Episode 3: Pitching the Tent

“This is a sad day for our school district,” the superintendent proclaimed to the waiting crowd of reporters, journalists, podcasters, and bloggers on the courthouse steps. “Dr. Michael Andrews is an outstanding teacher, respected by his colleagues and beloved by his students. But the people of this state, through their legislature have spoken, and their voice is clear. And if Dr. Andrews teaches the facts of biological science regarding sex determination in our schools, I, as a servant of the public in our democratic republic have no alternative but to heed the people’s call, whether I agree with it or not, and…”

In the distance, a chant could be heard. “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Transphobes have got to go!”

“…and since… and since it is beyond the bounds of the authority vested in me by the citizens of our community through their elected members of the school board for me to correct this particular wrong, I must leave Dr. Andrews to seek redress for his grievances,” the superintendent boomed forth, trying to be heard above the chanting of the protesters, “through the MAGNIFICENT judicial system our FOUNDING FATHERS set up to…”

The chant became louder, drowning out any further words the superintendent might have had to offer.

“Are you catching that?” The reporter directed his camera man to focus on the approaching crowd instead.

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Transphobes have got to go!

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Transphobes have got to go!

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Transphobes have got to go!”

The crowd enthusiastically chanted over and over and over again, like an author getting paid by the word trying to boost the count without being obvious about it.

President Buchmann climbed the courthouse steps at the vanguard of the crowd as the now displaced superintendent faded off to watch developments from the sidelines. The president held up their hands. The chanting gradually died down. The waving rainbow flags and shaking signs and placards slowed to more gentle oscillations.

“Earlier this year, our state set an example for the nation by passing the Gender Awareness In Academia Act,” they began. “We worked together to pass the GAIA Act. Now the GAIA Act is under attack. And we must work together to save it. In this courthouse behind me, the forces of transphobia and cis-gender privilege are trying to roll back the GAIA Act. Are YOU willing to go back to the days of bullying? Back to the days of harassment? Back to the days of oppression and discrimination?”

“We won’t go back!” chanted someone, and the crowd picked up the call. “We won’t go back! We won’t go back!”

The superintendent stood off to the side of the crowd surveying the spectacle with disapproval. This kind of unseemly public display was not what he’d been anticipating.

President Buchmann smiled, and as the mantra began to lose momentum, they raised their hands again to recapture the crowd’s attention.

“We all worked together to pass the GAIA Act, it is true, but we were led by a great champion,” the president continued. “A champion who I had the honor of teaching when she was an undergraduate. A champion who went on to law school and a distinguished career in public service. A champion who has left her duties and obligations in Washington to come home to us to help us and to help our state do the right thing.”

The crowd stilled and became almost silent. Could President Buchmann really be talking about…

“It is my honor and pleasure to introduce, YOUR senator and MINE, and the next PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES, Senator ROBERTA XOE ‘ROXY’ CASTILLO!”

The crowd went wild as Senator Castillo emerged from behind a courthouse pillar. She handed her purse to her aide. He grasped her purse in front of himself like a trophy and beamed, proud to be such a prominent feminist ally and to serve as her backdrop.

“Roxy! Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!” the crowd thundered. The town may have changed in the decades since Senator Castillo had been a student there, but the courthouse square retained an air of timelessness at odds with the more progressive cosmopolitanism of the area around the university campus at the edge of town.

Senator Castillo waved and approached the railing she used as an impromptu podium. President Buchmann stepped back and beamed proudly at her former student.

Senator “Roxy” Castillo addresses the crowd with her aide and President Buchmann.

The mayor found the superintendent in the crowd.

“What the hell did you think you were doing calling out the SWAT Team to arrest Dr. Andrews?” The mayor balled his fists in anger. “You asked the Sheriff to have them come over for some kind of show-and-tell, and then you pulled a bait and switch and had them break down an UNLOCKED classroom door?”

“It was good practice for them,” the superintendent insisted, “and it made for some great viral video.”

“You traumatized a classroom full of students!” the mayor accused him. He had to yell over the noise of the crowd.

“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

“In these days of school shootings,” the superintendent argued, “it’s good for students to be prepared. It made for an excellent drill. And the SWAT Team didn’t have a problem with it,” he pointed out.

