I belong to this party?

The first man came two months ago, bearded, round faced, and deferential, asking if we would sign his petition to run for the Green Party.

I looked blankly at him.

"You belong to the Green Party," he explained. "So does your wife."

"Oh, do we? Good for us." Obviously, Amber is in the Green Party. She doesn't shave her legs or underarms. They automatically enroll you for that.

"Will you sign the petition?"

I didn't see why I wouldn't. We Green party members must stick together.

"You are one of twenty Green Party members in Red Hook."

10% of the Green Party lives in my apartment? How nice.

He wrote a letter to Amber and me two weeks later. I do not mean that he had a printed letter mailed to my address, maybe with an actual signature. He hand wrote a letter to each of us, then hand addressed the letters and applied physical stamps. The letters begged us to remember to vote for him, but this was unnecessary. The guilt of having someone hand write two letters was more than enough that I wouldn't forget.

Another man came to my apartment a few Saturdays after. He was older by a few decades. I was annoyed that he would come on a Saturday. I had already decided to vote for the Green Party and assumed that he was about to proselytize a religion at me. Also, I had to put on suitable clothing to answer the door and did not feel the early hour of noon demanded it.

"Do you know when the election is?"

I pulled a printed page from my door, where it was stuck with a magnet, and showed it to him. "June 25th."

"You should vote for me and my partner."

I raised my eyebrows.

"You can vote for two people. Three are running. It's ranked choice." As I kept looking at him, he clarified he meant "partner" professionally and not personally. Good, that might have been a conflict of interests.

I said I would vote.

"And make it for us. He drives a Leaf. I drive a Volt," he said. "The other guy? He drives a pickup truck."

I am not sure what made him think this was the right euphemism -- maybe my thrown together outfit of a hoodie and workout pants -- but I understood the subtext. They were good, liberal people. The other guy was conservative and didn't support green policies. Someone with a pickup truck could not have the right values for the Green Party, to which I was passionately devoted. Mr. Pickup was only running because he convinced me to sign his petition by telling me I was a Green Party member, but that didn't seem like something worth mentioning.

"Also, we are both on the Democratic Party ticket. He's not."

That directness is what I have always admired about the Green Party: "We are not an actual political party, merely a dual class in the political game."

"Your votes could turn the tide of the election."

I nodded. "Yes, we are ten percent of your electorate."

He sniffed, amused. "Who told you that?"

"The other guy."

We had their political flyers already on our kitchen table, occupying the brief step between my picking them up from the mailbox and putting it in the recycling bin. He had more of these in his hand. I declined when he offered them to remind me to vote.

Amber finds the first guy's Facebook. There are his conservative politics. There is his child in goblin makeup. There is the truck.

We do vote the next day. The poll workers are so bored that they are deep into a conversation and consider us intruders. They direct us into separate lines, as our last names are on different halves of the alphabet. They look in two books, each only five pages thick with the alphabetic dividers removed. We are voters four and five. The polls have been open for seven hours.

The next day, the third man shows up to the final day of my school year to enjoy the barbecue and report card ceremony, one measurably more than the other.

He is older still than the last man who came to my door. He doesn't look up to the task of visiting twenty homes (or nineteen, since Amber and I are the 10%). Does he drive the Leaf or the Volt?

"How did the election go yesterday?"

He looks confused. "Oh, we won. By one vote."

I grin. "That was me! I voted for you and now you get to be a judge."

"I was already the judge. I was defending my seat."

I bite into my snow cone in consideration. It's less exciting to support the incumbent and not the underdog, but who can vote for someone who drives a pickup truck in this climate? "You get to remain judge then," I tell him, "because I voted for you."

It is hard to assess if he agrees that he should be grateful, though I don't see why he wouldn't be. I represent 5% of the Green Party in my town, and I've been a devoted member for at least seven weeks.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. Summer. The Sheet.

last watched: Reaper
reading: The Men Who Stare at Goats