Chapter 117: Handshakes and Hugs

Saturday, April 21, 1984 (continued)

They fed us barbecue for a slightly late dinner, which was nice of them. Of course, we had at most one-tenth as many people, probably less. Many schools had cleared out by this point, including Bellaire. I’d figured they would still have someone in something, but perhaps not.

Marshall’s group from Booker T. Washington was still here, of course, and he waved to us.

As we were finishing dinner, Jas produced a cake. I have no idea where it’d been. Probably stashed in the bus somewhere, and then smuggled in with an extra evidence box. It had candles and everything.

Surprising me, Angie produced another cake, also with candles.

Then Sue produced a third cake (with more candles). She gave Cammie a wink and said, “This one’s from Mel.”

Cammie turned an interesting shade of red at that.

They were probably breaking the rules by actually lighting them (with fifty-four candles burning!), but they did anyway.

Then everyone gathered around and sang happy birthday to Cammie, Paige, and me. By the time they’d gotten the candles lit, quite a few of the remaining schools had spotted us, and many of them joined in singing.

Two of them apparently also had birthday kids (without cake, unfortunately), judging from hearing ‘Caroline’ and ‘Ray’ in their renditions of ‘Happy Birthday’.

Once we’d blown out our candles, we called Caroline (who turned out to be from the host school) and Ray (from St. Mark’s) over and gave them each a piece. We didn’t have enough to share with everyone, but we did have some leftovers (since everyone just took a small piece), and some of the others got pieces as well, particularly the Churchill and St. Mark’s kids.

It was really nice, and one of those reminders that, while we were all competing, we also all had something in common, even kids like Marshall and me, who might never ordinarily have had anything in common at all.

Very conservative kids from very conservative schools mixed with kids with purple hair, or with (in three cases) visible tattoos. Styles of dress varied, from business attire to one girl wearing black leather and a studded collar. We were predominantly white, but there were African-American (going with the 1980s phrasing), Hispanic, and Asian kids mixed in, and everyone seemed to just fit.

All of this got most of the remaining kids up and talking a bit. Pretty good for three birthday cakes!

Yes, Jas gave me a very nice birthday kiss. She wasn’t the only one, either, though hers was decidedly the most emphatic.

Once finals postings had gone up, Cammie reported first.

“I want to start this by saying thank you to everyone for letting me do this all year. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it! For many of you, this will be the last time you hear me do this. Those of you who will be at ToC next weekend have to put up with me one more time.”

Quite a few people laughed, then everyone started applauding.

After that died back, Cammie said, “Okay! In CX finals, we have Steve and me taking on Natalie and Brenda from Duschene. A good time will be had by all!”

More laughter, of course.

“I love them both, but kick their asses. Gently, but firmly!” Anne said, drawing still more laughter.

“In LD finals, we have Jaya taking on Carla Gutierrez from our host school, San Antonio Churchill.”

“It’ll be a blast!” Jaya said, grinning.

“And, finally, in Extemp, the Memorial crew is down to Amit and Sue.”

Cammie and I could just concentrate on CX. That was fine with me.

Cammie sat down, then Paige got up.

“Pretty much what she said. Also, guys, when you’re figuring out who to let do this next year, give it to some enterprising sophomore, or even a freshman. Don’t let the juniors or seniors hog it!”

A bunch of people nodded. There was a lot of virtue in continuity.

“Okay! In Duo, we have Jas and Carole along with Sheila and Lexi.”

That meant Penny and Ben and Bob and Danny were out, sadly. Three of them would be back next year, though, since only Bob was graduating.

“In Humorous, we have Angie and Jess.”

That was a lot out. Paige, Lexi, and Jasmine all missed the cut.

“And, in Dramatic, me, Jas, and Jess.”

That was maybe bigger news. Three-eighths of finals were Memorial kids.

Meg got up and said, “Congratulations, Cammie, Steve, and Jaya! Hopefully you’re just the first three of a bigger Nationals contingent! We’re thrilled!”

Steffie grinned and said, “I’m going no matter what. Steve’s half mine!”

That got a laugh from everyone. The odds were fairly good that Steffie would be going anyway, of course.

Until Meg had said it so clearly, I really hadn’t completely processed that, yes, I was really going to Nationals, and so was Cammie. So was Jaya, for that matter.

Cammie and I hugged each other tightly. Jaya wound up hugging both of us, and then a bunch of others made it into a group hug.

We’d actually done it! Win or lose here, we’d move on to the next level. I very much wanted to win, of course, and so did Cammie (and Jaya!), but we were ‘mission accomplished’ for our biggest goal.

