Part 1

Part 2

Stephan moved his favorite plywood chair to the balcony and looked out at the ocean. He recalled his early fascination with politics, watching his parents react to the black candidate’s rise to president: They looked at each other, speechlessly, tears pouring down their cheeks. Had a debt been repaid? Had history finally begun to redeem itself? At five years old, watching his parents cry with joy (he had never seen his parents cry before, in joy or sorrow), he felt like the world could be different, and he wondered if he could be a part of that difference. Watching the TV that night, Stephan saw people on stage standing, moving, shaking hands and sharing hugs. It all seemed less like something serious and more like the conclusion of a theatrical production. 

When he was nine, his parents let him stay up to watch the entire Democratic national convention four nights in a row. He didn’t know then what ‘the economy’ was, other than that it had to do with money and jobs, and ‘foreign policy’ brought to his mind images of schoolyard bullying. But more than any specific issue, his impression of that scene was the attention focused around a single person, and that person was the president. At nine, he knew the president was almost godlike because he could influence events starting with war down to small iota like the highway repairs he passed by almost everyday when his parents drove him to school or into town. It may have been then that an inkling of the desire to be such a person, the president of the United States, was born. He wasn’t much moved when he saw his great-grandfather’s great-uncle’s name in a history textbook, Albert Breckenridge, a largely unnotable senator from Illinois during the Bull Moose period in American history, but Stephan looked him up on Wikipedia. It was not a long mention, but the daguerreotype photograph was the kind that could imbue a certain type of boy with grand ideas. Stephan was that certain type of boy, that is, a boy who spent a lot of time alone daydreaming. It wasn’t long after that that Stephan began to picture in his mind’s eye his name permanently engraved in history, like the way his playmates wanted to be movie stars or the Hulk. Stephan imagined that future generations of schoolchildren would automatically remember four names together: Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, and Breckenridge. 

Had someone asked him then what he wanted to be, he would not have said senator out loud, he would instead have said something surprising like cowboy. He knew already that telling people what you really want to do at that age would lead them to try and stop you, even if they didn’t intend to. If pressed about the cowboy business, he would have said something about the joys of horseback riding at camp, or the ideas those movies gave him. He would not let them know that he already had ideas about power, using it wisely and keeping it out of the wrong hands. Although his message had grown significantly more articulate, its substance had not changed much in all those 38 years. The California of then, when he was nine, was not the California that stood before him now. But who could expect that? Things change. And he thought of himself as one of the best people to move California forward, and to make looking back not ugly but not exactly desirable.  

Two years after his parents let him stay up to watch the national convention, Stephan asked and received permission to volunteer for their Congressional representative’s reelection campaign. Stephan had no idea what his positions were on anything, but his parents liked Congressman Eshu.  He felt alright at the campaign headquarters, comfortable even; he was always greeted with a smile and sometimes a Kit-Kat bar, which he especially enjoyed because his mother did not allow him to have such things. But the thing that made him feel most at home was that everybody wore nametags. This was not for his benefit, so he appreciated it even more. Stephan ran there everyday after school, his lunchbox clanging against the side of his backpack, a smile creeping onto his face thinking about the warmth and camaraderie he came to expect at the campaign headquarters. They made him feel like one of the team. Four days a week, he received a clipboard containing a list of names and phone numbers of Democrats registered in Eshu’s district. It was Stephan’s job to call them and ask them to vote for Congressman Eshu. Most people mistook his boyish voice for a woman’s, and Stephan felt that because of that they were rude to him. At first he didn’t understand what it was, but later he recognized it: It was his first exposure to sexism. He especially looked forward to Fridays, when the campaign headquarters became a base of operations for the Congressman’s canvassing efforts. What he absolutely loved to do was help the volunteers check in and show them to their assigned carpools. This responsibility filled him with pride, though he didn’t know the feeling had a name. It made him feel useful, and out of that sense of usefulness he got his first taste of people listening to him when he told them what to do. It made him feel important, as if the whole thing couldn’t be done without him.

It was a Friday, and Stephan had missed an announcement that the Congressman would be paying a visit. Stephan was seated like normal in a folding chair behind a folding table, outside the campaign headquarters. It was early October, and a little brisk even by California standards. He was wearing a cardigan his mother had bought at an outlet, that she said made him look like a young tennis player at Wimbledon. He had been instructed, so he knew that if anyone approached the table he should give them a pen and sign-in sheet attached to a clipboard, to capture information that was essential for the campaign to recruit volunteers for future events. Then Stephan would give them a canvassing packet and point them to the appropriate car for the assigned neighborhood. A man, about the age of his father, with blonde hair, wearing a Hawaiian shirt approached the table. Stephan did the usual, and was already giving his by-now well-rehearsed instructions regarding procedure.  

“I won’t be canvassing today,” the man said, in a not altogether pleasant or unpleasant voice. Stephan detected all sorts of things in those five words. Irritation, frustration, annoyance, to name a few. 

“I’m sorry,” Stephan said, “but on Fridays we don’t phonebank here. You can take a packet and do it from your home if you want.” 

 “I won’t be doing that either,” the man said, putting an irritating stress on the ‘I’ again. 

 “Oh,” Stephan said, trying not to let his confusion show. In his most polite voice he said, “May I ask what you’re planning on doing here?”  

“I just thought I’d pop by to say hi. I can’t stay long.” The man said in an almost stuck-up way, which puzzled Stephan. 

“That’s nice. We appreciate any kind of support. We all want to do the most we can to help Congressman Eshu.” “I know. Thanks!” The man said. With a little laugh, Stephan asked, “What’re you thanking me for? Why aren’t you helping?”
“You’re joking, right? Do you really not know who I am?” He gestured to a poster taped to the table Stephan was sitting at when Stephan shook his head. “What, seriously? Still? What is wrong with you?” 

 Stephan looked down. “No idea, sorry. You’re not wearing a nametag. Here you go, fill this out, it would be a great help to me.” Stephan pushed forward a box of nametags.  The man didn’t seem pleased as he copied his name on the nametag. He slapped it to his chest and stuck out his hand. 

“I’m Congressman Eshu, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He then turned and walked away. Stephan wanted to immediately disappear out of the situation. He said nothing and continued with the work until his shift was over, and then he put his backpack on and ran home, tears running down his fat cheeks.  

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Want to keep reading? Here's Part 3!