Therefore, on Election Day, campaign staffs often produce unnecessary drama, and campaign consultants, who must show that they have fought until the bitter end, are world-class divas. Often, the campaign will harass the local election administrator, the municipal official who actually runs the election. Maybe call once an hour in the morning, twice an hour in the afternoon, and, if the campaign is gonna lose, call nonstop minutes before the polls close. In each call, which should be held on speakerphone, the campaign will memorialize each complaint, both rumored and confirmed. Lines are too long. Poll workers too rude. Report the problem no matter the size. Always threaten to sue, or at least to cause a public stink. The local news is hungry for any Election Day trouble; reporters have little to do until the embargo on exit polls ends.
Sometimes the campaign gets lucky. A problem at a polling place that serves a historically screwed-over demographic. Shenanigans at a majority-black precinct are a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. God bless you if there are photos. Old black women in funny church hats stacked twenty-five deep. In most cases, the problem will have little impact on the outcome, but it’s the principle. Every campaign consultant dreams about the opportunity to compare a local election administrator to George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.
And, who knows, maybe the Department of Justice is watching. Maybe the campaign will identify some fuckup that the feds can later use to bring a high-profile case. The United States vs. the asshole local election administrator. But don’t count on the feds: they’re slow and cautious, and worst of all, they hate to invalidate election returns. A do-over is out of the question. Americans didn’t want to vote the first time; they’ll be damned if they’ll be made to do so twice. No. Do-overs aren’t our national tradition. Sure, every once in a while it will happen, but do-overs are expensive and as rare as a citizen who knows the name of their lieutenant governor. So, the candidate is out of luck, but, hopefully, the problem will be fixed and won’t repeat next time around. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not.
The reality is elections are imperfect, the same as any other of man’s creations. Pacemakers. Plane engines. Prophylactics. Everything has a failure rate, errors are bound to happen, and sometimes those mistakes break our hearts. Why should elections be any different?
Andre explains all this to Tyler as the two share half a Dutch apple pie at a diner across the street from the county hall. From here, the two can watch their supporters hassle voters entering the polls. The supporters are six, including three beautiful brunettes from the Gray Wolf, now in patriotic bikinis, who spin pastel signs that say VOTE HERE and I KISS FOR LIBERTY. The law requires the team to stay two hundred feet from the county hall’s entrance, but Andre guesses that these six are probably fifty feet at best. No one cares.
“It’s all bullshit,” Tyler says with a mouth full of apple pie. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“‘Every vote counts,’” Tyler says. “That’s a lie we tell our children.”
“That wasn’t my point,” Andre says. “I’m just saying—”
The phone rings on Tyler’s hip. It’s the armory checking in. Word for word, Tyler repeats their report. The campaign’s observers, stationed inside the county hall, have provided a tally of the people who visited the polls. The campaign has failed to meet yet another hourly goal, but these shortcomings are manageable, significant enough to cause trouble if the trend continues, but small enough that they can be cured by a strong showing of after-work voters. The observers also share the names of those turned away. Thus far, poll workers have refused to provide ballots to twenty-five voters, ten of whom were black, they note, and didn’t have a photo ID.
“Do we need to go over there?” Andre asks once the call ends.
“We’d only get in the way.” Tyler sends Chalene a text with an update. She thinks Tyler is managing the team at the armory, because this is what Tyler has chosen to share. To Andre the whole situation is comical. Five hours since the polls opened, and they have yet to return to the armory. Tyler is like a truant on his way to school, easily distracted, willfully lost, eager to corrupt classmates along the way.
Andre can’t complain. He’s spent Election Day in worse dives than this. Indeed, this diner is a nice hangout: clean, nearly empty, smells like French toast. A handwritten sign promises free Danish for anyone who wears an I Voted sticker, and on the radio plays Christian talk. Andre and Tyler sit in a red-leatherette corner booth, where, Tyler says, he and Chalene had their first date, and where, each year, they celebrate their anniversary. They know Tyler here. They like Tyler here. Tyler’s Dutch apple pie is on the house.
