October 29, 2004
Next Week
In Ohio there’s an elderly lady with handicap plates and the fate of civilization rests on whether her ankle holds through the weekend.
There’s an office in Florida with an overburdened fuse-box that will determine how generations of your family will vote.
There’s a chance of rain that will delay traffic and prevent a suburban mother from picking up the DVDs and Lucas will throw a tantrum and the roast will burn and “what time do the polls close?” and another 100,000 Iraqis are annihilated.
Next Tuesday is like the bowling ball on the bed that they use to illustrate the warping of space and time and I can feel my own history bending around it too.
In November of 1980 my dad took me with him to the church on our corner to vote. He made the selections and then let me pull the red lever, and on the way home he explained that if Reagan won the country would go to hell. When Carter lost, I was convinced that it was my fault; I was six, I wasn’t old enough to vote. That night I went to the corner and threw sticks at the bats flying above the church.
If Kerry wins next Tuesday that original electoral disappointment will be resolved. If he wins I'll let myself believe that there is a logic to history and human events. My endorphins will flow differently, something will shift and my mood will change. It will be subtle, an evolution of chemicals and details, but it will happen.
If Bush wins I’m not going to be much fun to be around. I already hate the president, but if he wins again I’ll be convinced that Americans are bred in vats of greed and ignorance and that Democracy is a sham. My outlook is going to have an effect on my mood around the office. I'll become more distrustful of strangers. To cope with this seething anger I’ll go out and buy the new Grand Theft Auto and lose myself in liquor and virtual reality until December.
My parents live in the same house they did when Carter lost in 1980, but this year Colorado is a swing state, so I’m placing all my hopes in them. On Tuesday afternoon my mother will go out to the shed to get my dad. They’ll walk to the church on the corner, and while in line my mother will turn to my father’s good ear and say, loudly, “I don’t believe there are Bush supporters in this neighborhood. No one we know is that stupid.” When someone in the line ahead of her turns to glare she’ll smile sweetly and repeat herself in French. On the way out they’ll admire the giant sign my dad put on the lawn this year. He built it with wire, poster-board and masking-tape, and it’s visible from the polling place. It reads Veterans for Kerry, and this year even those bats above the church will pick it up on their radar.
