This Is How It Begins

by Joan Dempsey

  “How can this be nothing, Tommy? It’s not like you’ve had to deal with this kind of thing before.”

  Tommy let out a small sigh and shook his head. He looked at Abe and gestured toward the coffee maker, inquiring, and Abe thanked him and said yes. Tommy turned away to get a mug out of a cabinet, and Lolek began to feel smaller still, and again he knew the better thing to do was move past this moment, let all of them off the hook, and he made himself take a bite of the scone, which was crunchy, then tender, then exploding with the savory flavor of cheese and green onion. But Lolek was puzzled—truly puzzled—about what kind of fear Tommy might be talking about, what possible fear he might have experienced growing up in a liberal family in the even more liberal town of Hampshire, Massachusetts, and then in the heart of Cambridge for his graduate degree in arts education at Harvard. And hadn’t Lolek done everything possible, hadn’t he pushed past his own discomfort and—he had to admit—disappointment, and accepted Tommy’s coming out with love and grace and support? Hadn’t he devoted a large part of his career to gay rights—and at significant political risk—and welcomed Robert with open arms? Hadn’t he always gone out of his way to make sure both of his kids were protected, especially Tommy?

  “It’s not that I don’t know what gay men have to face, Tommy, you know that.”

  He spoke calmly, trying to sound merely concerned and interested.

  “I can recite a lengthy list of hate crime victims, and I know what happened to each and every one: Jeremy Waggoner, Bill Clayton, Dano Fetty, Charlie Howard, Matthew Shepard of course, Scotty Joe Weaver, Brandon Teena. I could go on, believe me. But for you, until this assault …?”

  He raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands as if to ask what? He was afraid he hadn’t succeeded with his tone, that he might have come across as preachy, or patronizing. Tommy gently scratched around the edges of the ragged Steri-Strip, and focused on anything other than Lolek. Robert stepped forward and handed around the basket of scones.

  “It’s really just a matter of degree, Senator.”

  Robert spoke reasonably and formally, as if addressing a judge, as if no tension had entered the room.

  “In some strange way it’s almost a relief this has happened. It’s easy to convince yourself that all those second looks have nothing to do with physical violence—that all the taunts and shunning and mistrust aren’t cousins to aggravated assault or getting fired from your job. We like to believe they’re merely the folly of ignorant people, that they’re simply what you have to tolerate to be different in this world. But we know better. We know we can’t cater to bullies, and that’s why we refuse to alarm our house; it would only be window dressing on a danger no alarm can keep out, a so-called ‘security’ system designed to convince us that inside we are safe, we can let down our guard. But we can never let down our guard. Does that make sense? It’s why we’re going to fight this thing as hard and as far as we can.”

  As if he’d just realized how lawyerly he sounded, Robert smiled sheepishly and ducked his head.

  “That’s it. I didn’t mean to get into closing-remarks mode.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Izaac. He held a fist over his mouth and cleared his throat. “Shall we get going?”

  The words taunting and shunning resounded in Lolek’s head, and he snuck a glance at Marta, but her expression told him nothing. He wondered when it had happened that they’d stopped presenting a united front, and when and where Tommy might have been bullied, whether any of it had taken place on his watch. He studied his son’s battered face and felt ashamed that he had to wonder such a thing, that he truly had no idea. The family man in him began again to recoil, and he wasn’t sure if it was his father’s calm suggestion that they move on, or the fact that Robert had respectfully answered his question in a reasonable tone of voice and had addressed him as “Senator,” but the politician in Lolek finally and thankfully stirred and took hold of the family man and shook him hard, reminding him that this was just another challenge he had to face, a challenge he could surely meet, that he was a powerful senator, after all, who’d been tasked with handling a crafty opponent. He had damn well better pull it together to figure out exactly how they were going to get justice for his son.

  —

  “Where does the teacher’s union fit in here?” asked Marta. “Back when I was teaching they would have been all over this. Shouldn’t they be involved?”

  They’d all moved into the dining room, where there was more space at the table, and Lolek had deliberately let Robert and Abe sit at either head of the table, since they were leading the case. Lolek had chosen a seat next to Marta; he wanted her within reach in case an opportunity presented itself to soften the tension between them.

  “We did consult with the MTA,” said Robert, “but in the end they can only deal with contractual issues, not with statutory ones, and by law we can choose only one route or the other, either union or private counsel.”

  “That’s why I called Abe from the outset,” said Izaac. “Going the private route means we have more statutory options, most notably venturing beyond mere contractual issues into the arena of employment discrimination.”

  “And besides,” said Tommy. “Who wouldn’t rather work with Abe?”

  Abe smiled and inclined his head toward Tommy.

  “I talked it through with Joey Condon, too,” said Lolek to Marta. “He’s the MTA president, owes me a few, and he told me in confidence he thought hiring private counsel was a better choice in this instance. This way Tommy himself is the party to arbitration, rather than the MTA standing in on Tommy’s behalf.”

  “And let’s be clear,” said Izaac. “Publicity is also a key component here, not only for Tommy, but for all those other teachers, and no matter what happens in arbitration, going the statutory route means the decision will be available to the public, and that means media exposure.”

