Exceptions (Ezzy's Education: Part 19), by Garrett Murch
While Ezzy and Link were discussing, debating, and laughing on their drive back from Link’s fly fishing lesson, Ezzy’s mother, Echo, stepped into the Ebbing High School cafeteria. She had been invited to a symposium on Justice and told she would have the opportunity to speak with attendees about her campaign for a seat on the Ebbing school board. She was nervous. She wished Ezzy was with her. She wondered where Ezzy sat during lunch.
Attendees, about thirty of them, found their way into the rows of gray, plastic folding chairs facing a folding table covered by a black cloth with creases forming rectangles in it. Three quarters of the attendees were women, most were between the age of forty-five and seventy, and all were White. Echo sat in the back row.
“We will begin in just a moment!” a woman said. Echo looked at her. That’s the tone of someone trying to sound cheerful. Echo knew the tone all too well, encountering it frequently in the admissions office at Agenda College where she worked. She had not been promoted in ten years but hoped her recent enthusiasm for Justice would change that. Ezzy’s college was going to be so expensive. Echo forced a smile and checked her phone. Nothing important. She put her phone back in her purse. Okay, all in for Justice.
“Call to order,” a person said in a voice devoid of passion.
Echo looked up. She remembered that flat but confident voice. She had been looking forward to hearing it again tonight. Ah, Professor Barron. Echo sat up straight and beamed at the person who was considered by her admissions office colleagues to be the most enlightened of all professors at Agenda College. A “master strategist for Justice,” they called her. Despite all her years at Agenda, and in the town of Ebbing where she had spent her entire life, Echo had not met many professors from the school, and this would be her first opportunity to speak with Professor Barron. I wish Ezzy would at least help her daughter win student body president.
Professor Barron sat alone in the middle of the table, facing the audience. She wore a dark- navy tunic with lateral white lines converging at her breast bone and sternum like those on a military drummer jacket. Echo thought the lines looked like ribs on a skeleton. Rugged, midnight blue glasses latched onto Professor Barron’s long, reddish nose and small ears that were mostly covered by her brown hair.
“Good evening,” Professor Barron said to the group. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Nectar Barron. I am Chair of the Justice department at Agenda College right here in Ebbing. For those of you not familiar with Agenda’s Justice department, it represents the recognition many areas of academic study, so long kept separate, belong under one umbrella. The Justice Department is now that umbrella.
Echo smiled. I knew that already! I wonder if anyone else did.
“What that means in practice,” Professor Barron said, “is the chairs of each soft science department and my personal favorites, the arts departments, will report to me every three months on how their departments have been advancing Justice at Agenda.”
So smart putting them all together. Way more effective at advancing Justice.
Professor Barron continued talking. “Departments like math, biology, chemistry, and physics only report to me annually—for now. But I digress.” She laughed.
Most members of the crowd nodded their heads repeatedly as Professor Barron introduced herself. A few whispered to a person sitting next to them, and those two nodded together. Echo smiled and nodded. She wanted to whisper to someone, too, but no one was sitting next to her. Shoot.
“Before we get going,” Professor Barron said in a practiced monotone, “I will briefly mention my daughter, Lucinda Barron, is currently running for student body president here at Ebbing High School. Lucinda will make a fine Justice leader one day, and we expect great things from her. If any of you have a student at Ebbing, I encourage you to have them vote for Lucinda.”
The audience clapped and nodded, said things to people next to them and nodded some more. Echo stood as she clapped, wanting Professor Barron to know she was there. She had not been told when, exactly, she would be allowed to speak. She reached into her purse and retrieved her notepad and her black pen to take notes.
A new attendee arrived, a tan woman with short, black hair dressed in blue jeans and a thin, evergreen sweater. Attendees smiled at her. She sat next to Echo.
Yes! Someone next to me now! “Hi there,” Echo whispered to the new woman.
“Hi,” the woman whispered back. Her hard, experienced eyes stood out when she smiled. Echo nodded.
“I’m Echo Bello. I’m running for school board.”
“My name is Lorena. I recently moved here from a community just outside of Chicago.”
“Oh, how wonderful! I’m so glad you came. My daughter is half Latinx. She wanted to come tonight, but she had to go fishing. You know, with a male.”
