They say that decisions are made by those who show up. Well, this certainly couldn’t have been more the case than in the Democratic primary election this past Tuesday for Teddy K’s vacated death seat. If you live in the scum bag state of Massachusetts like me, you probably know that Martha Coakley, the front-runner, won by a fucking landslide in a primary that was marred by extremely low voter turnout. She was the polling well the entire race and coasted to victory— ball swiping the three men that stood in her way.
Despite my usual annoyance with the overall hackeyness of these candidates, I casted a goddamn ballot on Tuesday night. And let me tell you— my special election eve started off in mind fuck fashion. I strolled into the proper precinct as I usually do— dick in hand and sunglasses over my face. And in what to my wondering eyes should appear but two Alzheiming old hags with a fat aid in each ear. With their little glazed-over eyes I knew this wouldn’t be quick, so I took a deep breath and removed my hand from my dick.
What took place next was an unexaggerated ten minutes of repeating my name and address to the clueless old wench, until finally I took hold of her book and pointed to my name. At that point the local cop on duty stepped in (as he must have seen my agitation building).
“You’re not allowed to touch the book,” he said.
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have to if your volunteers weren’t so slight in their shyness to a hundred years of age,” I said.
“That’s not very nice.”
“Well, they can’t hear anyways,” I said.
I then faced back to the desk again and pointed to my name on the page. The ballot was handed over as the old folks sat aghast and the cop now on high alert. It was off to the voting. To the staring, the hair wrestling. The rubbing of eyes. The feeling of utter disappointment as I peered in at the ticket. A write-in perhaps? A protest vote? A staging of an indecent exposure triggering an arrest that would at least give me a venue in which to express my disgust for our united indifference towards this election? In the end, I decided to use the marker (we use black markers to vote in Mass) to color my nails, draw x’s on my cheeks, and, finally, cast my vote.
On the way out, there’s another checkpoint and, yes, more of the song and fucking dance again. This time with a red-faced geriatric— a balding woman whose hearing aide was fortunately better than the genes that produced her hairline. After the name and address confirmation, I put the ballot through the machine as the cop eyed the fresh marker on my face.
“What did ya do there?” was his comment.
“I marked the disgust on my face for this horse shit precinct in this treacherous state.”
“Watch your mouth,” he said.
“What?” I said. “You don’t find this state to be treacherous?”
With that, I was able to walk out— successfully giving the geriatrics and the pig a thing or two to ponder in that empty room of ignorance and indifference and disappointment.
A day later, what do we have but a landslide victory by the front-running Democrat who lead this race of disinterest from its start? A satisfying triumph for the women of Massachusetts, they are saying, in what was traditionally an ‘all boys club.’ But, really, is this anything of a victory? Sometimes decisions are made by those who show up. And sometimes elections are won because of a lack of a better option.
We love indifference, though, don’t we? It sits like an old house stench— even here where the American revolution was born— capturing the life of the tired and wicked and slow. We love the safety in not knowing enough to care. We love the easy answer. We love to eat pig shit for our breakfast here in Massachusetts and digest it with a squinting face, a gurgling stomach. And that’s the way it’ll be unless we decide to kill the fucking pig, cook it up, and live off its excrement no more.
And, as far as Martha goes, oh local friends of Freemont— I say get yourself to a Q & A or a ra-ra Coakley rally and try a ‘pull my finger’ joke on her. If she laughs it off, we have a legitimate candidate and worthy successor to Teddy K.
- Freemont
