“How Democracy
with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown
through
the dark by those flashes of lightning!”
-Walt
Whitman
“Excuse
me, can I trouble you for a glass of water?” I asked two women standing in
the yard, hands on their hips, watching their kids push trucks on the
sidewalk. I passed them just a couple minutes before, saw their apprehensive
look, and veered a different way. They were not my Target Voter, and I was
flying through the list my tablet gave me. Those were early days. I brimmed
with optimism, but hadn't yet grasped the mechanics of carrying a
water bottle. One of the ladies ran inside and returned with the water, and
they asked me some basic questions while I drank. “I’m out here supporting
Hillary Clinton,” I told them, prompting one of the sidewalk boys to shout
“Hillary for Prison!” I shook my head, still smiling, trying to imagine what middle school would be like in this climate. “No, no, no.” I told him I was out here
trying to make her President. When he asked why, I knew I sounded like a DNC
official, but when you mean something, you don’t care how you sound: “Because
Hillary Clinton has never given up on anything in her life.”
~
For
the sake of sanity, I decided in the baby days of 2016 to put my
faith in Hillary Clinton. Faith. A delicious word that melts on your
tongue. My support for her coalesced just before Super Tuesday, for a
number of reasons. I saw every Republican debate where Trump ran
roughshod over so many experienced politicians. It was clear before the snow
had even melted that Trump would be walking off with the nomination, and whoever would face him ought to be battle-tried, well-tested,
indomitable. The way I saw it, no one in government fit that description better than Hillary
Clinton. I believed it enough that I looked for any excuse to support her. The
more I looked, digging under the grime that coated Clinton’s public persona,
the more I found someone to believe in—the more I saw a person who deserved to
be President. I guess it would be fair to say I really needed someone to
believe in. Yet it is equally fair to say that Clinton has
worked her entire life to be that someone.
I
got the call just before heading out the door. I was off to wash dishes like I
did every Saturday night. Though I'd started to ignore most calls, I picked up the phone,
discretely hoping that the library position I had applied for a couple weeks
earlier realized their terrible mistake in not hiring me. Turns out I wasn’t
terribly off the mark—opportunity was on the other line. My friend Sally recommended me to Project Fair Share, to canvass for the election— later I would learn she was recommended by our friend Karla. I was ecstatic and told
them, yes, I would be interested in going in for an interview. I didn’t even
realize that it paid. Sitting on my hands was beginning to cut off circulation to my conscience. I went to wash dishes, grinning. I felt foolish, even a little ashamed, that I had not applied myself. Already I was bent on seeing it through.
~
A child was
waving at me through the window. I waved back, hoping whoever came to the door
would be as friendly. In the driveway next door, a thick man in a tank-top was
fiddling with the back of his truck. As the door began to open, I did a mental
coin-flip: mom or dad? I struck dad, and began my familiar questioning. "If the election were held today, would you be
voting for Hillary, Donald, or are you Undecided?" I was using
my outdoor voice, but when he leaned out the door, his kid in his arms, to make
sure his tank-truck-loving neighbor wasn’t listening or looking our way, I
realized the position I had put him in. He kept his voice low, and said
something like, “we’re on your side.” I matched his volume, asking him to sign
our pledge. Still holding his kid, with the child who waved to me hiding just
behind his leg, he pledged to vote for Clinton. Thank you for the work
you’re doing, he said as I turned to leave, deriving a special satisfaction out
of his phrasing— it was the exact sentence I used when our roles
were reversed.
~
You see, in a way, it feels like every tangle of fate, every decision made,
every turn was to ready me for this. Feels silly to say, and even just feeling it shows the way I inflate my role in this election. Everyone’s a botched balloon, inflating themselves. I know my actions and the time I
spent on the streets had little impact, by even the most generous metrics. That
is why organizations make good on their etymology: organizing the time, action
and energy of many into one focused cause. I leaned on this cause. As I said,
it felt almost like I was made for it. As my existence has taken root in this
world, my being wraps itself in curious quirks. The loss of my driver’s license
years ago forced me to rely on my legs for transport, and in the process
overdeveloped my stubbornness for using them. I balk at asking for rides—that
is, if the distance is not too great. Walking has become unparalleled proof
that I am healthy, that I am strong, that I am all I will ever need.
