Red State Blues

by Martha Bayne

  One of those nights this motorcycle guy came in drunk and he was abusing this woman that he was sitting with. My dad went over to interrupt the abuse in his Greek accent. The guy grabbed a ketchup bottle in his hand and hit my dad right on the side of the head with it. Ketchup and blood came out all over the place and knocked my dad down to the floor. That scared the shit out of me. Fortunately, he only had a couple stitches. I was so upset I wanted to go around to all the bars and get some of my little friends to catch this guy and kick the shit of out him somehow. I wanted to kill that evil sonofabitch.

  Presently, Mom and I are doing quite well although she is on my ass about something every day. I almost never argue since I am generally out in the world, still exposed to its main festivities of good and evil.

  Kick ass,

  Dad

  He’d stick a twenty-dollar bill in sometimes, too—beer money. I don’t know why, but as we became adults and he grew into an old man, he stopped including “kick ass.” Maybe it’s because at eighty-one, he himself has stopped kicking ass—or at least stopped trying as hard.

  My dad’s name is Christ—pronounced Chris. He stands tall at a portly 5’7.’’ He is the only child of two Greek immigrants who had an arranged marriage. His father pushed an ice cream truck in Downtown Detroit so their family could survive in a filthy one-room apartment before moving north to Saginaw—where they still struggled. He’s done nothing but work his ass off, beginning as a ten-year-old boy in a restaurant as a dishwasher and busboy. Clawing to the top, he fumbled through five different colleges until he finally graduated from Wayne State Law School. His father died when he was thirty, so he busted his ass to support his mother, Angeline. He built his own life with his own damn fortitude.

  He is the American Dream.

  As kids, he instilled in us character and integrity. School was important, but not as important as doing the right thing—choosing good over evil.

  So, as the presidential election came around, I expected that he himself would do the right thing.

  Saginaw is known for its high homicide rate, segregated schools, and that house that sold for one dollar. But, it wasn’t always this way. Greeks began coming to Saginaw as early as 1910. My grandfather landed at Ellis Island (for the third time) with his young bride in 1929 and found his way to Saginaw by 1931. By the time my dad was a kid, the city was pretty integrated. “I don’t remember any race issues. Everyone was too busy working their asses off,” is how my dad put it. Most Greeks worked in business, especially hotels and restaurants.

  My dad always used to tell me that when an out-of-town immigrant would come to a restaurant, “they would never charge another Greek. That’s just how it was.” Without a church in Saginaw, the young immigrants worked hard to preserve their heritage by holding American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association meetings above the Vlassis Brother’s Restaurant at 411 Court Street. This is where the development of their church finally evolved. Without these men, I never would have learned how to crack my red, not pastel, Easter eggs. They protected our traditions so that I can now teach them to my kids.

  Garrison Keillor came to visit Saginaw a couple of years ago to celebrate the great poet and hometown son Theodore Roethke. Said Keillor, “It will be a reminder to Saginaw that out of suffering come gifts of great beauty.” All Greek immigrants are this beauty.

  Many of these people, people like my dad, are still alive. With the election around the corner, I wondered what the people of Saginaw would do, too. Saginaw County hadn’t gone red since Reagan in 1984. And in 2016, although nervous, I hoped the streak continued.

  A fall in Michigan is better than in any other state. Period. All of nature is at its absolute best, a bright myriad of colors before it all becomes naked, gray, and dies. It was no different on a cool mid-October morning when I drove from my parent’s home in Saginaw across the state to Grand Haven for a baby shower. The foliage was at its peak. Trees were set ablaze all along M-46. Flames flew across my Ford Edge windshield.

  As I drove through the first rural city of Hemlock, I saw my first pumpkin patch. My dad took my brothers and me here a couple of times as kids. A small family-owned one ran right out of their home, the kind where you walk up to the owner himself and pay for the pumpkin you choose. But there, smack in the middle of all of that orange on the lawn, I saw it: TRUMP. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

  Must be a fluke.

