He found the high schools strangely altered on the weekends, the spaces transformed when emptied of students and teachers and severed from the rhythms of a normal day. The classrooms, with their hortatory posters, BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE, their rows of empty desks, equations or dates or stock phrases left on chalk- or dry-erase boards, made Adam think of abandoned theatrical sets or photographs of Chernobyl. He could occasionally pick up traces of Speed Stick or scented lip gloss or other floating signatures of a social order now suspended. As they walked down the main hall of Russell High he tried various combinations on the lockers. He touched a wrestling state-championship banner hanging in the foyer with the distance of an anthropologist or ghost.
They gathered for a brief welcome assembly in a fluorescently lit cafeteria that smelled of industrial-strength bleach. The host coach made announcements while they looked over their brackets. Then the teams dispersed, carts of evidence in tow, to the assigned classrooms, where a judge and timekeeper awaited.
He let Joanna lead him to their room. The daughter of two Foundation neurologists, Joanna was a short, smart, Ivy-bound senior who scored, as she would let you know, a 1600 on the SAT. She compiled almost all of their research, having attended a “debate institute” at the University of Michigan over the summer to get a head start on the competition. (The topic this year was whether the federal government should establish new policies to reduce juvenile crime; their plan argued that strengthening child support enforcement would do so in various ways.) Adam’s contribution to prep work consisted of skimming The Economist during debate class. His strength was thinking on his feet, exposing fallacies; his cross-examinations were widely feared.
These early rounds were a formality; they dispatched low-ranked teams in front of lay judges, often the reluctant parents of other debaters. That weekend at Russell a couple of sophomores tried to surprise them by running a version of their own plan against them, having reconstructed it from notes taken during elimination rounds, which were open to spectators.
Adam rose, smoothing his father’s tie, to cross-examine the obviously nervous first affirmative speaker; his opponent resembled a waiter in his white shirt, black slacks. They stood facing a judge—competitors do not look at one another—who could barely fit into the combination chair and desk; he sat with his arms crossed, glasses resting atop his bald head, begrudgingly making notes on a legal pad.
“Could you please repeat this year’s resolution?”
“Repeat it?”
“Yes, please.”
“Resolved: That the government—”
“The federal government,” Adam says, as if he’s embarrassed to have to help him. “Take your time,” he adds, knowing it will sound like politeness to the judge, and to his opponent, infuriating condescension.
“Resolved: The federal government should establish a program to substantially reduce juvenile crime in the United States.” There’s the slightest tremor in his voice.
“Why was child support established?”
“To support children, obviously”—the origin of the sarcasm is anxiety—“after their parents get divorced.”
“Actually, unmarried parents accrue the same child support obligations in most states.” Adam has no idea if what he’s said is true. He makes a subtle show of ignoring, of transcending, his opponent’s tone. “But let’s set that aside. It sounds like you agree the program you propose to strengthen was not primarily intended to substantially reduce juvenile crime.”
“No, I mean, that was among its intentions.”
“Do you have evidence supporting that assertion?” His tone makes it clear that he hopes his opponent does, that he would welcome that debate; it also communicates to the judge that the round is over if he doesn’t. (The ballot instructs the judge that “topicality” must be proved by the affirmative team. He and Joanna can crush these debaters in a variety of ways, but he’ll start by seeing if his opponent trips himself up on this prima facie issue.)
“The evidence is that it cuts crime. That’s why the advantages of our plan are—”
“So you’re saying anything that has the effect of reducing crime is topical?”
“No. It has to be federal, a federal program.”
“So if I advocate that the federal government build nuclear power plants and it constructs them shoddily and that causes horrible pollution and the pollution produces disastrous health effects and mass death ensues and crime is thereby reduced, that’s a topical resolution?” The judge smiles—both at what Adam’s said and at his delivery. And he has reminded the judge of his distrust of the Feds.
“Of course not,” angry now.
“Why? Because it has to be an intended effect of the policy?”
“Okay, sure.”
“Do you have any evidence that this was an intended effect?”
“It’s common sense.” He should argue that—regardless of why child support was established in general—they, the affirmative team, are now intending to expand the policy to reduce crime, arguably meeting the conditions of topicality. But he’s too frazzled.
“I think what’s common sense is that child support is designed to equalize financial burdens on parents following a separation. And that even if this equalization somehow complicated crime-reduction efforts, there would still be substantial arguments for its importance. And”—he realizes that, for the average citizen of Russell, Kansas, he might have just made a feminist argument; his pivot is without detectable hesitation—“I can think of strong arguments against that kind of federal intervention in private relationships. The point is that’s not the topic of this year’s debate.”
“I— Look, you run this case all the time and topicality never—”
“Excuse me, I need to stop you there—you want the judge to award you this round because we have won other rounds with a similar case?” He’s offended on behalf of debate itself.
“I’m not saying that. I’m—”
“That’s an interesting idea, that what’s argued in previous rounds should be relevant, can be used against us; should you lose this round arguing for the resolution since you presumably argued against it in a prior debate?” The judge is smiling again.
“No, of course not, but—”
“And, incapable of defending the topicality of your policy before the negative team”—he’s deadly serious now, a prosecutor on Law & Order going in for the kill—“you’re bringing up the fact that you copied your plan from our affirmative rounds.” A pause. “Your defense against failing to meet the burden of topicality is plagiarism?”
Brief silence in which the judge, eyebrows raised, makes a note.
“I’m just saying it’s a topical plan,” he says meekly, the round already lost.
At Russell High it was not until the semifinals, when judging would be undertaken by a panel of three college debaters, that the competition really began. He and Joanna were on the affirmative side, facing a fairly formidable team from Shawnee Mission West. The room—a science classroom: microscopes on a big table in the corner, multiple sinks—was full: eliminated debaters and their coaches had become the audience. When the round was about to start, silence fell; for the first time Adam heard the aquarium filter running in a tank he hadn’t noticed against the wall. He could just make out some slowly drifting yellow forms.