“Of course, THEY didn’t have a problem with it,” the mayor replied shaking his head. “Those youngsters LOVE having the chance to smash things. That’s why older and wiser heads have to make sure their violence is safely directed only where appropriate. The Sheriff has had to apologize to the parents of the kids they traumatized. He’s pissed.”

“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

The mayor glanced at the tumult around the courthouse, glared at the superintendent and added, “So am I!”

“It made for good publicity,” the superintendent insisted.

“Right,” the mayor replied skeptically, “No such thing as bad publicity!” he echoed the superintendent’s words back to him, shouting to make himself heard over the noise of the crowd. “Happy businesses and happy voters.”

“Your little publicity stunt is spiraling out of control!” the mayor declared.

“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

“I can explain!” the superintendent replied, yelling into the mayor’s ear to be heard. “It was supposed to be a dignified judicial procedure. It was supposed to be logic and evidence and jurisprudence applied in the time-honored Anglo-Saxon process to overturn what is clearly an inappropriate and unconstitutional law – a law that obviously violates the free speech provisions of the first amendment.”

“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

“This is a circus,” the mayor pointed out, “not a ‘dignified judicial procedure.’”

“Just imagine!” declared the superintendent with a grim face, surveying the spectacle before him, “just imagine if the roles were REVERSED! Imagine if WE had big crowds like this shouting THEM down. They REALLY wouldn’t like it if we did this to THEM!”

He gestured to the crowd shouting themselves hoarse in support of their progressive hero. “Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

The mayor shook his head contemptuously. “It’s time to stop IMAGINING the roles being reversed,” he pointed out. “It’s time to go out there, and ACTUALLY reverse them.”

“What?” The superintendent was confused. “How?”

“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

“Not my circus,” the mayor declared, “not my monkeys. It’s not MY problem. It’s YOUR problem. YOU take care of it.”

“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!”

The mayor left the superintendent.

The superintendent’s thoughts were physically overwhelmed by the noise. The crowd stepped up the volume, screaming at the top of their lungs: “Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!”

Senator Castillo flashed a brilliant smile and continued waving as the crowd’s energy washed against her. President Buchmann raised an entwined hand with the senator’s and joined her in waving to the crowd. At last President Buchmann stepped back and began applauding. The crowd took the cue and transitioned to a raucous round of applause, hoots, screams, and cheering. At long last, tired, hoarse, and calmed by their cathartic release, the crowd was ready to listen.

Senator Castillo began, “Bienvenidas! Welcome to you all! It’s a great pleasure to stand before you today…” before she was interrupted by another chorus of “Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!” As the crowd calmed down again, the senator began anew.

“I’m honored by your presence, and I’m humbled by your commitment to equity and justice,” she continued.

“Equity and justice aren’t just words.

“They are a struggle.

“They are a perpetual fight.

“They are a commitment to stand up, to stand together, to stand behind what’s right!”

“Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!” the crowd screamed.

“Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!” the cries echoed in the holding cell in the basement of the courthouse where Dr. Michael Andrews sat, head in his hands, contemplating this strange twist in fate.

“Visitor for you, Doc,” the guard stated. “A Miss Amber Chakra Buchmann?”

Mike took a deep breath, considering whether he should send her away.

On second thought, he had nothing better to do. “Send her in.”

Acey stepped in, wearing her “Think Outside the Tesseract” t-shirt tight across her chest and carrying a familiar duffle bag. “After school, I swung by your place and packed up some things.” She held up the bag as a peace offering.

Mike took the bag, fixing her with his gaze. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Acey averted her eyes, “I knew.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t tell YOU?” Acey replied hotly. “YOU didn’t tell ME, either. ‘Maybe I won’t see you at lunch,’ indeed!”

“Point taken,” Mike acknowledged with a guilty smile. “Your mother told you?”

“Yes, of course,” Acey confirmed the obvious. “I primed Sue to be sure she’d ask exactly the right questions. The video she shot of you getting arrested is viral; it’s everywhere, even on the national news. She’s going to testify against you at the trial.”

“You should have warned me,” Mike admonished her.

“Mom said not to,” Acey explained. “She said your reaction would ‘be more natural if you didn’t know what was coming.’ This IS what you wanted, after all.”

