MY VOTE

Some fiction written by Hardscrabble Farmer in 1992 when he was doing stand-up comedy with George Carlin.

Awesome news. Hardscrabblefarmer.com is now live. Visit it often for a daily does of wisdom.

I remember the first time I saw Zack Landers. He was standing in the middle of a small knot of locals clustered in front of the farmers market, the sleeves of his red wool shirt bunched up on his tanned forearms. He was wearing a serious look, nodding now and then with concern to whoever was speaking, as if each word that they spoke was of mythic proportion, something to be considered intently.

He was a handsome guy, no doubt about it. He had that All American look to him, with a big head of glossy black hair just going gray at the temples. He had a good square jaw, and sparkling blue eyes that just kind of beamed out at you with infectious good will. Something about the way that he stood suggested great height although he was only five foot eight. Like my wife would say, “He’s a good package.”

My wife has never been much on politics. I took her to her first election just four months after we were married, telling her the whole time that it was her civic duty, and more importantly, a sacred right that had been purchased with the blood of young men and women who had given their lives in the service of their nation. It was a speech filled with all kinds of youthful, pompous, mumbo-jumbo. I was a soldier at the time, and I took my patriotism seriously.

I don’t believe she ever really understood why I felt it such an important thing to do, but I remember her quietly acceding to my wishes as we climbed into our little pickup truck that cold November morning. She was wearing the gray sweatpants that she used to wear in the studio and a Burberry trench coat. Under it all she wore a lacy black bra and panties that she knew I liked just to get me all worked up. She did things like that a lot back then. She was also wearing her sunglasses. That, with her dark hair and her Slavic good looks, gave her the appearance of a cold war spy on her way to the gym.

We arrived at our designated polling place, a red brick elementary school about a mile and a half from our apartment. There were the usual assortment of placards and signs for the candidates stapled onto the telephone poles and to fresh pine stakes that had been driven into the frozen ground. It’s funny, but I don’t remember whom I voted for in that election. I do remember what it felt like, coming out from behind those curtains after casting my vote. I felt clean and renewed, as if I had just stepped out of some kind of Democratic shower stall.

There were long rows of cafeteria tables lined up in the middle of the gymnasium floor that seemed to almost disappear in the distance. You had to walk up to those tables and sign your name in these big, dusty books, right next to where you had signed it when you registered to vote in the first place. And the whole time that you stood there you were watched by the aged and gray poll watchers who sat planted behind their ledgers like a platoon of statues, unsmiling and utterly still.
I looked around for my wife as I stood there, tall and proud in my uniform and spit shined jump boots, a maroon beret folded respectfully in my hands.

I scanned the bottoms of the voting booths, looking under the eight-inch gap between the varnished hardwood floor, and the hem of the black velvety curtains that concealed the voters as they took their part in the process. I searched for the paint stained sneakers that she always wore on her little feet, finding her at last in the farthest booth, one foot tapping nervously, heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe, then stopping in beat. I heard the metallic clunk of the switch that casts the vote and swings the curtain aside like the opening of a school play. I remember the look on her face when she stepped out, a distant and unfocused smile that I had come to love so dearly in those first months of our marriage, the smile of a Mona Lisa come to life.

That was over ten years ago. To be honest, as time has passed we have grown a little jaded about the whole process. I’d vote one way one year, then get angry at my candidate for failing to live up to the promises that he or she had made the election before. I’d jump right back in there though, like a good American, throwing my support to the other side the next time an election came around. Some years we would discuss our views rationally and diplomatically over a bottle of cabernet, the candles glowing on the mantelpiece. We had promised to discuss all of our views, openly and without pretense; we did this in the early years when we were both young enough to believe in honesty and the power of our love.

Some years we would argue bitterly, turning simple political discussions into all out assaults on what we each perceived as the other’s inability to think clearly or behave like a civilized human being. One argument got so out of hand that I pulled our car over to the side of the road and stepped out, opting to walk home in the freezing rain rather than to spend another second trapped in there with what I recall saying at the time was, “some kind of knee-jerk, pabulum-puking liberal”, who “doesn’t know diddly about politics.” I remember standing there on the edge of that highway all of ten minutes, soaked to the skin and shivering so hard that my teeth clacked before I finally recognized the headlights of our car coming back down the road for me. I was so happy to see her come back that I was ready to change my vote just so that I could get back into the warmth of that big gas-guzzling Oldsmobile. She slowed the car as she approached me and rolled her window down so that I could clearly see her smiling face. Then she stuck her hand out and defiantly, wearing that Mona Lisa smile, flicked up her middle finger, then sped off into the darkness, the taillights disappearing in the icy drizzle like the twin tips of cigarettes slowly going out.

