Chapter 109: Disturbances in the Force

Friday, April 15, 1983

We were out of bed by eight and on the bus by nine. In a somewhat shocking turn of events, we did not go to IHOP. Instead, at my suggestion, we’d wound up at The Frisco Shop. It could barely hold the forty of us, but they managed, and the food was excellent. I doubted we’d do that again, but once was fun.

Once we were done, we got back on the bus and headed off to the tournament, which was being held at Austin’s LBJ High School. I’d attended a Debate tournament here in my first go-round, but I couldn’t remember if it was junior or senior year. Too much had changed. I thought it was senior year, which meant we might be back here next year, but ... so much had changed. We might be out of state that weekend. Who knows?

The school had driven me crazy that time. I hoped it didn’t this time. The building — or one of them — was essentially triangular, and nothing lined up as I’d expected. Hopefully, I’d do better this time having had that experience.

I had an amusing connection to LBJ High, one that would probably be another thing I’d forgo from my first life. My friends’ daughter had gone to LBJ. She, later, became a closer friend of mine (even with the twenty-five-year age difference) than either of her parents had been.

This time? I was unlikely to be friends with, or even meet, her parents. Too much depended on following the same path, and I was unlikely to do that. It simply wasn’t going to happen unless I went out of my way to make it happen.

The whole thing was a little sad, but that would be repeated again and again throughout my new life. Some friends would simply be gone. Others, either by their own actions (Dave Mayrink, for instance) or by circumstance (Darla Winton), might be there, but nearly unrecognizable compared to their former selves. Perhaps Dave and I might be better friends this time, with both of us a bit more mature. Perhaps Darla and I would be just as close, but in a different way. Maybe Jas and I would introduce her to her husband. Who knows?

By this point, State had just barely crossed the line for many of us from ‘cool and amazing’ to ‘routine.’ Most of us knew the drill. They’d changed the formula in a way that made sense, though. All of prelims today, all of elimination rounds tomorrow. They wouldn’t post elims until tomorrow morning except that, if your school was completely out, they’d let you know tonight so you didn’t have to bother getting up early.

The odds of us having that problem were exceptionally small, of course.

With an hour to kill between arrival and my first round, I went around the room. I’d dressed more sedately today, with a dark green shirt and a red tie. Most likely, if I ever wore a tournament-standard white shirt and power tie, some people wouldn’t even recognize me.

The first person I spotted was Marshall. He’d skipped the pimp outfit and instead had a lavender shirt and black pants. No tie, but ties were pretty much optional in Drama.

He spotted me and waved. “Hey! Congratulations!”

“Thanks!”

We shook hands and that was about it. We weren’t supposed to be close, and indeed we weren’t close, but we did have one interesting story we could tell ... except, of course, that we couldn’t tell it.

Twice I had Drama acquaintances from other schools come up and say hello. I stayed to talk a bit. While I still considered myself more of a Debater, I was definitely a member of both worlds now.

As I was stepping away from the second, I heard a somewhat familiar voice say, “Steve Marshall! Good to see you! Where were you for U.T.?”

I turned and smiled, “Hi, Brad, and hi, Chelsea.”

“We were expecting to see you,” Chelsea said. “What happened?”

“I got banged up in a car wreck,” I said. “I looked a bit like Frankenstein’s Monster that week. It wouldn’t have gone well.”

“Ouch!” Brad said.

“I hope you’re all right!” Chelsea said. “And everyone involved!”

“Everyone’s fine. The other driver was drunk, so he might not be totally fine, at least financially, but physically we’re all fine.”

“Good!” Chelsea said. “And bad! I hate drunk drivers!”

“Me, too!” Brad said.

“How’d you do?”

Chelsea grinned. “Well ... we’ll be seeing you in a week.”

“Congratulations!” I said.

“Thanks!” they both said.

“I’d better go,” I said, checking my watch. “Humorous Interp at noon.”

Brad shook his head. “‘Better you than me’ is all I have to say.”

Chelsea giggled. “You think you’re pretty funny sometimes.”

“I know enough not to try convincing other people of that,” Brad said.

“Only me?” she said.

“Only you.”

