The First Day Of June

I had slept hard and deep. The emotions of the day before had exhausted me to my core and at the moment I fell asleep, I slipped in to a deep unconscious state. When I awoke, I was quickly reminded of the events from the day before, everything came flooding back and my sense of defeat was palpable. It didn't help that before turning in, I watched the mayor of Atlantic City on a Facebook live feed berating the residents of the city for the looting that happened. Not directly, but he wanted to know why they didn't stop it. It was a speech born of our collective frustration but I had wanted to hear something more concrete, more hopeful, more leadership. Instead, my only thought was, Mommy, why is daddy hollering at us? 
He did mention that he was holding a press conference at the Walk in the morning and after which the clean-up effort would begin. I readied myself and coordinated with some friends to meet there at eleven o'clock to see how we could help. 
My friend Jerry came to collect me and we drove into the city. We ended up having to do a few turns around the Walk area, since the police had the entire district blocked off to all traffic, in order to find a place to park and get to the press conference. When we arrived, Mayor Marty Small was already speaking, the local press were there with cameras and reporters taking up most of the area directly in front of the mayor. The crowd was several hundred strong, mostly business owners, workers, managers, and community activists from a cross-section of Atlantic City. All races and genders and social standings were represented, and that felt good. I chatted with my former Claridge coworker, Timmy Algarin for a bit, said Hi to familiar faces here and there in the crowd, and eventually found my friend Nathan Bryson (curator of the Boardwalk Hall Organ Restoration Project, native of North Carolina with the adorable accent to prove it) at the opposite end of the intersection and we hung together listening to the mayor finish up his speech. It was hard to catch any of the particulars, I'm sure the words 'resilient', 'rebuild', 'unacceptable', 'stronger' and others were used. Personally, I could care less. The time for talk was long over, it was time for action. But a politician will flutter around a microphone like a moth to a flame so we waited until he exhausted the usual platitudes and he directed us to the middle of Michigan Avenue to get our assignments for cleaning up after the riot and looting. I did notice that much of the heavy work had been done, either the city had been there earlier to board up the broken windows or the shop managers themselves had people there to get everything secured. I did notice the Brooks Brothers window was still shattered, but I could tell the shop hadn't been looted. That made me giggle, the kids don't wear Brooks. 

