The Memory Book(20)

They pick further holes in our argument, and blow up their own balloon of an argument bigger. This is their last hurrah.

I am the final voice. I find the best facts on our side, the worst facts against them, and reaffirm with some poetry. It is my job to pop their balloon-argument once and for all, and to release our balloon-argument up to the sky. I am essentially Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. No, I am Théoden, at the Battle of Helm’s Deep, and the round judges are the Riders of Rohan, holding out their questions like spears. I ride past them on a steed of rhetoric, and tap their spears with my sword of facts, leaving them no choice but to follow me.

Sorry, got a little carried away there.

Anyway, voilà, we convince the world that the minimum wage should be raised.

We do it again in a second round.

We do it again a third.

Then, if we can do it one more time, we will win the national championship.





LIFE DURING WARTIME


Last debate practice of our high school careers. We went through some mock rounds versus Alex Conway and Adam Levy, and by the closing statements, Alex was about ready to claw my eyes out. She would have loved to see me go down one last time. Not on your life, Conway. Maddie and I are both made of steel. No, mercury. We’re fluid and poisonous.

I’m going through cards like a nun praying on rosary beads, mouthing each phrase.

Maddie is pacing with her jacket over her head, reciting her opening.

Stacia walks past the government classroom, peering inside. Maddie’s saying, “But in the United States…”

“Maddie!” Stacia calls, leaning on the doorframe.

Maddie pauses and lifts up her jacket. “Hi, Stac,” she says.

“Wanna take a break?” Stacia offers.

“Nope, can’t,” Maddie says. “Sorry, dude.”

Stacia shrugs.

Maddie has put her jacket back over her head.

And that, ladies, gentlemen, and Future Sam, is our life during tournament time.





SO IT BEGINS


At the Sheraton after our first round, Maddie is highlighting while I give my eyes a rest. Bass pounds from the speakers. She is hunched over on the floor, next to three stacks two feet high full of economic analyses and the names of obscure bills and percentage signs. Just a few more to go and we’ll be ready for bed. We both wear our complimentary white Sheraton robes. Our suits hang in the corner.

A momentary silence as the song ends.

“Deutschland, Deutschland! Again!” she shouts, lifting her pink highlighter.

“Again?”

“Again!”

We’ve been playing the same track on repeat for the last hour over the portable speakers Maddie brought. It’s basically three driving, heavy notes under voices of indiscernible genders screaming in German. It motivates us. Well, it motivates Maddie, and because it motivates Maddie, it motivates me. It’s our tradition.

Her mom, who’s in the connected room next door, has learned to bring earplugs.

Three years, twenty-plus tournaments. Thirteen first-place titles, four second-place. When everything is highlighted, and when the clock hits nine a.m., there’s nothing more we can do. This is it.

Last year we watched the outgoing seniors and I clenched my fists in anticipation, talking about how I wouldn’t make the same mistakes, how I would spend the next year honing on slower speech, on evidence organization, what I would wear.

And now it’s just hours away. Our reputation, our reasons for getting scholarships, the countless iterations of “sorry, I can’t come,” now packed into a twin double.

Stuart texted me. Good luck!

I said “Thanks!” and turned my phone off.

If I didn’t, he might start a conversation with me, and then I wouldn’t be able to stop imagining him writing an entire novella on my naked body.

Which would be distracting.

Okay, I had to go splash water on my face in the bathroom and say aloud to my reflection, “Sammie, now is not the time for you to be a lover. Now is the time for you to be a warrior.”



Well, the highlighters are out of ink. Maddie and I chugged a couple of glasses of tap water, tucked into our parallel beds, and turned on some shitty TV.

As we turned off the lamps, Maddie said, “Sammie.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m super stressed.”

As she said this, I realized I was grinding my teeth. “Me too.”

Her voice sounded different than normal, a little higher, a little softer. “It’s okay if we don’t win, right?”

I sighed. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

“Me neither,” she said quickly. “But I was thinking about what you said the other day, about cutting your losses.”

“Yeah?”

“Like, even when we’ve gotten second or third before, it was like, ‘Whatever, that was a fluke. We just need to get to Nationals.’ I mean, even you would say stuff like that, and you hate losing.”

“It’s true.” I would say, Whatever, this doesn’t matter. Nationals is what matters.

“We didn’t really decide to cut our losses by coming here, did we?”

I held my breath, staring at the ceiling. “What do you mean?”