The greatest injustice of all (cont) (Ezzy's Education: Part 11), By Garrett Murch
Several hours later, the school bell rung for the last time of the day. Ezzy knew she now had to be true to her word and meet with Lucinda Barron. What does she want from me?
After filling her backpack with books and strapping it over her shoulders, she put in her AirPods and played Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” in no small part to keep from overhearingany more comments about her, which had persisted all day long. She walked deliberately to her meeting.
There was Lucinda, with Verica Navratil, sitting at a table in the corner of the cafeteria and frowning. Let’s get this over with. Ezzy walked to them. Lucinda turned her frown into a smile and said, “Hello, Ezzy.”
She’s being formal. “Hello Lucinda. Como te va?” Lucinda looked blankly at Ezzy, losing her smile.
“It means, ‘how are you doing,’” Ezzy said.
Lucinda sort of smiled again. “I am excellent.”
She’s such a stiff when she’s not in a video or leading her flock. “What can I do for you, Lucinda?”
Verica looked on with her toothless smile. The tips of her shoes moved up and down rapidly beneath the table.
“Well, I’m so glad you asked,” Lucinda said. “But first, I want to say, I learned you have begun using pronouns in your email signature. That is just fabulous. I knew you would make the journey to Justice.”
“My mother broke into my email last weekend and added them. I removed them when I found out.” Ezzy knew this would take Lucinda by surprise, and she could see it did. She didn’t care. In fact, she somewhat relished it.
After a moment of looking at Ezzy, who had not yet sat down with her, Lucinda looked away and said, “Well.”
There was a lengthy pause.
“Your mother is so great,” Lucinda said. “I can’t wait until she is on the school board later this fall. She will be a tremendous ally.”
Ezzy felt her face warm even as she appeared calm, still looking Lucinda in the eye.
Verica chimed in. “So Ezzy, we were thinking you would want to help with something.”
“Oh yeah?” Ezzy asked, increasing the pitch of her voice to sound interested.
“Yes!” Verica replied.
Lucinda said, “We have planned an event of great importance, and you will play a key role in it.”
“Shoot,” Ezzy said.
“Shoot?” Lucinda replied, confused. “Like a gun?”
“No, shoot,” Ezzy said. “Like go. Tell me your big plan.”
“Ahh,” Lucinda said, looking at Verica. “So your mother and I were talking and—”
“You were talking with my mother?”
“Well, over email. We are both going to be in power and—”
“I’m not helping my mother get on the school board.” Ezzy squinted her eyes like she was facing the glare of the sun bouncing off a river.
“I know. We talked about that. It’s fine. We have another way for you to help.”
“Spit it out.”
Verica jumped in again. “We plan to do an event showing how much Lucinda cares about underserved communities.”
“I see.” Ezzy said.
“You see?” Lucinda asked.
“I understand. What do you have in mind?” Ezzy began scratching her nails on her palms. Is this going to be like in eighth grade when Lucinda refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance?
“I’m glad you asked. We are planning a campaign event featuring several students of color.”
Of course she is. Lucinda cares about people of color! “Who have you got?”
“Well so far, we have Candice Starling,” Lucinda said.
“Her father is a principal and her mother is a nurse,” Ezzy said. “You think she’s underprivileged?” Ezzy noticed Ms. Scales watching them from the other end of the cafeteria.
“We also have Karl Potterhouse.”
“I love Karl! His father’s my doctor. They’re both great.”
“Wonderful. And we have Mahnaz Ahmedi.”
“Oh wow,” Ezzy said. “Last year her mother helped me get out of this parking ticket I got when the spot wasn’t even marked as no parking. Sweetheart of a lawyer: she didn’t charge me a dime. But then again, she’s not exactly hurting for money.”
“Her mother is, I suppose, a sweetheart, as you say.” Lucinda tried to twirl her black pen around her fingers, but the pen kept getting caught after half a revolution. She clenched her teeth and glared at the pen.
“So do you have any students who are underprivileged?” Ezzy asked. “Because I’m sure as hell not.”
“You’re not underprivileged or you’re not helping with this?” Verica asked. “Both.”
Harumph!” Lucinda gripped her pen in her fist.
Ezzy laughed. “You two will have a grand old time together.”
Sulking, Lucinda said, “Of course we will.”
Ezzy began moving away.
“Ezzy,” Lucinda said. “Please hear me out.”
“Go ahead, but I think you’re just going to tell me if you appear really, really sympathetic to people of color like me, you’ll play the heartstrings of all the White students here who want to feel good about themselves. So really, this is all about you getting votes.”
“You must have tactics to win, Ezzy. It’s for the cause of Justice, you see.”
“So you want to use privileged kids of color to demonstrate your care for the underprivileged?” Ezzy asked.
“Well, they are what we call exceptions.” “I see,” Ezzy said.
“What are you getting at?” Lucinda asked.
“You have no truly disadvantaged students speaking at your event.” “No one else who we wanted agreed to talk,” Lucinda said.
”Well,” Verica said, “we did ask some of the less fortunate students of color.”
“And?” Ezzy asked.
“They didn’t even know they’re oppressed,” Verica said.
“Some people are so used to being oppressed they don’t even notice it, Ezzy,” Lucinda said.
“Have you thought about appealing to all sorts of disadvantaged children?” Ezzy asked.
“Maybe include students with absent, abusive, or addicted parents? Those are the more common disadvantages kids at this school have. More than their skin color.”
