My United States Of Whatever

It's the day before the American presidential election, and I'm having breakfast at the Comfort Suites in Southhaven, Mississippi.

It's a self-serve breakfast bar, but a cheery young black woman, Sharonda, is behind the bar replenishing the biscuits and that kindergarten paste they call gravy. The TV in the common room is blaring. It's a morning news program, running a satirical feature. Footage of a college football game is voiced-over with commentators describing the plays in terms of Bush vs. Kerry. Sharonda is laughing.

"On th'other station," she says, "Dey do dat with a couple horses, too. It's funny! Dey call da horses Bush an'..." She looks at me, "Wha's th'other guy's name?"

An hour later I'm checking out. Rosetta at the front desk is white, about 25, Southern fried friendly and at least 50 pounds overweight. She's wearing an enormous button that says God Bless Our Armed Forces.

Rosetta finishes up with my invoice, and before I leave I ask if she might direct me to the nearest Democrat campaign office. I'd like to pick up a Kerry button for my karaoke buddy Goldilocks back home who was, coincidentally, born down here in the South. He is rabidly political, and American. I like him anyway.

Rosetta looks at me like I have two heads, and says, "I have no idea."

I ask if she could possibly find out somehow. She goes in the back and returns with the manager, a young black man. He looks at me the way annoyed adults on a plane look at the mother with a crying baby in the opposite seat, and says, "This is Bush country."

"Really?" I reply, surpised to find that the land of cotton-picking slave descendants would support a gun-toting moron over a liberal. "Well, that's a shame, but in any case I hope you get out there and vote tomorrow. No offence, but this country needs all the help it can get."

"Oh, I don't vote," says Rosetta. Her tone was exactly that of a person saying, "Oh, I'm lactose intolerant," in reply to someone who inadvertently offered them milk.

(I knew it was a bad sign when the cable service in my room didn't include Comedy Central. I've had to go cold turkey off Jon Stewart, and let me tell you, it hurts.)

It's afternoon, and I'm in Oktibbeha County in the heart of Mississippi, stopping in at the Walmart to pick up a few things before heading to the next Comfort Inn on my agenda. Orlicia at the checkout examines my credit card with curiosity.

"I'm Canadian," I offer.

"Oh," she says, followed by something I can't parse, even though I've gotten pretty good at listening slow.

"I hope you're going out to vote tomorrow," I say. I can't help myself.

She looks at me, blankly. I don't know whether she didn't understand what I said, or that the idea of voting was unimaginable to her. But I fear it's the latter.

Starkville is home to Mississippi State University. Surely a university town has one or two liberals running free?

I wonder what people do for fun here. This is where I'll be watching the returns.

As I drive to the motel I scan the landscape for a campaign sign for Kerry — or any Democrat. I spy a long, low building with a big sign advertising GUN SALE.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass imagines what the United States of Whatever is going to be like for the next four years.