Election Day

Election Day
“Clinton vs. McCain”
November 2008
Charlotte, NC
1:25pm

         Betty Crumpler pauses shakily on the empty sidewalk, carefully diverting her gaze from the chaos that is taking place across the street. She hasn’t been in the presence of so many people and so much stimulation since she was forced two months ago to venture out to the DMV to take care of her expired driver’s license. Giving in to one of her nervous twitches, Betty plunges both of her plump hands into her large white canvas bag and starts rooting around. She finds some chap stick and quickly snatches it out, catching her car keys along with it. They splatter out on the cement with a clatter of noise and she bristles as she feels a few passing eyes glance over at her. She bends down, not a bit gracefully, to pick them up. Her curly mop of hair falls over her head and her carefully tied blue bandana flops off onto the grass. With a sigh (or more like a snort) she snatches it up and stuffs everything back in the top of her bag. Betty raises her head and surveys the scene in front of her.
         Her eyes dart from the long line of people to the fire trucks to the boldly colored and forcefully worded signs plunged in to the edges of the sprawling lawn, urging her to vote for this or that man woman or proposed law. A cell phone starts ringing from somewhere in the teeming line just as a car starts honking obnoxiously. She feels the bullying tingle of anxiety start to creep in from the back of her consciousness. Her face is most definitely turning a porky shade of pink with embarrassment, but every girl looks better with a little blush…at least that’s what her older sister always tells her. She’s not so sure. Her mouth tightens up like it has been crammed full of packing peanuts, and her knees buckle a little bit, forcing Betty into the sort of semi-squatting, frozen stance of a cornered animal or mortified middle-schooler. She raises her hand to brush back her tangle of hair, and jumps as the obnoxious honking car punctures her trance with three sharp blasts of horn. She wheels around quickly and realizes the horn in question is actually addressing her. With a startled bounce, Betty jumps out of the way and a couple of steps closer to the ever-developing line.
         As she approaches the buzzing scene, a wiry little man dressed all in khaki comes stumbling past her. He somewhat resembles the Geico lizard dressed up in khakis, except his eyes are significantly less friendly and his demeanor is noticeably more edgy. She carefully avoids meeting his eyes as she mumbles an excuse me. He doesn’t look back at her. His skinny legs seem to be skipping across the street and his arms are both plunged into the pockets of his thin jacket. He seems almost more nervous than Betty, and this only serves to heighten her own feelings of unease.
         She knew she shouldn’t have left home. She is beginning to think that even Hilary isn’t worth the trauma of venturing out of the comfort zone of her little 700 square foot apartment that she has barely left in the past six months. It’s surprising how much social certainty a person can lose without practice. She closes her eyes and imagines the encouraging friendly face of Oprah- lately her most trusted source of reality in the outside world, delicately convincing her through the television that she is a strong woman. She should take charge of her own life and she should respect herself as a woman and as a human. She should vote for smart, strong, independent Hilary Clinton for president if she ever wanted to live a fulfilling life in this country again. And she should avoid saturated fat and wear Karen Neuburger pajamas.

         “Excuse me,” a very nicely dressed and tight faced man offers as he squeezes past Betty on the sidewalk. His name is John Forsyth, and as he plunges his hands deep into the pockets of his Brooks Brother’s custom tailored suit pants, he looks back past Betty, who is now wobbling unsteadily on the pavement behind him, and he focuses his gaze for one more fleeting second on Teresa, the young woman he has just stalked away from, still standing beside her small black car, still staring after him with those self-possessed maple colored eyes that have been seared into the brittle recesses of his mind for the past six months.
         “We can’t do this anymore.” He had just finished telling her. He had run his hand through his wavy dark hair-still surprisingly un-salted considering his forty-three (mostly stressful) years, more to avoid reaching out and touching her than anything else. He looked up into her eyes. He expected her to start crying, to tell him he was an asshole, to say something biting and sarcastic, like she usually does. Something like “Have a nice life with your wife, asshole. Good luck kissing your kid goodnight without feeling like a total ASSHOLE.”