“Ezzy, you cannot possibly be serious,” Lucinda said. “It’s all about race, gender, sexuality: those are the key intersections. What do you propose I do? Highlight a kid with White male privilege just because his parents are losers? Those guys are almost all Patriots, anyway. Plus, the nuclear family is nothing but a tool of western civilizational oppression.”
“Bashing the nuclear family again, Lucinda? Really? Are you going to hold another protest?”
“Ezzy!” Lucinda yelled.
“You do realize women can be the heads of strong families now, right?” Ezzy asked.
Outside the large cafeteria windows a procession of large pickup trucks drove by. The bed of each truck held two mounted flags, one reading “Trunk for President,” the other the American flag. A kid driving one of the trucks looked through the cafeteria window, flipping them his middle finger.
“You see that?” Lucinda asked Ezzy.
Ezzy thought about it for several seconds. There is toxic masculinity, but my word does Lucinda exaggerate it. Most boys aren’t like those bozos. She’s up to something else. “Have you asked Kayla Jennings?”
“I asked her today at lunch and she declined.” Lucinda was trying to twirl her pen again.
“Did she say why?”
“She said she didn’t want to get involved in politics.”
“Neither do I,” Ezzy declared.
“But you have to!” Verica insisted.
“Why?” Ezzy asked.
“We need your support so Lucinda wins,” Verica said. She caught Lucinda’s glare and added, “And, I mean, so we will have Justice for all.”
“I bet we would,” Ezzy said. Does anyone who’s not a narcissist run for political office? She thought of the students running for student vice president, treasurer, and secretary. They were okay. Some of them talked about practical changes they supported at school and some had interesting ideas for graduation if the pandemic didn’t come back. No one paid any attention to any of those student candidates.
“It would be unfortunate,” Lucinda said, “especially for people like you, if Trunk became president.”
“People like me?”
”Let me put it another way.” Lucinda cleared her throat, then she spoke softly and clearly. “It would be unfortunate if the underprivileged students at Ebbing came to believe you don’t care about them. If they thought you’re a coward, too afraid to stand up for the oppressed. You do realize, Ezzy, it would be so easy for me to make people believe that.” She stared through Ezzy’s eyes.
Ezzy glared back at Lucinda. She is diseased. “So you’re threatening me now? We’re done here. Adios. Ten una buena vida.”
“That means ‘have a good life,’” Verica whispered to Lucinda.
As Ezzy strode away, Lucinda called after her. “The election is already over, Ezzy. You know what a disaster Trunk is!”
Ezzy kept walking, noting the lack of confidence in Lucinda’s voice.
“We’re going to win!” Verica yelled. “We just want to rack up a huge victory at this point.
You can help us run up the score!”
Ezzy kept walking.
Lucinda yelled, “Ezzy, don’t you care about ending injustice?”
Ezzy stopped. She turned and began replying. “I think—”
Lucinda didn’t let Ezzy finish. “You need to think about more than yourself, Ezzy.”
“Quit your mansplaining, Lucinda. You’re projecting. I know all about injustice.” The strength of Ezzy’s voice increased. “Poverty, racism, sexism, and useless political slogans invading our schools while natural curiosity and love of learning are nurtured here no more.”
Lucinda and Verica said nothing, though both their mouths were wide open. “But,” Ezzy said, “I know what you think the biggest injustice of all is.”
“What is that?” Lucinda asked. “Please, tell me.”
“You think the greatest injustice of all is you are not queen.” Ezzy walked away again, her toned shoulders enhanced by the backpack straps pressed into her camo hoodie. Her dark hair swept side to side with each step.
“Ezzy!” Lucinda hollered, “You don’t want to be on the wrong side of history!”
“You’re right about that,” Ezzy said, blowing past the framed silhouette of an eye hanging on the wall by the open cafeteria door.
A minute later, Ezzy started her Jeep and began driving out of the parking lot. Near the end of the lot, she had to stop. Trunk supporters’ trucks blocked her from getting out. Some students in the back of one of the trucks, waving their Trunk and American flags, noticed Ezzy and started hollering at her. “Ezzy for Trunk! Little Link, too! We love you, Ezzy!”
The short time it took the boys to move the trucks for her seemed like forever. Those boys are obnoxious, but a little amusing, too. They’re not like Trunk, so why are they supporting him? Why is this small but growing percentage of our class so enthusiastic about such an awful person? Are they secretly like Trunk? Do they wish they were Trunk? Or is it just fear of Lucinda? Link hasn’t done anything to stop her, although he’s still sort of new here.
No one, in fact, had stood up to Lucinda since she first arrived from New York City in junior high and, by the end of her first month at her new school, shamed the physical education teacher into ending push-ups, pull-ups, and dodgeball in gym class. Trunk didn’t complain about Lucinda then, and he had never taken her on at all until last year when he suggested she was an alien. If I remember correctly, he liked not having to do push-ups and pull-ups anymore, although he did complain about losing dodgeball.
Ezzy did not think she was figuring out this mystery, but she kept asking herself questions. The football star who the otherwise-Justice-supporting school allows to be an asshole bully. Is Trunk like a Patriot version of Lucinda? Not exactly. I know kids have to pick their poison choosing between those two. That part I get. But why do they attract these little groups of passionate followers? What drives their followers’ enthusiasm? Is it hatred? Love? A need to have a cause? Probably more than that and definitely more than any one of those, alone. Don’t oversimplify, Ezzy. It just doesn’t make sense! But how can it get better if we don’t understand it?
Ezzy’s Education, the first novel by recovering Washington, D.C. political professional Garrett C. Murch, can be purchased here as a paperback or an eBook.