I
also have an affinity for strangers, or at the very least, I enjoy playing
personality roulette. They don’t seem so strange to me. Or perhaps they’re so
strange that I feel like the stranger, the outcast, the guest star on someone
else’s episode. Holding out for an interesting thought stuck somewhere, maybe, waiting for it to be let out. Regardless there is, as always, a disconnect between
thought and action. Believing we are all the same—or at least desire the same,
blurring distinction— does not mean striking up conversation with every
person I meet. Though in my top form that is precisely what I want. I am
overwhelmed by the gorgeous variety. I s'pose it wasn't always like this, but at some point I had been caught by the net of Whitman’s question:
“Stranger!
If you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak
to me? And why should I not speak to you?”
My presence clings to a pendulum between this and social anxiety. I am still answering the
question.
~
The only
thing I needed to excel at this position was the desire to affect the outcome
of the election. I had that in spades, spades, and spades. I had a whole shed
full of spades dedicated solely to seeing this election through. Thinking
backward over the year makes it remarkably clear the stakes I drove into this
election. When my days were consumed by compulsory labor, I checked the circus
every hour. When I forfeited my job to research chemicals and
competitive gaming, news of the election was the only reality I acknowledged. When I got another job and drowned in the transition, thinking
quite often about stuff that scared the shit out of me, I spent untold hours
scanning forums, reading articles and hundreds of comments a day. Emerging from the
deep, what tossed its light my way like a lighthouse was the 2016 election. Some
have likened it to end of the world. It kept mine going.
~
Out of the
aluminum brick stepped an enormous man. His stature was so immense, he had to
duck his head to clear the doorframe. I stuffed my flight response into a
bottle and sent it down river. I was ready for a fight— of ideology. I asked the titan who he was
voting for. He slowly replied that he was Undecided. I expected him to wheel
around, then, creating a thrust of wind from the force of it. Yet he stayed,
hearing what I had to say. I felt immeasurably small, but because he just stood
there, listening, it felt like we were standing eye to eye. I started to rush,
worried that what kept him there was beginning to dissipate. If he coughed I
thought that might send me running. He listened to every word. I said thank
you and left, wishing that I had taken my time, and been less afraid.
~
The bitter
reality of the job did not shake me. I had taken a job canvassing before, when
I was living in Boston, freshly graduated and desperate for a way to remain in
that draining city. That time, though, I canvassed the street for Planned
Parenthood, which meant rooting myself to a corner and watching the people flow
past me like water around a river stone. Three years I had been living in
Boston, and I had never stopped for a street canvasser. No one stopped. They knew I
was a mugger without a weapon. Even the most ardent supporters of women's
health care had their limits. It was unpleasant business: after the third day, I
couldn’t bring myself to go.
Knocking on
doors seemed like a rotisserie of soirée’s by comparison. If no one answered,
there was nothing to feel bad about. You crossed one off the list. If the
person who answered was having a bad day, you could turn tail and hit the next
one. Very different from street canvassing, where every member of the group
sets up shop on the same block or two (so that you can all fail together). Having a
“turf” of your own gives a palpable sense of agency. You set your pace. Chasing
nothing but your own ghost, moving through the dimly-lit hours, door by door.
Any unpleasantness melted on the back-burner knowing a man away from
home need feel no shame. I took deep breaths, studied the clouds, and
with occasional lucky altitude, looked up toward distant mountains.
