A True American Patriot

It was 4 p.m. election day, three hours left to vote in the most important election in American history. I stood in line at the County elections office to pick up the key I would use to lock one of the 18 ballot boxes in our city. After the clerk passed me the key a tall, thin woman in a chartreuse sweater, masked, of course, stepped up. COVID-19 was infecting 20% of Wichita, Kansas. She had come to cast her vote. The sign outside said you could vote here till noon.

“You can’t vote here today. That sign was for yesterday. Now you have to go to your assigned voting place. What is your address?” the clerk asked her.

“I’m homeless,” she replied. “But I want to vote.”

“Do you have an ID with an address?”

She fumbled in her pocket and produced a bent drivers’ license, passing it around the plastic COVID-19 shield to the clerk.

“OK. I’m writing down the address of your voting place. This is where you are registered so with this ID you can vote there.”

The woman in the chartreuse sweater looked discouraged. “That’s a long way from here.” Still she did not turn away, making it clear she really wanted to vote.

“I can give you a ride,” I said, and even with the mask that covered the bottom half of her face, I could see she was smiling broadly.

“You’d really do that?”

“Of course.”

“Have you voted?” she asked me.

“Yes.”

“Do you mind my asking who you voted for?”

“Biden and Harris,” I replied.

“That’s who I’m voting for too.” We were immediately bonded.

“How long have you been homeless?”

“Three and a half years.”

I inhaled sharply, unable to imagine how she had survived.

A large man, probably, like her, in his forties had moved to the front of the line. “I’m here to vote,” he was saying to the clerk.

“I need to see your ID to tell you where you have to go to vote.”

“I can’t vote here? I’m homeless.” He cast a glance at two large canvas bags leaning against each other the floor beside him where. He would have to carry them—his belongings—to his polling place. He passed the clerk his military ID, unwilling to give up his right to vote. She looked him up in her computer.

“OK, you are registered at this voting site.” She passed him a paper on which she had written the address. “But it’s way out east, a long way from here.”

Calista and I had exchanged names and started toward the exit but the urgency in his voice made us turn back. “I can give you a ride, too,” I offered.

“That would be wonderful,” he said. He picked up his bags and followed us out of the courthouse. As we approached my twenty-three-years-old car that my granddaughter and I had stenciled with colorful flowers I wondered what they were thinking. We loaded his heavy bags in the trunk and got into my car.

“I don’t have my phone!” He looked panicked.

“Maybe you left it inside,” Calista suggested. He turned and walked back into the building. Soon he returned smiling. “Got it!” He slid into the back seat.

The two sites were on opposite sides of the city and it was beginning to get dark. I drove the woman to her site, which was nearer. On the way we passed a van giving out food to the homeless. Calista turned as we drove on, her face distressed. I heard her say to herself, “I hope I won’t miss my meal.”

We found New Covenant Church and I told Calista I’d return for her. Caesar helped me find the highway and monitored the exits to find the right one at which we exited south. We had begun getting acquainted. Caesar was talkative and helpful. He was an army vet in intelligence, he said. He worked undercover on cases of human trafficking now. His phone had a direct line to Trump’s White House. “I’ve been advising him on how to handle the immigrants coming across our border. His policy is a direct result of what I’ve told him.”

My heart plummeted. “So you are voting for Trump?”

“Of course,” he replied.

I had been writing letters to voters telling them why I thought it was so important for them to vote and phoning other voters to give them information on when they could vote early. Caesar’s choice for president was NOT my candidate.

“I have special kinesthetic ability,” he told me. “Do you know psychology? Do you know about people who can tell just by being around others what is going on with them? I have those special powers. Always have had them since I was a kid. It’s what makes me so useful to the Army.”

I do know people with extraordinary perceptive powers and nearly suggested he meet my daughter, who is one. But the longer Caesar talked, the more unclear I became about him. Might he be mentally ill or just truly gifted?

We were in an area new to me, recently converted from farmland to almost-suburb. I couldn’t find the church where Caesar was to vote and my phone had very little battery left. We pulled into a commercial driveway. I was worried I might not make it back to lock up the ballot box by 7.

The road was nearly deserted but I saw a Muslim couple out for a walk and waved to them to ask for help. They were very kind. The woman in a black hijab looked up the church on her phone and her husband pointed me in the right direction.

At the church Caesar went inside to vote and I sat in the car watching the last rays of sunset. Twenty minutes passed. No Caesar. I tried to phone my husband to see if he could go to the voting box before 7 in case I didn’t was late. After three tries he picked up. Yes, he would go.

Still no Caesar. By 6:15 I was beginning to panic. I hurried inside and saw him in one of the voting cubicles. I paced, my hands shaking. I paced some more. When one of the election volunteers approached probably wondering about my erratic behavior, I asked if there was any way I could tell Caesar we had to leave. “Of course,” he said and walked with me to near where Caesar was voting.

“I’m nearly done,” Caesar assured me.

Ten minutes later I was still pacing. I asked him again to please come. My phone was dead. It was pitch black and I had to pick up Calista and get him “home” before arriving at the ballot box I was to lock up at 7. Caesar was thrilled he had voted and followed me out of the church chatting amiably.

“Why did it take so long to vote?” I asked him.

“I was writing my name in at all the WRITE-IN options. Maybe I'll be elected to something,” he replied smiling.

We whipped through the late rush hour traffic, barreling across the city. "Don't worry," Caesar told me. “You have two hours till seven according to my watch. I keep it set on Washington, DC time for my calls to the President. You can let me off at the Washington St. exit. I have a place there to charge my phone.”

“You’re a true American patriot to take us to vote. Thank you.” Caesar told me as he collected his bags. Then this homeless man offered me gas money.

“No problem,” I said.

Calista was not at New Covenant. “She voted an hour ago,” said the poll worker. “Probably left.”

I raced north to The Evergreen Library, no way to check the address with my dead phone. I was praying for time. But the Evergreen Library was not a voting station! I drove north looking for any VOTE signs and stopped to ask two children walking their dog. They pointed to a sign--VOTE: Evergreen Community Town Hall.

In the parking lot a group of forty kids from the Latino community were practicing a dance to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe. Several adults were drumming. On the other side of the parking lot stood my husband, next to the ballot box.

“What time is it?” I asked, rushing up to him.

“Seven,” he replied.

I inserted the key and locked the ballot box.

I wondered where my two new friends--True American Patriots--were sleeping tonight as they dreamed America.


BY GRETCHEN EICK