         All she said, though, was a simple “I know.” He tilted his head, expecting more. She didn’t even look heartbroken. She looked tired. Tired of him, he suddenly realized. Tired of his promises and his bullshit emotional baggage. He had reached out with a tentative hand to stroke her hair, her face, something. She pulled away. “Just go” she said. John let his hand drop heavily down to his side. He stood there a moment longer. Standing so close to her that he could smell her fruity perfume, yet not able to look up and meet her tepid stare. He sensed her detachment, her indifference to the whole situation. Maybe even a little pity. He took a deep breath and let it out. He felt so much released along with that breath. All of the frustration and confusion of the last four years of his life--getting married to sweet, young, uncomplicated Anne, and then her getting pregnant so quickly.
         He couldn’t explain his actions even to himself. He had no idea why he had given in to Teresa’s brazen, shameless flirting. It had felt good at first to allow her to lean against his desk, crossing her arms over her huge breasts and teasing him playfully about his horribly decorated office. He had let her bring him lunch, and talk about her personal life, and wink at him conspiratorially when their crusty boss Albert peeked his head in John’s office to find out the status of this or that contract. Yet it wasn’t until they were sent on a business trip to Denver with two highly unsocial execs from their office that he had in his mind really crossed any lines.
         She had knocked on his door the second night after they had finished a few drinks in the lobby during the welcome cocktail party. She was still wearing her slinky cream dress, but she had let her long blonde hair down around her shoulders. “Is this ok?” she had asked him coyly, leaning up seductively against the side of his doorway. Shit.
He shouldn’t have done it. He knew he had an amazing daughter and a wife who was capable of loving him for the rest of their lives, if he let her. He had no possible excuse, and that was his problem. He was more than well aware of the fact that he was an adulterous, selfish, sinful husband and a pathetic father.          As John continues to stride toward the line, he meets eyes with the wiry khakied man who has been stumbling around the crowd, bumping into people and weaving in and out of the line. He is for the moment standing stoically to the side of the crowd. He holds John’s gaze for a few seconds and then scurries off. Weirdo, John thinks with a sigh.

As John steps up with a heavy, Johnston and Murphy loafered foot onto the grass, twenty-five year old law student Evelyn Walsh brushes ever so slightly up against his arm as she hurries past him towards the fire station and the waiting line. Evelyn is in such a rush because she is on lunch break from the D.A.’s office, where she’s interning at the moment. She has always been obsessed with never being late. Punctuality had been instilled in her practically by pre-school, along with impeccable table manners and the ability to say “ya’ll” like a lady.
         Born into a family of three athletic and popular older brothers (all lawyers), and a set of parents who always skillfully walked the line between Stepford and Clinton, Evelyn has been in perpetual motion and under acute amounts of pressure since as long as she can remember. Her fish aquarium of an existence has endured constant surveillance not only by her antagonistic brothers and overachieving parents but also at times even by the entire “Queen’s City.” Her father served for eight unblemished years as a district attorney during her childhood, which pegged her early on as just “Oh- Frank Walsh’s daughter!” Her freak-of-nature mother, in addition to modeling through business school and two children, was also made the first female partner of the large downtown Nickerson Law Firm when she was just thirty-five; and you can’t forget her brothers! Billy, Tom, and Austin- all married to pretty, rich socialites and all working at hugely competitive and prestigious Charlotte law firms.
