infinite amount of space to go. How are two species of intelligent life, born and raised on isolated rocks spinning around random balls of fire, every supposed to reach one another?”
“I don’t even think many of us even get a hundred years,” Robert said, dazed.
“But if you travel by…immaterial space….”
“Immaterial?”
“Not thoughts but the medium thoughts travel in, when you imagine. I’m sorry, I don’t have the words for this. Basically, we travel over nearly infinite time, as thoughts can flit over space, and thereby move across infinite space—that’s how we meet with you.”
Robert sort of wished he was talking to a devil and could sell his soul for something more useful than whatever Mr. Crump had just said, which he did not follow.
“We’ve been searching for ways to use your language to be able to really communicate. I don’t know if that will ever be possible, though. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget about it.”
But Robert couldn’t, really. He thought, “what do you mean, ‘we’?”
To kick off his senior year, back in school full time, Robert joined more clubs, including the drama club and the tennis team. The drama club got together a couple of days a week to read plays. Shakespeare sometimes (Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and The Tempest) but also more modern plays (Rhinoceros, The Dragon Lady’s Revenge, and The Road Not Taken). Later in the year, they planned a performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Robert didn’t get cast as Jake, mainly because he didn’t have the experience of the performer who landed the role, but the competition was close and he did become the role’s understudy and ultimately ran the lightboard, splitting the stage manager job with Sally Neville.
Robert felt his academic career coming to a head, even as his classmates began to coast, already secure in their final destinations. Robert, meanwhile, had heard from no one. Finally, he was accepted to the Community College, with a small stipend that included books and tuition but not housing. He was also accepted to one of the more prestigious state colleges but with minimal funding.
Maybe it’s not so bad, Robert thought. I can go to the Community College and live at home. Crump will help me out. In two years, if things are better, maybe I can transfer to a better school. But Robert knew that he was fooling himself, that things would never get better, that there would never be another school.
The very next day Robert received an acceptance letter from Emerson in Massachusetts, his top school, but with no financial aid, and he felt his heart break just a little bit.
The following evening, he showed the letters finally to Crump. Robert managed to keep his voice from breaking, but just barely. Tears sat in the corner of his eyes, but he did not cry.
Crump smiled at him. “Well done,” he said.
Warmth and shame washed over Robert, happy that he’d pleased Crump, but sad that he would not be going to Emerson, would never go to Emerson, despite all of his hard work and despite Crump’s assistance.
When there seemed to be nothing else to say about it and not saying anything about it was starting to drive Robert mad, he said: “I don’t understand why you would talk to me?”
“Pardon?”
“If you’re an alien, why don’t you talk to…to my leader.”
“Have you seen….?”
“No, seriously.”
“Seriously, we came to you because you were…so average.” Robert let that go. “You were working on maths and we could use that as a way in. We…speak…using math, and we needed to begin there to translate things into these imprecise words.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“Oh, we’ve had much more difficult communications…languages…to translate before, with other kinds of beings, but we have, as I said before, infinite time on our side. You have been a perfect person for us to talk to you—you are forming your life among your people, and that has given us insights and we have learned so much.”
“So…when you said I should kill my parents…was that…?”
“Call it a miscommunication. We do not live like you do. We meant no offense.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘we’?”
“Me, Mr. Crump.”
“You are many?”
“I contain multitudes.”
Robert’s mind drifted to the Whitman he had read, the language that the alien picked up. Why should Mr. Crump not come to him? Was everything he learned being passed back out into the universe to speak to an alien race known to him as a collective Mr. Crump? He boggled, then broke down in tears at the life he could not have at Emerson.
Mr. Crump stopped appearing. He had been gone sometimes for two or three nights in a row, but this time he was gone for nearly two weeks. Robert stayed in his room most of the time, playing video games. Finally, he had gone out for a bike ride, and then kept riding until he was on the big path the city had made, and then he rode it for miles, all the way down to the beach. The ocean heaved, reflecting the sun in dazzling sparkles. He took a deep breath of salt air.
“There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio,” he told himself, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
He rode back slowly, making it home just before dark. His parents hardly seemed to notice, but then he had been keeping in his room and refusing to even answer them except when dinner was ready.
Mr. Crump was there that night, in his same beat-up chair.
“I was worried,” Mr. Crump said. “Your brain chemistry…well, it’s good not to get too depressed. I can’t access your mind that way. It’s not good for you either.”
“So, you’re a figment of my imagination?”
“I thought we already had this conversation,” Mr. Crump said. “I’m a figment of your imagination…and from a long, long way away. Both. It’s a paradox.”
“Like so many things,” Robert said.
“Like so many things,” Mr. Crump said, smiling.
He was reaching in his coat pocket to try to remove something, but was having trouble.
“I can’t help you with the tuition,” said Crump. “I don’t have the answers that you need. But perhaps you may have other options.” Crump put on his desk what looked to Robert like a stack of playing cards, fanned out across the table, but too big to be actual playing cards and they all had faces on them rather than numbers or bicycles. Crump held them up to Robert.
“Pick one.”
Robert resisted the urge to look at the tops of the cards and picked a card toward the middle. He pulled the card toward him, peeking to see what he’d drawn. The card had what looked like a green face that appeared to sit atop a dark-skinned log that looked for all the world like it was covered in tree bark
“Interesting choice,” said Crump. “You picked, well, you probably couldn’t pronounce their name, but then neither can I. This one lives in a constellation far beyond Andromeda.” Crump reached over and pulled the card out of Robert’s hand, turning it over and laying it on the bed. There were green faces on both sides.
“This is his teacher. In time you will learn to distinguish between the two.”
That didn’t make any sense to Robert, but he was glad to have a friend, and smiled.
“I will, of course, be available for advice, but it will mean working nights as you go to school at the Community College. Is this something you would like to do? Or would you like to pick another card?”
“No,” says Robert. “I’m ready.”
“Good,” said Crump, “I think you are.”
“I have something for you, too,” Robert said. He rummaged under his desk where he knew it had rolled. He produced a baseball.
“Catch,” he said, looping it through the air. Mr. Crump caught it with one hand. There was no paradox. No paradox at all.
_______________
David Sandner and Jacob Weisman co-wrote novel Egyptian Motherlode (2024) and novelettes Mingus Fingers (2019) and Hellhounds (2022), all from Fairwood Press. Weisman is the World Fantasy Award-winning editor and publisher at Tachyon Publications, which he founded in 1995. His writing has appeared in Realms of Fantasy, The Nation, and elsewhere. Sandner is currently nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award for His Unburned Heart (Raw Dog Screaming, 2024), a novella about Mary Shelley. He is a Mythopoeic Award nominated scholar who recently published The Afterlife of Frankenstein: A Century of Mad Science, Automata, and Monsters inspired by Mary Shelley, 1818-1918 (2023). His stories and poems have appeared in Asimov’s, PodCastle, Weird Tales, and other leading magazines and anthologies. See davidsandner.com.