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The Handbill in this story.
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Note: A longer version of this story about my time as a candidate was first published in SLANT in 1987. Then, in 2000, I trimmed it down to this version, which ran in Style Weekly as a Back Page. Overall, I have received a lot of feedback, mostly positive, on this piece; maybe more than any other I've written.
A few flashbacks of the events described are still vivid memories. Nonetheless, for the sake of accuracy, I'm sure glad I wrote it all down before other parts faded into the mists.
*
In
the spring of 1984, I ran for public office. In case the Rea for City
Council campaign doesn’t ring a bell, it was a spontaneous and totally
independent undertaking. No doubt, it showed. Predictably, I lost, but
I’ve never regretted the snap decision to run, because the education was
well worth the price.
In
truth, I had been mired in a blue funk for some time prior to my
letting a couple of friends, Bill Kitchen and Rocko Yates, talk me into
running, as we played a foozball game in Rockitz, Kitchen's nightclub.
Although I knew winning such an election was out of my reach, I relished
the opportunity to have some fun mocking the system. Besides, at the
time, I needed an adventure.
So
it began. Walking door to door through Richmond’s 5th District,
collecting signatures to qualify to be on the ballot, I talked with
hundreds of people. During that process my attitude about the endeavor
began to expand. People were patting me on the back and saying they
admired my pluck. Of course, what I was not considering was how many
people will encourage a fool to do almost anything that breaks the
monotony.
By
the time I announced my candidacy at a press conference on the steps of
the city library, I was thoroughly enjoying my new role. My confidence
and enthusiasm were compounding daily.
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At the Downtown Public Library
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On
a warm April afternoon I was in Gilpin Court stapling handbills,
featuring my smiling face, onto utility poles. Prior to the campaign, I
had never been in Gilpin Court. I had known it only as “the projects.”
Several
small children took to tagging along. Perhaps it was their first view
of a semi-manic white guy — working their turf alone — wearing a
loosened tie, rolled-up shirtsleeves, and khaki pants.
After
their giggling was done, a few of them offered to help out. So, I gave
them fliers and they ran off to dish out my propaganda with a spirit
only children have.
Later
I stopped to watch some older boys playing basketball at the
playground. As I was then an unapologetic hoops junkie, it wasn’t long
before I felt the urge to join them. I played for about 10 minutes, and
amazingly, I held my own.
After
hitting three or four jumpers, I banked in a left-handed runner. It was
bliss, I was in the zone. But I knew enough to quit fast, before the
odds evened out.
Picking
up my staple gun and campaign literature, I felt like a Kennedyesque
messiah, out in the mean streets with the poor kids. Running for office
was a gas; hit a string of jump shots and the world’s bloody grudges and
bad luck will simply melt into the hot asphalt.
A
half-hour later the glamour of politics had worn thin for my troop of
volunteers. Finally, it was down to one boy of about 12 who told me he
carried the newspaper on that street. As he passed the fliers out, I
continued attaching them to poles.
The
two of us went on like that for a good while. As we worked from block
to block he had very little to say. It wasn’t that he was sullen; he was
purposeful and stoic. As we finished the last section to cover, I asked
him a question that had gone over well with children in other parts of
town.
“What’s the best thing and the worst thing about your neighborhood?” I said with faux curiosity.
He stopped. He stared right through me. Although I felt uncomfortable about it, I repeated the question.
When he replied, his tone revealed absolutely no emotion. “Ain’t no best thing … the worst thing is the sound.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, already feeling a chill starting between my shoulder blades.
“The
sound at night, outside my window. The fights, the gunshots, the
screams. I hate it. I try not to listen,” he said, putting his hands
over his ears to show me what he meant.
Stunned,
I looked away to gather my ricocheting thoughts. Hoping for a clue that
would steady me, I asked, “Why are you helping me today?”
He
pointed up at one of my handbills on a pole and replied in his
monotone. “I never met anybody important before. Maybe if you win, you
could change it.”
Words
failed me. Yet I was desperate to say anything that might validate his
hope. Instead, we both stared silently into the afternoon’s long
shadows. Finally, I thanked him for his help. He took extra handbills
and rode off on his bike.
As
I drove across the bridge over the highway that sequestered his stark
neighborhood from through traffic, my eyes burned and my chin quivered
like my grandfather’s used to when he watched a sad movie.
Remembering
being 12 years old and trying to hide my fear behind a hard-rock
expression, I wanted to go back and tell the kid, “Hey, don’t believe in
guys passing out handbills. Don’t fall for anybody’s slogans. Watch
your back and get out of the ghetto as fast as you can.”
But
then I wanted to say, “You’re right! Work hard, be tough, you can
change your neighborhood. You can change the world. Never give up!”
During the ride home to the Fan District, I swore to myself to do my
absolute best to win the election.
A
few weeks later, at what was billed as my victory party, I, too, tried
to be stoic as the telling election results tumbled in. The incumbent
carried six of the district’s seven precincts. I carried one. The total
vote wasn’t even close. Although I felt like I’d been in a car wreck, I
did my best to act nonchalant.
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This shot, taken at Grace
Place, shows my reaction to
the news that with half
the votes counted I no longer
had any chance to win.
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In
the course of my travels these days, I sometimes hear Happy Hour wags
laughing off Richmond’s routine murder statistics. They scoff when I
suggest that maybe there are just too many guns about; I’m told that as
long as “we” stay out of “their” neighborhood, there is little to fear.
But
remembering that brave Gilpin Court newspaper boy, I know that to him
the sound of a drug dealer dying in the street was just as terrifying as
the sound of any other human being giving up the ghost.
If
he's still alive, that same boy would be older than I was when I met
him. The ordeal he endured in his childhood was not unlike what children
growing up in any number of the world’s bloody war zones are going
through today. Plenty of them must cover their ears at night, too.
For
the reader who can’t figure out how this story could eventually come to
bear on their own life, then just wait … keep listening.
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