Lorena showed no reaction, and Echo noticed some attendees looking back at her. I should stop talking.
“Our topic for tonight’s symposium,” Professor Barron said, “is the imperative of having a safe injection site for those suffering from drug addiction.”
Echo scribbled notes.
“That would feed the beast of addiction,” Lorena said softly.
Professor Barron said, “The scientific consensus is safe injection sites may have a shot at reducing addiction, they reduce overdoses, and they save money.”
Lorena raised her hand.
“I see we already have a question,” Professor Barron said. She pushed her head toward Lorena and squinted. “Please introduce yourself.”
Lorena stood. “Hi everyone, my name is Lorena Maria and I’m a new resident of Ebbing. I loved Maine so much when I vacationed here a few times as a kid. People are so welcoming here, and I feel blessed now to call Maine my home.”
Everyone smiled. Lorena continued. “I came here from Chicago, and I know a little bit about this issue, having been an active addict—crack, fentanyl, meth—for more than twenty years. I can guarantee you injection centers would only further encourage addiction. Trust me: I needed the stigma to finally get clean. I needed to face up to the harm I was causing, not only to myself, but to others. If I had a safe injection center, I wouldn’t be standing here today, clean and sober. I’d be on the streets stealing, or worse. An injection center would have condemned me to a wasted life of addiction.”
The cafeteria remained silent when Lorena had finished speaking. Some attendees smiled and some had their hands on their chins. A few shook their heads. No one was nodding.
Professor Barron, with the calm of a professional, said, “Well, thank you for that speech, Lorena. And welcome to Ebbing. We value the opinions of others here and we go to great lengths to be as inclusive as we can be. Do you have an actual question?”
“Thank you,” Lorena said. “And yes, I do have a question. My question is for everyone here.”
“Are you going to ask it?” Professor Barron asked, her eyeballs growing behind her glasses.
“I am,” Lorena said. “I’m not here to debate whether safe addiction sites prevent overdoses or save money, although I believe there are far better ways to do both. I will tell you they will not reduce addiction.”
“Your question, Lorena!” The red in Professor Barron’s nose increased as she gripped her hands together, as if trying to wring blood out of them.
Lorena’s face remained pleasant. “Here it is,” she said. “My question is, if our town dismisses concerns like mine and decides to install a safe injection site, will you support locating it next to your house? A safe injection site should be in a nice, safe neighborhood, after all. I assume you believe a safe injection site would not attract crime. How about locating one in your neighborhood, Professor Barron?”
Gasps sucked air from the cafeteria as the audience sat motionless. Echo avoided looking at Lorena, keeping her eyes focused on Professor Barron. My, these Latinxs get feisty. I could see Ezzy saying what Lorena just said. Is Lorena even Latinx? Maybe she’s Persian. They’re feisty too. No, she’s definitely Latinx. While Echo struggled with how to think about Lorena, she tried not to feel impressed by this new woman.
After several seconds of silence, Professor Barron asked, “Are you done, Ms. Maria?”
“I am, Professor Barron.”
“Well, thank you, Ms. Maria, for your question that was more of a statement. We are not here to respond to statements and therefore I will not spend our precious time responding to yours tonight. Like I said, we try to be as inclusive as possible here, we value diversity of opinion, but we must have our limits. Questioning the wisdom of safe injection sites, we here believe, is outside of the mainstream and counterproductive to my monologue—I mean, our dialogue.”
Echo scanned the crowd. Everyone looks so helpless. A few people glared at Lorena. Echo whispered to Lorena, “My daughter is Latinx, too. She’s a lot like you.”
Lorena looked at Echo. “I’m Italian,” she said. “Lo me ne vado. Scusa. That means ‘I’m leaving. Excuse me.’” She slid gracefully past Echo and walked out of the cafeteria with her head held high. No one tried to stop her.
Echo sat frozen, breathless, her elbows tucked into her sides. What just happened?
After an extended and awkward silence, Professor Barron said, “Well, you know, sometimes after so many years of severe addiction, one may never be able to think clearly again, no matter how clean they get. I think Lorena has shown us exactly why we need safe injection sites.”