Chapter 17: It's Friday. TGIF? Not!

When I awoke Friday morning it felt like I had not slept at all. Groan. This must be a post-adrenaline reaction, the body’s gotta come down from the high. I think listening to the news report must have had something to do with my delayed recovery. When I picked up Denise, she told me that the press had rung her for a statement but she told them that she had fallen, didn’t see much, so she couldn’t tell them any more than the clerk did. Smart girl. She saw the news report too and wondered how I had escaped from the press, so I told her.

“Kevin, did you forget your superhero’s invisibility cloak? You should have used it, you know.”

I slapped my forehead. “Oh! You’re right! What was I thinking? See, I need to keep you around to remind me of stuff like that.”

She giggled (oh, boy, that wonderful sound... ). “You dummy...”

Soon Denise and I arrived at school and even found a great parking spot.

I slunk with her into the building and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible—I didn’t want to see either Fletcher or (ugh) Abover today, especially not first thing. Nor was I interested in speaking to any hero-worshiping students. I dropped off my disability letter at the office and then we continued on to our home room unremarked.

Home room at last. Routine announcements were made. At the end, “Will Denise Roberts and Kevin Coris please report to the main office, please. Miss Roberts and Mr Coris. Thank you.”

NO! Effin’ NO! What now? We got to the office; Denise was badly shaken. I tried to cheer her up but she was thinking the worst. We went into Fletcher’s office.

“Denise and Kevin, we need to talk to you two for a bit but first I have some private news; please don’t let anyone know about this. I think I can trust you, but if you let this information slip, it could adversely affect any hope of a Program exemption for you. Ok? Yes, I know you’re agreeing to something before you know what it is, but I assure you it’s for your benefit. Ok? Good. Now, I did find a copy of precisely the kind of ‘alternate Program rules’ that you, Kevin, told me about.” Denise gasped. “I also confronted two of the teachers on your list and they confirmed that Mr Abover had assured them that the Program office approved those class procedures. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is making me very uncomfortable.

“I contacted the district Program office and asked to have Mr Abover replaced for lying, unprofessional conduct, and misrepresenting the Program rules. I was told that all assignments are national and they would relay the request. Last evening I heard the request was denied, that the information I supplied was insufficient to warrant a replacement. This is all so highly irregular I’m not sure how to proceed, but I want you to know not to be concerned about what you will hear in a few minutes when we go next door. So I need your promise that you won’t tell anyone about the Abover matter?”

We agreed, but Denise was trembling. Fletcher led us to the conference room. In it was a scowling Abover, who still sported a puffy face and now a cast right arm in a sling. The school’s attorney, Raymond Overland, and Mr Merotta from the district Program office completed the group.

After we were seated, Fletcher introduced them to Denise and then nodded to Merotta to continue. I reached into my pocket and activated the digital voice recorder.

“Students, I see that you’ve both requested Program exemptions based on a disability. Our policy is that student health is demonstrated by the ability to attend classes. If you are healthy enough to attend class, then you are healthy enough to participate in the Program.”

Denise gasped and turned white. I squeezed her hand and whispered, “Shhh. Sit tight.”

The attorney broke in, “Mr Merotta, this will place us in violation of the ADA and make us subject to both federal sanctions as well as civil liability. I can’t allow the district to expose itself to that level of sanction.”

“Just exactly how would this be an ADA violation?”

Mr Overland gave him a detailed analysis of how enforcement of Program policies for a disabled student would violate the ADA. He certainly had done his homework; it was an excellent analysis. Merotta didn’t seem convinced, so Overland told him the school, rather than be subject to certain and extremely expensive civil litigation, would observe the ADA before the Program guidelines. After all, he pointed out, the rules of the Program were derived from its enabling act and not embedded in the law itself while the ADA provisions were actually part of the law. Thus, in a conflict between a law and conflicting regulations, the law always had priority. This guy is good, I thought.

“You realize that failing to follow the national Program policy will result in the revoking of your federal aid?” Merotta asked mildly.

“This is a risk we’d willingly take,” Overland said. “Any change in our funding couldn’t happen in the next two years and that’s plenty of time for policy changes to happen.”

A thought occurred to me but I’d need Denise’s backing and I wasn’t sure how she’d handle this.

“A moment,” I interjected. “Since we’re the subjects of this discussion, I have an idea of a possible compromise that could obviate any unpleasantness and avoid litigation. But I need to discuss it with Denise privately, first.”

She looked at me doubtfully. I wondered if I could get her on board.

Dr Fletcher quirked his lips. He knew I was going to try to pull a fast one. “We should listen to the young man; he’s given pretty astute advice before.”

Abover grunted, “No, don’t listen to the kid. He’s a stuck-up troublemaker.”

