I voted. Normally I get a bit of a rush when I enter a voting booth, or whatever those enclosures are called, but this time it felt like a bit of a chore. For one thing I wasn’t even sure where to go. I’ve voted at the same place for years, the school on 37th Avenue, and I think the room in which the ballots were placed has always been the same. They might have moved it one room over but it’s always been on the first floor. The room where I expected the voting to take place was today occupied by what you might call a banquet. I didn’t stay long enough to figure out what was happening but when I saw a salad bar and smelled some hot food I figured this wasn’t the place. I followed the arrows on signs that read “Vote Here”. I followed those signs clear to the end of the hall, where the signs pointed me to the elevator. I thought that would be a strange place to vote. No signs anywhere said that voting had been moved to the third floor, but then I didn’t think to ask anyone anything at the front door when I entered. So I stepped into the elevator and stopped at the second floor. No voting there, it appeared, from lack of any of those “Vote Here” signs. So I went to the third floor and found more of those signs, which sent me all the way to the far end of the building.
It was more of that school building than I’ve seen before, and it had me feeling melancholy, as most thing have a capacity to do. I’ve been thinking about school lately, as part of some stories I’m writing, and I could not help but compare and contrast the unremarkable structures in which I attended grade school and high school with this relatively austere, subliminally uplifting piece of architecture. It reminded me of something I read about how the British intentionally bring uplift and import to structures in which mundane and necessary tasks are performed. Public bathrooms and public phone boxes were given over-the-top treatment as a way of bringing some grandeur to the performance of tasks that were anything but grand. Similar architectural æsthetics informed the design of some public housing projects in the U.S., but that kind of design attention faded from that realm long ago.
Until now I thought my grade school built was built the same year I was born, but it was in fact built in 1962. A one-story structure with a yellow brick façade, the building was torn down years ago, replaced with (what else?) athletic facilities. It was not a remarkable building nor was it offensive, but its lack of esteem is perhaps indicated by the fact that I can only find one photo of it online, and it is just a small thumbnail on this page. Combing through pages of my third grade yearbook turns up some evidence of the structure’s character but no singular photo of its street-facing façade.
One formerly forgotten and now ghostly image turned up, though. It’s a photo of me and three other kids leading the school in the morning prayer and pledge of allegiance. I am the one wearing the hat, and looking distracted. The dress code forbade hats but I think I’m wearing it because I was in the Cub Scouts, and I had reached some kind of milestone in my membership. That would also explain the scarf/bandanna thing around my neck. Talk about a foggy childhood memory.
But what is ghostly about this image is the figure of the person in the back, next to the water fountains. That is my mother. I do not have many photos of her, and this is obviously not a very good one, but her reluctance to be photographed makes it all the more haunting. The four of us at the center of the photo were there because of some kind of honor roll privilege, I don’t remember why, but it was a one-time only thing that not many of the kids got selected for. This pledge of allegiance/prayer assembly was done only on Fridays. Mother went out of her way so she could observe and be a part of me earning this highest of honors, the absolute pinnacle of my youth.
I got into some kind of trouble in the third grade. The details will probably never be made clear to me but it involved another kid coaxing me into stealing money from the library. There was a place where the librarian put money, for some reason putting it out such that any of us kids could have come across it. I wouldn’t say it was a setup but that librarian was pretty fucking mean. The other kid, who was a chronic cheater in class, showed me the drawer or container or whatever it was where the money was stashed. I had no concept of what cash was worth in those days, but I did find it tantalizing nonetheless. The other kid took some of the cash and gestured for me to do the same. I did. I took a dollar bill or maybe more. Hell, maybe I grabbed hundreds of dollars. That might explain how the consequences of what I did seemed to reach absurd levels. I was summoned to the principal’s office, where a well-dressed man interviewed me about the incident. I don’t know who this man was but it was impressed upon me that he had been summoned from outside the school to investigate, a fact which made his presence all the more significant. It was like they’d called in the FBI.
I remember telling the truth about what happened, but that doing so would get the other kid into real trouble. Or is it simply that I think I told the truth but that I really lied to save my own ass? I have lied at times in life but my memory of what happened in that grade school incident rests pretty soundly on me telling the truth. The other kid was gone the next year, the rumor being that his parents were asked that he not return. I guess I will never know if his departure had anything to do with this library incident, nor will I ever know if I lied my way out of being asked to leave the school myself.
So many turns in life that could have gone one way or another based on how well someone lied or how honest they were.
…
If I had known it was going to stop raining I would have waited until later in the afternoon to vote. I hate being in the rain, and I guess its presence today made turning out to vote seem like more of a chore than usual. It was a 2-sheet, 4-sided ballot. I don’t remember ever seeing anything but a single-sheet ballot, but I also noticed that the typeface on these sheets was considerably more readable than in years past.
I didn’t mean to sound like I was complaining but when I finally found the voting room I told the woman at the front table (who was bombshell beautiful, btw) that I didn’t think I was ever going to find this place. She was nice about it but also seemed concerned, as I guess someone in her position would be. I mean voting and the language used to get people to do it has got to be lowest common denominator, where even idiots like me can figure it out.
I like to save those “I Voted” stickers but today’s got blown away into the wind and rain of Crescent Street.