         After a brief stint during her sophomore year in undergrad when she was convinced she wanted to pursue abnormal psychology, Evelyn is currently back on the “right” track -per her father, to becoming the next Hilary Clinton. All she needs is a short yet significant public service heavy career in law, then a brief run as Senator of some respectable blue state, and maybe even her very own “Bill” (minus the adultery and questionable abuse of cigars). Despite the Walsh family’s notorious and undying support for the left side, Evelyn is going to vote for old gray squishy-faced John McCain today. She even convinced her fellow die-hard democratic best friend Jayla to vote for McCain as well. No way is Hilary going to beat her to the punch. There is also no way she can tell her family about her small scale Hilary sabotage. She would be disowned if they knew she voted Red. As Evelyn approaches the line leading to the polls, she does one of her signature hair flips, catching a glimpse of the sharply dressed, impressively tall, well aged man she just not-so-accidentally brushed up against on the sidewalk. She wonders if he is in politics…

         John shoves his hands even deeper into his pockets and stomps over the grass and through the maze of signs to the nauseatingly long procession of voters. He notices the attractive young blonde at the end of the line, not so subtly checking him out. “What am I doing?” He thinks to himself in a fleeting moment of tenderness and regret. “I should go home to Anne. I should try and salvage what’s left of my pathetic life.” But deep inside his gut he knows it’s all over. The beginning of the decline had been sparked by Anne’s realization that for John there would never be that emotional breakthrough that would allow him to finally open up to her, and then her subsequent termination of their sex life. The end of the decline came when Anne found Teresa’s sunglasses case in John’s toiletry bag after a week-long business trip. The sunglasses were Chanel. And Teresa’s business card was slipped in behind them in the case. This happened yesterday morning. He has no idea whether Anne and Ally will be there when he gets home. With his wife’s weeping and Teresa’s cold resolve still ringing in his ears, he continues to walk toward the line of people spilling over onto the thinning Fall grass. Like he always does, John suppresses it all. He feels the indifference welling up within him. This is a practice he has perfected over the years. With an emotionally detached oaf of a father and a mother with the all of the maternal instincts of a bull, John’s childhood was dedicated almost exclusively to surviving. Most of the time this meant shutting off his emotions completely. Over the years this came to be his nature.
         John found the warmth and support he had been lacking when he found Anne. He met her through friends while he was working for Price Waterhouse Cooper in Florida. She was from a polite, squeaky clean family from Boston and she thought she could erase his stale emotional past and open him up to a new world of love and comfort and support. For the first years of their marriage she had been tender and quiet and unashamed to show him how much affection she felt for him. He was mostly unable to return this barefaced outpouring of devotion, but Anne seemed to understand him. If it wasn’t love, it was good enough for John. Their numbingly comfortable marriage started to crumble after a few years, though. John couldn’t keep up the charade of stability. He was not a man of permanence. Perhaps Ann could sense this, because it wasn’t long before her warmth and quiet understanding began to curdle into stale affection and silent disdain. She started to use little Ally as a puppet in her subtle game of control and guilt. She would send their daughter up to his office or into his workshop to ask him favors.
         “Daddy, can we eat dinner together?”
         “Daddy, are you coming with us to Nana and Papa’s?”
         John was pretty sure that Anne’s disdain for him grew every time she had to field a gloomy faced Ally, fresh from a rambling and guilt riddled rejection from her father. He couldn’t blame her. He hated himself every time he was unable to see past Anne’s manipulation, suck it up, and do something highly unpleasant for the sake of his daughter’s happiness. The only way he could temper his guilt was to turn away from it completely, and that’s exactly what he did when Teresa opened the door for him and escorted him into a life full of denial and hedonism, entirely void of those niggling feelings of regret that had been governing his life so completely lately.
         The portly woman who has shuffled up behind John drops something from her purse and it makes a loud clang as it hits the sidewalk. The noise jolts John out of his thoughts, and he looks back straight into Betty’s large backside, which is now pointed directly at him as she bends to pick up her keys. When she pops up and swings around she’s just inches from his face, and he gives her a slight grimacing smile before turning his gaze back around and taking a small step forward in line.
         
Betty barely registers the eye contact as she plops her keys back into her purse and takes a slow breath to calm her nerves. She’s hardly noticed the tall attractive man in standing in front of her at all, actually. Handsome or homely, tall or squat, friendly or boorish-men have no real effect on her anymore. Not that she is a lesbian. She just somehow developed an immunity to the opposite sex sometime around the age of thirty-five (her “scary age”) when she realized that a family, children, or even a real-live relationship were just never going to happen for her. Growing up as the youngest daughter in a sickeningly stable family of 6 girls, she had become obsessed with Disney movies by pre-school. More specifically, any Disney movie with a prince charming and a fairy tale ending. What began as just a girly-girl complex (refusing to wear pants, welling up with tears at the drop of a plastic tiara) eventually developed into a full blown “white knight” obsession as an adult.
