When It All Comes Down to Dust (Phoenix Noir Book 3) (17 page)

Whenever she told her parents about the outcome of a debate, they told her they were proud of her. But they seldom asked her about it or commented when she would describe what had happened in a particular debate, and they never expressed any interest in seeing her debate. She never had to tell them that parents weren’t allowed at the debates.

She didn’t feel hurt by their lack of interest. She knew she owned the debate club, and she cared about little else.

Mr. Crossan cautioned her a few times to be careful not to let it go to her head, not to resort to showboating, to making speeches that were entertaining but empty of substance. She never did, but, whenever Mr. Crossan thought a speech she gave was less substantive than it might have been, even if the audience had loved it, he told her so and she listened.

She thought about what it would be like to be grown-up and to be Mr. Crossan’s girlfriend. He wasn’t a great-looking man – he was tubby and he didn’t dress well, but he had longish curly hair and large dark eyes, and he laughed a lot, and to Laura he was like a character in one of the novels she used to read.

Used to. She didn’t read much fiction now that debate club was the center of her world. Instead she read books about politicians and famous lawyers, anybody who had become famous through their ability to argue. She read about the Scopes Monkey Trial and imagined herself as Clarence Darrow. She read articles about Barry Goldwater, and imagined herself as Phoenix’s celebrity politician. She watched T.V. shows in which lawyers were the heroes, and imagined herself saving innocent people from prison as she moved juries to tears with the power of her argument.

She didn’t consider how unlikely it was that she could be a lawyer or a politician, since her grades were so poor it seemed improbable that she’d get through high school, let alone go on to university. At least, she didn’t consider it until Mr. Crossan brought it up.

It was after a debate, one of the rare ones when the vote had gone against Laura. She was drinking a can of soda and getting ready to leave, when Mr. Crossan asked her to wait behind. As always, she felt happy to have his attention.

He sat on the edge of a desk. She sat on the edge of another desk, trying to be like him.

“Are you bummed that you lost today?” he said. “Does it bother you?”

“No, I don’t care. I just like debating.”

“Is that true, or do you just not want to admit that it bugs you?”

“I don’t like losing. I’d rather win, but I don’t really care. I think I won the argument...”

“You did.”

“Yeah, so it doesn’t matter if they voted for me or not. If I win the argument and they don’t vote for me, they’re dumb, and I don’t care what dumb people think.”

“That’s kinda what I want to talk to you about.”

“Huh?”

“What you said about not caring what dumb people think. Not many people care what a dumb person thinks, right?”

“Right.”

“You know a lot of people think you’re dumb?”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that you’re a very intelligent girl, and there are people who don’t realize it. There are people who don’t care about you because they think you’re dumb.”

“Do you think I’m dumb?”

“You’re not listening to me, Laura. I think your debating skills are failing you right now. Did you hear me say you’re an intelligent girl? Did I just say that?”

“Yeah.”

“So, if I think you’re intelligent, does it follow logically that I could also think you’re dumb?”

She smiled. “No.”

“Okay, then. So we can agree that all the evidence suggests that I think you’re very smart. Is that a given?”

“Yeah. But you think other people think I’m dumb.”

“I don’t think they do, I know they do. Can you really blame them? What reason does anyone who hasn’t come to the debates have to think you’re not dumb? You have some of the worst grades in the entire school. Sure, you’ve been doing better in my class, and I think that’s only because you don’t want to make me mad at you, but you’re failing in every other class.”

Laura didn’t say anything.

“I told you before that I wasn’t going to give you a hard time about your grades. I don’t think it’s my business. My business is to teach people who want to learn, not to try to force anyone to do anything. But, like I told you months ago, I think it’s a big waste. Do you ever think about what you’re going to do when you finish school?”

She couldn’t tell him her fantasies, so she just said, “Not really.”

“Look, you’re a brilliant girl. I think you can go as far as you want to. If I ever had a student who might end up as President, you’re the one. But you need to go to college. Don’t you want to?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Do you ever worry about your future?”

“Not much. Not really.”