“What’s the point if Election Day is rigged?” Tyler says.
“The fix isn’t in on Election Day,” Andre says. “If you learned anything from our time together, I hope you learned that the fix was in thirteen weeks ago.”
“Well, tell me this—”
Now the phone on Andre’s hip rings. Andre knows he’s a fool to get his hopes up that it might be Brendan, but part of him is certain that the kid will call today. But it isn’t Brendan. Indeed, it’s the opposite of Brendan: Duke Boshears, calling for an update, the tenth time he’s called this morning. Andre presses ignore, the same as each time before, starts to tell the tale of the Philly poll workers who closed the polls early because they won a radio contest for Boyz II Men tickets. He’s nearly through when the waitress comes to refill their mugs. She is not the waitress who seated them. Must have just started her shift. She’s maybe thirty, clearly exhausted; her apron is pristine, and she wears an I Voted sticker.
“You know I’d vote twice for liberty if I could,” she says.
The waitress makes small talk, tells Tyler that this morning, she set two bowls on opposite sides of her barn, and beside one bowl she placed an index card that said yes, and beside the other bowl an index card that said no. Then she asked her favorite goat—the one with the duplicitous personality—whether the liberty campaign would succeed, and the goat chose yes.
“My goats are never wrong,” the waitress says.
“That’s what I hear, Annette,” Tyler says.
“And how’s Chalene?” she says. “I hear she’s taken ill.”
“They have her on bed rest. Gave her something to sleep. She should be sawing wood now. Doctor said to come back if the headaches return.”
Tyler’s shared this line with everyone who’s asked, and almost everyone to pass through the diner has asked. Everyone worries about Chalene; everyone knows her past. Tyler has become superstitious, dares not utter the word preeclampsia, as though certain that speaking it aloud might bring it into being. He omits important details: test for protein in her urine, monitoring her liver enzymes, a prescription to treat her hypertension. She’s fine now, the physician assistant said, but if things change, the doctors will have to perform a C-section. Tyler wears a brave face, but he’s clearly terrified. This time, the doctors said, there might be risk to both Chalene and their child. She must take it easy. Tyler wants to be at home with his wife, but Chalene insists he work the campaign. And because he will not cause her stress, he’s camped out here, eating pie, surrounded by friends and fond memories, waiting for any excuse to return home.
When the waitress leaves, Tyler says, “That’s Annette Blackett. She treats her goats better than she treats her children. She’s a sweetheart, but she’s a little touched. Thinks goats have powers, can predict the future. Last year, she asked her goat whether she and her husband would get a divorce. Goat said yes.”
“A rough way to end your marriage.”
“Rougher for the goat. Husband shot the little sucker, butchered it, ground it, mixed it in with beef. Did the whole thing in secret, one afternoon, and then fed it to Annette for dinner on Taco Tuesday.”
“Jesus.”
“Quite the scandal. Everyone was talkin’. But you know what? Goat was right. They ain’t married no more.”
“What happened to the husband?”
“Oh, nothing. He’s still sheriff. It’s not illegal to kill a goat or nothing. That would be silly.”
Across the street, a black van parks outside the county hall. The van is windowless, something that television spies might use on a stakeout. The door slides open, and out pour a dozen women. Andre assumes the van is one of three that the campaign has rented to ferry supporters to the polls, but he wishes the campaign had rented something less nefarious, a vehicle less preferred by human traffickers.
“You know Chalene, she’s gonna miss you something bad. You’ve become one of her best friends, and you know she worries about you. You’re at the top of her prayer list.”
“Your wife just likes to worry.”
“She thinks you should stay here,” Tyler says. “She’s even got a gal picked out for you.”
“Let me guess. It’s the only other black person Chalene knows.”
“Yeah. Reckon so.” Tyler laughs. “’Tween you and me, my wife’s trash at matchmaking. She’s the one that hooked up Annette Blackett and the sheriff.”
The diner goes quiet, and Andre feels a sudden alarm in the air. All eyes are on Tyler, who is a step behind in recognizing that the atmosphere has changed. Then Tyler and Andre both hear it, Chalene’s voice on the radio, and Tyler slams his fist against the tabletop.