  Living in the township of Grand Blanc, a suburb of Flint, I hadn’t seen many Trump signs—yet. Or maybe as a new stay-at-home-mom, I just didn’t get out enough.

  The sun had started to melt the dew on the green grass, but it still sparkled. I drove through rural town after rural town with the sun chasing me. Merrill. St. Louis. Breckenridge. Lakeview. More TRUMP signs. I approached Edmore. There was a farm with an average red barn upon a little hill. The vast lawn had what seemed to be one hundred tiny TRUMP signs and right in the middle—the biggest TRUMP sign of them all. It looked just like the others, blue with a little red trim, only blown up to the size of a billboard.

  I’m not sure if it was the signs or the black coffee sitting in my guts, but I had to pull over at a gas station to empty my nerves into a hadn’t-been-cleaned-in-months toilet. I bought a bottle of water so I didn’t just deliver my insides to their establishment.

  I continued to pass through rural towns until I got to US-131 to Lake Michigan. More and more signs for Trump. I seldom saw one for Clinton.

  He could win.

  This was the first time I admitted this.

  This was no longer just a Saturday Night Live skit that my husband and I laughed at.

  After the baby shower, I wanted to take a different way home, but it would cost me more time. I wanted to get back to my parents and my two small children.

  That night, after tucking the kids into bed, I sat down with my parents. I drank a glass of wine; my dad had Scotch. He was half-watching CNN and reading Hamilton. I told him about all of the TRUMP signs I had seen that morning.

  “So what?” he said.

  “So what?” I asked.

  Smoke began swirling in my chest. Two sticks rubbing together—at any moment a full-blown fire could have erupted.

  My mom interrupted. “Why don’t you tell her, Christ.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “He might vote Trump,” my mom said.

  I forced out a laugh to prevent the fire from igniting.

  “But Dad,” I said, “that’s not how you raised us. To be for a person like that.”

  He rebutted. “I just don’t trust Hillary. I don’t believe a damn thing she says. She’s just like the rest of them.”

  While flailing my hands as Greeks often do as they argue, I asked, “Dad, how would you like it if a man talked to Mom, your granddaughter, or me like he talks to women?”

  “Well, I’d beat his ass,” he admitted.

  We bantered back and forth about Hillary’s dishonesty and Trump’s disgusting, vile, behavior—until finally, the two sticks made a spark.

  “Dad. Donald. Trump. Is. A. Motherfucker.”

  He looked at me unrattled, took a drink of his Scotch, scoffed and said, “you’re right.”

  Good, I thought.

  Since my dad was 81 and my mom was 68, they could vote early by absentee ballot in Michigan.

  On November 1st, before the rest of the country could vote, my mom called me around 9:30 as she does every single day. As I folded laundry, my two-year-old daughter threw it in the air and snickered at herself.

  “Well, you’re not going to be happy with your dad,” my mom said. “I can’t even look at him.”

  Thinking he pissed on the floor or forgot to pick up her meds again, I asked, “What now, Mom?”

  My graceful, full-of-class mother said, “Trump. He fucking voted for Trump.”

  “No,” was all that would spill out of my mouth.

  This was the first time in my life that I was disappointed in my dad.

  The big day came f
or the rest of us. November 8th.

  It was raining hard that election-day morning. But I didn’t care, I wanted to get my vote in early. So, I put the kids in the car and headed to the elementary school around the corner. I carried my daughter while my son and I tried to dodge the bullets of rain, but it was useless.

  When we got inside, I asked a volunteer how long the wait was. Two hours. Hell no—not with a four and two-year-old. I’d come back later.

  The rain stopped before dinner. Standing in the parking lot, we remained small below the all-gray sky. This time the wait was about an hour, but I came prepared—with Dum Dums. I carried my daughter as the line curled around the gymnasium. My son got antsy in ten minutes. I couldn’t blame him. He started snaking around on the floor. Some of the voters made small talk about my cute kids, but the gym was tense.

  When we were finally done voting we took the obligatory selfie with our “I voted” stickers. No tantrums in the one-hour long line—a truly victorious mother. So I thought.

