Chapter 10

Notes

Just a heads up—this chapter contains the “murder” part of murder mystery. There’s a dead body, some blood, described more abstractly than graphically but still with some precision.

On Monday morning, Piper is walking down the hallway with Dr. Fatima Amir, one of the three members of their dissertation committee, when the screaming starts.

It’s only 7:00 a.m. Fatima is an early riser and her appointments with students are often over morning coffee at the Mill, the place near the student center. She and Piper are on their way there, bundling into coats and hats as they head down the chilly English department hallway and discussing a recent article from Victorian Literature and Culture.

“The point about Collins’ jugglers is well taken, but if we extend the link between performance and deceit into the twentieth century—” Fatima says, and then a strangled shriek cuts through the air.

A shock of adrenaline jets through Piper’s body, feet legs stomach throat, up to the top of their head, which goes hot and then cold, and into their fingertips, which immediately start to shake.

Piper and Fatima lock eyes for a brief terrified second, the words active shooter sizzling through the air between them. But then the voice screams again, echoing down the hallway towards them:

“Oh my god, there’s so much blood!”

Around the corner, lying on the gray stone floor, lit with institutional harshness by the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling fixtures, is Jack Hart, fifth-year Ph.D. candidate, member of the North American Victorian Studies Association, T.A. for Dr. Francis Pace’s Intro to British Literature class, and writer of a dissertation-in-progress entitled “Crooked Men: Disabling Masculinity in Victorian Britain.” Jack Hart, or rather, his body, and a lot of his blood. Piper goes dizzy at the sight. They and Fatima stop, frozen.

“Oh my god,” says one of the three young women standing at the top of the stairs. Distantly, Piper looks across the body. After a second they recognize the women as undergraduate English majors; they have taught one of them in a discussion section, and another, Rachel something-or-other, is the head of the undergrad English Majors Organization. 

No one seems able to move. From down the hall, behind Piper, the sound of hurrying footsteps approaches. “Is everyone okay?” a voice calls out.

Jack’s throat has been cut. Slit, Piper thinks, that’s what people say, his throat was slit, and that’s a better word than cut, they can see that now; his neck was opened like a slit, a long thin line that parted his skin just enough to let the blood pump out, and out, and out. Word choice, Piper thinks, and thinks too that it’s something Lu would care about, the precise word to describe a material form—cut, split, slice, gash, sliver. They all mean slightly different things. Slit is precise, like the form it describes. It is both action and adjective: to slit his throat, a slit throat.

“Holy fuck,” says a voice from behind them, and Piper turns their head slightly to see Kevin Ng, friend and fellow cohort member of Jack’s, stagger to the floor. Kevin sits down hard, staring at the blood pooling around Jack’s body. A line of it stretches outwards, a thin branch reaching away from his body, the blood still, not flowing any longer. A branch that has stopped growing. Piper memorizes the shape of it. They’ll have to describe it to Lu. Is a branch too representational? Imposing a subjective image on the form?

And then they feel Fatima’s grip on their arm and realize they are swaying. “Breathe,” Fatima instructs firmly. She does so herself, a long rattling intake of air, and then squeezes her hands briefly into fists.

“Piper, please call campus police. They’ll be quicker than 911. Rachel, take you and your friends into the department library. You have a key, right?”

Dazed, the undergraduate nods.

“Stay there, okay? Someone will be in soon.”

Piper takes their cell phone from their pocket and searches for Campus Police in their contacts. Someone told them to type in the number at orientation five years ago. They can remember thinking they would never call the police. Ideologically, they would never call the police. The law enforcement system in the United States is fundamentally racist and homophobic. The school-to-prison pipeline, Piper thinks, stop-and-frisk, but Fatima told them to call the police, but surely they should…they should…

“Breathe,” Fatima instructs again. “Piper. I need you to call. The campus police will alert emergency services. We need an ambulance.”

Piper dials. They exchange shaky words with the person on the other end. They forget the conversation as soon as they hang up, except the part where the dispatcher asks, “Is he still breathing?” and Piper looks over at Jack, a sudden hope pounding through their chest, to see again his glassy eyes and the pools of blood.

Fatima is kneeling next to Kevin. She is murmuring something while resting her hand on his shoulder. Piper watches, and Kevin jerks away, stumbling to his feet and leaning back against the wall, still staring at the body of his friend.

I’m in shock, Piper thinks suddenly, the revelation bursting through them, and, relieved and winded, they sit down hard, resting their head on their knees and shutting their eyes against the swimming shapes brought on by lightheadedness. Oh, thank god.

And they sit there with shaking hands as Kevin starts to cry, and as Fatima tries again to comfort him, and as the police come and cordon off the scene, and as the ceiling lights reflect off of the pools of Jack’s blood.

More Notes

There’s a companion blog post to this chapter! It’s an excerpt of a draft of Lu’s dissertation chapter on a BDSM fic based on the NBC show Hannibal—it shows Lu’s interest in how the formal properties of specific sex acts impact how those acts might be experienced and interpreted in relation to things like vulnerability, harm, and consent. You can read it here.