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Last night my wife informed me that she was definitely going to vote tomorrow if she got up on time. I grinned because the only time we use the alarm on the alarm clock is Monday, Wednesday, Friday and sometimes Sunday, our regularly scheduled walk days. Neither one of us are currently employed and living off of a pension.
I actually felt good getting up Tuesday morning around 5:00 am but had a tiny feel of uncertainty, not knowing when the wife would rise. Since she enjoys watching "Charmed" at 8:00 am - "in the morning," the morning coffee was put on and the computer was turned on and I went on line to check out the evening lottery number.
Hey, the first of the month is pension check time, social security, welfare checks, three card Monty and a good time for old fashion panhandling. I had put two dollars on a couple of numbers and wanted to see if my ship had come in.
Nope.
At about 9:15 the youngest daughter called from Detroit - "we in Texas."
"Hey Mr. M . . . whats up wit yall?"
"Nothing much baby girl. U still working ain't you?"
"Yep. Let me speak to moma."
"Hey baby, its Ebony on the phone."
They talked for about thirty minutes and I never ask about other folks business and will say something like "everything all right?"
"Yes, You know what Ebony told and asked me?"
His head nodded "nope" with raised eyebrows.
"She went and already voted for the first time in her life and said she was being a responsible adult and said to make sure we voted today. Isn't that something?"
Ebony is all of a new 21 years old and I was like "damn." And right then it dawned on me why I had this tinniest feeling of discomfort in what was a decent morning, with a temperature at about 65. We just come out of a heat wave with temperatures bouncing into the 90s and staying in the 80s for the past few weeks.
You know how you will wake up with a lingering but faded memory of a song playing in your head? In my dreams I sing songs usually in the voice of David Ruffin of "My Girl" fame and once a lead singer for the Temptations. When David left the Temptations his first solo album was "My Whole World Ended" and that was the song playing in the background noise of my head.
I'm thinking, "Ebony voted, has a job and called to tell us to vote. David Ruffin is singing "My Whole World Ended" - with new verses I vaguely remember. What does this mean?"
Then it occured to me. "I might not need to attend my regularly Tuesday Poker game with the twenty dollar buy in."
After fixing up her hair and doing the things that keep a women in the bathroom forty-five minutes it was 11:00. I was again glad that God blessed me to be a freaking man - male, with a genetic disposition honed over thousands of years, that teaches one how to take a six minute shower, unless you going on a date or have sex in mind, which extends the time to nine - twelve minutes.
I counted my blessings and excused the unknowing.
Then out of the blue, there it was again. David Ruffin.
"My whole world ended the moment you left me . . .
Yea baby."
Damn that was the jam.
We got into the car and was on our way to the polls, which is all of eight minutes from our humble abode, next to the hardware store. Not our home but the polling place is next to the hardware store.
Pulling up into the parking lots campaign signs were everywhere with the Libertarians signs screaming "enough is enough."
Enough of what? Your portfolio being fucked up? Mine went South in 2001 and 2002. OK . . . my bad I need to stop saying "it went South" to mean bad things because the South of the American Union is sensitive. And to make the South eternally bad and the signature of bad because of slavery confuses the word "bad" - although that shit in the South was bad. Not the Michael Jackson bad but a bad that is bad.
Wait a minute. Mike Jackson's "Bad" is bigger than the meaning of bad before he was accused of "BAD."
A strange thought hit me as we existed the car to go do our civic duty. The separation of Church and State is a hellava thing for the bourgeois democratic or capitalist type revolution that overthrow the agricultural thing and "mid-evil" mutherfuckers. (Medievalism) A pentacle of the foundation of American democracy. Back in Detroit most of my voting years and casting ballots was done in the local public schools or union halls for union elections, and then in party units in a meetin' mostly in someone home.
Davis Ruffin started singing again.
I say nothing to the wife but wondering to myself "why we have to vote in the local Church?" The polling place is a Church. Is this against the law? Not God law but state and federal laws. Then it was a Lutheran Church and I have no beef with Luther, the religious one or Lex Luther. What if you a Baptist or something?
We walk up to the table and everyone is so pleasant that David Ruffin stop singing.
We pull out our identification and stand in front of the table with the "M" - "P" and . . . wait a minute.
How come the friendly peoples that are helping you in a moment like this seems to be white women over 60, with silver hair and smiley faces? I look around the room and I am the only freaking male in the joint.
Anyway the wife give her drive license and bingo . . . there she is . . . go to the voting machine. I give my license and the women start talking.
"Sir you are not in the book."
"I beg your pardon."
"Sir you are not in the book. When did you register?"
