The Voting Machine

Lucky Streak

The following morning, I planned my trip to LA. With my savings, I bought a bus ticket for the Greyhound "Lucky Streak" route between the two cities that would get me into LA by Friday afternoon. I booked a room in an extended stay motel off of Hawthorne Boulevard, a place I'd moved my friend Gina into one night after her ex-husband tried to break into her apartment.

Annabelle was gone early on another trip to one of the clinics, so I walked through the blistering heat to the campaign office. I was surprised to find Fatima in a meeting with Ravi, Paula, and some of the other volunteers.

They'd mapped out a shift schedule on the white board, with targets for contacts, registration sign ups, and volunteer cards, the same way David and Annabelle used to when they led the strategy sessions.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Fatima in a soft voice after they'd finished. It was the first time she'd visited our campaign office since her father came.

"We're setting up the registration booth again down by the DMV," she said.

"How are you going to do that? Mr. Reddy said we can't use the gas station."

"We're going to put it in front of the Dollar Delight."

"Your father came here and said we couldn't do that. Didn't he tell you?"

She shrugged. "Of course he told me. My father doesn't need to know what we're doing. He's gone until Monday signing the lease to open a Dollar Delight in Reno. This is my decision. I am the one running the store by the DMV. I stock the shelves and manage the books. Why should it be his decision?"

"What's going to happen when he gets back from Reno?"

"I can change his mind. Look at how many voters we signed up in one day at the gas station? We came back with over forty registration forms. Think what we can accomplish over the weekend at Dollar Delight. If we sign up over a hundred voters by Monday, Papa's going to change his mind. He's going to see how important this is."

"It's too dangerous," I said. "Look at what they did to the gas station."

"They're not going to get away with it at my store," she said. "I have a plan."

"You can't do this," I told her. "You don't know who you're dealing with."

"Whose side are you on anyway?" she said. "You're the one who stood up to those men from the Founding Fathers in front of the gas station. You're the one who told them they couldn't bully us anymore."

Fatima and her fellow volunteers drove down to the Dollar Delight to start their booth without inviting me.

I was worried because I'd lost their trust and could foresee the mess that was coming. On top of that, David was still resting at home and I was leaving the following morning for my weekend trip back to LA. Annabelle also had to visit her father for a meeting related to his appeal. Who would help Fatima and the others if they ran into trouble?

When Annabelle returned from the clinic, I explained what happened and the two of us drove down to Flamingo and Durango. A crowd had swelled around their table in front of the Dollar Delight.

Once again, Fatima and the other kids were all fired up, giving speeches to strangers about getting involved in the election and helping shape history. Once again, their enthusiasm seemed to be contagious. It was as if these young volunteers gave a spark of hope and energy to everyone who passed by. The strangers were hoping some of this passion would rub off on them. It wasn't something you could get for a buck or less off the shelves of Dollar Delight.