When Zack Landers first announced his intention to run for President, no one took him seriously. He entered the race almost unnoticed, filing his papers in his native New Hampshire. From the beginning T.V. programs like Hard Copy and A Current Affair began to dig up story after story about his checkered past. He not only smoked pot in high school, he sold it, although he had never been arrested for it and the statute of limitations had long since expired. He’d slept with all kinds of women; go-go dancers and cocktail waitresses, bankers and debutantes, although he never fathered any children out of wedlock. He once owned a small construction firm in the Deep South that went belly up yet none of his buildings had ever failed and all of his bills had been paid on time. He was a soldier in the war before that and had even done a short stint as a door to door vacuum salesman, selling overpriced machines to people that could not afford them, much less use them on the bare floors. Everything that they hurled at him he seemed to shake off like an old coat. He could not be touched. He had Teflon style and a Pepsodent smile that diffused every hint of malfeasance. Each scandal would begin to raise its ugly head when Zack would march up to the cameras and flash that killer grin.

“You bet I slept with her!” He’d say, looking straight ahead with those guileless blue eyes.

“Now, do you guys have any questions about the real issues?”

Every answer that this guy had was the right one. It was as if he understood the psyche of the American people, and somehow makes them believe he would deliver. He made Clinton look like a freshman, Kennedy a piker.

Within weeks of the early assaults came the testimonials. There was a fellow paratrooper he had pulled from the burning wreckage of a helicopter gunship when he was a soldier.

“I remember how Sergeant Landers came in through the flames, his arm all broken from the crash and bleeding. He had a bullet in his hip, but he came in to pull me out, the bullets whizzing by his head. I tried to tell him, ‘Save yourself, Sarge.” But he wouldn’t listen. He just smiled at me and said, ‘Grab my hand Troop, we’re going home.”

And then that man looked off towards where Oprah sat with her look of empathetic righteousness and, after a deep, jerking sob, the crippled vet added, “I owe that man my life.”

There was a clerk from a Quickie Mart in Greenville, South Carolina, who showed up on the set of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee one morning to tell her story.

“My gosh, if I’d only known. He came into the store one night, musta’ been about three a.m., an he just give me a little nod as he headed off for the frozen food section to git some Haagen-Dazs or some such, when these two hoodlums, ‘scuze me, but that’s just what they was…”

Regis snorted once. “I should say so!” he barked.

“Anyways,” the woman said, giving him a look, “these hoodlums just come right up to me and said…” At this point she got kind of teary. Kathie Lee reached over and patted her fat freckled arm, offering a pink Kleenex. The woman took it and snuffled into the tissue loudly, then blotted her puffy red eyes.

“Like I was sayin’, I’m starin’ down the barrel of this gun, listenin’ to this boy talkin’ all kinds of trash to me, when out of nowheres, here comes Zack.” She actually straightened up at the mention of his name, and then leaned imperceptibly towards Kathie Lee.

“Of course I didn’t know it was Mr. Landers back then,” she said with a conspiratorial wink.

“Then what?” Regis yelped.

The woman looked back towards him as if he had just interrupted a heartfelt confidence, then turned back to Kathie Lee.

“He came up behind them Hoodlums, real slow and steady, holdin’ that quart of Cherry Garcia, in his big ol’ hands and said, ‘HEY SHITHEAD!’ ”

Of course on the videotape the word was bleeped out, but you could see Kathie Lee blanch. Regis jumped in enthusiastically, “AND?”

“They turned around on him, and he just chunked that carton of ice cream at the big one’s head and dropped him on the spot. The other one’s jaw dropped and Zack just grabbed the gun out of that boy’s hand like it was some kind of…” And at this point she looked lost for words, “…I don’t know,…toy or sump’thin.”

“No!” Said Regis and Kathie Lee simultaneously in genuine shock.

“Sure did!” The woman shot back. “Told ’em both to sit still ’till the cops come or he’d thump ’em for real. Then he looked back up at me and winked.”

You could hear the entire audience breathe out all at once, relieved. A drama replayed in a million homes.

“Even put his change in the Jerry Lewis jar.” She smiled straight into the camera, dental work askew.

“Man’s got my vote.”