“Well, all I’m saying is, think about it. I think you’d enjoy college debates.”

She thought so too, but it was too far away for her to take seriously. She made a small effort to work harder in class, but she found it too dull and her attention always wandered into daydreams, usually about debates and about impressing Mr. Crossan. As Mrs. Cole, the math teacher, talked to the class, Laura wrote diligently in her notebook, and Mrs. Cole was glad to see that she seemed so focused. She didn’t know that Laura was writing:

“Old Queen Cole is a boring old soul

and a boring old soul is she

and this is true –

she smells like poo

and two plus two equals three.”

––––––––

E
ric Crossan liked to hang out at Durant’s. He couldn’t afford to eat there, but could manage a few drinks, and the reason he liked to go there was a bartender named Carrie.

She was in her early twenties, just a little bit younger than him, and she taught grade school too. That didn’t bring in enough money for her, so on weekends she tended bar at Durant’s. He knew she also worked at some other bar a couple of weeknights, but he didn’t know which one, and he felt like it would be kind of creepy to ask her and then show up there.

Instead, he’d sit at the bar in Durant’s on a Friday or Saturday night – or both, if he was flush – and tell her what was going on in his school, and ask about hers. He’d told her about the debate club, and she’d seemed interested. She’d even said she’d like to try something similar at her school, but he didn’t know if she was just shooting the shit, so he was surprised and excited when he found out that she wasn’t.

He went into the bar at around nine on a Friday night. He’d have preferred to go there earlier, but he didn’t have enough money to sustain an all-nighter unless he either drank half his paycheck or sat there nursing each beer for an hour. It was busy, as it always was at such times, and there was no chance of getting a seat at a table, but that was fine with him because he wanted to sit at the bar.

“Hi, Carrie.”

“Hi yourself.” She put a beer in front of him before he asked. “Hey, guess what? I stole your idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Started a debate club.”

“No kidding? Have you had a debate yet?”

“First one was last Saturday. So many kids wanted to do it, I couldn’t fit them all in, so we’re having another one tomorrow.”

“That’s great. I really don’t understand why other schools aren’t doing it. I mean, if I thought about doing it, you know it doesn’t take a genius.”

“The kids were so excited, it was hard to end the debate.”

“What was the motion?”

“That Phoenix is a good city to live in.”

“Ah. That must have been good.”

“It sure was.”

“Hey, if you’d like to, maybe we could have an inter-school debate sometime.”

“You know, I was thinking about that even before we had the first debate,” she said. “When you first told me your idea, I started thinking about putting your kids up against mine. Mine have already asked me about challenging other schools.”

“Let’s do it.”

He didn’t get to talk with her much more that evening, except when she saw that it was time to bring him another beer, but he was used to that, because weekend nights were always busy. He sometimes wondered what it would be like if they were able to sit down someplace and have a real conversation rather than minute-long exchanges while she served him as a customer.

He’d always wanted to offer her his phone number, but had never had the nerve. He’d gotten close many times, but had never gotten there. Now he took a pen from his pocket, scribbled on a paper napkin, and handed the napkin to Carrie. “Here’s my phone number. Give me a call when you want to get a debate going.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll call you soon.”

“Great.”

“You want another beer?”

“No, thanks. I’d better get going. See you soon, I hope.”

“Take it easy.”

He paid his tab and left the bar. He wished she’d given him her number too, but he thought that maybe she’d have felt awkward giving it to him in front of people, and that it didn’t matter because she could call him now.

He didn’t have to wait long. She called him at around noon the next day. “Hi, it’s Carrie. From Durant’s...”

“Hi. How’re you?”

“Pretty good. Just got up.”

“Well, you worked pretty late.”

“Yeah. What are you doing?”

“Sitting at the kitchen table, grading papers.”

“I’ll be doing the same thing later today. Hey, something I wanted to talk to you about... I really do want to have inter-school debates...”

“Great. Me too.”

“Yeah, but I thought I should tell you... I don’t mean to assume anything, but, just in case... I think you’re really nice, but I have a boyfriend, so...”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, so I don’t mean to assume that you had anything else in mind but kind of being friends and putting on debates together, but I just wanted to make that clear, you know?”

