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Canvasing Maryland
by Nicqi Feldman
I am save the bay.
“This is how the world looks,” she says to me, “This is your turf. Meet me on Otis.” I am walking from door to door, in the Watershed area off the Chesapeake Bay.
“Every door is a new chance,” she says to me, “Ask them for checks. It’s safer for us on foot.” I have seen four deer. I walk up to the door, peer at the drawn Venetian blinds and can smell what’s for dinner.
My grandmother was a socialist organizer in the fifties. I’ve heard stories about my mother, a baby and reaching up for the chicken on the table in the smoky dining room on Friday nights while people shouted in different languages and slammed their fists on the table.
Most people want the bumper sticker, but they don’t want the year membership. Too many mailings. Ironic paper usage, I say to them. Then they hand me an extra five or ten.
“I’m on my way to a book meeting,” one woman says to me. “I’ve made bean dip.” “Thank you,” I say to her. We aren’t always asking for money; sometimes, we need information.
“What time did they turn the water off? How high was it in the yard? Who dumped what where?” In Prince George, or P.G. as they say, most people don’t speak English.
“Can she come with me?” I ask the woman in the slippers, whose obese seven year old stunning daughter is translating.
“So what are we doing?” She asks me, while we’re walking side by side down the street. I’m sorry I don’t have a miniature clipboard for her.
“You’re an environmentalist today,” I say to her, “You’re helping the community.”
“My community doesn’t need help, just water,” she says back. When we get to the yard with the little boys, she pulls on my shirt and whispers to my side, “They don’t go to school.” I tap the clipboard on my outer thigh.
“Sup fellas,” I say to them, “No school today?” They freeze in the yard, in the mud. “We’re here about the water,” I say. “Hi, Sophie,” the bigger one says to the little organizer by my side while another runs in for his mama.
“They don’t read,” she whispers to me.
“We have a ghost,” the bigger one says. “Every morning, there are footprints all over our steps, but they’re not ours.” Their mother stands in the door, pulling a sweater tighter around her chest, under her crossed arms, and says to the girl, “Que?”
“Cuándo apagaron el agua?” She asks her, “What time did they shut off the water?”
“Ayer,” She answers. “Yesterday.”
“Cómo arriba estaba en la yarda?” My translator asks, “How high was it in the yard?” The woman looks around the house, leans her neck over the screen, looks at me, and shuts the door.
“She just doesn’t know you. Or the ghost,” the little one says.
“Listen,” I say to them, handing my tiny partner my clipboard, “Life is easier when you can read.” I inhale, leaning up from the washed out grass, “Remember some lady said that to you on your doorstep.”
“No,” the bigger one says grinning while we turn to walk away. “Life is easier when you have a smart girlfriend.”
“I should take you back,” I say to my translator. She waves at me through the window; all I have to give her is my pen and a bumper sticker. It isn’t even a logo one.
Canvassing after dark is a completely different ballgame. Most people are home, but they’re either not answering or too eager.
“Won’t you come in? Can I make you a drink?”
“I could have a bomb in this bag,” I want to say.
“Yes, I could be some stranger, here to blow up your house.” The bird people are particularly interesting. At first, she slams the door behind her really quick and pushes me out onto the step landing.
“Those birds aren’t for the Internet,” she says. Her baby has climbed up, pantless, to the windowsill and is pressing its mouth and blowing at us. “Can you make the check out to Save the Bay?” I ask.
Things to watch out for when you’re walking around in the dark, knocking at people’s houses:
-Dogs
-Places to urinate
-Tornados
On Otis, hopped up on guarana, chain-smoking, chewing bubble gum, she asks me, “How are your stats. Quota was fifty. Where you at?”
“Twenty in cash, eighty in checks, five signatures,” I answer. “Do you have any extra pens?” I ask her, “Where can I pee?”
“In some body’s house.” She says.
On Delmont, a son, balding, says to me, “Would you like to wash up?” Other people’s bathrooms aren’t as terrifying as one would guess. His soap is lavender.
“I went to the rally in D.C.” he says, “I’m already a member.” His ailing mother taps her fingers on a glass.
“He’s a good citizen.” Her voice cracks.
“Watch out for the tornado.” He says, “Every twenty years.”
I sit with them in the uncomfortable silence and become aware of my denim on their sofa. The sky, though dark, has an airy artificial quiet, like there’s screaming a mile down the road, misting, thick, maybe a party. Somebody has a wreath up though it’s already February.
“You want some popsicles?” The man at the door asks me. He is wearing a “Free Barry Manilow” t-shirt.
“Come in, come in. There’s a tornado.”
I’m sitting with my clipboard and a red popsicle, when it occurs to me, this isn’t a regular house. This is a halfway house, we are watching television.
