Mercifully, my interview on the Channel 4 News at Noon! was muted on the small flat screen television hanging behind the lunch counter.  I’d dragged in maybe five minutes when it came on.  I gave the waitress a very tired looking smile and I’d ordered a burger, medium. And a coffee.  God, please don’t tell me the idiotic story about how legally you can only cook burgers well done? Please? Take a walk on the wild side?  My body needs the tear of raw meat.

http://www.winknews.com/news/local/39317647.html

I cringed in my seat as my image on the TV rolled.  But except for the very myopic snowbird pressing this morning’s Fort Meyers News Press to his face, tracing the print with his finger, I was alone there.  For the moment at least, I’d be spared publically reliving the dancing gibberish I spouted trying to wiggle off the reporter’s hook a couple hours earlier. The final panning shot of me fleeing like Yeti into the distance was enough. 

But stage one of my plan was out of the way,  now I was left fidgeting at the lunch counter exhausted and cranky – then, my burger came;   looking as limp and worn-out as I was—but,  “Jimmy there’s still s--o much more to be done.” 

After a long sleepless night on the pavement, my eyes were burning and sore,  I suffered from the groggy headed stupidity of an all night road trip  spent continually slapping myself in the face,  and hanging my head out the window into a sixty mph head wind.  I reached for the ketchup, lots of it.  I coated the crusty burger and hoped it would at least lay down a good base to dump coffee on.

 It was time to tie things together.  I tried to examine all the drawers and cupboards. What to do next? In what order?  But I was fading. I scratched my beard stubble.  Dizzy.  The over-cooked burger had settled south into an uncomfortable clump and the coffee fiends were taking a vicious grip of my already fragile nervous system, the little café was just too tight, too bright, and too impossibly ordinary for this kind of work.  I needed space.  I need calm.  I needed a cold beer.

I’m back on Main Street a few blocks up from the convention center.  The excitement was over. In only a couple hours, all the people and the reporters and the traffic had ebbed and sloshed away,   the city streets lay bare once again. 

I walked a few blocks airing things out.  Pretty day.  Crystal springtime sunlight was grabbing and kissing everything that it touched.  Old time Florida postcard stuff.  The kind of impossibly good weather  that - almost -  makes it possible for the tourists from Dubuque and Des Moines and Detroit and all those other places that start with “duh”,  to forget about the fourteen dollar frozen fish sandwich delivered by their useless, obscenely tanned and obnoxiously perky  waitress who’s making more slinging hash in the sunshine wearing khaki shorts, than they're making  working the auto-line and busting iced-over slush  getting  to a job that may, or may not,  be there when they arrive.  Weather that -almost= makes  the three hundred dollara night  “partial” ocean view condo that’s making their neck sore craning behind the sleep sofa for a peek at the Gulf worth all the pain.  It’s all good on a day like this.

Then I saw it.  There it was, behind the scratchy plastic front of the newspaper rack. Front page stuff.

“…and last night we interviewed a man near the front of the ticket line who said  he’s already posted his Osama tickets on EBay for $1,000.” 

Good on ya buddy.  You’re stoned out of your mind if you think somebody’s walking up and slapping a thousand bucks in your paw, but thinking big is the American way.  I'm all for it.  The first good news I’ve had in while.  No matter what I sell this ticket for, they think its a bargin. Who knows? Works for the liquidators at Circuit City.

First, two things: A marketing plan and a base of operations.

Everything about The Downtown City Tavern told me that, at least at some point in its history, this place had seen action. Lot's of it.  Pool chalk and broken beer mugs.  I walked through its open air front doors just before one pm.  It’s long low open floor plan took up a corner running the street next to the river.  Inside, it was fashionably defiant. Original blue collar- untouched by downtown’s recent gentrification.  This was not a Lounge, or a Grill, or a Club.  People drank here.  A few dated beer signs glowed over the old style Nougahide blanquettes against the walls.  Low table tables filling empty floor space surrounded by an unmatched assortment of sturdy wooden café chairs.  The whole joint was worn clean at every high spot and touchable place, like an old oak stair banister surviving a lifetime of rambunctious kids. 

I took a spot at the end of a Formica topped bar that ran almost the length of the room and hooked around on the corners leaving enough space for a stool or two.  At the other end,  a nice looking bartender with long black hair braided Navaho style  saw me  and raised her finger “just a sec” and finished filling and smoothing a fresh bin of ice.

“I’ll take a Yuengling, draft.” 

She gave me a familiar look, like she knew me, but turned away without a word and silently poured me the beer from the tap. Odd, but not really, I have one of those faces.  I decided there was no reason not to get things rolling.  Nobody spreads the word like a downtown bartender.  “Thanks.” I took a sip and sat back.  “Say, you know anybody looking to buy an Obama ticket.  I have an extra and I’d like to get rid of it.