         Betty’s most recent relationship, using “recent” fairly loosely-it was over 10 years ago, was with her married boss Andy at Citigroup. It fulfilled her fantasies to a surprising degree, with romantic confessions of his love, gushy ten-minute voice mails filled with promises for the future. He had even rescued her from a scary situation one night with the super of her apartment building. Sure, she might have exaggerated the circumstances a little bit while sobbing over the phone to Andy, begging him to come over and spend the night with her so she would feel safe. But he did come over. He made up some excuse (which he never revealed to Betty) and left his wife at home at ten o’clock at night to drive over and comfort her. He only stayed for twenty minutes, not the whole night, but in Betty’s mind it was every bit the white knight fantasy of her dreams. The next week Andy told her he would have to put off telling his wife about their relationship because his father-in-law had been admitted to the hospital and he had to be there for her-just for a bit longer. He never left his wife. Two miserable months later Betty began to understand. She cried for what felt like a hundred years and has never really trusted a man again.
         She stares at the back of the head of the man standing stiffly in front of her. She feels a slight tension standing so close to these people who are surrounding her. She feels the pressure of the little khakied man weaving in and out of line, brushing her ever so slightly each time he passes by. Each brush sends a tingle of anxiety through her body. As the khakied weirdo brushes by for the third time, Betty edges forward away from the contact and she ends up stepping heavily on the heel of the man standing in front of her.

         “Excuse me,” John says with a brief glance back at Betty. He cuts his eyes at the khakied man, still weaving oddly through the line, pausing every once in a while before changing directions again. John meets eyes with Betty again, expecting to share a look of disgust over this lunatic. She stares back at him blankly. He lets a little snort of breath out as he turns back in his place in line. He feels the urge to leave this scene and go home. If that psycho knocks into him one more time, he’s out of here. He knows that he probably shouldn’t be here anyway. He left Anne at home just an hour ago stony faced and red eyed on the couch, very obviously not speaking to him. 
         “I’m going to vote,” John had said simply as he plucked his coat from the rack by the door and grabbed his keys.
         Fuck you, her eyes replied.
         “We can talk about this later, if you want.”
         Fuck you, her loud exhale of breath answered.
         John paused for a second weighing his options, then he turned and walked out the door, the heavy oak slamming louder than intended behind him.
He obviously made the wrong move last night when he chose to sleep in the guest room instead of facing Anne’s angry questions, and again this morning when he moved straight from bed to shower to “important” phone call to front door. He knows he has made all the wrong moves in this situation, yet he knows no other way to handle it. How to deal with your own adultery is not something one naturally learns on the road of life. It is not even anything his asshole of a father ever gave him any clues to. Not one of the typical father son chats, apparently not even when the father is a raging adulterer himself.
Perhaps John should have stayed home and attempted to defend his actions, but this year’s election is especially important for him. Women have many places in society, but politics is definitely not one of them. There is no way in hell some Woman-and a Democrat at that-can win this election. All the world needs after the shamefully misunderstood debacle of Bush is this goddamned country getting it in its mind that a freakin’ woman can do the job better. This presidential campaign runs close to John’s heart. In his attempt to understand women and his own actions over the past months, he has fully entangled himself in the debate over this year’s candidates. In his mind most women are comprised of nothing more than fickle emotions and affected obsessions, then they are armed with the arrogant confidence of egotistical celebrities like Tyra Banks and Oprah Winfrey who tell them that they not only have the capacity to be just as successful and powerful as men-they have the right. He saw the emotion welling up within Hilary Clinton during the most recent debate. He saw the indignation and self-righteousness bubbling to her surface. A woman is a steaming pot of confused ambitions and loyalties, just waiting to boil over. And they need to keep that in the kitchen, where it all belongs.