“That’s enough, Mr Abover. You’re here to listen, remember?” Mr Merotta chided. “That seems ok; will this be quick?”

“I hope so, sir. If it isn’t, we’ll just be back at our impasse, so let’s just try, ok?”

They agreed and Fletcher led me back to a little prep room behind the main office.

“You’ll be private here; I’ll close the door.”

“Kevin, what kind of compromise? You know I can’t do anything like this at all!”

“This is a stretch but I first thought of it when we were in Bob’s office. I told you after that meeting that I had felt your qi, remember?” She nodded, wondering where this could possibly be going. “I also saw how you handled Bob’s questioning about your molestation and believe me, those questions bothered me a lot but you handled them without breaking down. Denise, you may not know it, but you have come a long way—psychologically, but not physically—from that terrible incident. You really are healing. And your internal strength is immense, you just radiate it and I’m attracted like a moth to your flame.”

She was blushing now and staring into my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re saying that about me, Kevin. I don’t feel any different...”

“I think that’s because you’ve lost contact with your essential self. Sometimes when people go into shock, they kind of do something, uh, let’s see, I think it’s called ‘disassociation’ or something like that. They step away from their essence and become almost like a second personality that observes events in a disinterested manner. I’m putting it really poorly, but I think that’s approximately what happens.”

“Kevin, that’s amazing. That’s almost what my shrink told me had happened. And I think I’ve been more remote and detached since the incident, too. He said that somehow I needed to get back in touch with my feelings, to feel me. But we haven’t found a way to get me to do that.”

“Yet. Denise, I’m no way a psych person, but I told you I studied a little Eastern philosophy and learned meditation exercises. Sometimes to have a breakthrough, you need to face an uncomfortable challenge. Remember that therapy method Bob wrote down for you? Well, I looked it up. It involves having really, really uncomfortable challenges. And this brings me to my idea.

“Denise, I think that we can offer to go halfway on the Program with them for the week. My idea is to use the necessary safety equipment to protect our private areas from injury. As Bob said, the definitions and the list of protective items and who can choose to use them is so open to interpretation that they can’t reasonably refuse without looking like obstructionists. And the fallback is the ADA. It seems that we’ve got the school on our side. We’d get an immense amount of cred from Fletcher and the school board that they would do anything for us to avoid a lawsuit. You know my mantra—always negotiate from a position of strength? The strength here is having our whole school in our camp and pits the school against the Program. So we can make the guidelines work for us, following them to the letter according to our interpretation, not the Program officials’.”

“So what’s your idea? What do we do?”

I explained my crazy idea. At first she was very dubious, but then saw the humor in the situation.

“Oh my god, Kevin. You’re evil. And you’re sure you can protect me?”

“Denise, you saw what I can do. And if I’m not at your side we’ll make sure that two or more Guardians will be. And if it looks like it’s not working, I’ll pull the plug immediately and we’ll be back to the ADA.”

“Well, I reluctantly agree—god, I don’t believe I’m saying that! I’m trusting you with my life, Kevin, you know that.”

“Yes, I do. And I’m absolutely serious about this. Let’s go and break the news.”

We returned to the conference room and everyone looked at us expectantly. We sat down and I pulled out the updated Program booklet.

“Here’s my thought. We need to refer to the booklet so does everyone have a copy?” Some didn’t, so Fletcher fetched a few extra. “Ok. Let’s look at each provision and do a fact check.”

I began going through the booklet and, taking my cue from Don’s legal instructions, confirmed that the Program officials agreed that every word and every sentence in the Program booklet meant precisely what it said.

“Exactly why are we doing this?” Merotta asked when we got about a third of the way through it.

“I just want to be sure that the official Program reps are on the same page with us and agree that the words mean what they say. Sometimes people read something and come up with meanings that differ from what the words say.”

I saw Fletcher try to hide a grin at that comment and Abover’s scowl deepened.

I continued, “Ok, if you agree, then we can stop—oh, well, since we didn’t finish the whole thing, if you’ll just sign a statement that stipulates that the Program officials accept that the rules in the booklet will be applied precisely according to their plain meaning, that’ll work.”

Now Overland was trying to hide a grin. I think he saw where this was going.

“Well, this is really irregular, but I guess there’s no harm; it does mean what it says, after all. Give me the sheet; I’ll sign,” said Merotta.

He did.

I looked at Denise. “Can you try to write down what I say next? Thanks.”