“Yeah. I appreciate it.”

“Damn, this is awkward.”

“It’s okay. And you weren’t being presumptuous. I was hoping we could maybe go out sometime, so I’m glad you told me.”

“Yeah, I kind of thought that, just from you always sitting at the bar by yourself.”

He almost thought she might see him cringing over the phone. “Well, you’re nice to let me know.”

“You still want to do the debates, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course. I wasn’t just giving you a line about that.”

“I didn’t think you were. Okay. Let’s do it soon. And let me give you my phone number.”

She told him the number and he wrote it down. They said they’d be in touch, and they got off the phone. Eric sat there at the table, with papers and pens and a coffee mug in front of him, and he tried to identify what he was feeling. Embarrassed, for sure, but that was the least of it. He realized, with a sense of wonder, that for the first time in his life he felt heartbroken.

He hadn’t realized until that moment how much of his life recently had been colored by a fantasy of having Carrie share it. Carrie, this person he didn’t even know, but who would understand why he lived in a small apartment and scrimped from paycheck to paycheck, because she had the same passion that he did. He had imagined waking up with her in his bed on Saturday mornings, imagined her blonde hair in tangles, imagined her wearing one of his shirts. He had imagined them telling each other stories of their experiences with students, sharing each other’s laughter and frustration, and sharing ideas about teaching, about how to make their classes and their schools better. He had pictured them sitting at this very table, grading papers together, then going out to see a movie, or staying home and cooking dinner together.

Eric had never thought of himself as lonely, and he still wasn’t sure that he was, but he knew there was something he wanted that he’d imagined in the laughing, friendly beauty of this woman he only saw across a bar top, and he’d just found out that he wasn’t going to have it, whatever it was, and now all the colors of the world seemed washed-out.

The colors came back in all their vividness on Monday morning, when he was in front of his students again. He imagined Carrie in front of hers, but he didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He did tell the students in debate club about the possibility of challenging another school, and they reacted the way he imagined the Mongols had when someone first floated the idea of invading China. Those were the very words he used when he called Carrie late Thursday afternoon and described their reaction.

She laughed. “I bet my kids will be the same. Hey, it’s nice to hear from you, but I have to go. I’m tending bar tonight.”

“At Durant’s?”

“Nope, at my other job.” She pointedly didn’t say where it was. “But I’ll be at Durant’s tomorrow night as usual. You going to be there?”

He wasn’t going to, but he didn’t want to say that, because he didn’t want her to know he had only been going there every Friday in the hope of getting with her. “Maybe,” he said. “I’m not sure. We’re having a debate on Saturday, so I don’t want to drink much or be out too late.”

“Gotcha. Well, I’ll see you if I see you. Good luck with the debate.”

Laura was debating that weekend, and she was on her best form, arguing for the motion that “Education is a right, not a privilege.” Eric was so jazzed by it that he called Carrie on a school phone, and, in faux-Muhammad Ali trash-talking style, he told her his kids would debate hers anytime and anyplace.

“It sounds like you had fun with it today,” she said. “Okay, I’m picking up that gauntlet. You’re challenging the wrong girl. My little monsters are going to eat yours for breakfast. Let’s meet up next week and we’ll get it set up.”

They did. They sat in a diner, laughed and drank coffee together, and decided on a motion: “Fighting crime means fighting poverty.” As they talked, Eric realized just how much of a fantasy she had been for him; she was very different than the Carrie of his imagination, still a nice person, but right-wing, the opposite of him, and only into teaching as a step to something more lucrative rather than the vocation it was for him.

They decided that Eric’s school would host the first debate between their schools, and that hers would host the rematch. Eric suggested that they toss a coin to decide which school would speak for the motion and which would speak against, but she said she felt so strongly that crime was a moral disease rather than one caused by circumstance that she couldn’t, in good conscience, allow her students to argue in favor of such a motion. Eric didn’t mind, since he favored the motion and enjoyed the thought of Laura dismantling all arguments against it.