To be perfectly honest with you, America was ripe for a guy like Zack Landers. The economy was in a shambles, crime was out of control, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned the United States was turning into some kind of joke. The smallest nations were taking shots at the world’s greatest super power with impunity. The threats issued by the President were not taken seriously because he never backed them up. The politicians who weren’t completely ineffective were busy stuffing their pockets, or selling their favors all in the name of personal gain.

Zack didn’t promise much, didn’t have much to promise except the one thing that he knew he could safely deliver. Zack was a true man of the people, and no one was pulling his strings. He turned down the special interest groups with a simple, “No thanks.”

“I am a man of the people. If you elect me, at least you’ll know what you’re getting. I love this country and the people in it. I know what we want and that is to have a purpose; a family, a job, a home. And we’ll work as hard as we have to if we have that purpose. All that we want is to get to work.”

And that became the platform of one of the strangest and populist platforms in American history. “Let’s Get to Work.” And did he ever. While the Republicans scoffed and the Democrats railed at the amateur, Zack stumped on.

“He’s a fraud, a joke. He knows nothing about politics.” Cried the Speaker of the House on Meet the Press one bright Sunday.

“You’re damn right I don’t!” Zack responded. “And I consider that an advantage, a badge of honor. I don’t know about the rest of you, but speaking for myself, I think politics is what screwed this country up to begin with. Bunch of windbags more interested in filling their own pockets than in helping out their fellow Americans. When’s the last time Bob Dole tucked a buck in a homeless guy’s cup? How about all those fat cat, three-piece blowhards being shuttled around the hill in chauffeured limos and taking chopper ride’s to the golf course? Doesn’t that piss you off?” Zack asked, referring to a recent scandal involving the Speaker.

The commentators laughed, out loud.

You had to give it to him; he hit the nail right on the head. The man had no drivers or bodyguards or speechwriters traveling in entourage. It was just he and his campaign manager, a lifelong friend named Ahmet. The two of them crisscrossed the country in an eighty-two Ford spending their time visiting V.A. hospitals, high schools and sheet metal shops from one end of America to the other just to, “shoot the shit” as Zack would say, “with real Americans.” He had no platform so to speak, beyond the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that he carried copies of in his back pocket, like a prop.

Ahmet plied the Internet, created a sensation. A sight named ZACKLAND.

“All you need is a dream. And I intend to see that every American will realize their own in a new America.”

They formed a new party. Named it NEW AMERICA PARTY.

People rallied by the millions. Kids adored him, women went soft in the knees when he smiled and the men all wanted to buy him a beer. He was the son that never came back from the war, the father who took you fishing, your high school coach, the best friend you wished you had. Almost from the beginning there was an informality that refreshed even the most jaded and disaffected voters. “Call me Zack.” He would correct the interviewers, “Everyone else does.” It wasn’t forced or put on; you could tell that he meant what he said. He was the real thing.

“The Government doesn’t owe anyone anything.” He said. “The people, the good, decent, hard working majority would look out for those who couldn’t help themselves if only they didn’t have to shoulder the burden of those who won’t. I cannot for the life of me understand why farmers are paid not to grow crops, while contractors are paid endlessly for work they either fail to complete or do improperly. Three hundred dollars for a toilet seat?” he roared. For goodness sake, do I have to go down to the home center and buy them myself? People should be ashamed of the kind of governing that’s taken place in this country. I bet old Jefferson’s rolling over in his grave knowing that we send billions of dollars to countries that sneer in our faces then turn their backs on us when we need them, while children go to bed hungry in our cities. Makes me want to puke.”

People just went wild over this guy. The more the professional politicians tried to downplay him, the bigger he got. Pretty soon the rest of the world started to take notice. The Prime Ministers of twenty nations endorsed Zack as the way of the future in American politics, perhaps to secure the good will of what appeared to be a sure thing. The wise politicians jumped ship early and joined with Zack’s team, seeing the mood of a nation rapidly changing. Zack told them to stay where they were. He said America needed new blood, and he put out the call for the dedicated and inspired to join in for the greater good. And that call was answered.

At the beginning economists predicted that his campaign would be over within a few weeks, a month at best if he planned to stick to his pledge of limiting contributions to the citizenry. At the end of his first full month on the stump the total received by the New American Party equaled all the money the other two parties had in their combined war chests. That total doubled four days later. Two weeks after that Zack went on national television and asked that any more donations be sent to the United Way, and kicked off the whole thing by donating on the air a check for one hundred million dollars to a completely shocked national chairman.

