Just how much influence can an orator and freedom-fighter such as myself have on our electoral process? Let's look at the numbers.
In Philadelphia's 60th Ward, where I spread the word, the final tally was:
Kerry 7,719 (96%)
Bush 293 (4%)
Now let's look at a region where I was unable to canvass: Duchesne County, Utah.
Kerry 707 (13%)
Bush 4590 (87%)
Statistics don't lie. My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country.
It would be silly to presume that the denizens of the 60th ward, 5th precinct of West Philly had never seen a white person. But it's quite likely that they had never had one come knock on their door at 9:30 in the morning.
"What you want?" called a voice through the closed door. I was knocking doors on a series of collapsing row houses out by where West 53rd meets Walnut. Every block had a few boarded-up hovels with No Trespassing signs tacked to the plywood over the windows.
"I'm looking for Henry Jackson."
"He ain't here."
"How about Dinesha Taylor?"
"Nope."
"Dinea Taylor?"
"She's at work. What you want anyway?"
"My name is Travis LaFrance," I said, raising my voice to be heard through the door. "I've come to ensure that you take the opportunity to exercise your democratic duty, and make it to the polls today."
"You a cop?"
"This is the most important election of a generation, and Pennsylvania is a crucial state. You have the power to see that America pursues wise foreign policy and an equitable domestic agenda. If you open the door I can tell you where your polling place is."
"I know where it is. I'll vote later. I'm having my breakfast."
As the day warmed, the doors began to open. They eyed me suspiciously at first: a white guy with a list of everyone who lived in the house. One man in forties with long dreadlocks watched me down the stoop.
"Hold on," he called after me. "You're not a Republican are you?"
"I should say not, sir. I am a man of the people."
"Good thing," he said. "I was about to tell you you're in the wrong part of town."
Election day began well before dawn, leaping from my cot at the youth hostel in Philadelphia. My assignment was to a church in West Philly, and I'd been told to bring my car in order to drive voters to the polls. The basement of the church was a congregation of black faces of all ages, from teenagers to a little old granny in her church hat with a rose on it: this, I reflected, is real unity—the power of the Democrats.
The white guy in charge said, "Now if you don't put up the door hangers, you won't get paid."
Paid?
I was here as a volunteer in service to democracy. I asked around a bit and discovered this: the white people were volunteers and held positions of authority (e.g., getting to drive), while the black people were to get a hundred bucks cash for 13 hours of canvassing. The white guy looked at me.
"Put on one of our t-shirts and get a precinct list," he said. "We'll put you on doors."
That sounded sort of important. Perhaps I was to be the sentry at the polling place.
"Knocking on doors. You'll be with Nadja and Tyrell."
"But they told me to bring a car."
The man shrugged and turned away to his work. Fine. Let me be a foot soldier. I didn't get to be a hero to the Common Man by taking some paper-pushing managerial job. To the streets!
Then: Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Travis LaFrance
Now: Solzhenitsyn, Frederick Douglass, Travis LaFrance
A cold wind portends the onset of the long winter of my dissent.
"It's the Betsy Ross Bridge," I declared, passing the border from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. "We're following the footsteps of our founding fathers. And do you know which river we're crossing?"
Miss S. glanced down at the map, and I snatched it away.
"No peaking," I said. "It's the river that George Washington crossed on the way to Valley Forge."
"You know, when I was in high school, I was more interested in hooking up and finding out where the keggers were."
We exited the freeway onto Benjamin Franklin's hallowed cobblestone streets, and began searching for headquarters. The neighborhood seemed to have deteriorated somewhat from its colonial splendor, yet its modern-day vibrancy was evident. Checks cashed, lotto tickets. We buy gold. What else does civilization need? 3 out of 4 buildings were burned out or boarded up.
Miss S. and I parted ways, and I found my way up a staircase to a office where dozens of volunteers hovered around computer monitors and folding desks. I found my way to my contact and introduced myself. "I'm here to empower voters," I told her.
She glanced up at a clock on the wall. "You're just getting here now?" she said. Turns out the canvass crews were already out hitting the pavement. "I'm in a meeting right now. But I guess you could just go over to the hostel."
"Sounds great. Where is it?" I said. She told me an address. "Feel free to get directions on Mapquest. If you can find a computer. "
I waited for her meeting to end. She and a staff of five, most of them in their twenties, sat in a circle, laughing, massaging each other's feet, taking pictures of one another with their cell phones. One had a lapbook open: I could see that on the screen she was downloading a screen-saver image of a kitten.
After thirty minutes or so, I heard what was like music, a woman's voice asking, "Does anyone have a car?" So the next minute this delightful New Yorker was in my Corolla, the scent of Miss S.'s sunscreen still lingering. Turned out she was a writing student at a well-known Manhattan University. Impressed that she had the decorum to pretend that she didn't recognize the renowned prose stylist in her midst, I dropped this idealistic lass at the train station.
Then I headed out to a pub where pictures of Yeats and James Joyce hung from the wall, put away a few pints of Guinness and a plate of bangers and mash, then headed up to the hostel, a converted mansion on a sprawling estate with some sort of French name, where I passed the evening watching TV and reading the polls online.
It's been a tough day, but our democracy is stronger as a result of all my work.
I departed Brooklyn this morning to hit the Philadelphia pavement and get out the vote. Needless to say I had a lovely companion in tow, a certain Miss S, a sun-freckled Rocky Mountain flower on her first visit to the eastern seaboard. Miss S. is a Colorado native, a river guide and pilates instructor, the kind that wears plastic wraparound sunglasses and looks good in ski outfits. As we sped up and over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, we discovered a brilliant autumn morning, the leaves quivering and the colors in riot. I'm driving the Corolla, a modest sedan that allows me to travel in anonymity and bolsters my patriotism, for while I jaunt across the countryside, my contribution to the oil coffers of the enemy are negligible.
"Crab shack," said Miss S, as we passed into New Jersey. On her sight-seeing hitlist was a trip to the Jersey shore where she envisioned she'd find a clapboard seafood seller windbeaten in the fall gusts. I was supposed to begin my civic duty at 2 pm, and I agreed with Miss S. that a content citizen is a productive citizen. So we detoured over to the shore, sunlight pouring through the windshield, and drove into Asbury Park.
We found no crab shacks. In the stench of treated sewer we found boarded-up pleasure palaces, the skeletons of condominiums abandoned during construction, and mid-day drunks weaving along the boardwalk bellowing at no one in particular. We skedaddled southward and lo and behold, there on Shark River was a mom-and-pop seafood bistro, where although crab was scarce, the lobsters were live, and Miss S. called for two of them, as well as a crock of lobster bisque.
"Duty to country," I observed, fastening my bib, "requires that we love our country, and all the fine meals it has to offer. Waitress: a chilled bottle of pinot grigio when you have a moment."
"This is a bring-you-own type of place," said the server, returning to a booth where her toddler was wailing.
The shellfish arrived and we tore into them, splashing butter across the table. The bill arrived.
"Let me treat you," said Miss S.
"Oh no, allow me. "
"That's sweet of you."
"But if you insist," I relented, pushing the bill her way. "I always let the lady have her way."
By two thirty we were back on the highway, headed to Philadelphia, our Republic's fate awaiting the arrival of its native son, Travis LaFrance.