The Voting Machine

Losing the Country

There was no way I could deceive a man like this. He had already asked his questions and picked me apart. He had done it in a way that wasn't rude or emotional.

"That's the problem right there, Temo. You're hanging with the wrong crowd and listening to the wrong ideas. I saw them out on the sidewalk when you came in: little old David Stone with his shabby clothes and his teacher's pension; plus that blonde rehab girl from LA, pouring her daddy's money into the Salinger campaign. Those two are rehashing the same old liberal ideas, how the government should wipe our ass like we're little babies."

"Zeke, with all due respect, that's not what we believe."

"Well, what do you believe, Temo? What's a smart, young guy doing this for? It's not for your family. It's not for your business. It's not coming from your faith. Why are you doing it?"

I shrugged. "Maybe I believe in democracy. That's what this country is about, right? That's what the Founding Fathers wanted right? The real Founding Fathers, I mean. All men are created equal and that stuff."

Zeke scoffed. "You think they wanted democracy? I guess that's what David and those union hacks teach in the public school system."

I was genuinely surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Let me help you understand something, son. The founders of this nation didn't want mob rule. They wanted responsible men to run the show.

"You know what Thomas Jefferson said?" Zeke continued. "'Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.'

"I know about David's voter drive, signing up every deadbeat he can dredge out of the sewer," Zeke continued. "And we let all these losers and illegals vote Salinger into office, how do you think he'll repay them? By stealing money from me, that's how."

"I really should be going," I said. "Thank you for the coffee and donuts."

"No, please don't leave yet, Temo. I know I am asking you some tough questions but it's for your own good. Because I can see that you don't feel good about yourself right now.

"If you stay with David and the rehab gal, you're never going to have that self-esteem you're searching for. Your wife is never going to love and respect you."

"Let's not talk about my wife, OK?" I said.

"What about your daughter, Temo? Do you think she'll respect what you're doing? Stomping around, knocking on strangers' doors when you could've been providing."

It was just like Annabelle predicted. He knew how to push my buttons and get in my head. I could feel the anger rising up inside me. He was hurting me and humiliating me and he was doing it so coolly and effortlessly, without even raising his voice or dropping the smile from his face. He gave me a friendly wink and offered another donut.

I got up off the couch to leave.

"Hey, don't take this the wrong way, Temo. This may seem like tough medicine, but I am talking to you as a friend. I want to help. I am not going to indulge you like those bleeding hearts. I am not taking advantage of your personal failings so I can use you for a voting campaign."

"They aren't using me."

"Sure they are, Temo. I know David very well. No money. No family. He's bitter and alone like all those old hippies who can't admit they're wrong about everything. And as for the lady Annabelle, I wouldn't trust that little harlot."

"What did you call her?"

Zeke smirked at my reaction. "I was just being honest, Temo. To think that David would give a woman of that caliber a position in the campaign leadership. She probably expects my tax dollars to pay for her birth control."

"You shut the fuck up!" I shouted, hurling my coffee cup against his fireplace in an act of unexpected rage. The cup knocked over the photo of his Marine son and sent it crashing against the floor.

Zeke had finally done it. He'd pushed me to the limit. "You think you're better than us?" I shouted. "You think me and my friends are garbage just because we don't have a big house like you?"

Zeke rose in fury.

"Do you know how much that picture meant to me?" he shouted, pointing at the shattered photo of his son. "My son gave his life for this country. His life is worth more than a hundred thousand men like you! You're part of the poison that's infecting this nation, Cuahtehmoc McCarthy. You're the reason I am losing my country, you goddamn half-breed."

"What did you call me?"

"You heard me. That's why the gringos defeated you heathens. That's why we'll defeat you again, because we didn't mix with inferiors and contaminate our blood. Half-Irish, half-Mexican. I'll bet father was a penniless loser too, wasn't he? That's why he couldn't get an American gal so he had to marry the maid. You're a genetic dead end. Losers will beget losers until they reach extinction."

I wanted to hit him more than anything. Zeke had been baiting me the whole time. He knew David trained his campaign volunteers to be positive and peaceful. Zeke wanted to make a mockery of that training. He'd been trying to provoke me to the point of violence. He wanted me to hit him. He wanted the scar to prove that David's people were the real aggressors.

No one outside the Zeke's living room would ever hear the way that he'd insulted me. But they would see the marks if I punched him. And Zeke could tell a story about the young, unemployed half-breed from the Salinger campaign who beat him up in his living room.

I tried to remember David's words.

Keep it relaxed. Keep it friendly. Never, ever get angry or negative, no matter how rude they are

No, I wouldn't let Zeke have the satisfaction.

My fist sailed through the air but it never came close to striking Zeke.

"I am being assaulted," Zeke shouted. He pulled a handgun out of his bathrobe. "I am within my rights to shoot you on my property, you son of a bitch! That's the Second Amendment!"

"No," I cried, kneeling on the floor with my hands outstretched.

"You come in my home and lunge at me? I should shoot you in self-defense. Whose side do you think the cops are going to take? You think they're going to care about you? Some mongrel from LA who left his wife and can't hold down a job? My ancestors used to kill savages like you for sport, just to purify the wilderness. That's exactly what you deserve, Cuahtemoc McCarthy!"

Suddenly, Zeke dropped the gun and clutched his chest with both hands. His breath grew short and his eyes rolled up in his head. His body collapsed on the floor in front of me. I remembered the heart condition he mentioned when he brought out the plate of Krispy Kreme's.

"Zeke?" I said.

"My chest," he whispered.