Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other’s speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in. – H.L. Mencken
Illustration by Luci Gutiérrez. (The New Yorker)
Got a call, as I so often do at this stage of the electoral calendar. Members of what passes for the local intelligentsia were meeting at the library because in order to arm teachers, the authorities had to cut back on librarians. Making schools arguably safer to be in, but less worthy of spending time there.
Told them the truth. As much as I didn’t want to attend their meeting, my wife had already committed me to another engagement, even more painful. Lunch with an avid Trump supporter. He was buying. He picked the place, an authentic Mexican hole-in-the wall in a strip mall behind another strip mall. Low prices, big portions. Empty, but we take a back booth anyway. Now this man is eighty-five-years-old. We know not to talk politics with this guy, bad for digestion. Don’t remember how, but Senator John McCain’s name came up in a positive context. I frankly never had much use for the crusty politician – loved his last thumb’s down – and I thought he was a shitty pilot, but he did defend his fellow Americans.
“Well, (huff), he was no war hero….,” my dining companion exclaimed. My sweet wife, Grandmother Of Five Dragons, said something like, he spent seven and a half years in a prisoner-of-war camp. He was tortured. Couldn’t comb his own hair due to his injuries. They beat that limp into him, I added. Helpfully, I thought.
“He stayed all those years out of his own self-interest.”
Never heard that before. I had the shrimp de Vera Cruz. Wife had a trio of tacos. Excellent meal. How can you not like Mexican?
Never heard how the library meeting went. Locally, a deputy’s gun went off accidentally – all by itself – in school. The Sheriff himself assured the public no child’s life was endangered. Must be those new adults-only bullets.
But I did get another call.
“Probably best you weren’t there. Gave it some thought. Probably best if I hear what you have to say alone. Just me, I mean.”
Probably. He talks like that. He talks like that, thinks it gives him an escape route of deniability. Last cycle, I suggested one guy was fat and he could stand to lose thirty pounds. It’s a packaging problem. Communicated a lack of personal responsibility, seemed to me. Told the candidate to his face, which is why I do this for free. Turns out he had a medical condition and was so busy caring for others, he overlooked his own well-being. So, I was wrong again.
“That’s probably best,” I told him. “You are probably right.”
Told him I probably knew just the place to meet. Pueblo Viejo.