All the Right Stuff by Walter Dean Myers Page B

Revolution, so Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Adams were probably familiar with their work as they hammered out our Constitution. If you read the Federalist Papers, and imagine the arguments that went on behind closed doors to inspire them, you can sense the same discussions about government, individual rights, and social relationships that the social contract theorists wrestled with.”
    â€œYou read all of this stuff?”
    â€œYes, I have,” Elijah said.
    â€œBoring, right?”
    â€œDo you think it was boring stuff to people who were going to become slaves or indentured servants, or have their land taken away from them?” Elijah asked. “And should it be boring to people who can’t figure out a way of getting off the bottom of the social ladder? People like John Sunday?”
    â€œNo, it shouldn’t.”
    â€œIt’s hard reading, but hard isn’t bad if it’s going to make a difference in your life,” Elijah said. “Thinking isn’t bad, either. I think you know that by now.”
    â€œI got that covered,” I said, feeling kind of confident.
    â€œOkay, so we’ve covered two aspects of the social contract, natural liberty and civil liberty,” Elijah said. “Now we’re going to talk about a third aspect of the social contract—the fact that we are all living under some kind of contract—and then we’re going to mix it up like a good soup with a strong stock of ‘just the way we do things.’”
    â€œIs this going to be confusing?”
    â€œDavid Hume was an interesting thinker,” Elijah went on. “What he thought was that there couldn’t be a true social contract because a true consent of the people would involve everyone agreeing, and that never happens.”
    â€œWhich is what Sly says,” I pointed out.
    â€œAnd there’s enough truth in what all of these thinkers are saying for us to be paying close attention,” Elijah said.
    â€œAnd there’s enough hurting to go around to everybody if you don’t get it right,” I said.
    â€œSay that again?”
    â€œYou want to give me five reasons why I’m wrong, right?” I said.
    â€œNo, repeat what you said about the hurting, Mr. DuPree.”
    â€œI think there’s enough hurting to go around if you don’t get this whole thing down right,” I said. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be like a sharp pain or anything like that, but it could be just being miserable all the time.”
    â€œYou couldn’t have said it better, sir,” Elijah said. “If you take it from Sly’s point of view, they’re hurting because there’s a conspiracy.”
    â€œAnd if you take it from your point of view, they’re hurting because they don’t know about the social contract,” I said.
    â€œAnd if you take it from a conservative point of view, they’re hurting because they won’t follow the social contract,” Elijah said. “But everyone is offering up some form of a social contract.”
    â€œSo now you’re saying I have to deal with it?”
    â€œYou can deal with it or ignore it,” Elijah said. “That’s up to you, but it’s going to be there, and somehow the social contract is going to make your life better or worse. You think we can talk about it tomorrow?”
    â€œSuppose I rupture my brain trying to get all this stuff in?” I asked.
    â€œThen we’ll replace your brain with the largest vidalia onion we can find and see if that makes a difference,” Elijah said.
    â€œYo, Elijah, that’s cold.”
    Mom and I watched the Yankees get wasted by the Red Sox. I thought of telling her what Sly had said about guys using drugs, that they were medicating themselves. It had made me feel a little better about my father, thinking he was trying to stop the hurt rather than just wanting to get high, but I thought I’d think