The way she paused I thought I’d already struck pay dirt. She was grasping for something, thinking of some one?  I saw the trigger pull tight, and then the thought went off with a ping.  The curious part of her stare disappeared and she relaxed with an odd shaped smile.  “Hey, I know you.  I mean, you’re that guy on the news.  They played it a couple of times while I was setting up this morning and then again at a little while ago.  You seen it?” 

Yeah…I seen it.

My burger made noise.  Wasn’t this just perfect?  Local people watching local TV news.  Amazing.  Ask this girl if she recognizes Tim Geitner’s mug after he’s been on CNN wall to wall and you’d get nothing but an absent far away stare.  But I walk in - and she’s a regular news wonk.  I looked down into my beer re-organizing.  This…could complicate things. 

I lied and told her I hadn’t seen it - just to keep things short.   She left me a pleasantly forced smile that left no doubt:  that was probably just as well, and she returned to the rest of her opening chores.   

I got to work calling a few of the locksmiths in town and got the same answers I expected.  89 dollars for a service call -  are you in the area sir? No that’s standard rate sir -, time by the hour yes. Remove the door panel and the jammed lock, but maybe, just maybe, they might be able pick out the broken half and work on duplicating a code from there, either way, that would take time. Yes sir,  by the hour.  No sir, I can’t give you an exact estimate sir….well, no sir, we can’t do that….maybe $200-250…maybe less if you’re lucky. 

I hadn’t been lucky yet. 

I decided to let the problem soak for a while.  Let the beer do its work.  Perspective can be everything.

A few more people wandered in for the All-Day Happy Hour and joined me at the bar.  Hard, loud men in beat-up work boots and paint splattered work shirts  that didn’t look like they’d seen any action in a while. These were men with nowhere to go.   I could hear some bits and pieces over the dinosaur-rock playing from an iPod hooked up to the house speakers.  I heard  ….”Obama thing”, “ran out of tickets”  “selling for …money”.  I motioned for another Yuengling.

 I had been sitting quietly with my problem,  but for some reason the pigtailed bartender showed renewed interest in the momentary celebrity at the end of the bar. “Hey you guys,  anybody interested in some Obama tickets?  This guy right over here’s selling ‘em. Yeah, that guy” 

Six buzz-cut heads popped up and turned silently,  locking  their  stare my direction.  Boy it sure got quiet.  Where was the music?   I could hear the electric hum of an ice machine behind the bar.  Out on the street a moped spurted some noise, ra-aaam-ra-aam-ram-ram…. Why was I getting  full color flashes of Cleaving Little in Blazing Saddles playing across my screen? When a guy  wearing a greased up Stars-n-Bars baseball cap finally broke the moment it didn’t seem to help.  “Obama, huh?”

This isn’t going like I’d planned it.  Fort Meyers….Lee County….General Lee? I didn't know, but I was guessing it wasn’t Sara Lee. 

Then I remembered a person waiting with me last night mentioned Obama lost this county by a full 12 points…the closest Democratic vote count in history.  I was thinking the percentages weren’t  that close at the Downtown City Tavern on this particular afternoon. 

But just as I was ready to suddenly get a phone call and have to leave,  I found for some reason,  I just couldn’t be bothered with these jokers personal issues.  I straightened my back.  It was crazy,  another two beer buzz,  but damnit this was stupid.  My guy won. Was the world really a different place than yesterday?  The bad ole days are over.  Maybe not for these guys, but for me. 

 So I played the odds that I wouldn’t be getting my ass kicked in the middle of the afternoon….in a joint surrounded by cops cruising the Obama section of town.  and then...... I sucked up a little.

“Yeah, that’s right.”  I stood up and walked a couple stools over with my weapon….I mean my full beer. “Really it’s kinda a funny story…you see, I broke off my key last night and…..”

I quickly recounted how I’d come to spend the night in the heart of Dixie waiting in line for Obama tickets.  I was counting on a simple fact:  that there’s nothing more entertaining to a group of red-necks than a hard luck story where the smart assed liberal sympathizer ends up broken-down and desperate relying on the good will of a God fearing Republican.  I was talking fast.

They especially liked the part about the broken key.  Republicans by nature are used to being in thorny situations,  I was hoping they could relate. 

“Sound like to me,  all you need to do is get that durn key outta yer durn door lock. Then jest git ‘em to make a new one using the two halves”  One of the men had been listening to my story with particular interest.  I agreed, of course, that he had the essentials correct.  But I couldn’t tell whether the part about bruising my credit card more deeply than I really wanted to to accomplish the task.  After I returned from the bathroom,  the same guy moved down toward me.

“I could get that key for you.”  He looked nervously away.

I wasn’t sure where this was going.  But I was listening.

“You say they want like eighty bucks just to come out and look at it?”  I nodded.  “I might just have some stuff in my car that’d help you out. I’ve worked on locks before….you know, like a side line deal?  But, uh, I don’t take any credit cards if you know what I mean?”

