MAGA

I was sitting on my sister's porch, the only place I go besides the grocery store.  We live in Atlanta in a highly liberal neighborhood.  A pick-up truck roared by, with giant Trump flags on each sides of its bed.  We looked at each other.  What the fuck?

There is not a lot I can concentrate on.  I do my best to teach my classes from my couch.  I have been taking another reading instruction graduate class at Georgia State so that I can better serve my students.  I am never doing that again.  I detest academic writing and have done way too much of that in my life.  

I finished my paper last Saturday and went for a jog around the park.  I heard tires squealing and saw a pick up truck at a nearby intersection.  I heard shouting.  I inadvertently hunkered down, thinking of tires squealing in Charlottesville and Trump pick-up trucks.  Or maybe tensions were just high, because the election hadn't been called.  As I ran, I heard more clanging and honks.  A woman walked by, carrying her Biden-Harris sign.   

"Did they call Pennsylvania?"  I called.

"Yes!"  she responded, as cars honked at her and pots and pans clanged.

I got inside the house and turned on the TV.  I was stunned that they had called the whole election for Biden.  I thought they would equivocate it, make it conditional, say this that or the other, we'll just see.  The cover of the New York Times read:  BIDEN BEATS TRUMP.

I was surprised when I cried a little.  I just want him to go.  Trump has to go.  I jogged back to my sister's house.  The whole neighborhood was either dancing in the street, or lighting fireworks or shooting guns in the air.  Or just driving around, honking their horns. 

We uncapped a couple of beers.   Suddenly, a white pick-up truck tore down the street.  Giant Trump flags flowed from the back of the bed.  I couldn't believe they were here again.  In our neighborhood.  

I could see the woman in the passenger seat.  She was older and light haired.  Her face was in a grimace, mouth a-gap.  A black hole scream of a mouth.  It reminded me of Donald Sutherland in the seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  But, she had not been snatched.  

She was honestly terrorized that Donald Trump did not win again.