~
The first
day the three of us worked together was our journey to Greeley. It was, we were told, part farming
town and part college town. If it weren’t for the landscape, and the sole-hour
car ride, I could have believed we were in Iowa. It certainly smelled the
same—like shit. Or, as my relatives from Iowa would joke, like money. The smell
was only the first layer of determent. In a display of obnoxious
aggrandizement, our Field Manager had been lauding Greeley's shortcomings the
entire ride up there. You don’t necessarily need to work in canvassing for six
years, as he claimed to, to see why it’s harmful to fill your team’s heads with
worst-case scenarios. He lacked basic tact, along with much else. I had been in his group once before, and already knew that most of what
came out of his mouth smelled worse than the air in Greeley.
Despite
distrusting the source, words have a way of seeping into your confidence like
carbon monoxide. Wishing I had a cigarette to smoke, I grew anxious in
anticipation of what was built up to be our toughest turf yet. When my
anxiety became apparent to Karla and Sally, that didn't help either— it
did not bode well that I was nervous. I had already sold myself
as some kind of natural, which can only be described as a carefully construed
con. I had certain advantages, no doubt. But when it came down to it, believing
that I had advantages worked more in my favor than the advantages themselves.
We headed into the streets of Greeley, armed with images of wife-beaters,
snarling dogs, and trailer parks— a sea of disenfranchisement.
~
Most of the doors knocked went unopened, just like everywhere else. The ones
that did open, however, often revealed a Hispanic family inside, sometimes
watching the TV or congregating around dinner. I summoned what tasted like
Spanish, but nowhere near sharply enough. Yo tengo un pregunta, was the best
I could manage. Clinton o Trump? The question
of the year, and I could see it furrowing into their brows. Siempre Clinton. Perhaps I
had gotten lucky in the turf I was assigned, but I hardly ran into any of the
caricatures we were warned about. I thought that if one in twenty, or even one
in ten, people were rude or horrible, it was logically bankrupt to give them
any credence. Didn’t Ghandi say a thing about not letting a few dirty drops
spoil the ocean? This realization should have come as a relief. But like a
dense, intimidating book you’ve heard so much about, I was stuck on Chapter
One. I couldn’t move past the setup, the introduction, the bleak description of
what seemed to be just another, though slightly more populated, rural town.
Considering our Field Manager hailed from Arkansas, it grated on me all the
more that he would short-change the area as much as he had. As the sky
darkened, so did my mood.
One
of my advantages was one I had grown accustomed to— being
a white male. I maneuvered through dark streets without having to expend
any additional thought energy for my safety. This advantage was at the fore of
my thoughts when our group text began blowing up after sunset. Neither of my
female classmates felt safe at all in this place, and I could see why. Certain
areas lacked sidewalks. Long stretches of broken pavement had no street light
whatsoever. And while my hopes for open exchange colored my interactions, it
only takes one jagged soul to fracture your optimism, leaving you to pick up
the pieces. It only takes one set of wild eyes to make you feel unsafe.
I
kept knocking.
~
I
am walking my thoughts. Or—my thoughts are walking me. With every step, I
re-determine my purpose, sharpening my psychosis into a sharp, singular point.
I look to the sky, appreciating the breadth and depth of clouds. What poem
or painting does anything justice, I
wonder. Every step, I think inspiration and expiration—singing songs for
Hillary, wandering the desert to stop Donald. My steps sound like: Donald.
Trump. Donald. Trump. I am struck by
the image that wherever I go, I swim in the wake of the Donald. Journeyer
through his aftermath, stepping across his giant footstep, there is no place
for me to go but where Trump has left his slimy, boisterous mark. I determine,
am determined. Eager to shatter what remnants of esteem he is grasping at.
Eager for him to join the list—of Romney, McCain, Kerry, Gore, Dole—the
democratic tradition of losers. The Clintons win, I told myself. The Clintons will make winners of
us all.
