Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [69]
Few in the room were prepared for the barrage of insults about to be hurled at the Elks Club. Take William Jennings Bryan, add some Jimmy Stewart, and throw in a healthy dose of Don Rickles, and I’m guessing that’s what it must’ve sounded like to the assembled as I unleashed my invective disguised as a speech.
About halfway through my rant, I looked over toward the teacher/judge. He sat there without expression or emotion. I felt my heart skip a beat, as I was not used to being in trouble—and the last thing I wanted was for my parents to have to drive down to East Lansing and haul me home. I occasionally glanced at the other Boys Staters in the room to see how this was going down. Some looked at me in fear, others had that “boy-is-he-gonna-get-it” look on their faces—and the black kid in the room… well, what can I say, he was the only black kid in the room. He was trying to cover the smile on his face with his hand.
When the speeches were over, the teacher/judge went to the head of the class to issue his verdict. I slunk down in my seat, hoping that he would simply announce the winner and not issue any rebukes.
“Thank you, all of you, for your well-thought-out and well-written speeches,” he began. “I was impressed with each and every one of you. The winner of this year’s Elks Club Boys State Speech Contest is… Michael Moore! Congratulations, Michael. That was a courageous thing to do. And you’re right. Thank you.”
I didn’t realize it, but he was already shaking my hand, as were about a third of the other boys.
“Thank you,” I said somewhat sheepishly. “But I really didn’t wanna win anything. I just wanted to say something.”
“Well, you sure said something,” the teacher replied. “You’ll receive your award tomorrow at the closing ceremonies with all two thousand boys in attendance.
“Oh—and you’ll have to give the speech to them.”
What? Give what to whom?
“It’s the tradition. The winner of the Elks Club speech gives his speech at the closing assembly, where they announce the election results and hand out all the awards.”
“Um, no, I don’t really wanna do that,” I said, distressed, hoping he would take pity on me. “You don’t really want me to give that speech, do you?”
“Oh, yes I do. But it’s not up to me, anyway. You have to give it. That’s the rule.”
He also told me that for my own good, he wasn’t going to mention to anyone the content of the speech before tomorrow. Oh, yes, that’s much better, I thought. Let them all be hit with it fresh, like a big surprise, the kind which has the speaker being chased from the great hall, his prize in one hand, his life in the other.
After winning the speech contest, my night went something like this: “Fire and Rain,” bathroom. “Across the Universe,” bathroom. “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” bathroom. And when you’re seventeen and you don’t have a car and you aren’t prone to walking long distances—and you live in a state where mass transit is outlawed—there is a sense of imprisonment. That’s it—I was in Boys State Prison! By morning, I had said my final prayers and made a promise to myself that if I got out of this alive, I’d never cause trouble like this again.
The time came and thousands of Boys Staters were ushered into the university hall. On the stage sat various officials, including, I believe, the real governor of Michigan. I took a seat near the front, on the side, and quickly scanned the place for guys who enjoyed being white. There was virtually no long hair here in 1971, and way too many of them had that clean-cut, disciplined, aggressive look that would probably serve them well after a year or two in the Hanoi Hilton, if not the U.S. Congress.
You will have to forgive me for the order of what came next because the event became a blur. My basic survival instincts had kicked in, and that was all that mattered. Someone was elected lieutenant governor or attorney