I waved goodbye and headed back to the Memorial tables. I hadn’t seen Dave Mayrink yet, but he must be here somewhere. Sooner or later...

My first two rounds were ... almost boring. That’s not a bad thing. I knew my Humorous routine cold, and I was accomplished at putting together a solid Extemp speech. Cammie and I had our case down and knew pretty much every angle that someone might use against us, and we knew how we’d attack most other cases.

In between second and third round they served dinner, giving us some time to settle down a bit. They’d chosen barbecue, from a place that was fairly good but hardly award-winning. Daring choice, considering everyone’s attire. At least it was Texas barbecue, and therefore sauce-free by default, but it would still potentially make a nasty stain, and the beans and creamed corn were spill disasters waiting to happen, as was the peach cobbler and ice cream.

“How’s it going, honey?” I asked Jas as we snuggled and ate.

“I’m feeling good about it all,” she said. “But ... you know...”

“It’s hard to judge.”

“Yeah. How are your CX rounds going? At least you have an idea there.”

“I’d be shocked if we hadn’t won both.”

Cammie grinned. “I’d be beyond shocked. I mean, they were worthy of getting to State, so anything’s possible, but...”

“But they weren’t in your league,” Sue said. “Same here. We’re too used to keeping up with each other, which includes...”

“The totally best team in the whole state!” Janet said, grinning.

“Totally!” I said.

“Arch-rivals!” she said.

“Yes!” Cammie said, grinning.

Meg came over at the sudden noise. “What’s going on over here?”

“We were just...”

“Totally... ”

“Totally renewing our arch-rival status,” I said.

“Arch-rivals!” Janet said.

Meg just shook her head. So did Lizzie, but she was grinning.

“It’s fortunate that I know you’re joking. Some teams here wouldn’t be,” Meg said.

“Then they’re not teams,” Angie said. “Just collections of people.”

“And that,” Megan said, “is why we kick so much ass.”

“Yes!” we all said, pretty much together.

As I’d expected, my third Humorous and Extemp rounds felt exactly the same. Also as expected, our third CX round felt much different. Our opponents were Chet Davidson and Vincent Garcia from El Paso High. I’d never met a team from El Paso before, and told Chet that.

He chuckled. “We get that a lot. There are a lot of long bus rides, and each of us host more tournaments than we’d really like to, just so we can qualify. I like the city, though. It’s nice.”

“Never been there,” Cammie said.

“You should come visit sometime,” Vincent said.

“Like you said, it’s a long drive, but maybe we’ll do some sort of big loop thing sometime. El Paso, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and up through New Mexico back around through Lubbock,” I said.

Cammie wrinkled her nose. “You do that. Too much driving for me!”

“Jas and Ang would like it,” I said.

“Girlfriends?” Chet said with a grin.

“Girlfriend and sister,” I said. “Both of them are here. Jasmine is in Drama events, and Angie’s in Humorous Interp, Extemp, and CX.”

“We don’t get many people who do both,” Chet said.

“Steve’s in Humorous Interp, too,” Cammie said.

The judge came in then, putting an end to our conversation.

I thought we did well, but then I thought they did well, too. They were running a somewhat unorthodox case having to do with cutting back on NATO expenditures in certain weapons systems. It was unclear to me whether NATO transfers counted as ‘sales,’ but they had enough law-dictionary definitions to make it work. It felt extra-topical, and we argued that it was, but I doubted we’d win that point. They’d have dumped the case if people were having luck with that angle.

That made it one of the rounds where we leaned strongly on generic arguments. Things like ‘Undercutting Reagan’s authority and the United States’ leadership role in NATO would risk emboldening the Soviets.’ For all I know, it was a valid argument. Unlike anyone else in the room, I knew the US had pretty much beaten the Soviets by forcing it into an arms race they couldn’t keep up with. For all their ‘superpower’ status, the Soviets just didn’t have that big an economy, and they could either chase our military spending or keep their people fed and supplied, but not both. The Soviet citizenry, meanwhile, had more and more access to information, and could see that America was outspending them on weapons while still making sure everyone was well-fed and well-supplied. No blocks-long toilet paper lines here!