bringing to bear

I’ve been in 3 car wrecks. None of them have been serious. No matter the severity, I always seem to ask myself the same question when I step out to confront the other motorist: what is happening? It is not as if I don’t know what just happened or how it happened. But even a 20 mile per hour fender bender is a pretty violent jolt. Its always followed by a consuming silence and the question “what is happening?”

I didn’t know Vince Binder. He was a debater like me; a much better debater. His record speaks for itself. I’ve been following the news on his disappearance closely. I’m still not entirely sure if he is gone forever, but all evidence indicates as much. This year, I have dodged every bullet. College debate is a collection of puzzled personalities that shine back at one another, the glimmer which only other debaters can perceive and are inexplicably drawn toward, despite the distance such light creates at times. Ross Smith, Scott Deatherage, and Doug Duke died earlier in the debate season. Like Vince, I didn’t know them except through reputation. Each of their deaths was a violent jolt to our communal sensibility. What is happening?

This year we debated whether the reduction of nuclear weapons was desirable. Some teams, including myself, forwarded arguments negating the value of human life. After all, we can’t determine if death is good or bad if we don’t know whether a particular incarnation is worth preserving. Could I speak those same arguments to the Binder family, as if they do not know the value of a specific life? Could I even portray that as an option in everyday conversation? The answer to both questions is, without a doubt, no. The act of debating requires that we take much for granted. When my arguments stare me in the face, who blinks first? It’s a game. We play a game. But we just happen to play a game that implicates our being. Winning or losing a chess game does not make me a liar.

I am paused at the humanity portrayed by the debate community in lieu of these events. Sometimes I wonder if we are as sympathetic as we should be. There are times when we are the coldest group of individuals I’ve ever encountered. Not today, though. Must we lose more in order to understand more of ourselves? I hope not. My sanity would not last long if my debate partners, coaches or friends died unexpectedly. Needless to say, mystery clouding such a tragedy would keep me stuttering.

What is happening? It’s a sadness; a frustration and confusion at that which cannot be explained by deductive or inductive logic. The medium through which I rationalize the world collapses, and I know, too, that many others grapple with the understanding part. It is human to want to beat the bark off a tree with a baseball bat when nothing makes sense. He was so young, he was so innovative, he was a champion, he was my mentor, he was a friend and now…they aren’t? no. The barkless tree is proof of that.

What has happened? I stood, dazed in the street, cars zipping by, heads crooked to the scene as two cars lay smoking in the intersection of Rock and Harry Street. I see her, speaking to a child in the backseat. Both looked about each other, collecting evidence that the other is whole and functioning and still theirs. They sat at the side of the road and cradled their heads in their arms. I moved toward them. In a moment, she spoke to me in Spanish. She had the same question as me: are you ok? I don’t speak Spanish; don’t need to in order to understand. We hug tightly adjacent to wreckage. We’re together, faultless and alive.