~
A man with more hair on his chest than his head approached the screen door. The
room was washed in a whitish-blue from the TV nestled in the corner. I sucked
in a breath to prepare myself for any reaction he would have to my presence. I
assumed that anyone over fifty would despise me by default, simply for the way
I smiled. They would think I had so much to learn about life, if I smiled like
that. Like sharks and blood, the stink of my youth should be enough to turn any
geezer rabid. It was not like that, though. He was forthcoming with me about
being Undecided. Like with so many others, I let him know that he was not alone—that
despite the clear contrast between the two candidates, there were people who
felt they were not being heard. His principal issue was Obamacare.
It should be
noted that while we were out there in support of Hillary Clinton, the
“persuasive” part of the campaign had wrapped up a few weeks prior. Our
stated mission for knocking on doors was, at this point, to get out the vote,
and to do that we were required to hit a certain amount of doors in a night. To
this end, we were told to keep our conversations brisk and to the point. But I couldn’t resist a meaty conversation, especially when
so much of the night involved staring at closed doors. I didn’t ask, but
guessing by the tone of his disappointment, it seemed possible that he voted
for Obama, at least once. Like many others, he seemed let down by the
reality of the bloated legislation. I made my case in direct terms. “To
be honest, at this point,” I began hesitantly, skirting toward an ugly truth,
“Obamacare, at least in many states, is here to stay. So the realistic question
is, do we elect someone who will work to make it better? Or do we elect someone
who claims he will repeal it, with no stated plan for how to do so?”
~
These
were the conversations I was knocking on wood to have. The moments of clarity I wanted to
see in the faces of people who had been left behind. I believed— yeah, wanted
badly to believe, that these were the moments that, if multiplied, could save
these States. That was the story I sold to drive one foot in front the other. I
wasn’t in total Fairyland, either—the people I spoke with, the troubled lives I
was allowed to hold, were the ones
clamoring to be heard. It’s just that the disaffected in Colorado were not the
ones who held the scroll. It was the decaying towns of Ohio, the long-ignored
panhandle of Florida, the hollowed-out pockets of Michigan. Enormous
portions of our people have been left out of the conversation, and on November
8th were given the
chance to be heard.
They
voted.
~
In
the sweeping rouse of this election, I had few opportunities to pen down all
that I was experiencing, gathering, and absorbing. I wished I had been more
diligent, and said all I wanted to say before being gut-punched by
politics-as-usual. Now, I stand alone in the crossroads holding half a
manuscript, watching tumbleweeds roll by with a self-conscious humor. I guess
this is the West, after all. The people are fewer in number, with elastic
hearts that allow plenty of room as they go. I listen to the wind make music by
rustling chimes of memory. I know that failure compels more strongly than
victory. I know what I must do, but I don’t know how to do it. Spilled water
cannot be poured back, I remember, and
start the work of lending my voice to others.
~
I
think of the woman in Arvada asking “Who is it?” before opening the door, which was covered by a black
Halloween tarp of sorts. She apologized for treating me with such caution.
“Normally, I’d look through the peephole, but—“ pointing to the tarp, she
trailed off. She was a curvy woman, with a voice that rang out in the dark. Her
children scurried in a room of mostly wood behind her, making nations of noise.
She was Undecided, and I was grateful—as one of my last houses of the night, I
now had a reason to stay and talk with someone, who was so easy to talk to,
reminding me of my mother. “I’m a project planner,” she explained, “and I like
to look at all of the evidence and make the most informed decision possible.”
This meant she had made up her mind that she wouldn’t make up her mind until
the big day. I tried to not shiver from the cold while I offered my
perspective: that our planet will die without treatment, that all our debts
will go unpaid, that so much of what we take for granted can be ripped away by
the same benevolent mechanisms. She seemed moved by my reluctance to leave her
doorstep. I wanted to stay, to pore over the evidence with her until she was
sure of her decision. But it’s almost bedtime, she said, adding a thank god with a laugh —I laughed, feeling that too.
That
was the night I lost my map. It had sprang out of my pocket somewhere, maybe
hoping to catch a glimpse of the world that had been imprinted onto its face.