“You ever exfoliate with a Portugese loofa?” A man in a reclining chair asks me.
“Can’t say that I have, no.” I suck on the popsicle, staring at the television.
It’s a Barbara Walters’ special on how to live to be one hundred and five.
“They’re made out of sea sponge or something,” the man says.
“We have some marine life kind of like that in the Bay,” I answer. We turn the Weather Channel on to see what’s going. A tornado is about to hit our area.
“I should meet my supervisor,” I tell the group.
“Have you ever seen a taxidermied racoon?” one lady asks me.
“Can’t say that I have, no.”
“Wanna see our tree?” somebody asks me. In the yard, it smells like fire.
“Got struck earlier tonight. Heat lightning,” the older one says. White smoke is misting from under the grass.
“I think your tree roots are on fire.” I say to the crowd, tapping my clipboard on my leg.
“We should call somebody about that.”
“We can’t call the fire department,” the man says to me.
“No really, I think there’s a fire in the roots under the ground,” I say back. The walk back through the air feels like a ring of Hell. Everything is quiet and I’m waiting for an alligator to come up through a storm drain at any second.
When I get back to the van to collect the stats, I notice two of the canvassers decidedly smell like pot.
“Give her your stats,” the leader says to everyone, pointing in my direction, twitching. The ride back feels sort of like a van trip out of juvenile hall. Nobody smells clean and everybody’s yawning. Our stats are predominantly below quota.
“So, I called the fire department for a house,” I say to her. “Where do I document that?”
“Why?” she asks me.
“Because their tree was on fire,” I answer.
“Did anyone come?” she asks me.
“Can’t say for sure, I left immediately,” I say back. I keep waiting for that tornado to sweep right across the highway, but we never see it.
“Welcome to Friday!” the office manager claps in the morning. Today we are taking a rented Subaru known as The Silver Bullet.
At the first two houses, there are giant RVs parked in the front yards.
“You competing with the other guy?” I ask, chewing on a straw instead of saying hello.
“You are who, again?” the man in army fatigues and bare feet asks me.
“Do you have any idea how close you are to the Bay? Anything that drains down here goes right into the water.” I look around the driveway for oil spots.
“You gonna fine me?” he asks.
“Maybe so,” I answer.
“Your neighbor isn’t dumping into the Bay,” I tell the next door. “Are you?”
“We try to bring all the oil over to the dump,” she says. Her pink kitten sweatshirt is distracting me.
“Listen, I need a donation,” I say to her. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see one of the pot smelling canvassers run through a yard. His turf is nowhere near mine. I make a note.
“Can I buy you dinner? Crabs?” the kid at the next house asks me.
“No, no you cannot. Because the treatment flags on your yard tell me you use all kinds of chemicals here. See those little exes?” I say to him.
“They mean poison. See that drain?” I ask him. “You are single-handedly killing the crabs in the Bay. So no, you cannot buy me crab dinner.”
I call my grandmother. “I am Save the Bay,” I tell her.
“Nader?” she asks me.
“Yes, he did found it,” I answer.
“You’re outside?” she asks me.
“Walking.”
“How’s it going?” Guarana Girl asks me. “What are your stats? Where you at?”
We walk together down a street to check out some dangerous animals we’ve been tipped off about by a neighbor.
When we get to the cages I know why dogs are on the list. “These dogs for fighting?” I ask.
“No speak English,” the man says, closing the door. She sticks her foot in between the door jam and the wood.
"“Listen,” she says, “we are here about the water.”
“Save the Bay!” the man says, “I’m already a member.” And pushes the door shut.
“How many years have you been doing this for?” I ask her.
“A long enough time,” she answers. “Two of my canvassers are stealing money.”
“Nice,” I answer.
“I want to tell you something,” my grandmother says to me. “When I was in Europe, the moon was so big. It was so clear. And my Uncle was a very wise man. And I followed him around, asking him questions. So one time, I said, ‘Is that God up there, in the moon?’ And he said, ‘Little girl don’t ask me that,’ because he didn’t want to lie to me. And then we came to America and Kennedy said we were going to the moon. So I watched. For years I watched. I wanted to know if we were going to find God. I watched. I made your mother watch. I made your grandfather watch. I couldn’t believe we were going to the moon. And when we finally got there, you know what they found, up there, on the moon? Rocks.”
About The Author
Nicqi Feldman has been published most recently in Baltimore’s The Urbanite. She has been featured in the firebox fiction section of Night Train, and won the Aurorean’s Creative Writing Student Outstanding Haiku contest, placed fifth in the Boston Dig’s Pint and Pen contest and was a staffer at Skope Magazine in Boston for seven years.