“Tonight marks the beginning of a new era for this nation.” he began to a wildly enthusiastic audience. “What we have seen in the past month is merely the stirring of the great soul of the New American People.” Zack paused, while the national chairman wept openly, cradling his check like a firstborn.

There was an audible silence then, not only in the television audience, but also in our living room where my wife and I sat exhausted from a long day in our garden. I remember looking over to where my wife lay on the couch, her feet propped up on a pile of homemade pillows clustered at the end. There was a look on her face that reminded me of the day that we were married, soft and open. I remember wanting to say something to her but not being able to draw my attention away from the image of that guy with the check weeping onscreen and Zack Landers smiling out at the American public, seated in their homes and pubs and bingo halls all across the broad sweep of our country. I thought about how many people were doing what I was, watching transfixed as the inevitable happened.

When Zack Landers finally put a platform together, it was nothing short of brilliant. If I tried to explain it now in the clear and cleansing light of day, you’d laugh. He let the country know that if he was elected, the government was about to take a backseat to the people. The age of entitlements was about to take a place right along with the dinosaurs in the museums. Individuals would have to pull their own weight. If you wanted a piece of the public pie, you were going to help shoulder the load. Everyone that was not employed, in school, or disabled would work for the common good. End of story. If that didn’t sit right with the citizen in question, out you go. America was about to export one hell of a lot more than wheat and steel. America was about to export a small army of the chronic deadbeat losers. Like it or leave it that would be the new policy.

As far as the policy for criminals, it was this simple; everyone gets three chances, just like in baseball. If you couldn’t get it together after that, if you couldn’t seem to avoid a life of crime and the thrill of preying on your fellow man, fine and dandy. That criminal would be given the simple option of a quick and painless death, or the chance to right their wrongs, and a shot at redemption by paying society back with the ultimate sacrifice, the donation of their organs to those in need, to the law abiding citizens of this great land. Every journalist and judge said it would never happen, but you just knew…

I remember hearing that plan one morning over toast and coffee at The Point. I nearly choked when I heard the roar of approval from the regulars that crowded the counter. I had always been conservative in the past but this was ridiculous. I held my tongue in check and waited for the waitress to warm my cup.

“He’s wonderful, idn’t he?” She asked, shrugging towards the television mounted on the wall behind the register.

“He’s something.” I said reaching for my cup. “He’s something.”

My wife and I spent the better part of that summer and the early fall doing a great deal of volunteer work in the neighborhood. I joined the local Crime watch program, though to be quite honest there wasn’t a hell of a lot of crime to watch anymore. The news always seemed to pick up on these weird little stories around the country where some carjacker was chased down by an angry mob and torn to pieces, or some known rapist was forced into the ocean waters off the coast where they tried to stay afloat until at last they slowly slipped beneath the cold, choppy waters, leaving only bubbles to mark their exit from the world. Gangs not only abandoned their criminal behavior, but also seemed to take an inordinate amount of pride in sprucing up the neighborhoods they lived in. It seemed like everyone was wearing a maroon beret those days.

I wish that I could say that my wife and I had heart to heart conversations about the election that loomed, but we didn’t. My wife sensed what I was thinking, I suppose, and I tried not to notice what she was. We still talked all the time about a thousand things, but not about politics. The weather, fine, Zack Landers, no way.

The leaves were turning colors and in some places Halloween decorations were still up when Election Day finally rolled around. It snowed on Election Day, leaving the world white and new and full of promise.

The largest majority ever received in a presidential election elected Zack Landers that day. 92%. The Republican Party conceded defeat at three in the afternoon. The Democratic contender shot himself in the head with a pearl handled, gold plated .44, a gift of the Sultan of Brunei. The nation rejoiced. And things actually changed, almost overnight.

Senior citizens set up workshops on his or her own to help the illiterate learns to read. People began to smile again for no reason at all, and in the cities, politicians walked around wearing blue jeans and flannel shirts picking up aluminum cans and empty bottles in their neighborhoods. And despite the fact that the inauguration was not until January, there was no denying the fact those things were different. It smelled like spring in the dead of winter, and the incumbent let on to the press, that even he had voted for Zack.

I occasionally look back on that time now and wonder to myself (Although I have never discussed it with my wife and probably never will) whether or not I made a mistake, being one of the thirty-six thousand, twelve hundred and twenty-two Americans who pulled the lever that day for someone other than that well meaning but unfocused twit, who on the morning of his own inauguration, vanished without a trace, leaving only a little yellow post-it note stuck to his refrigerator door that said, quite simply,

“GONE FISHING…”