The 86th District

For every election, I vote at the school around the corner from me. They have the same nice lady volunteers and my name is always spelled wrong on the voter card mailed to me with my district number and polling location. C'est la vie. My vote counts anyway. I waited until 9:05 a.m., craftily hoping that my affluent neighborhood of office workers would be away from the polls during the day, leaving them rather empty. 

No go. I felt deflated to see a line run down the school steps onto the sidewalk because I know that means an hour or more of waiting. OK, so that was the let down but the good news was that our Obama-supporting neighborhood turned it out in earnest. That's great! Having made my mental adjustments, I settled into the line to wait. The woman ahead of me was a mess. A poll worker (all of whom volunteer their services for free) checked her district information and she was in the wrong place, which he confirmed for her after we had talked about voting in general. Buh-bye. One less person in line. 

The next lady in front of me was dressed, uh, rather enthusiastically for voting (read: so NOT a New Yorker) as she struggled with her designer coffee (it kills the appetite, de rigeur for the skinny fashionista set) to get her American flag sweater-clad doggie into a a bag, which was fascinating for a snow dog person like myself. I guessed that it was a Puggle, a trendy small dog in NYC, and I was told it was a Jack Russell. Oh. He shivered as uncomfortably as his Euro owner seemed with this whole Democratic process thing. Her hipster BF in skinny jeans showed up, confirming for me their Gowanus status, also standard for any self-respecting arty wanna-be hipster. Wrong line, wrong district. So they were gone. Awesome.

Now I was left with the regular people of my district as we inched along the stairs to inside the school. A blood bank showed up to set up in the auditorium. The working class guy in front of me was dressed in standard construction guy garb: flannel shirt over t-shirt and army jacket. He grew bored very quickly and periodically chatted in Arabic in amazement to his friends on his cell phone. A sharp bird of an older women nervously chatted up people on line in her jaunty red beret, punctuating her time reading "The New Yorker" and complaining to anyone who would listen. I danced in line, stretched my limbs, shadow boxed a bit and looked around. One mom made the mistake of allowing her young son to bring his scooter, which he would roll on back and forth as she held it in her hand with a baby strapped to her in a sling, and occasionally faked falling by rolling on the ground in laughter at his joke. I thought it was funny, too. That's how I felt on the inside. Rock on, bro.

Into hour two, the pack started separating into camps: people with the will power to endure and those who lose their shit. It became a microcosm that forms the basis for every survivalist reality show on t.v. People who can, and people who can't. As we neared a small set of steps that lead to closed doors that were the entrance to the classrooms, a small cadre of people in front of me bonded over their impatience and showed their group displeasure by sulkily sitting on the steps and pouting. 

A group of African-American construction guys (in light jackets and Timberland boots) passed the time eating chips and drinking evil-looking purple and orange colored sodas. Shit. When that junk food hits their system and their brains, it will alter their behavior. I've seen ghetto teenage moms feed this same stuff to their toddlers for years, so I know it's an ingrained, learned cultural habit. One of their group, a very heavy man, complained about numbness in his thighs as he huffed and puffed to sit on the steps behind me. "Yeah. Keep eatin' homeboy" I muttered to myself. This was not looking good. I leaned on the staris' bannister with my arms behind my back, waiting for the crowd to shift.

I thought the school guards were standing behind the closed red doors at the top of the stairs to direct voter traffic towards the exit, but I would find out one of them was a grandmother who merely wanted to pass off her granddaughter back to her daughter's care. Her partner came out of the red doors with a crying toddler dressed adorably in a dinosaur hoodie. Both of them walked back and forth to the front of the school and outside, passing each other before they found each other to relate the details of the hand off and then they were gone. And that was school security. 

The smaller districts of 87 and 76 that also voted at the school went in quickly and soon the line became just the 86th. A woman who looked like a school teacher with the requisite out of date pleather backpack shouted at people to get against the wall. I leaned forward a bit in concern in response to the hush and movement of the crowd who followed her directive. She was not a poll worker. Uh oh. People are blindly following orders. The shift was coming soon.

A small frazzled haired woman from the 76th had the first outburst in the hallway when a poll worker came out looking for people in her district to let them through for voting. She just started yelling about waiting in line, and as she escalated the poll worker tried in vain to lighten the mood, in snappy hood style "Watchoo think is goin' on in there?! A fashion shoot?! They're working!" which made the crowd laugh, but the little hobbit was beyond consolation as she popped off at the mouth ineffectually to burn off some stress. Kook. 