I didn’t expect to win Nationals. It wasn’t unthinkable, of course, but I didn’t expect to, and it wasn’t a ‘goal.’ Breaking was probably a goal, though.

It was somewhat unfortunate that Nationals was being held just a few miles from here, at Trinity, but these things happen. The flip side of that, of course, was that we’d hardly be distracted by the venue. Been there, done that.

Mom and Dad would be thrilled by the location, though. They’d probably want to come over and watch, but unless we made it to later elimination rounds, that might not happen. We would see. San Antonio was a reasonable drive from Houston, and we could give them plenty of warning. That, or they could come and play tourist, then join us if there was a reason to.

Mixed into that thought was a sad one: the Clarkes would miss out. Their own fault, of course, but they’d cheated themselves out of getting to celebrate an amazing achievement on their daughter’s part.

I had to wonder how often this happened. How often did a kid reach a major milestone and accomplish something they’d set their mind to, with their parents estranged and missing out? It had to happen sometimes.

No matter what I thought about the Clarkes, it was sad. Life (even when you get two) is too short to waste on pushing away the people who you should embrace. Perhaps having two actually made that more clear.

I had to hope they’d get their act together. It wasn’t that they didn’t love Cammie, certainly — it was that their form of ‘love’ was destructive to her. They’d done what they believed was ‘right’ — ‘necessary,’ even — but it might well have lost them Cammie forever, either way.

The Golden Rule has a flaw (not that I thought they were thinking of it). It’s not ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ it’s ‘do unto others as they would have you do unto them,’ or at least it should be. Perhaps Cammie’s parents would have wanted to be shipped off and ‘converted,’ if they were having those feelings. Cammie didn’t, and it was her life, not theirs.

But, then, any God I could embrace wouldn’t punish a person for being who they were born to be. If you believed in a God who had the power to make everyone straight, but didn’t, and then punished the ones who weren’t, certain conclusions followed, and they weren’t very favorable for God. I couldn’t believe in such a God, but the Clarkes obviously could.

It was perhaps frustrating that Angie, Laura, and I had what seemed like very clear evidence for a belief in a soul, for a belief in life continuing beyond death, and yet had not the slightest idea of who or what God might be, or if there was one, or more than one. The one thing we could conclude was that, whatever Power there might be, being gay wasn’t a barrier to getting a second chance, nor was being an opinionated partly-Christian partly-agnostic Unitarian. I didn’t know what Laura had believed but, whatever it was, it was apparently fine with the Power(s) That Be.

Perhaps one day we’d learn more, and perhaps we wouldn’t, but — at a minimum — I could certainly say that God hadn’t given us even a tiny little nudge towards being ‘conservative.’ If there was a God, that alone might tell us something. If God existed, we were surely on His, Her, Their, or Its radar.

They’d put CX finals in the auditorium. I guess it made sense that they use it, since they had it available. We might have an edge simply because we’d debated in auditoriums before.

There were only about fifty people watching, so we hardly needed an auditorium. Some of the audience were coaches, others were judges. Most were fellow competitors, of course.

Brenda and Natalie got there just about when we did, and we shook hands first, then started setting up. Fortunately, the organizers had set things up the way I preferred, with the lectern further back from the tables and the tables sideways. That way I could look out and address the audience and judges while being able to see Cammie, Natalie, and Brenda. It sucked to have your back to your partner and the other team.

For State finals, we flipped for affirmative vs negative. Cammie flipped, and won. We’d decided that we wanted affirmative, and that we’d use our standard polygraphs case for finals. Natalie and Brenda had heard it, and would no doubt be prepared for it, but we were confident in it and our ability to defend it, plus we knew it inside and out.

Besides, they were friends as much as opponents, and we wanted to give them the respect they were due, not take a win-at-all-costs approach.

I got up for my first affirmative and started a bit off the cuff.

“Welcome, everyone, for what is all of our last round at the state level, but not our last round in the state of Texas. We’ve known our opponents for a while now, and they’re great people.”

That got a little muted applause.

“So are we.”

That got a little chuckle to go with the applause.

“Sit back, relax, and enjoy what I hope will be a terrific round.”

With that, I went into my usual speech, speeding up a little more than usual after the first thirty seconds. I had to pick up slightly more at the four-minute mark, but was able to slow the pace for the last thirty seconds as I almost always did.

That’s the advantage of running our standard case. I knew the timings of every section down to a couple of seconds, and could pace things to give myself a little time for an oratorical start. If there was ever a time for that, it was finals at State.

The round itself was, I thought, great. They came at us straight-up with everything they had, and we came right back with counterarguments and plenty of evidence. Some they’d heard; some they hadn’t.