Light on Market Street

We slid into the back of the Uber, leaving behind our quiet nest on the hill, safely hidden in the darkening dusk, and wound our way down toward the pulse of downtown Market Street. As the Uber took off, I opened the window, allowing the wind to play with my hair and gently caress the skin on my face. The exceptionally warm air, unusual for San Francisco, especially at this hour, emphasized the exceptional nature of this evening.

As we headed closer to downtown, we received a message from our friend: "Just say that you're volunteers and didn't RSVP, we'll meet you inside." My partner and I looked at each other from the back of the car with similar trepidation. We were invited by our English —now living in San Francisco— friends to experience election night at an SF Dems watch party organized by volunteers. Neither my partner nor I felt comfortable pretending to be volunteers. Somehow lying to Democratic Party affiliates felt very serious—almost equal to lying to the IRS. 

This added obstacle heightened our anxiety for the evening, especially when we arrived and saw a line of people being aggressively questioned by a middle-aged woman at the door. Somehow the fact that she had a side braid made it more aggressive. As an immediate coping strategy, we applied all the airport immigration control tactics we'd picked up over the years: only answer the questions you're asked, and keep smiling. "Did you RSVP?" she yelled at us. "We did not" I said, smiling proudly, as if I had just given her the opposite answer. I felt like a politician, hoping that the nonverbal cues of my messaging would weigh heavier than the verbal. She looked mostly confused and ordered us to step to the left and wait, which felt symbolic in the context of the evening. As we waited, the lady gave us a few quick glances while she was ordering other people where to stand or what to show. She asked us again if we RSVP'd, and I stuck to my previous tactic. To our surprise, not long after, she suddenly ordered us to "sign in at the desk beyond the entrance door". I figured that perhaps we had started to look familiar to her so that we no longer seemed like infiltrators. Once we got past her, a cheerful guy handed us name tags and instructed us to go up the escalator. We were officially in the building and we looked at each other as if we had just infiltrated a secret resistance movement.

We entered the big vacant retail space with bright fluorescent lighting on the high ceilings. I had been here before it closed down, when it was full of people, shopping carts and sales banners. The vacancy of this large space somehow added more weight to the event of this evening. We walked past the rows of empty desks with phones where many volunteers had worked in the past few months in an attempt to influence the outcome of this evening. Up the large structural pillars the Harris-Walz posters proudly revealed the purpose of this workspace.

We reached the top of the escalator and spotted our friends at one of the high tables. After releasing tension with some light laughter and polite conversation I took a seat and settled in. I felt like my cover was safe now that I was with actual volunteers, and it seemed so far no one had noticed anything different about me. As I observed the environment I felt myself getting sucked into the present. My thoughts about if I were productive enough today or if I should've perhaps washed my hair, slid off me like sliding out of an old heavy coat that I didn't realize the weight of. This environment suddenly felt so foreign to me. The people here may look like me, but they're not. These are Americans, and though I had been around them for over a decade, somehow in this setting the difference between us was more palpable. Like how it's more palpable in the suburbs too.

They were right around me, I could touch them if I tried. They didn't seem to mind me, like zoo animals used to visitors. Old hunched bony ladies, like ancient twisted trees that had grown to the sun for years, seemed to have found their way to the fluorescent light on Market Street. All holding their chicken-curry dishes so close to their faces that they could almost suck the food directly off the plate. I'm guessing this construction is meant to shorten the distance between the fork and her mouth, reducing the motor skills required to take a bite. Perhaps every year they hold the plate a little higher, indicating their age. Like growth rings on trees. I wondered if when these seniors walked past each other, would they recognize the mirroring image, the similar voter segment, or would they simply see another person holding a plate.

Meanwhile new formations were forming around me. What seemed like local politicians were gathering into small circles of three to four, shaking hands with slightly more formality than the "main public" and whispering notes of significance to one another. One of them seemed to have made an extra effort to stand out as someone of public interest, but in the details it lacked intimidation. He was wearing a slightly oversized brown suit, which could have been borrowed from his father. Dark-brown colored sneakers, either the closest thing to dress shoes he owned, or perhaps a deliberate choice to strike a balance between formal and casual. In either case, his existence reminded me of community theater. Not simply because of his outfit, but also because of the added formality and sense of anticipation in the room. As if he was greeting his family and friends who came to see his performance, and he would be carrying flowers and greeting cards at the end of the night. It was comforting, warm, and more innocent than I expected a political event to be.

However, as the evening progressed the ambiance started to feel less like a community theater, and more like a mid-apocalypse gathering of early survivors seeking refuge. Fresh greetings and upbeat handshakes had turned into quiet whispers and comforting hugs. To the left of the screen a speaker, surrounded by a group of listeners, was spreading words of comfort and solidarity as the screen next to her started to bleed more and more red. As I was trying to understand what she was saying exactly, my viewpoint got obstructed. Almost in a perfect line, three motorcycle boys walked past, wearing heavy leather jackets, covered with metal spikes. Possibly in an attempt to distract from their young appearances. It added to the increasingly dystopian atmosphere as it might as well have been the prop costumes of the original Mad Max movie. I pulled my partner closer and held his hand while he was chatting with my friends. He gave me a quick comforting look, as he tightened his grip around my hand. 

Suddenly a very WASPy-looking American was circling around our group. He was short and broad, just like his suit, as if they both had been in the dryer for too long. Without stopping his stepping pace, he said "American voting counts can take very long, days sometimes", under the pretext of comforting us. We had apparently been identified as non-Americans, and it gave him an opportunity to assert his American status. So far, I had felt invisible, and it felt like he had blown my cover. One of my English friends had already answered him, while I still looked at him as if I just saw a dolphin talk, somehow surprised I could engage in conversation if I wanted to. In apocalypse movies the initial refuge is where early alliances are formed, and I suddenly realized I was one of the actors too. How invisible I had felt before, I now felt eyes burning through my body and started to long for that heavy old coat again. Thoughts about how I was being perceived by my environment started to shorten my viewpoint and I anxiously looked around to invalidate the perception of people staring. However I was in fact being absorbed by a woman, blond, probably late thirties or early forties. As I looked back at her she didn't look away, she instead smiled at me. She was surrounded by similar looking women, definitely the same voter segment. And perhaps it was me who didn't see the mirroring image between us. It felt surprisingly comforting and I smiled back. I felt a coat on me, but this time my real one as my partner threw it over my shoulders. Apparently I hadn't been the only one who had felt the dystopian shift in atmosphere, and a consensus had been reached on getting a drink somewhere else amongst our group.

As we made our way towards the exit, I heard one of the speakers from earlier say to a group of women that seemed to have just come up the escalator "You missed my thing, it was great", which brought me back to the community theater vibe the evening started off with, and how she had probably been practicing her speech in front of the mirror or her partner. I felt nourished in details. So many stories seemed to have come together on this evening, and I saw so much collectiveness in individuality. 

We headed down the escalator and walked past the deserted desks again. It didn't hold the same energy as when I came in. We walked past the cheerful guy, whose cheerfulness had turned to neutrality. Past the middle-aged lady who was still effectively shouting at non-RSVPs. And as we walked through the door, out of the fluorescent lights and into the November air on Market street, I wasn't sure if it was the weather or the sense of community I had felt, that left me feeling warm. In the nearest brown cafe I rinsed away the evening with an overpriced old fashion. Who knows what the weather tomorrow will be like.