  Lolek forced himself to appear neutral in response to this, despite feeling vindicated about his own approach to using the media. Maybe now Marta and Tommy would be reminded that Lolek did know how to use the press to advance a cause, that he wasn’t solely motivated by egotistical or political reasons designed to keep himself in the public eye.

  “But what if—God forbid—we come out on the losing side?” said Marta. “Won’t the publicity just cause further damage?”

  Lolek tore off a big piece of a scone and popped it into his mouth to help himself resist the urge to jump in with a response. Let his father make his case for him. And Izaac did. He explained that it was important to think about the bigger picture in all of this, and that the more media attention the issue received, the more the larger issue got brought into the public discourse.

  “We could do worse than Wendy Chen,” said Izaac. “That she’s out there on a snowy Saturday means she cares about the issue. She’s a fair-minded journalist, but she’s also got a track record of giving minority groups the benefit of the doubt. If I’m not mistaken, her daughter—or maybe it’s her niece—is lesbian.”

  “That’s no guarantee,” said Tommy.

  “We have two days,” said Izaac. “And I have only this meeting to help out before I get on a plane, so let’s get busy. I’ve roughed out the complaint we’ll submit to the Mass Commission Against Discrimination, so we’ll be ready if arbitration doesn’t go well. Tommy, where are you with urging your colleagues to do the same?”

  “I’ve given them detailed information about filing a complaint, and I also took your advice and contacted as many of the others who were fired to urge them to get prepared, too. They’re going to e-mail me their narratives and chronologies, and I’ll share them around so we can each use them to build a case for conspiracy. I’m getting nothing but positive responses—these people want to fight.”

  “Excellent! The more complaints the commission receives on this issue, the more of a chance we’ve got. Abe, where are we on arbitration strategy?”

  “First order of business is that the school didn’t
follow the law—Chapter 71 Section 42. They were required to give notice of their intent to dismiss ten days before they actually let Tommy go, and they were supposed to give him a full rationale and any accompanying documents so he would have an opportunity to contest. Any honest arbitrator should toss out the dismissal on those grounds alone, so there’s some hope there, but Connie Clough is a tough cookie, and I suspect that right out of the gate he’ll hammer on the idea of safety for those kids, claiming—I’m sorry to say, Tommy—that they had to remove Tommy immediately because their kids were at risk. It will be a bit of a hard sell since the regulatory code 603 CMR 26.00 does make it crystal clear that each school must have a notification, complaint, and dismissal procedure, and the way they fired Tommy clearly conflicts with Adams High’s own written rules based on those regs. Still, I’m a bit worried about Pat Kinney, the arbitrator—he’s not the most even-handed guy, and I’ve heard it said he skews hard toward the religious right. He should throw out the case and reinstate you on those grounds alone, so that could be room for appeal should it come to that.”

  “What about the LGBT kids?” said Robert. “Would it benefit our case to point out that the environment has to be safe for them, too? Surely we’ve got kids who will testify.”

  Abe scrunched up his face, thinking. “That’s a tricky one. It could backfire on us, even though in principle it’s right on. I say we keep that one in our back pocket. It would help to compile some bullying and suicide statistics on gay teens. Can you get those, Lolek?”

  “My staff is already on it.”

  “Good. So. Clough will try to keep the entire focus on Tommy alone, which is what the arbitrator is also charged with doing; it’s up to us to continually put Tommy’s case into the larger context of this statewide witch hunt in order to keep Kinney’s doubt alive about the school’s—or should I say church’s—motives. We can make a good case for discrimination—these schools are clearly in violation of the Fair Employment Practices law, which specifically prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. We have that damning recording from the meeting with Shaw and Dengler.”

  “About my so-called homosexual agenda,” said Tommy.

  “They do love that phrase,” said Robert.

  Abe smiled.

  “What we have to do is make Tommy’s specific situation hard to reconcile with the simultaneous dismissals around the state and the filing of all those bills. Where are you on those, Lolek?”

  “We’ve managed to kill several of them already. The moral piety bill was relatively easy since it modified one of those obscure and ancient laws, the kind people like to scoff at, like no spitting on the sidewalk or no putting tomatoes in clam chowder. Committee members couldn’t see dealing with the press on that one. I’ve been assured that the bill modifying Chapter 71 Section 39, which would have made it legal again to ask prospective teachers about their religious beliefs and political affiliations, will be sent to study committee. The constitutional issues involved are too squirrely, and of course once it’s in study, it won’t get out. There were a couple of others that were so blatant even Gauch couldn’t get behind them. I have to tell you, though, the fight to table them wasn’t simple—they got killed by only the slimmest majority. We’ve got our work cut out for us on the one we’re most concerned has legs, House Bill 1298, which is the one I suspect they were championing all along. The others were probably filed primarily to divert our attention.”

  “That’s the one that allows the board of ed to define sound moral character as it applies to teachers?” asked Izaac.

  “That’s right. They’ve titled it An Act Further Protecting Our Schoolchildren.”

  “Smart,” said Izaac. “That’s pretty smart.”

  “On the surface it doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing, does it?” said Marta.