  That night, as I tucked in the kids, he polls started to close. As they were shutting their eyes, my husband poured the wine. Here we go, another Saturday Night Live show.

  I kept my thoughts to myself. I couldn’t say it out loud.

  As the wine went down, more and more states turned red. Indiana went first, only to be later followed by two pillars—Ohio and Florida. Wolf Blitzer became visibly agitated.

  My mom and I called each other every thirty minutes or so. But I never talked to my dad. I pictured him oblivious, reading another historical nonfiction with CNN on in the background—barely paying attention.

  Flipping back-and-forth between the very pregnant Savannah Guthrie and Wolf Blitzer, I couldn’t decide who was pissing me off more, them or my dad. It didn’t matter. There was a bomb sitting in my stomach, ticking louder and louder as each state fell.

  Finally, after midnight, I gave up. Hillary hadn’t conceded, but my gut knew it was heading that way.

  This was no longer a bad joke but an American tragedy.

  Executive Order 13769. On January 27, Trump shouted to the world what kind of country he wanted to run and who he wanted in it. The travel ban was not only devastating, but scary as hell.

  Upon learning about the ban and getting the tears out once again, I went to my basement and rummaged through a drawer where I keep my old journals and letters from my dad. I found it—the one where he tells the story of his parents immigrating to the United States from Greece.

  October 8, 2006

  To my beloved children: Tom, Nick, Angela, and Deno,

  We are all products of our accumulative history, heritage, family, and lifestyle inherited from our parents and grandparents. Too often, we are worried about the problems at-hand and other necessities that we don’t have time to contemplate where we have been or where we are going. I’d like to give you a little more history, specifically of your grandmother…

  The young bride, Angeline, came to the United States, lost two children, struggled financially and left Greece never to hear the voice of her mother or father again. She had no contact except by mail and it took two or three months to get a letter across. There were no telephones in Greece yet.

  The worst was yet to come in Greece, even after WWII. There was a great Civil War where her brothers and over one million Greeks perished. There was extreme, poverty, famine, and chaos. But, your grandmother was dedicated to her relatives and her new husband’s brothers and sisters. Every two or three weeks, she would tie a box up with cords, and taped addresses all over it, telling me to haul it down to the post office. The box was full of clothing, medicine, and articles. It was a ritual for many years. This became a religious experience for me—a dedication to the family.

  Your grandmother was a tough cookie. She was in a strange country without the benefit of language or education. She handled things for herself and by herself.

  Your grandmother had terrific pride and I believe her fear of failure is what pushed me through to become an attorney. Back then, there were very few professionals of Greek descent.

  So, in conclusion, I would say I’d like you to be very proud of your heritage, where you came, survived, and occasionally even prospered under difficult conditions. Our predecessors should never be forgotten. If I’m ever in the mood, I’ll write another one of these notes.

  Kick ass,

  Dad

  At one in the morning on Memorial Day, I heard a high-pitched “bing” from my phone. It was my mom. “In the ER. Dad’s rectal bleeding won’t stop. I’ll keep you posted. DON’T COME.”

  I went. My mom sat shaken and my dad was asleep when I got there. This was not a new scene for me. I hate seeing my parents in hospital beds. Every time, it’s haunting.

  “Your dad will pull through,” my mom said.

  “I know,” I responded.

  I believed my mom—for the most part. My dad beat cancer’s ugly ass and survived a sepsis attack that led him into a medically-induced coma for twenty-one days. He fights. He “kicks ass.”

  But this time was different, By the time my father got out of surgery my mom was exhausted but he was still full of wit. As the nurse came into his room, I discovered that she was one of my old students from when I taught in Saginaw. A skinny, feisty little troublemaker. I loved her. My dad asked her, “Was my daughter a good teacher? Did she kick your ass?” My old student immediately fell in love with my dad. His charisma got her. Just like it does everyone else.