I thought I knew what he meant.  But I didn’t care.  We made a deal for forty dollars.  He’d go around the corner and be right back.  We met at my truck and he produced a little green leather case and began selecting instruments.  He didn’t make it quick and it wasn’t pretty,  but a half-hour later,  he was re-perched on his stool and was telling of his triumph,  forty-dollars richer.  I bit the bullet and called a mobile locksmith who came out and finished the job. 

At little after three o’clock,  I was standing out on the corner in front of the convention center with a cardboard sign I’d cut out of an old box lying in the parking lot. “OBAMA TICKET 4 SALE”  I intended to complete the plan.  All I’d ever wanted was to cover the cost of my key,  so when a young guy came by only a few minutes after I taken up my position, the thousand dollar figure quickly fell away.  I needed a hundred to get back to square one.  We made a deal and he returned a short time later with a C-Note.  Mission accomplished.

There is one final piece to the story......

As  I waited there on the corner for my customer to return with his money,  a very well dressed man in his fifties, who later said his name was David something, began asking some questions about my ticket,  detailed stuff,  where’d I get it, was it real, why was I selling it,  do I think that’s a good idea….that I red flagged almost from the start.  I wasn’t ready to be on the evening news too.  He had a quietly tsk, tsking, disapproving manner about the whole affair. There was a lot of pitiful head shaking at my cardboard 4 SALE sign.

I finally came to the point and asked him, “just who are you mister?”

“My name is David and I’m the Obama team event organizer.  I’m with Barack.”

“But why do you care who gets these tickets and whether I sell one? I’m curious. As far as I know, no matter what the press is saying, it’s not  illegal. Or are you saying the ticket isn’t really mine to sell?”

His answer had a peculiar tenseness, sort of a TB, “true believerism” shade to it.  “Because selling them,  isn’t really what it’s all about is it?”

I watched his eyes cast down and I thought about that.  Then I said, “I don’t know David,  I really don’t.  Suppose you tell me what it’s all about? Because frankly, I’m a little sketchy about 'what it’s all about' lately.”

He went back to the head shaking thing again.  “Well, it’s not about selling free tickets to make money, is it?”

I looked, the TB was still there. But that the  twelve-hundred dollar suit and the buff of his fingernails was hard to miss too. The perfect cut of his hair.  I thought about him having lunch with Barack Obama somewhere at an outdoor table in Oahu planning their next event.  Deciding "what it’s all about."  I thought about me, standing on a corner holding a homemade sign.   I thought about the guys back at the bar and I thought about the dark places in America.  I thought about The Fear.  I wondered about the guy who cooked my hamburger,  and how afraid for his job he was  to leave a pink spot in the middle.

I began,  “Well, David I don’t know what’s right or wrong here. Not anymore, But,  I do know for sure,  I never thought I’d hear myself say that.  David, the last time I checked,  your man was giving away billions of dollars of my money to a whole lot of guys who haven’t proved that they know right from wrong either.  Might be an epidemic brewing. Might take a meeting on that.

 But the only guy I’ve seen,  so far,  who’s been lectured on a street corner about “what it’s all about?”,  is me.  So I tell you what,  for right now I’m going to keep my little scrap that fell from the table. 

And when you,  and Mr. Obama, can prove to me that I don’t have to be out here scratching around on the street,  so I can maintain the meager lifestyle I’ve got left,  then maybe we can have this deep exploration of morality again.  But for right now,  this is the only stimulus package I’ve seen come my way……Okay?”

I guess the rest of my story you can pretty much get off YouTube.  It’s all there.  The town hall meeting from beginning to end.  Henrietta Hughes begging for help and the spastic hero from MacDonald’s.

Maybe I’d just add that some of the better shots I took of Obama,  were the result of leaving my seat and crawling on my knees, row by row until I made it all the way to the front rope where I spent most of the meeting, depending where the President was standing,  within a few feet of him.  To say I had the best seat in the house is an understatement.  I also missed dozens of shots where I felt weird sticking my camera right in his face. 

 And I learned an interesting thing about the Secret Service.  They’re not too afraid of a guy like me,  every time I looked to see if I was getting too close,  they gave me the feeling that I could be “eliminated” at any moment.  These guys are good.  

If you followed this triology,  you know that I have serious reservations about where we’re all going on this Kabuki carnival ride we’ve been taking through the 21^st century.   And even though I had the experience of being close enough to the President to smell his colonel and hear the rustle of his perfectly fitted suit as he lifted his arm  pointing out into the audience – we haven’t become friends. It certainly hasn’t changed my life.

But.....there was one brief moment as I was adjusting my camera,  I looked back up to see the President looming over me,  looking down.   A second, we met eyes, then he was gone. 

So for all the insignificance of brief, chance encounters, for that one second the President knew……… I was there.

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