Carl Shikso squinted at the paper in front of him, gripping a ballpoint pen with such force his hand hurt.  Topping six feet, even without his plaster-flecked work boots, he barely fit into one of several narrow spaces arrayed about the room, back to a line of increasingly irate people he pictured staring daggers at him much as he’d done countless times when stuck behind a slowpoke at Home Depot.  The workday loomed and their impatience quickly gave way to hostility.

“Come ON, dude,” grumbled the owner of a gruff baritone seemingly to himself.  “How hard can it be?”  But Carl only half-noticed.

Spread around his ballot like a fan of mismatched cards was an assortment of political flyers.  Congressional endorsements from pro-choice celebrities slipped into his pocket, most likely by his little sister Gwen.  Slates of rock-ribbed NRA foot soldiers courtesy of work buddies playing to a lifelong enthusiasm for hunting and target shooting, if not assault weapons.  Literature from the Teamsters (his union).  And SEIU (his wife’s).  There was even one from his mother’s church group, though he’d rather be burned at the stake than forsake the NFL in favor of Sunday Mass. 

Digesting the headline atop a flyer of dubious provenance  ̶   “DEMS’ SOCIALIST AGENDA”  ̶  he balled up the paper and wiped both hands vigorously on his Ben Davis pants.  Jeannie Debs, the Democrats’ candidate for State Senate, flooded voters with do-gooder statistics that never failed to send him into the warm embrace of SportsCenter.  But she seemed sincere.  And Carl was pretty sure she was no socialist, if a bit woke.  Plus she was cute for a wonk and wore the same Chuck Taylors on the campaign trail favored by an old high school sweetheart.

—–

“Hey, Carl…Anybody home?”  The senior center cum polling place with its bulletin boards and their smattering of signups for museum field trips and international potlucks had morphed into a Baskin Robbins, plastered with images of grinning kids wearing the contents of their waffle cones.  The pen was gone, too.  In its place was a plastic straw he was about to jam through the lid of a chocolate and peanut butter shake, until a familiar voice all but slapped him.

“Plastic straws kill seals.  Where have you been, hibernating?”  Regarding him with arms folded was his smirking brother-in-law Elliott in a “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican” sweatshirt and light hikers which Carl thought of as Birkenstocks in disguise. 

Eyes shut against the disapproving scrutiny of everybody old enough to tie their own shoes, Carl drained his birthday treat, tasting only embarrassment. 

—–

A stomach roiled by this painful memory jerked Carl back to the here and now, where he found his pen hovering above the box for Charles Oswald Mosley.  “Charlie O,” a MAGA acolyte who faced the cameras with loud sportscoats and louder dog whistle references, spewing innuendo and putdowns at anyone who dared challenge him.

“Ouch!”  Sister Gabriella struck from out of the past, still the avenging angel she’d been after catching 9-year-old Carl peeking at Chelsea McNabb’s spelling test, her dreaded ruler smiting him and sending the pen clattering the floor.  “God doesn’t abide a liar.  Or a cheat.”

Carl could almost feel his knuckles and conscience smarting while bending to retrieve the pen and re-reconsidering the candidates.  Even the ghost of Sister G was not to be trifled with.  This time, at least, she hadn’t twisted his ear.

A glance the clock revealed he’d been in the voting booth long enough for a game-icing touchdown drive.

—–

“5…4…3…2…1…YESSS!!”  Dismay turned to joy thanks to Patrick Mahomes’ last-second heroics.  The Kansas City Chiefs had somehow manufactured a miracle to wrest the Lombardi Trophy from another stunned Super Bowl opponent.  Father and son fought off tears during a raucous, bourbon-infused war dance around the coffee table that overturned a bowl of popcorn and scattered commemorative beer mugs that only made an appearance for the biggest games.

“Beautiful!” proclaimed Elliott from the kitchen doorway.  “The Shikso Tribe on the warpath.  You guys wouldn’t know a Native American if you tripped on one.”

Elation and a treasured memory in the making instantly curdled at the spectacle of Elliott and 57-year-old Herb Shikso nose to nose, index fingers stabbing each other’s chests, on the verge of fisticuffs.  Only Gwen’s tearful intervention saved her husband from an unplanned trip to the dentist and her father from a coronary.

—–

A volley of clearing throats emanating from the voting queue denied Carl the visceral satisfaction of administering a thorough, if imaginary, thumping to his brother-in-law. 

Payback would have to come via casting his lot with the candidate whose only apparent civic virtue was an ability to drive Elliott and all those soft-handed finger waggers to sputtering apoplexy.  Carl’s wicked grin could have warmed the room.