Although it was good to see that some progress had already been made. 
I half-jokingly whispered to Nathan that they probably don't have a well thought out action plan. I quickly figured out that they didn't. 
Side note: There was an agitator circling around us on his bicycle, very loudly interrupting everything the mayor and the city coordinator were saying about the clean-up effort, I'm not sure what exactly his message was but he was adamant that he wasn't going to do no cleaning and that black people needed justice and were oppressed. I found it all slightly amusing, since he was yelling this at the black mayor and a lot of the black leaders of Atlantic City. And to the crowd of mixed races all working together for a common goal, to heal our city. But I often find the dark humor in things, it's my coping mechanism. 
Back to the clean-up details. The mayor was on the phone with the head of the Special Improvement District getting information and once he was done, we were given very general directions and very general instructions about what needed to be done. Basically this: Grab some brooms/bin liners/trash grabbers/shovels and go find stuff to clean. Which is exactly what we did. Since I had watched the video the day before of where they looters marched and caused havoc, we decided to follow their route and see what we could find. We met up with our fellow do-gooders here and there, we had all spread through the city and were combing the streets and parking lots, filling up the trash bags with anything we could find, looting related or not. Nathan and I made our way down Atlantic Avenue, picking up whatever we saw. Liquor bottles and beer cans being the predominate refuse. Many of the shops along there had their windows boarded up, either proactively or afterwards, I'm not sure but there wasn't too much damage along there. We turned up Pennsylvania Avenue where the TD Bank is, which is also the branch I regularly use. I had watched it live as the looters smashed the window on the side of the building, shattering it but that was all they did, moving on through the city. Because it's my branch, I knew what office was there and felt bad for the person who regularly uses it. She helped me set up my credit cards for my European trip. The window was already boarded up although the shattered glass was still there, but we didn't have the right tools to clean it up so we moved along to Arctic Avenue, following the route from the day before. We talked as we attacked different piles of garbage, putting everything in our new liner, we had grabbed a fresh one from another crew on the avenue. The locals along the way asked what we were doing, and once we told them, one of the little corner store owners offered us some water. We declined but that was really nice. At one point, the mayor drove by, stopping to thank us for our efforts. He and I have only ever met at large galas so he didn't recognise me, especially with the mask on. It was very nice of him, I'm sure two lily-white boys with a trash bag and gloves stood out in that neighborhood (editor's note: I grew up a few blocks away on Virginia Avenue). As we passed the Superior Courthouse, where Nelson Johnson was a judge before retiring (he authored 'Boardwalk Empire', the book that inspired the HBO show), the windows were boarded up along the back. I had watched them getting shattered live as well, it was good to see them secured. We made our way by City Hall, then back along Arctic Avenue until finally returned to where we started, the middle of the Walk Outlets. 
We decided we had done our part, we filled four large trash bags, and figured we should head home. There wasn't much more to do, there were a lot of volunteers spread throughout the city doing the exact same thing. We did bump into Nick Pittman, local weatherman, and his husband Brandon. They asked where they should go and we directed them to Gardner's Basin, the mayor said there was some clean up needed at the sea wall and we didn't think a lot of the volunteers had been over there yet. 
Nathan gave me a lift home and talked about the renovation progress on his new house, and then we said our goodbyes when I got to my house. 
I hopped on the social medias, there were rumors of busloads of looters on their way to the city! Antifa is mobilizing to protest in Atlantic City! Another big protest is being planned! I did what I could to quell all the fears and dispel the false rumors and then rested. 
I didn't do all that much, I freely admit, but it was something I had to do. 
I HAD TO.

VOTE!

I was at a party thrown by my friends Jonathan Van Meter and Louis Mazza when they lived on Ventnor Avenue over a barber shop. The party was in full rage, fashionable and creative people populated every room, Charlie Heiser had his ever-present camera snapping artful pictures of all the guests. The tables were full of cheeses and crackers, bottles of alcohol, pretzels, chips, the usual fare of post-graduate young gay men. There was an eclectic group of guests, downbeach doyennes and uptown club-kids, it was the perfect mix to keep things interesting and everyone chatted up everyone else. Jon had a way of mixing his guests like a perfect Martini, it was intoxicating but in a classy way, the perfect blend of ingredients with just enough garnish.
I remember being in Louis' room standing next to the radiator deep in a political conversation with my friend Carol Tadley, Ronald Reagan was the topic. Surprisingly, I was lauding his merits at the time, I admit that I was caught up in his patriotic rhetoric and aw-shucks shucksterisms and she was staunchly, rabidly, anti-Reagan, so much so that I was finding it difficult to counter her arguments with anything of substance. Our exchange got heated at times, both of us were not willing to give ground. As I said, I found my stance wobbly on the facts of his presidential legacy but I refused to concede defeat. I was very young and full of ideas and determination, in that way you are only when you are very young.
Suddenly, she hit me with a direct question, 'Who did you vote for in the last election?'
I looked at her and confessed that I didn't vote and never had.
Her entire demeanour changed instantly and, with a dismissive tone she said, 'This conversation is over. You don't vote, you can't have an opinion.' and she walked away to freshen her cocktail.

I stood there, dumbfounded. Yes, I had been losing the argument anyway but with a simple sentence, she completely changed my entire world view (and destroyed whatever defence I had left). If I am not willing to cast my vote, my opinions are moot. I was not a part of the democratic process. My voice did not matter.

Shortly after this conversation, I registered to vote and have done so in every single election since. I have to say, it's one of the most simplest and easiest things to do but the sense of pride I feel once I hit that button in the voting booth is enormous. I am part of the process. My vote counts.

I urge all of you to vote. Be a voice. Be heard. Be counted.

And thank you, Carol, for giving me this continuing sense of pride as a voter.