  Once my dad got out of the hospital, all of my brothers flew in. We were sitting in that family room of his American Dream home. The home that he worked for since he was a ten-year-old boy. The news was on as we talked over it. Trump was on Twitter again, this time with the proposed ban against transgender people in the military. My oldest brother, Tom, said, “I haven’t turned on the news since the election. I just can’t.”

  We all shared in the Trump-bashing a bit. The presidency does not belong to Trump, but to the people, we said. Things may only get uglier for our country, but we will recreate ourselves. We’ll be the place where people come to dream. This may just have to be the crooked route we have to take to get there.

  I wasn’t sure if my dad was even listening. He sat in his faded corner of his brown leather sectional—rubbing the wooden floor lamp with his thumb as he always does. He was silent, his glasses nudged down his nose, taking a break from reading A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, which was folded open, hugging his belly.

  Finally, I mustered up the balls to ask.

  “Dad, do you regret voting for Trump?” He turned his stubborn, chubby face turned to me and, curling one side of his lip upward, he nodded.

  DEMOLITION DERBY AND THE CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY POLITICAL MACHINE

  JUSTIN KERN

  Everyone honked as they drove by our house. This meant nearly everyone who drove through this part of Dunkirk, New York, was either “horny,” “gay,” or in agreement with epithets oddly singling out pilgrims.

  At nine years old, I had only this information to go on, this statistically curious range of public sexual expression in my new hometown, based on the spray painted requests of passersby on the bodies of two demolition derby cars parked in our side yard. The cars were owned, eviscerated, and soon-to-be driven by my Uncle Paul and (unrelated) Uncle Buck, two laboring men who, like my dad, I admired much in my youth for the charisma of their rugged economics and coarse tongues.

  It was 1989 and my first summer living in Dunkirk. My parents moved me and my two sisters there from suburban Dallas. Carrollton, Texas was certainly not like Dunkirk, an empathetic and tree-lined dichotomy, that probably saved my soul. But Dunkirk also didn’t seem like New York, the place that was a planet in three letters—NYC—and from whence TV shows beamed; the place everyone expected when you say “New York”. Dunkirk was a place where you lived across the street from your dad’s childhood home, where his mom still lived, in the shadow of a hulking specialty metals manufacturer, and where your uncle and your fake unc
le parked a demo derby car next to your house that, in no-missing-it red block letters, invited the rest of the city to “BLOW ME, PILGRIM.”

  Chautauqua County is one of two consistently Republican blocks in the Empire State, the rest of New York a call-it-by-9:00 p.m. shade of blue. (Cattaraugus County next door is its consistently red first cousin.) Gubernatorial candidates in the ‘80s and ‘00s were geographically correct in calling Chautauqua County part of Appalachia, though they meant it as a diss to titillate the tony people downstate.

  Dunkirk, at around 10,000 people, is the second-largest municipality in Chautauqua County and named for another shorefront city in France, the one of movies and World War II miracles. In Dunkirk, N.Y., industrial train tracks make for the fastest walking routes across the city’s four wards. Marx and Engels name-dropped its factories once, I heard at a college party, and longtime Buffalo Bills play-by-play announcer Van Miller edges out Civil War veteran Thomas Horan and filmmaker H.B. Halicki as its most famous citizen. As far as those in or running for office on the nightly news, our household took the political stance of deriding them all while sometimes voting for who knows who.

  The single annual event that brings people to Dunkirk each year is the Chautauqua County Fair and the biggest attraction at the fair is the demolition derby. It is a multiple night affair with preliminary heats leading up to a thunderous finale, plus special blocks for jalopy football, women drivers, or cars that are overly welded (my dad’s specialty, being a welder and all).

  Dunkirk has its own spin on the stinking and blinking of the American fairgrounds. Wafts of tangy Chiavetta’s BBQ and savory smoke from a pinchos truck; carny dares in front of rickety games and total cow butthole in barns where farmers worked in ease. Polka bands and a bingo knockoff called “I Got It” for the bushas; a 4-H stand where I once stared at Gov. George Pataki unceremoniously inhaling a pale hot dog for a photo op before leaving town.