Sister Gabriella’s strength was on the wane when the dearly departed Sergeant Luther Turner, answering some netherworld distress flare, appeared at her side and joined the desperate struggle for Carl’s political soul.  He hadn’t aged a day since their last meeting and his dark brown eyes locked with Carl’s, bringing to mind a long-ago sit-down in the front seat of a patrol car when the former high school coach cut his former gridiron protégé a break by finessing the mess from a barroom argument gone sideways.  “Remember, Sonny, counting to 10 before losing your cool ain’t just for the football field.  It could keep your hot-tempered ass out of jail.  Think!” he’d ordered, tapping Carl none too gently on the head.  “I might not be there next time.”

The sergeant’s ebony brow shone under the polling place’s flickering fluorescent lights with his strong right hand helping Sister Gabriella regain the initiative while Carl began that 10-count.

—–

“You’re an NRA guy, aren’t you, Carl?!”  Elliott insinuated from behind a new mountain man beard.  “Yeah, I’m a hunter,” Carl responded, palms upturned with a WTF shrug before a hostile jury of his peers that only seconds earlier had been a gathering of family and friends at a festive Thanksgiving dinner.  He might as well have been the triggerman at Sandy Hook instead of the one who’d bagged and prepared the delicious 15-pound turkey, its fat glistening on their chins. 

—–

The suddenly beleaguered Sergeant Turner and Sister Gabriella were reinforced by a determined Gwen.  Then John McCain, resplendent in dress whites, answered the call and squeezed into the booth beside them.  But it was Steph Curry joining the grunting fray, causing the walls of the voting booth to balloon cartoonishly, that enabled Carl to blink away any indecisiveness and with it the temptation to “Make America Great Again,” again.

With his smoldering slag heap of toxic memories reduced to a cinder, the wall of rectitude stood aside, arms linked as if witnessing Abraham Lincoln deliver the Emancipation Proclamation.  What might have been a smile flickered at the corners of the nun’s perpetually compressed lips.

“You hibernating in there?!”  inquired a woman, and a heavy smoker from the sound of her.  This comment was clearly meant as much for the peanut gallery as for Carl.  “Too many big words?!” piled on the owner of a Downton Abby-worthy English accent to a wave of derisive laughter, undeterred by a stern “People!” from a poll worker who commanded all the authority of an overmatched substitute teacher.  Carl flushed, much as he had 12 years back, having just pushed a form across  his college advisor’s desk, making his withdrawal from San Jose State official.

—–

“Carl, why?  You were doing so well!” exclaimed Sandra Hollingsworth, setting down his college transcript and looking at him with a heartbroken gaze he couldn’t bring himself meet.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Hollingsworth.  It’s just…Last May, my dad’s job was offshored.  To China.  Now, he’s working for peanuts at a hardware store.   There’s no way they can make their house payments, now.  Not without my help.” 

“But, Carl ̶ “

He stood when she started to protest, “Thank you, Sandy, for everything,” was all he could manage before bolting from the Student Services office with a ragged sigh.

—–

A baker’s dozen of fidgety voters shuffling their feet in single file behind Carl.  Among them: two Asian women, one dressed for the gym the other sporting an N-95 mask; an African American gentleman sitting on a steel attaché case; a woman in yoga pants, flip flops, and a faded “Hillary Won” t-shirt; a neighbor he recognized but hardly knew; his local barista, rail thin, nose glued to her phone; a man the size of a bouncer packed into a  size-too-small Hogwarts t-shirt.  And all of them, even the women, sprouting identical mountain man beards. 

Hand no longer shaking, Carl finally exhaled and marked his ballot.  The “X” he entered next to Charles O. Mosley almost tore the paper.  Then he eyeballed his fellow Americans on his way to the door.  Their beards were gone.  And none had the guts to face him except for a professorial 6-footer, leather portfolio in hand and wearing a tweed cap, who gave him an Elliott-esque once over that Carl cut short by wheeling on him, fists balled, forcing the big man to backpedal until he hit the wall.  Noses practically touching, Carl summoned his most baleful glare, swatted the cap from its perch, and watched the man squirm.  Then he stepped into the sunlight.  That burning in his gut had returned, but this time Carl savored it for the rest of the morning, like a peanut butter and chocolate shake.

– Matthew Snyderman

Author’s Note: One thing that draws me to writing is the challenge of trying to put myself in the shoes of characters who interest me and whose personalities, backgrounds, and experiences are not like mine. This is especially true when I’ve been presumptuous enough to drop them into uncomfortable situations. Will their choices make sense for them? Empathy, after all, is about understanding, not necessarily agreement. So, I try to listen to my characters and be fair to who they are. A handful of charged conversations I’ve had over the years got me thinking about the degree to which emotions drive how people react to current events. This story is what emerged from those ruminations. Hopefully, Carl Shikso thinks I did right by him. Or, at least came close.