Moutaintops

Winding my way down the switchbacks at night with a cigarette clenched in my teeth and the wind whipping through the windows of the rental car, there is no light, just the swerving sphere of my headlights. I'm listening to the white noise between radio stations that is all you can get this far up, and I'm thinking about how strange it is that HST didn't love teenagers.

I've just dropped off two young men, 15 and 18, in the hightops above Boulder. On the way up, the more local one was recounting how the people up here are real hilljacks, people who live in communities off the grid. About how they're going to get chased by dogs, fall off cliffs, get shot at by privacy minded locals. At some point I get a bit concerned and ask if they're sure they want to go up here, if maybe I should just come back up here myself to get out the vote later.

"Hell no! We're fucking Men! We got this!" Then they roil out of the car with their clipboards, laughing at my request for their cellphone numbers.

"No reception up here, dude. We'll see you later tonight!"

These gentlemen do not overthink, nor have they had the juice squeezed out of them yet. They're psyched about $10/hr and psyched about the candidate and amped about their own swinging dicks.

These are the american dreamers that I always feel like Hunter was horrified for, for whom the half-truths and platitudes are designed by candidates. Their credulity is intact.

And perhaps that's right. Maybe this time we're not being lied to. Or maybe this is one more reason to stay on these swaybacked bastards as they come in to office, to make sure that my boys can look a call to action in the eyes and come out swinging and not doubt.

When I pick them up, they have been chased by dogs. And they laugh while they tell the story.