         No woman is going to lead his country through a war, crying at press conferences and flirting with foreign dignitaries. When John was twenty-five he had his first (and last) encounter with a female boss. He was working as a sales manager for a real estate development company in Raleigh and his immediate superior was a blistering thirty-something red head on an ego trip. 110 pounds of cheap power suit and pent up bitterness named Joanie Smart. He ended up getting in to a huge fight with her over a decision requiring the employees to wear matching shirts each day of a training seminar they were attending in Atlanta. He lost the fight miserably. The whole incident did, however, enlighten him to the very restrictive fact that he is indeed a raging male chauvinist. He has kept this detail as quiet as possible and just taken every necessary step to avoid working closely with women in any capacity apart from secretary or party planner.

         Fuck, this is taking a long time, John thinks. He lets out a frustrated snort. The pretty blonde girl in front of him glances back with a look of disgust. Hold your horses old man, Evelyn thinks with a raise of her well groomed eyebrow. John actually looks his age- which is certainly not an old man, but with the morning Evelyn has just had, she has no tolerance for any Type-A midlife crisis bound self-entitled douche bags sighing impatiently all over the back of her head. This morning her father called to inform her that not only had her brother Austin and his wife Allison just found out they were pregnant with their first child, but “everyone” was expected to be at the Figure Eight Island Beach cottage this weekend for a celebratory dinner. She hates her brother Austin, and not in the joking sisterly way she hates her brother Tom because he argues with her about taxes and teases her about her perpetual single status. She actually hates Austin. In her mind he is to the utmost degree a Type-A midlife crisis bound self-entitled douche bag. He’s probably spraying his own impatient asshole sigh on some un-expectant innocent at his own voting station in downtown Charlotte. Her feud has been growing with Austin ever since her freshman year of high school when she was elected Student Government Accountant and he was made President. He spent pretty much every meeting trying to make her look like an idiot. He even started a nasty rumor that she had XXXXXXX.
         Evelyn glances idly around at the people standing in line, and the little khakied man still weaving in and out of the crowd and muttering under his breath. She spots a sad looking woman standing what seems to be annoyingly close behind midlife crisis man. He doesn’t seem to notice. She glances at the woman’s huge canvas bag, obviously from a visit to the Oprah Winfrey show, or from the Oprah Winfrey obsessed fan store, if there is such a place. She glances up to see that the woman with the bag is looking back at her blankly. Evelyn offers her a smile and turns back around, glancing at her watch.

         Betty puts her arm protectively around her bag. She is not so lost in her middle-aged unmarried cat woman stupor to not realize that she has really started to look the part. She peeks down at her outfit. Sweats. At least there aren’t any kittens playing with yarn balls painted on her t-shirt. And they are Nike sweat pants and not the $5 primary colored ones from Michael’s Arts and Crafts. Once upon a time Betty was significantly more confident and socially acceptable than she is now. She was always pleasant looking and mostly pleasant to be around. Starting relationships was never her problem. She had that perfect combination of insecurity coupled with a desire to please and an obsession with always being in a good mood that made it almost impossible for a person to avoid indulging her. Betty craves close connections, but she has also always had extremely high standards set for everyone in her life. This is a detail she has only rarely realizes about herself, but it in fact is the number one reason that she has failed in her thirty-nine rambling years to hold on to a friend, lover, or even a close family member. Her acute awareness of her own insecurity has made her almost compulsively wary of any mistreatment or disappointment caused by those close to her. At this point Betty is alone. She is the sort of alone that encourages Survivor online betting pools and do it yourself knitting books.
