Darting through congestion — outside a Texas polling place — a game of masks?

© 2018 Peter Free

 

05 November 2018

 

 

Were you afraid of that lady, Pete?

 

Friday, my wife and I voted early in south Texas. And even at my advanced age, I discovered that I still have the ability to surprise myself.

 

I almost literally ran away from one of the candidates. She was there trying to exhort last minute votes.

 

 

Drone-high mind's eye — saw the humor of the scene

 

Approaching the polling place on foot, amid a string of similarly minded folk, we saw "the" (Latina military veteran) candidate, before she saw us.

 

When her eyes radared us out — as a pair of "enemy meat" exceptions among the "minority" people in the converging mass of voters — she vigorously extended her arm and hand.

 

"Hi, I'm so and so!"

 

A phony smile of enormous proportion instantly fixed her face.

 

My wife surprised me with her response. Ordinarily, she detests fakes.

 

"Oh, I know who you are!" she said very loudly. With an also blazingly false smile.

 

She took two enthusiastic paces toward the candidate and powerfully extended her own hand.

 

Announcing her own first name (like the most competent of CEOs), she cloyingly added, "So nice to meet you!"

 

 

Meanwhile . . .

 

I've turned my arthritic jets on. And am in the process of zooming past my spouse. Keeping her, like a human shield, between me and the candidate's beseechingly empty hand.

 

I see the candidate's brown eyes lasered in on me. She evidently does not recognize that I have already planned to vote for her. She focuses (with intensity) on my fleeing form. Piercing through the milling humans that I am now using (with aged athletic skill) to screen myself from her reach.

 

During those excessively long steps — body leaning forward as if I am still capable of 100 meter dashes — I sift the impressions that must be occupying the candidate's mind:

 

 

That geezer must be a Trump voter. He sure looks like one. Probably has MAGA hats stuffed in the closet.

 

How can his wife stand him? She seems so nice.

 

I'm gonna run him down and make him meet me. Face to face. That bastard. How rude can you get?

 

He even looks like a skinhead. The prick . . .

 

 

After that bit of self-mulling

 

I wonder whether I should reproach myself, for intentionally evading the nauseating fakery with which the candidate and my wife have polluted Earth's sweet air:

 

 

But what else was she supposed to do, Pete?

 

Pretty difficult to be normal and approach the public at the same time, don't 'cha think?

 

She's probably a very nice person. And now you've given her the impression that you hate her, even though you don't.

 

What unnecessary divisiveness and personal sorrow have you sown today — what with your lamentable behavior?

 

 

Naturally, my mental dithering classifies me as a typical "leftist".

 

 

I enter the library where the voting is going on . . .

 

. . . and spend a few minutes looking for the end of the very long line amid the bookshelves. My zippy spouse, as usual, finds its end before I do.

 

I ruminate on the subject of social masks, while recognizing that most of the people in this "queue" are probably demographic Democrats.

 

The Native American-Latina woman just in front of us smiles at me. Her interpersonal aura is peaceful and welcoming. I surmise that she's overheard my wife chastise me for being foolish. Pity on you, old guy.

 

I smile back. Foolishness and I are often twinned. No harm in others recognizing it.

 

I feel comfortable in this multi-colored and -cultured group of people. Harshness is absent. Everyone waits patiently. The line (very-very) slowly creeps along.

 

Three poll-volunteers occasionally emerge from the voting machine room to make "what's going on" announcements. They speak as if they are talking to family members. Rather than to nazified sheep.

 

One of them regularly carries a vote-recorder to the curb outside the building. So as to help immobile people take part in the election.

 

It is a motivating display of humanity from this polyglot Texas city.

 

As well as an indicator how successfully Powerful Elites have fooled us into accepting their false version of democracy.

 

 

The moral? — Do we ever have much more than impressions?

 

I did vote for the candidate, despite her wretched appearance of falsity. We live in culture that prizes extroversion, no matter how ill. What else should she have done?

 

I go home, guessing that "the candidate" probably never thought that the hand-escaping guy supported her. Or that the similar-looking many, who did shake her hand, probably did not.

 

It is a game of masks. Fraught with misinterpretation.

 

This ambiguity is invitation to profit-seeking manipulators. They skillfully display erratic camouflage on falsely positioned screens.

 

Democracy would have trouble working, even if it were well-intended. Ours is not.

 

I find it difficult to criticize those who do not vote. Or those who do, but for different choices.

 

Peacefully gaining societal justice is challenging, even for people with open eyes. Perhaps we are working with the wrong material.