Free Unfinished Business by Karyn Langhorne

persons in lots of ways.” The kid was running through American history like he was talking about the latest video game. “Look at what happened after that hurricane in New Orleans.”
    â€œI agree. That was a national disgrace,” Mark said. “And there’s plenty of blame to go around. But let’s stick to the Constitution and the laws that support it for now. In our government and our laws, the language of racism is gone. True, in the days after slavery in the South, there were some issues. Some abuses. But all of that—slavery, and Jim Crow and segregation—that was a long time ago.” He smiled, trying to turn the tide in a new direction. “You kids live in a much better, much different world, where any of us can accomplish anything, if we’re willing to work hard enough for it. Ms. Johnson and I disagree on a million things, but that’s one thing we can agree on, right?”
    Their eyes locked and he read conflict on her face. There was a part of her that wanted to disagree, he was sure of it, he could read it in the tightness inher face. He could almost hear the words—“legacy of slavery,” “reparations,” “lingering discrimination”—hovering on her lips. But there was another part, one that couldn’t bring itself to tell a room full of ten-year-olds to put limits on their dreams.
    She sighed a tiny little sigh before allowing a slow smile to spread across her face. “Yes. If you’re willing to work hard enough, if you refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer, if you’re willing to fight for it, then yes,” she said. “You can do anything.”
    Mark grinned at her, patted Damon on the back and stumped back up to the chair at the front of the room.
    â€œEven if you’re poor?” Anthony launched the words at him like a missile.
    Mark nodded. “I come from one of the poorest states in the Union,” he told the boy. “My family was very poor. We didn’t have running water in the house until I was twelve. You know what that means?”’
    A murmur of curious no’s went up around him.
    â€œIt means nothing happens when you turn on the faucet. It means there aren’t any faucets, or sinks or bathtubs. You take a bath in a metal tin filled with water from the rain barrel or the nearby lake. And when you have to go to the bathroom, you go outside. In a hole in the ground.”
    A chorus of “ews” and “ughs” filled the room.
    â€œMy cousin’s water got cut off ’cause they couldn’t pay the bill,” a little girl explained loudly, waving her hand as though trying to get called on. “They had to buy water from the grocery store to make the toilets flush.”
    â€œThat happened to my godmother—”
    â€œOnce we had to take baths at my grandmother’s house because there weren’t no water—”
    Erica threw her hand in the air, her fingers splayedinto what looked like a peace sign. “Settle down, young people. Settle down! Senator Newman was just trying to make a point—”
    â€œNo, I was just telling them about my life,” Mark corrected. “I’ve been as poor as anybody in this room. Poor in a way people don’t believe still happens in this country. But I always liked school, and I was always willing to work hard, and the military taught me self-discipline. Those three things, more than anything, are the reasons I was able to escape from that poverty.” He turned toward the doorway, half wishing he could have convinced Erica Johnson to allow at least one reporter in the room. The press would have loved this exchange, would have eaten it up with a spoon. He could almost hear the violins as the movie of his life came to its rushing crescendo, and made a quick mental note to ask Bitsi if there might be a way to schedule some kind of “kids’ town meeting” when he went back