Not realizing this, I was careless with my phone usage, teetering at 1% around
nine o’clock, which was the time for me to be extracted from god-knows-where.
I had not memorized the extraction point. I shot a text to my Field Manager,
describing where I was in the briefest terms, but the screen went blank,
leaving me in apprehensive mystery. Stranded, I gave in to panic, sprinting
around the outlines of where I thought I was supposed to be— sometime after
nine, my faith evaporated. The dark streets seemed more foreign than before. My
breaths became short and rapid. I cursed my confidence, and the luck that held
both my phone and map for ransom. I felt a fool for walking streets like they
were my own— for acting like I am from this place, like I belong, like I was
anything other than what I was—a stranger in a strange land, knocking on the
doors of strangers. I did not even have a home to return to. My body hunched on
the lip of the curb, wanting it to be over, feeling, in an eerie forecast, like
I was going to cry.
~
My last day canvassing was an uncomfortably warm day in Westminster. I met many more folks who were either
under or over-whelmed by their choices. I can only say that I was glad to be at
their door. Feeling the urgency of their decision in my throat, I made my
emphatic case for Secretary Clinton. With the too-close sun cooking my back, I
tried incorporating weather into my skit— “in case you haven’t noticed, it’s
pretty hot out here for November,” etc. I flipped from friendly to serious in
seconds, often partway through sentences. Like a traveling doctor, I came to
their door with a grim prognosis. “The reality of this election is that we
absolutely need to move forward on Climate Change. Hillary has the right idea
when she says America should be the ‘clean energy superpower.’ If we elect
Donald, we are sentencing ourselves to four years of guaranteed zero progress—
and worse, we will probably accelerate the issue.” No one was buying my
medicine more than I was. The longer I was out there—and on this fourth, final
day, my aches had been put away—my conviction hardened into a cast around my
bones. The cracks in my judgment, though, were beginning to show.
So many mothers betraying the kids in their arms. So many who looked
me in the eye and felt bold enough to say "I'm not voting this year." This year. As if their vote in four, or even two years could be difference enough! Though I recognize the right of each person to abstain from voting if they choose, I also recognize our planet's deteriorating condition. Maybe apathy and ignorance was worth defending at some point, though I couldn't tell you when. Incredible how many folks feel justified in their complacency. At least the Undecided ones were brave enough to admit being lost. Though there have been widespread reports of voter suppression, and those that tried but fell short have my endless sympathy-- 47% of eligible voters sitting out fills me with mouth-foaming shame. Those who shrugged their shoulders should be the first to be swallowed by the
ocean.
~
Though
the divide is wide and deep, some still can’t see which side has a place for them—so
they fall through that open space. The Undecided baffles: half of Democrats
believe Republicans are dangerous, and it goes the other way. To be Undecided,
at this point in our history, is to think that neither are dangerous—or that
they each bring their own set of dangers to the table. I have heard some pretty
galling things said about the Undecided ones—but theirs is the path out of
partisanship. Sure, some may have an issue with listening, but some are
listening more than most. There is no way forward that doesn’t demand deep
listening. To each other, to the things unsaid, the patchwork existences that over and
over shout I am here, and I am valid. We grow
comfortable when we’ve figured it out—and comfort kills progress.
~
I
dream of standing in a dark hallway. Exceptionally wide, with no wall of
windows at the end to show how long. The hall a river of darkness, endlessly
flowing. No one knows I am here, flanked on both sides by doors, so many doors.
Nearly unperceivable slivers of light hover above ground, lighting my path like
the aisle of an airplane, miniscule cuts in the darkness. My feet silently
scrape the ground, but I cannot will them to move. My heart thumps in my
throat, my mind rifles through the rhetoric, my hands slump in my pockets. I
know that even if I knock on one of the doors, no one would answer. The
election is over. The only sound in that space is the haunt of a hundred
screen doors, shrieking, sighing, all opening and closing to the rhythm of my
breath.
