We Are Not Ourselves(124)

“What?”

“Nothing. Stuy is running Locke on aff. I want to be neg. I’m practically begging for neg. Let them play their strong hand. I’m taking that girl down this week. I can taste it. My second contention: the ‘social contract’ argument. The individual sacrifices certain rights and liberties to live under the protection of society. If an individual sacrifices the right to harm other people in exchange for the protections of living in society, euthanasia is justified because it is an act that has no harmful effects on others.”

“I don’t believe in euthanasia, son.”

“This is why you should affirm the resolution that euthanasia is morally just.”

“It’s not just, son. It’s not just or right at all.”

“Dad! I’m talking to the judges. I can’t look at you. Eye contact with the judges is crucial. You need to rebut me. Make a ‘slippery slope’ argument. If we allow euthanasia, it creates a slippery slope where suicide is justifiable. There would be rampant eugenics. Coerced euthanasia. It would have a disproportionate racial and economic impact. People might be pressured to euthanize others for positive gain or else to avoid an economic hardship.”

“Nobody is pressuring anyone to commit euthanasia. Not in this country.”

“Say that it’s not within the rights of the medical field to help patients die. Say that it’s their responsibility to help them improve or at least continue life, no matter its quality. Because if you say that, then I can argue that many terminally ill patients suffer a great deal of pain and no longer wish to have their lives artificially prolonged.”

“You lost me.”

“My third contention is that at times of extreme pain for the patient, euthanasia is the most humane alternative.”

“People get through pain.”

“Argue that new and improved pain-relieving medicines are being discovered all the time. That the timeline for such decisions must be extended to reflect the speed of technological change.”

“All I know is I don’t believe in euthanasia.”

“My opponent never responded to my third argument, so you should carry that through and affirm the resolution.”

“What argument? Son, can we stop this? Can we just talk?”

“You want to know what’s the best neg example you could have, Dad? You are. With your Alzheimer’s. Think about it. If we euthanized people at will, maybe you would have been taken out already. For the good of the herd.”

“Or maybe you would, son.”

“That Stuy girl is going to wish I had gotten taken out when I run into her in the finals this week.”





54


Early in the spring semester, Ed’s chair, Stan Kovey, called her at work to let her know that they’d had several complaints from Ed’s students, including, though he assured her it wasn’t credible, an anonymous death threat.

“A death threat?”

“Not death,” Stan said mildly. “I shouldn’t have said death. Just injury.”

“Well, isn’t that a relief.”

“I’m not calling so much about the threat,” Stan said. “We’ve dealt with them before from disgruntled students. Some of these kids have learned not to trust institutions, due process, and the redress of injustices. What we need to discuss—”

“They were going to beat him up, Stan.”

“More likely they were going to hire someone to do it,” he said, an odd reasonableness in his voice.

“A hitman!”

“More like a thug,” he said. “Ed would have gotten a warning first.”

“The goddamned ingrates,” she said. “The filthy, degenerate sons of bitches. He gave the best years of his life to these animals. They don’t deserve him.”

“They’ll be disciplined,” Stan assured her.

“They should be expelled,” she said, and she wanted to continue, to say, They should be tarred and feathered. They should be run through with swords. They should be brought before a firing squad.

“They probably will be,” Stan said. “Listen. This isn’t about the threats, this is about Ed.” He paused. “And his work.”

Her heart was racing. It was the call she’d been fearing for a long time, and they still needed a year and a half to get to his thirty-year mark.

“Why are you calling me?” she said, thinking it safest to mask her anxiety as incredulity. “Wouldn’t it be better to talk to him directly?”

“I’ve wanted to talk to Ed for a while, but he’s stopped talking to anybody. He pops into the department office to check his mailbox and leaves immediately. He shuffles through the halls with his head down. I left a note in his box, but he’s ignored it. I tried to stop him in the office to ask him to sit down, and he just brushed past me. I wanted to talk to him as a friend before I have to talk to him as his department chair. So I thought to call you.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, though she burned with resentment at the thought of this thoroughly average man, whom she’d hosted for dinner several times in Jackson Heights when he was a junior faculty member, claiming to speak as Ed’s chair, when the only reason he held the position in the first place was that Ed had refused it.