Mike shook his head. “This is NOT what I wanted. Not exactly.” He distracted himself by opening the bag. Toiletries, a couple changes of clothes, a couple of books.

“I appreciate it,” he thanked Acey. “I thought it was all going to be a formality. I’d get bailed out, and go home. They tell me there are protesters everywhere and strongly suggested ‘for my own safety’ that I stay here.”

“Yeah,” Acey looked guilty again. “There were protesters all around your house. They… well, they went a bit too far. They vandalized it – broke a few windows and were spray painting the place before the police drove them off. Your landlord asked the police to escort me in, and they had a crew boarding up the windows when I left.”

“A bit too far?” Mike asked accusingly. “What about my garden?”

“Pretty badly torn up and trampled, I’m afraid,” Acey explained. “I stood up the tomato cages. But they smashed the pumpkins and the squash, and they trampled all the corn and the beans and the peanuts.”

“Damn,” Mike swore. “Months spent nurturing them.”

“Can’t you just,” Acey was trying to help, “get more seeds?”

Mike shook his head. “Some of those were custom hybrids,” he explained. “The corn is a hybrid that’s resistant to herbicides. The peanuts were a hypoallergenic hybrid that might not trigger reactions for people with peanut allergies. Some of the strains I’ve been working on since grad school. This’ll set back my research by at least a year.”

Mike shook his head in disbelief.

“This is so NOT what I bargained for,” he sat down just as the crowd outside the courthouse launched into more chanting.

“Maybe not,” Acey pulled up a chair next to the bars of Mike’s cell. “But maybe this is your big opportunity.”

Mike looked up at her. “How do you mean?”

“It’s what I was trying to tell you before class, the other day. Sometimes you have to… to go along to get along. If you just apologize to Sue and to your class and admit you were wrong, my mom said you could get hired on as an adjunct professor.”

“Adjunct?” Mike scoffed. “That’s not even tenure track. Take a cut in pay from my high school salary to take half of a fulltime faculty member’s teaching load for less than a quarter of the salary? Give up my three-year contract at the high school for a job that has to be reappointed semester by semester?”

“You have to start somewhere,” Acey pointed out. “You could get your foot in the door. And the university could work around your school schedule. You wouldn’t have to quit your current job. You just have to admit you were wrong to get your foot in the door teaching at the university level, and a real academic job on your CV.”

“I… wasn’t… wrong,” Mike insisted.

“That… doesn’t… matter,” Acey countered. “What matters is your future… and mine. You do what you have to if you want to get ahead in life. They’re using you as a martyr.”

Acey shook her head in exasperation at her bullheaded boyfriend.

“We both love teaching, Mike,” she pointed out. “We take skulls full of mush, and we train and educate them how to think, you in biology, and me in math. We share a gift for molding young minds. But you have a gift for research, too. You can’t exercise that gift trapped at the high-school level, let alone trapped behind bars here.”

Acey grabbed the bars separating her from Mike.

“They’re setting you up. Do you think the superintendent cares about you? You’re just his poster boy, to be discarded the moment anything goes wrong.

“He set you up.

“He put you in a position of prominence.

“But he set you up for failure.

“You’re taking all the risk.

“He’s trying to take all the glory and pontificating to the reporters like he’s teaching a civics class.

“But he’s going to fail.

“And if you stand with him, you’ll fail too.

“You can’t fight history.

“You can’t fight progress.

“But now that you’re in this position, you can come out on the right side. Your voice will count all the more for it.”

“I’m a scientist and a teacher, Acey,” Mike replied. “Not anyone’s mouthpiece.”

“You have been thrust into a position to do great things,” Acey responded, “if only you have the courage to do it.”

Acey looked at Mike. “I love you, you know. Even if you ARE a stubborn, pig-headed, male-chauvinist, reactionary Nazi, sometimes.” She smiled.

Mike smiled back, stood and walked over the bars. “And I love you too, even if you’re a flaky, bubble-headed, social-justice ‘warriorette’ with aposematic hair.”

They kissed through the bars of Mike’s cell.

The guard watching them cleared his throat, and the lovers unclenched.

“A-pozy-what?” Acey asked, her arms entwined with Mike’s through the bars.