Playing hooky is now over.
* * *
Chalene scowls, arms crossed, atop the parlor’s folded-out couch, which is messy with campaign flyers and county maps. She wears makeup and her best string of replica pearls. Her maternity dress is also her best, a floral pattern with a pussy bow, though the dress rides up to reveal her lower legs, which are so swollen that her ankles have disappeared, replaced by a seamless merger of calf and heel.
“Of course I dressed up,” she shouts at Tyler. “It was Teach and Talk with Pastor Paul.”
“It was a radio interview.”
“Listeners can tell what you’re wearing,” she yells as Tyler storms into the backyard. “I don’t understand what the big deal is. Was just a phone call.”
Andre sits at the kitchen table eating butter cookies from a tin. He would have preferred to miss the past half hour, but he had to use the bathroom and, afterward, was held against his will, made a party to this silly squabble: a witness to give evidence, a juror to decide fault. His thoughts he keeps to himself, though he agrees with Tyler. The doctor has prescribed total bed rest, and Chalene has neither remained in bed nor tried to rest. In fact, here, she’s set up a satellite headquarters. A dry-erase board by her side. The campaign’s loaner tablet on her lap. Two cell phones within her reach. When Andre and Tyler arrived here, they caught her vacuuming.
“I know you two weren’t at the armory,” she says with accusation. “I expect such bad behavior from my Tyler, but you, Dre? You’re a professional. It’s like you don’t even care if we win. I’m disappointed.”
He crosses the room, sits at the foot of her bed, offers her a butter cookie. “I’ll try to find a way to live with your disappointment.”
“You’re gonna be a smart Samson now?” She takes two cookies. “My Tyler can be such a child.”
Her tablet pings, and Andre checks his watch. The polls close in four hours. Right about now, a team back in Washington should be sending, via social media and e-mail, a short video to supporters. The video, twice focus-grouped, is a reminder to vote, mixing clips of enthusiastic Carthage residents with stock footage of attractive millennials casting their ballot, the whole sixty seconds set to a booming inspirational symphony.
“Look at the latest numbers.” Chalene swipes at her tablet. “We got an uptick. If the weather holds, Dre, we might just pull this out.”
“It’ll come down to after-work voters,” Dre says. “The close ones always do.”
Chalene starts to read the latest list of turn-aways, which she’s received from the armory, shares that she has a spy at the county hall, someone who works directly for Paula Carrothers and who texts inside information. Andre, though, has focused his attention outside, where Tyler has an axe and is chopping down a tree. Andre watches in awe, thinks that felling a tree should be a rite of passage. A tree becomes a log. A boy becomes a man. Andre wants to get in on the action, wants to know whether Tyler has a second axe.
“Dre,” Chalene says. “Dre, are you paying attention?”
“No.”
“What is wrong with you? Do you care if we win?”
Andre searches his feelings and, to his surprise, realizes that he doesn’t know the answer. He thinks, Of course I want to win: I need to win. But thirteen weeks ago, he imagined that an Election Day win would reinvigorate his life. A victory would restore his reputation at the firm, would restore Mrs. Fitz’s faith in him—quite possibly restore his faith in himself. And if he was lucky, these thirteen weeks would permit him the time and space to get over Cassie. But look at him now: none of that has come to pass, and, deep down, he fears that none of it ever will. A world without Mrs. Fitz at work; a world without Cassie at home. It is an empty, hopeless world for which he has no enthusiasm. So what’s he got to gain with a win today? Perhaps he’ll keep his job, which is no small reward; a paycheck is a paycheck is a paycheck, especially for a once-poor black kid whose family often teetered on the brink of homelessness.
“Really, Dre, this is important,” she lectures in the grating, exasperated tone that she reserves for her sons. “You’re being unprofessional. Irrational. If you don’t start paying attention—”
“Oh, fuck you.” His patience is exhausted.
She sits back, surprised.