  “That’s exactly right,” said Lolek. “But as the bill is written, it’s not demanding a statutory definition of sound moral character. It’s demanding that the law would allow the board to define it in any way they want, whenever they want, which means the definition can be changed at any time, dependent on the current makeup of the board.”

  “You can see why people would want to support it,” said Abe. “They’ll only be thinking about themselves and their own values, how they’d want that flexibility, especially over time.”

  “So it’s a blank slate,” said Tommy.

  “Exactly what Aggie said; you’re absolutely right.”

  Lolek immediately wished he hadn’t mentioned Aggie. It’s not that Tommy didn’t like her, just the opposite, but he suspected that in Tommy’s mind, invoking her presence put Lolek more squarely in politician mode, which seemed to have become problematic, and he had liked the way this gathering was turning out; he had started to feel like he was making progress with his son. As luck would have it, though, Tommy gave him a wry smile and said, “Me and Aggie, great minds,” and Lolek began at last to relax.

  “What do you think our chances are with 1298?” said Robert.

  “Honestly, it’s far too early to know. The hearing’s scheduled for March eighteenth, Wednesday—seventeen calendar days to get ready. The public hearing isn’t always important, but for this one, because of the media attention, it will be crucial. I’ve got my best staff liaising with the appropriate groups, and I know Aggie’s going to call you and Robert, Tommy, to see who else we haven’t thought of who we might enlist. I’ll have her send you the bills, Abe.”

  He pulled out his phone and texted Aggie.

  “Done. You should have them in your e-mail.”

  “Boy,” said Abe. “I need an Aggie Roth.”

  “Who doesn’t?” said Tommy, and Lolek wasn’t sure if he meant it facetiously or not, but Tommy was smiling.

  “One good thing about the arbitration hearing,” said Abe, “is that the burden of proof is on the school, not on us, and I think we can make a darned good case for discrimination. They certainly weren’t forthcoming about sharing complaints with Tommy, so how could he have possibly made any necessary changes?”

  “And I would have!”

  Robert laid a hand on Tommy’s forearm.

  “He’s been heartsick about those Christian kids. It’s killing him that he can’t reach out to them.”

  “Then let’s talk about those kids,” said Abe.

  He lifted a folder to show it to Robert, who sorted through a small stack of folders for his own copy.

  “What we have to do,” said Abe, “is go through these complaints one by one and determine how we’re going to respond to them, if asked. They’re likely to come down hard on the First Amendment, saying your behavior curtailed free speech. They might also try to make a case for free exercise of religion—you might not think it’s relevant in the classroom but you’d be surprised. We’re going to hear the phrase against our sincere religious beliefs over and over again, probably from the kids they’ll get to testify. So, you’ll have to be brutally honest with us about these complaints, Tommy. I want you to search your memory as hard as you can and look for anything you said that might have been misconstrued. We can’t have any surprises in there.”

  Tommy nodded soberly.

  “What about a curriculum expert?” he said. “Someone who can assess what I teach and prove it’s balanced, which it is. I mean, I also teach T.S. Eliot! If East Coker isn’t Christian, I don’t know what is.”

  “Maybe have someone on call for that?” said Izaac. “In some ways it’s beside the point, since you’re still teaching the writers these folks object to.”

  “I agree,” said Abe. “Tommy, if you can find someone? Great. We also have to go through that list again that you put together of supportive witnesses to see who will present themselves well, and make sure we’re all well versed with the written evidence you collected about your success as a teacher. Lolek has provided some background data on—sorry, Tommy, I hate to say it, but you know it could come up—pedophilia, so I want each of you to familiarize yourself with the
data and arguments.”

  Abe paused, and everyone fell silent. He put both hands on his head and smoothed back what little hair he had. He sighed.

  “I’m sorry to say it, but I think we need to be prepared for a sexual harassment argument.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” said Robert.

  “But that’s ludicrous,” said Marta.

  Tommy touched the tender skin around the edges of the Steri-Strip.

  “Oh,” said Lolek in a quiet voice. “Oh, I see. Jesus Christ, really?”

  Abe and Izaac both nodded. Robert got an expression on his face like he’d just realized what they were implying. Lolek rubbed a hand hard across his forehead and closed his eyes.

  “Will someone please explain this to me?” said Marta.

  “It’s the law about fair educational practice,” said Lolek. “Chapter 151C.”

  Marta made an impatient gesture with her hand.

  “Our problem,” said Lolek, “could be in how sexual harassment is defined. It’s got some serious wiggle room in it.”

  Robert was consulting his iPhone.

  “Here we go,” he said. “The term sexual harassment means any sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, when … and here it goes into specifics about whether kids would be rewarded or punished for submitting to or rejecting sexual advances and so on, and then we get to the tricky part. What they say here is that sexual harassment takes place when Such advances, requests or conduct—and I think it’s that word conduct that’s the real problem—have the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s education by creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating or sexually offensive educational environment.”

  “Oh my god,” said Tommy. “They told us when we met that they thought the kids were at risk. They said the kids felt unsafe, like they were targeted by my quote-unquote agenda.”

  He looked around at each of them, his eyes wide.