“Aposematism is the bright coloration some animals adopt to advertise they’re poisonous, so predators leave them alone,” Mike explained.

Acey jerked her arms away from Mike’s, stepped back from the bars, and put her hands on her hips. “You with the hair again,” she complained in exasperation. “I should just cut it all off, so you stop bothering me about it.”

“A woman’s hair is a glory to her,” Mike stated with a deadpan expression on his face. “And it’s also a prominent secondary sexual characteristic that demonstrates evolutionary fitness.”

Acey glared at him. “I can tell when you’re not being serious,” she reminded him, “because you get that little wrinkle between your eyebrows.” She pointed at the tell-tale sign.

“Maybe not entirely serious,” Mike burst out into a broad smile, “but your natural hair color is lovely, and you shouldn’t conceal it beneath that garish dye.”

“I have to go,” Acey pulled away shaking her head at Mike’s retrograde thinking.

“Stay safe out there,” Mike advised. “Avoid crowds and large gatherings. They’re trouble.”

“You don’t have to ‘mansplain’ that to me. I can handle myself,” Acey assured him, walking toward the guard waiting by the door. She turned back to him. “You think on it, OK?” Then she blew him a kiss.

“Only if you think on it, too.” Mike returned the gesture. He watched Acey as the guard escorted her out, then he looked toward the window, listening to the senator’s speech as she was concluding.

“We will fight!”

“We will win!

“Because, when we stand together, WE ARE STRONG!”

The senator reaped a cascade of cheers, applause, and chants.

“Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!”

Finally, President Buchmann stepped up.

“Roxy! Roxy! Roxy!” The crowd gave a final chorus before falling silent.

“We have all learned so much from Senator Castillo, and we have all taken courage from her heroic example,” the president began. “And on behalf of the university and the board of trustees, it is our great pleasure and honor to bestow upon our guest the Doctor of Philosophy degree, ‘Honoris Causa,’ in Social Justice and Gender Studies, and to appoint Senator Roberta Xoe Castillo, Adjunct Professor of Social Justice and Gender Studies!”

The crowd indicated their approval with yet another thunderous round of applause.

“I’m also pleased to announce that Profesora Castillo will deliver her inaugural address as this year’s Zebulon and Mindswell Winthrop Endowed Lecturer in Moral Philosophy in Townsend Hall on campus at 7 p.m. this evening. It’s a class you won’t want to miss! We look forward to seeing you all there!”

The crowd began to disperse, while a few surged toward Senator Castillo seeking a closer encounter with their hero. Her aide returned the senator’s purse and interposed himself between her and the crowd.

President Buchmann approached the obviously distressed superintendent to gloat.

“This was NOT part of the deal,” he complained.

“What part of ‘pick your champion,’ did you not understand?” they reminded him. “Well, we picked our champion.” They gestured toward the senator. “Hoist on your old white male patriarchal petard,” they proclaimed with a smile. “You’re going to lose. Badly. And we’re going to ride the momentum to flush out the mayor, and all your reactionary, racist, transphobic school board backers come election day. This is going to be OUR town now. And Roxy here is going to ride the wave straight to the nomination and on into the White House!”

They turned their back to the superintendent and rejoined the throng around Senator Castillo.

The superintendent stood, watching Roxy and the president depart surrounded by a vanguard of enthusiastic supporters.

Then he pulled out his phone, swiped through his contacts, and dialed.

“Hi.…

“Yes, of COURSE, I’ve seen the news; I’m right in the middle of it. So, you saw how they brought in Senator Castillo to lead the prosecution, right?

“Yes…. Yes… Well, I’m concerned the Family, Faith, and Freedom Foundation lawyer you lined up for us might not be able to go toe-to-toe with Senator Castillo. But then I realized who was on your Board of Directors, and…

“Oh…. You’ve already spoken with him about it?

“Really.…

“Well, do you think he might be interested in leading up the defense?

“What? Yes, jury selection starts next week Monday.

“Well, I mean, I can’t imagine the whole thing taking much more than a week or so….

“Right.…

“Well, I can’t see THAT being a problem after what the other side pulled….

“Exactly…. Yes…

“Well, I’ll confirm the judge doesn’t have a problem with it, and I’ll let you know.

“Thanks for the save, pal. They’ll never know what hit ’em.”