“I’m being irrational? You’re the one who’s ignoring the doctor’s advice. Where’s the rationality in that?”
“That is none of your business.”
“You’re driving your husband crazy.”
“Oh, you’re concerned about my Tyler,” she says. “When did you two become buddies?”
They sit in silence, watch Tyler take a final chop at a small tree that has begun to bend. Tyler kicks the tree, a full-on fireman’s stomp-down-the-door kick, and after the tree falls, crashing noisily against the sunburned grass, he chops at another. Chalene takes a face towel, wipes the makeup her tears have begun to smear.
“I don’t like just sitting here, peeing in a jug, afraid of a headache. All I can do is think about all that can go wrong, while staring at the wallpaper that my Tyler said he’d replace two years ago. I’m six weeks from my delivery date. I’m supposed to do that the entire time?”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“Last time, the doctors kept me in the hospital. Flat on my back. Three counties away. All because I had a little headache. I lost my job. I couldn’t see my boys every day. I couldn’t go to service. And still, in the end . . .” Her voice breaks. “I swore if I had to do bed rest again, I was going to do it here.”
She takes another cookie, crushes it in her fist.
“Bed rest doesn’t work anyway,” she says. “I read that on a pregnancy website. Doctors don’t know the answers, so they just tell women bed rest because they can’t think of anything else. Bed rest and squeeze this tiny little ball.”
She produces a red stress ball, pitches it across the room.
Outside, another tree falls, this time a taller, thicker one. Tyler hops atop the fallen tree, legs spread, knees bent, balances as he swings the axe furiously at a spot between his feet. Chunks of tree fly in every direction, and Andre worries that Tyler may hurt himself.
“So since we’re asking each other personal questions . . . ,” she says.
“Oh God. What are you about to say?”
“Aren’t you lonely?”
“Where did that come from?”
“You never talk about a wife or girlfriend. I know you have a brother, but I don’t know anything about him. And after Brendan left . . .”
“Really? You want to have this conversation now?”
“If not now, then when?”
“So this is wh
ere you say that I need Jesus in my life.”
“No, Dre, this is where I say that you need someone who loves you in your life.”
She has caught him off guard. He purposely avoids asking himself this question—something he learned in juvie, the loneliest place on earth and yet one place you’re never alone. Truth is: tomorrow he’ll set down in Washington and no one will greet him at the gate. Or at baggage claim. Or at his condo. He says, “I have lots of friends back in Washington.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Some people are just built to be alone.”
“I don’t believe that either.”
What does she want him to say? That his loneliness was entirely preventable? At twenty, he made the choice to prioritize his career. He was seduced by a future full of glamour and power and money. How can he explain that his career gave him purpose, permission to be ambitious, and a famous mentor who watched over him? But, true, it did not produce friends. For some reason, he took it for granted, thought friends would come naturally. After all, how hard could it be to make friends? Fucking six-year-olds on a playground do it. Harder than he thought, he’s learned. The past few years, the closest thing he’s had to a friend was Brendan, whom he misses more than he wants to admit. Sometimes, in that empty house, he finds himself having imaginary conversations with the kid. Perhaps the kid will call today. God, he feels pathetic that he hopes so.
“Tyler and I should get going to the armory.” He stares down at his feet, embarrassed. “If the bed rest gets unbearable, call me. I’ll bring you something to drink.”
“Dre, baby . . .”
“Seriously. A good whiskey will help pass the time and it takes care of those pesky thoughts. A bad whiskey will do that too.”
“Dre, baby, I need you to listen.” She takes his hand, gives it a strong squeeze. He raises his face to see a thick run of blood from her nose. “Dre, baby, get my Tyler. I have a headache.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Carthage County Medical Clinic is a flat brick building that was once a whites-only YMCA. Andre sits in the waiting room, a small space with an empty coffeepot and uncomfortable lime chairs. The rest of the clinic lies behind a magnetically sealed door, which, to enter, requires a pass card or the permission of the sloe-eyed nurse, who dozes off behind a window six inches thick.
The Coyotes of Carthage Page 25