"Actually my wife and I registered at the same time."
"Let me call this in and get confirmation."
I am grinning to myself because this can't be happening. My wife and I registered at the exact same time and transferred the tags on her care over to Texas plates, because we new to Texas. I have the receipt proving my registration in my wallet, along with my receipt from registration back in Michigan.
David Ruffin start singing again but it is a different song from that same first solo album called, "Double Cross."
"Sometimes I think about it.
And my poor heart wants to die about it.
About the sweet sweet love I lost.
And the way I got doubled doubled crossed.
By a guy that was my friend
I see him now and then
And I pretend that I'm doing fine.
When I'm about to lose my mind."
After about 10 minutes the women inform me that my name is not on the list and the probable reason is that I did not vote for the past 3 years and there is a rule that purges the list and one must reregister.
I start laughing kind of out loud and notice two other young white males, probably younger than my 31 year old son, standing behind me wanting to know what happened to their registration.
I think about all my receipts in my pocket and know that now I am going to have to vote a "challenged ballot" or "provisional ballot" as it is called in general elections . . . "challenged in union elections" . . .no matter what I say or do.
The extreme is that you compel folks to call the police but that is so uncool as a tactic in a Church . . . with gray head moms over 60s. (Half of them are not looking at me as gray hair moms and passed my Driver license around the room to show that I was 52 and suddenly the atmosphere got . . . what's the word? . . . Gentle/gentel.
The wife finishes voting and comes to my defense explaining we registered together and have the same address, have kids and have been having sex for over 15 years.
"MS . . . your husband probably did not vote in the past three years and this is just a small mistake that we can fix because he can still vote."
"No, he always vote and I have not voted in twenty years and we just moved to Texas."
I say real quiet, "baby do not tell people you have not voted in twenty years and the last time you was inspired was Angela Davis."
I notice that the two young guys standing in back of me are asking why they are not registered when the same friends they came to the polls with registered as a group and they were voting without a problem.
I ask for my provisional ballot and explain it is not necessary for me to read the "green sheet" before casting this type of ballot because I have been a challenger for a candidate in an election four or five times. I suggest to the younger guys behind me that we get our vote in and do the challenge ballot and then asked if they every heard of the singer David Ruffin? I voted and swear this is a true story.
Now the ballot can be confusing to the smartest person in America because no matter how smart you are or literate you are mad as hell and have to read everything twice to make sure "the big guys" are not trying to fool you into voting "no" when you mean "Hell No" . . . but the way it is worded on the ballot . . . means voting "no" means "yes."
Don't you hate that kind of shit when the vote is over "to kill everybody" or "not to kill everybody" and some fuck words the ballot where "NO do not kill evrybody" means "yes?"
Now, I am in Texas and scared that they are somehow taking my picture and I got my receipt number for my vote, which is 0783 and I am not ashamed to admit this because I voted.
Votes are a private thing but I voted for every third party mutherfucker in America, although the Libertarians scare the hell of me. Then it gets tricky because if you want someone other than Bush, Dick, Chains, Killer or rather Kerry and Edwards, you have to write their name in, where I was voting.
It gets tricky because on the new voting machines there is not a stylus in visible sight for you to write with, so you have to interpret the voting and ask one of these wonderful women with silver hair, "Where is something I can write with."
I of course ask this question about the write in vote, and right then David Ruffin started singing again. Here is where it gets crazy.
Everyone is polite, but I am thinking if they are thinking that I'm thinking that they thinking about me thinking that they are thinking about me wondering if they are thinking about why I need to write someone in and who I am writing in . . . then something is wrong because you should not be thinking about what the other guy or girl is thinking about.
You know that voting can get complicated if you want to vote for who you want to vote for and not what some bloke decide need to be on the ballot.
By the time I leave the polls "Georgia On My Mind" by Ray Charles is NOT playing. Georgia is there. Brook Benton "Rainy Night in Georgia" is playing: the part when he says,
"Lord. I believed it raining all over the world."
I tell the wife in the car as we are pulling off from the Church we just voted at, that . . . "that shit wasn't right" and she says "I know but I am not sure about the problem because we registered together."
I tell her in a matter of a fact way:
"you do not understand the evolution of American politics and social relations in our country. If I had of been taking them 45 minutes showers you take, none of this shit would have happened in the first place."
"It's them few minutes that has been a problem with me."
She says, "I do not know what the hell that means. But baby nothing wrong with a person taking their time and checking up on all the details of the body."
"Body!?????"
"Yea . . . the body politic."
"Baby I am going to the poker game tonight and I would appreciate it if you asked David Ruffin to leave me the fuck alone."
Melvin P.
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