Then to the others, “What Denise and I are willing to do is to permit ourselves to be drafted into the Program for our week and we agree to follow every rule element listed as well as take advantage of all the participant protections the rules state that participants are entitled to. Nothing more and nothing less. We will use this booklet as our bible. If it’s written in there, that’s how we’ll follow it. However, if someone requires us to violate any of the rules or conversely, ignore any provision, we are entitled by the statement Mr Merotta signed to decline that request. If any attempt is made to force either of us to do something that is NOT in the rules, then this agreement ends and we will immediately invoke the ADA and commence the various legal actions we’ve already communicated.

“Denise, did you get it?”

“I think. Here.” She handed me the sheet. I made a few corrections, but the way she paraphrased a few parts didn’t change the overall meaning.

I looked at the group. “Is what I said acceptable? The two of us are making an enormous effort, in spite of our legally recognized disabilities, to participate in an activity that will cause us tremendous stress and discomfort, pain even, and you can read in our doctors’ letters the details about the nature of our individual disabilities. We’re doing this to demonstrate that we’re not being obstinate and intractable and trying to avoid doing something that we find disagreeable; we just don’t want to see the school become involved with the national Program in an unpleasant dispute. We know that the school seems to support and agree with our ADA disabilities. We want to show the school that we appreciate that support and will be willing to do our best, within our individual capabilities, to participate. Is this an acceptable offer?”

Fletcher and Overland shot me an incredulous but grateful look. I really had them in my camp now. Now we’ll see if the Program people will accept the offer. For us it’s a win-win regardless of whether Merotta agrees or not.

He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, wondering aloud why he had to agree to allow us to do something we could be forced to do anyway. Ok, bait taken, time to set the hook.

“Ok, thanks, Mr Merotta. This will be tough on the two of us but we’re willing to try, and trust that the Program people as well as the school will support us, right?”

Nods around the table. Except Abover.

“Then no one will object to signing the sheet that Denise wrote, ok?”

Head shaking around the table. Except Abover. Merotta glared at him and he grunted, “Ok.”

The sheet was passed around and got all of our autographs. As Overland signed the sheet, it seemed as if he was having a hard time not laughing. Fletcher thanked everyone for their time and ended the meeting; I had copies made of the signed sheets—but kept the originals, obviously. Can’t be too careful. I turned off the recorder, very glad that I had bought it.

On the way out, Overland pulled me aside.

“Son, you play chess?”

“No sir, why?”

“Well, you just pulled off a ‘fool’s mate’; go look it up,” he chuckled. “Like your style. Set ‘em up and then go in for the kill.”

I was right. He had an idea about what I had in mind. Well, Denise and I were committed now. We were gonna be on the Program.

Fletcher spoke to us briefly before we could go back to class.

“Both of you. I can’t express my gratitude strongly enough to you for your willingness to try to participate. I want you to know that I’ll be here for you if you run into any problems, so keep that in mind, ok? Oh, Kevin. All this other stuff pushed it right out of my mind. I saw the news last night—what you did. I’m impressed despite myself because I’ve seen you in action, but taking on two men? armed? All I can say, my boy, is please be careful; don’t get hurt, now. Ok? Back to class, guys! See you at assembly.”

Heading to our second-period class, late slips in hand because we were once again late, Denise reminded me that Fridays were short schedule days in order to accommodate the assembly period. When we handed the teacher our passes, we were again treated to some dumb humor about the number of passes we were collecting. Yawn.

The rest of the morning was uneventful except that I had to fend off kids who had heard the news (it seemed every single person in the entire school had watched) and wanted to know all the gory details. I demurred, giving the plausible (but unlikely) reason that I might be called to testify against them so I couldn’t say anything. Eventually the word went around that I wasn’t talking and I stopped being bothered.

At lunch, the group filled us in on their progress. The website would be up sometime during the weekend and the publicity committee had videos ready, stills and clips from official NiS sites but with voiceovers that touted the special features of our site. They were also getting social media postings set for the rollout. The blogging committee had written the main page, the objectives of the site, and posting and connection procedures for anonymous connections. The writing committee had done a number of “first person” articles. So when we went live, it would be with a bang.

Sarah waved her hand at the table. “I’m really apprehensive, you know. The next time we sit here we’ll be naked, you know.”

The others nodded gloomily. Then Andrew spoke up.

“Hey, you know, the kids who’re doing the guardian corps were asked to go to Fletcher’s office after school. They’re getting their caps and stuff and an orientation. Why not let’s go too? We can see what kind of instructions they get.”

We all thought that was a great idea, but Denise couldn’t go, her first meeting with her new therapist was that afternoon.

On Fridays our health class topic was psychology and the teacher was Miss Herndon. She would be covering basic psychology including its principles, examples of abnormalities, and modern research techniques. She gave us a reading assignment about methods of research into measurement of bodily functions that were governed by the mind, for example, research in the effectiveness of using biofeedback in physical therapy.