"OK. OK!" the poll volunteer yelled "No more questions!" because the lady was too far gone for conversation. The small group of worry warts who formed the line in front of me had inched towards the doors from the gymnasium that voters exited from after voting. Oh good! Progress. Now they can see inside and the goal of this line for themselves. The lady in the red hat had gone to the front of the line to "see what was going on" something I noticed the rich white men of my neighborhood doing, such is the impatience that privilege gives to peoples' temperaments. We are all equal on this day, except for the handicapped and infirm. Welcome to America. 

She had come back with a weird comment to her little group "I don't know what the mystery is!" Not good. Uncertainty breeds discontent. I said lowly, looking up at the ceiling "The mystery is an auditorium that's equipped for the day for voting." Many times poll workers said we were waiting here in line because jamming the gym would be a fire hazard, which is true. I myself did not sit on the stairs because one does not block stairs and other exits in case of fire. I learned that in grade school when we had a visit from the local fire department. But a perfect storm was already in progress. 

Angry voters who had waited for hours before work were unnerved beyond reason. As the doors swung open, some of them took the time to vent their anger to the crowd by yelling complaints. I let one or two go, because I knew that some people lack the mental landscape to tolerate even the most minor of stresses. The red hat lady and her group nervously pelted questions to exiting voters, further whipping them up. But one white man in an orange hat went too far—he became the tipping point. He started addressing the crowded line in a loud voice about calling the election board to complain and that was all an angry young man in line behind me needed. He jumped up and down, yelling, too. "Yeah YEAH! Riot! Let's riot!" FUCK. 

After the guy in the neon hat left in a huff, pushing his way past people to the doors and stairs leading outside, some people whipped out their phones but I didn't like the hyped up way the young man behind me was nervously fidgeting. This was the type of bad energy that causes crowds to stampede at concerts. A policeman had gone to the front of the line inside a small doorway leading to the gymnasium for crowd control and that was it. No other authority figures were present. 

I took a deep breath to address the young man and the crowd stopped fidgeting for a minute in frustration. "I know it's frustrating to wait in a long line, but I have waited in lines to vote that were longer than this. I'm older than you," I said this to him to establish my experience level and authority. I put my hand toward him in supplication. "You voted in the last election for Obama, right?" He nodded in chastisement, suddenly embarrassed and looking at his feet. A much larger man stepped in front of him, tensely nodding his head in agreement taking small steps towards me. Ah, so what. "By voting for Obama, we are making history. A two hour wait is a small price to pay to change history. How many other things can you do in two hours that will change the course of history?" 

With that, I released the tension of air that had been ballooning. With one last comment, I put up my hands apart next to my head. "Perspective. Keep your perspective." And with my gentle, even, strong yet kind and firm tone, I changed it around. By now, the crowd recognized me. Good. "That's Marie Doucette" they whispered to each other. The older black man turned to his young friend "She's 'Team Renzo Gracie'....trained under Pete Lawson... " That's right. Oh good! 'Cause if this shit gets ugly, I will choke a bitch out. I have street cred in their community because I've learned under the instruction of African-American fighters and they respect that, as do I. It ain't easy comin' up in this world. Lord knows we have to fight for each step we take. 

The lady in the red hat became more flighty and skittish but by now I stood right outside the exit doors to the gymnasium, as I held my position in line to create a space for exiting voters to leave easily and without angst. I turned my attention back to waiting in line, but not before drew my hand across my throat in a kill gesture and murmured "I am not havin' it. I am fundamentally NOT having it." If I had to be the grown up and adult, no problem. I've raised a lot of people, homeboy, so muthafuckin'deal and then I practiced a few rear naked choke arm positions in readiness. Tap out or pass out. 

I read the exasperated expressions of a small group of 3-4 people leaving the gym. I said to the first one, "Do you want to high-five?" and he did, as did every other person who came after him as I did my turn in line by the exiting doors. I looked each of them in the eye as they came of the swinging gym doors "Congratulations." I said to one lady, "Nice job" I reassured another. It's what we do after each training session at dojos. We set up a line to shake the hand of sensei, nearest student going first, and each student who comes after stands in line to high-five the next fighter. It worked and the crowd now happily expressed themselves. 

Red hat lady, sensing that I would not let things (or her) get out of control, started in with people in line who had Dunkin' Donuts and coffee. "Hey. Toss them here!" then opened her mouth like a starving child. She would be the first one eaten in my tribe. They gave her a few donut holes and she gave one to a young scared looking black girl who formed the nervous group ahead of me in the line. She turned to me and said "I need sugar!" like a nervous junkie. I looked steadily at her and said "No you don't. You won't starve. I'll take care of you."

Waking up to today's election results, I know that I did. 
Well done, people.