         The last person to fall out of Betty’s life was her slightly older sister, Madge. Theirs was a relationship doomed from the start. Where Betty was always obsessed with someday finding her fairy tale ending (complete with a tall, successful, doting husband, three or four shiny smart little kids, and a two story house with a pool), Madge had no plans or expectations for her life whatsoever. She didn’t care about being popular or dating boys or having any semblance of a fairy tale life. Yet somehow she got it all anyway. Madge was one of the most popular girls in school. She went to prom with the varsity basketball star center and got accepted to State and ended up marrying a nice, smart, rich, loving investment banker. She got Betty’s happily ever after. After each horrifyingly painful breakup with the never ending line of married or unavailable guys that Betty was inexorably drawn to, she had to call up Madge and then drive sullenly up what should have been her fairy tale circular driveway and crash in what should have been her fairy tale guest room. She had to play with Madge’s two perfect little kids and swim in her perfect pool with a waterfall and act like she didn’t want to commit suicide every time she was asked in Madge’s patronizingly offhand tone about her “love life.” After Betty’s breakup with Andy, Madge offered to help her pay for her own place for a while instead of crashing with them this time.
         “Steph and Danny are starting school next month and Brad and I just don’t want the change of pace around here to make things more difficult for you.”
         Betty didn’t even know what that meant, but she replied with a haughty, “No thank you, I can handle things just fine on my own.”
         So she withdrew from her job, social life, reality, etc. and spent the next couple of years plumping up on cheap chocolate covered cherries and Taco Bell, living neatly on the cushy savings she had accrued from a few smart investments in her early thirties, and building a surprisingly strong new relationship with Oprah. She didn’t talk to or see Madge for nine solid months, until she showed up at Betty’s doorstep in protest to her last fifteen unanswered phone calls.
         “What exactly do you think you are doing?” asked Madge in her annoying know-it-all older sister tone. Betty had barely gotten in a few words of weak explanation before Madge went off on an apparently long pent up rave about her failure to understand any of Betty’s motivations or lack of desire to change her broken path in life. Betty stood silently as her sister pounded her with questions.
         “Why does it always have to be married men?” Madge pleaded.
         “Why can’t you take any criticism??”
         “Why do you feel the need to lash out at others whenever your life starts to fall apart???”
         “Why are you such a lazy, pathetic, slobby, stinking pig?”
         She didn’t actually ask that last one, but she might as well have. In an uncharacteristically decisive move, Betty slammed the door in her face. She didn’t have to take this. And she hasn’t. Not for years now. She hasn’t so much as called her sister. Just like all of the other people who have fallen out of Betty’s life, Madge failed to live up to her expectations.

         Betty is running back and forth through this incident in her mind, like she often has been lately, when she hears the khakied man now yelling loudly from the front of the line. Everyone’s heads turn from different directions to focus on him. His voice is surprisingly clear and controlled, and he is holding a clean white Bible high above his head.
         “Don’t allow yourselves to be deceived!” he yells abruptly. “Women have no place in heaven! Don’t allow yourselves to be deceived by the subtleties of a woman. She cannot lead our glorious nation with her self indulgence and ignorant frailty.”
         Betty inadvertently meets his eyes and then turns her head away so quickly that her body takes a little startled bounce. She was uncomfortable by his brushes of contact, and she feels even more ill at ease under his intense gaze. His eyes are filled with desperation. Betty looks down at her white tennis shoes and hugs her bag close to her stomach, willing this man to just go away.
         He continues. “She who is both a corruptor and corrupted! She who was created only to provide man with company and service!” He stops to look pleadingly at his stunned audience as he stalks back and forth down the line of people. “A woman’s place is not in power!”
         “Give it a rest, Spanky,” one man grumbles loudly.
         “Yeah-cut it out, asshole!” another yells.
         They are already annoyed by him from his earlier erratic behavior.
         The man looks at his audience with a barmy intensity. “I only speak the word of God.” Nobody seems to know how to react. A palpable unease hangs thickly over the line of motionless people. One of the policemen from near the front of the line begins walking over. When the khakied man sees this movement from the corner of his eye, he shifts his Bible to his left hand and with his right he somewhat clumsily pulls a small gun from his jacket pocket.

         Like in so many scenes of this nature, the crowd begins to rise in a frantic cohesive panic. Some people, including Betty, run recklessly for safety. Others stand frozen in their spots, bodies rigid with hesitancy and fear, not sure what to do about this unexpected turn.
         “Everybody stay calm!” one of the policemen implores.
