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Portland Canvasser [Card #7: The Chariot (WORK-IN-PROGRESS)]


by Crabby McGrouchpants


"Biz here was a constant subliminal hum, and death the accepted punishment for laziness, carelessness, lack of grace, the failure to heed the demands of an intricate protocol."—from William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984)

     Stephanie consulted her clipboard again.  Yup, this was the house!
     She bounded up the steps, jocularly.
     DING-DONG!
     No answer.
     DING-DONG!
     DING-DONG!
     DING-DONG!
     God, I'm such a bitch, she thought.
     "Yes?"  The door opened suddenly.  A woman in her bathrobe stood there.  She clung the folds of her robe shut with one hand and clung to the door with the other, eyeing Stephanie warily.  "Can I help you?"
     "Hi!  My name's Stephanie and I'm with OSPIRG, and we're out here tonight to—"  She extended her hand and leaned slightly forward as she said the last, as (she thought) she had been taught to do.
     The woman cupped her hands around her mouth: "GO AWAY!"
     SLAM!
     Stephanie felt her inner balance slip as the wind from the door brushed back her bangs.  She felt for her footing, felt for her footing . . .
     The door has just been slammed in my face.
     The echoes were just starting to subside.  She felt it fade away.
     Fuck!
     Nervous — but stabilized — she picked her way gingerly down the cobble-stone path towards the sidewalk, took an almost-absurd amount of care in gingerly unlatching, opening, passing through, and closing behind her the waist-high white-picket-fence gate . . . and took a breath.
     She consulted her clipboard.
     8 houses left and 20 minutes to go tonight, she sighed.  What was I thinking?
     She pivoted on her heel, looked up the street to where the next unchecked-on-her-list house lay, and started off.



     "Hi, my name's Stephanie and I'm with OSPIRG—"
     "Hello, Stephanie," the fortyish man with horn-rimmed spectacles and a pin-striped dress-shirt replied.  "How are you doing tonight?"
     "Fine, fine," she replied, thinking, ooh — got a "live" one, here.  "We're out here—"
      "I know why you're out here," he interrupted jocularly.  "[To] hit me up for another year's membership, am I right?"
      "Uhh . . .  " Stephanie said, thrown.  " . . .  if you . . .  WANT TO . . .   ?"  This last with as much of a leading, plaintive tone as she could muster.
      She felt pathetic.
      "Sure — why not?"  He smiled.
       Her heart leapt.  Yes! she thought.
       "Let me get my checkbook."
       He closed the door.
       Silence.
       She looked at her clipboard.
       Silence.
       She sneaked a peek at the blue renewal card, tucked under her—
       "HELL—O!" he opened the door, jovially.
       She got totally frazzled.  Then, she composed herself as she found her hand reaching out to accept the check he handed to her over the threshold—
       "WOW!  Fifty dollars!  Tha—"
       Dumbshit! she chastised herself.  Don't blow it! 
       "—nks!"
       Swallow.
       "Thanks so much!  Really!  This'll help us with—"
       "Well, I don't know why I bother sometimes," he cut in, with a fleeting, faraway look in his eyes.  "The forces at work against us seem to be amassing more and more as the days pass . . . "
       Stephanie shut up.  Stephanie made herself — kept herself — shut up.  She bit her lip.  Where was he going with this?  Was he going to change his mind, or . . . 
        "But, this helps me sleep at night."  He smiled again, all the amiable gent again, focused on the twentysomething, windbreaker-clad OSPIRG gal on his front porch.  "Thanks for that."
        "You're welcome!" she chirped, not insincerely.
        "Good night, Stephanie."  He started to close the door.
        She waved him goodbye as the door shut.



        Stephanie looked out the window.  The view of Portland afforded from this on-ramp was extraordinary, and she had never seen it before.  She peered over the heads of the others in the car, as the music from the local radio station filled the car.
        "Coming in at number five tonight on the top 9 at 9 . . . "
        The city fell away underneath them.  It was like taking flight.
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                   [CAUTION -- UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!]
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                    for "Citzenry Advocate" Jeremiah Baumann
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