         Betty is already out of sight. Her plump wobbly legs and jumbled knot of hair were darting across the lawn to safety as soon as the glint of the pistol met her uncompromisingly cautious eye.
         As is his nature, John remains impenetrably composed. Keeping his gaze intently on the man with the white Bible and the three or four police officers who are now alternating between frantic aggression and tentative order, he takes a few steps to his left and towards the large brick wall of the firehouse.
         “DROP YOUR WEAPON!” another cop yells.
         Two more slow gliding steps and John is behind the safety of the wall. Without breaking into a run, John strides purposefully towards the street behind the firehouse. He hears the metered yelling of the policemen, and the frenzied panic of the unwitting crowd. Somewhere within he is feeling the same panic, but the only emotion he is able to wrench from his thoughts is frustration. These stupid people, he thinks. Sometimes things can be so pointless they are painful. Why does this man feel the need to convert the whole world to his warped way of thinking. Why. Why does he have to be right? What will make this man feel validated? John continues stalking away from the turbulent scene. His muddled thoughts stalk along with each step. Why. Why. Why.
         Behind John the madness continues. He sees the plump woman who kept dropping her keys in line crouched beside a bush with her back to him. He considers tapping her on the shoulder and offering her a ride to safety, but he just continues walking. 
         “Drop your weapon!” a cop yells again. There is an obvious stitch of desperation in his demand. Evelyn pries her gaze away from the man swinging his gun and his Bible, one wielded in each hand like little flags of indignation. On the ground now, in relative safety by the side of the building, Evelyn glances at the cop doing the pleading. He looks scared. He has broken the typical methodical buffer employed by the cops she has so often seen on tv and in movies. This cop just looks like a normal man. He’s scared, and Evelyn feels sorry for him. By the looks of this pale, limpid little dotard of a man waving his tiny pistol and shiny bible, Evelyn is pretty sure that he is the only person in this screwy situation who is in danger of getting hurt, and she has the niggling inclination that any harm will probably be self inflicted. Something about the anxious look in his eye and the frail determination of his yelling gives away the infuriating fact that he probably did not think through this glorious plan of his. He might want his captive audience to believe that he is brave and dangerous and resolute in what he believes, but Evelyn sees he is really just scared. He’s scared just like the cop. Why does this have to happen at all? She is angry. She puts her head down between her arms on the pavement and wills the whole situation to go away. She prays to herself that this cop will remain objective and that this crazed man will remain scared.
         The khakied man is still yelling.
         “Evil!....Salvation!….Woman!…” He goes on.

         Why are they not listening to me, he thinks with mounting anxiety. He looks into the eyes of each of the people surrounding him, each of the people who he had accidentally brushed up against while trying to gather his thoughts and courage. The cops, the waiting voters-some defiantly standing tall with their arms out front or over their head, some lying on the ground scared. None of them are listening. They are not even looking at him. They are all looking at his gun. Why are they not listening to me, he thinks desperately as he continues yelling.
         “LISTEN TO ME!” he begs. He scans over his hysterical audience. “LISTEN TO ME!” Nothing. They only look at his gun. He throws it down on the ground, and he tucks his clean white bible into his jacket.
         “They didn’t even listen to me! What did I do!” he pleads with the cop as he is whacked down on the pavement. “What am I supposed to do!” He yells as his cheek is squished down against the pebbly ground.
         Half of his audience seem to be holding their breath and the other half rolling their eyes as the man is quickly and easily handcuffed and lightly bullied by the three police officers, who Evelyn notices have become conspicuously more self-possessed and assertive since the khakied man turned out to apparently not have a death wish. They walk the now handcuffed and even more frail looking zealot to one of the parked police cars near the side of the building.
         “You’re ruining religion for the rest of us, you freak!” one of the eye rollers yells from the crowd. Evelyn glances over at the heckler. He is wearing a “Jesus is my homeboy” t-shirt. Perfect, she thinks.
         “So can we still vote?” whispers the grandmotherly lady standing quietly next to Evelyn.
         “I suppose so,” she replies, as she turns to around to face the other people, all equally blank-faced and confused.