Here's Chapter 3. Meet Zeke, sitting up in northern Maine...

                                                           

Chapter 3

Same day in October, in a small town in Maine.

            “I got the right to change my registration if I want, Martha.  So quit yer stalling, and get the book.”

            “No such party as non-existent, Zeke.”

            Folks in Maine didn’t waste a lot of words.  They said it, or they did it, but they didn’t spend a whole lot of time belly-aching about it.  Zeke was really pushing the Maine envelope with a compound sentence.  Martha was having none of it. 

            In New York or California, or any other semi-civilized place, they could have talked it out, maybe for an hour or so, before coming to their conclusions.  But this was Bascomb, Maine, and there wasn’t going to be a lot of charleying around about it.  Charleying, by the way, was English for parlez-vous-ing, which is what they did up in Canada, about fifty miles north of Bascomb.  Zeke cringed. He was fluent in French, among other languages, but that wasn't something he let on.

            “I didn’t say I wanted to be in a non-existent party.  I said I wanted to go from Republican to Independent.” Zeke waived the ballpoint pen at the town clerk.

            “We’re all independent up here in Maine, Zeke. It’s our state character.  Don’t need no registration for that.”

            Zeke was about to burst a blood vessel.  That doctor down in Bangor had said something about not getting too mad over the small stuff, and Zeke wasn’t going to blow his final gasket over this, but damn, this lady was stubborn.

            “Martha.  Independent is a party.  Get the book.”

            Zeke was uncommon stubborn, and the only way to get him out of her Clerk’s office was to let him have his way.  But Martha wasn’t town clerk because she was a push-over.  “Need to see some identification, then,” she said to Zeke.  Let him register as a non-existent, see if she cared, but if he was going to insist on doing something dumb, she was still going to be a stickler for the rules.

            “You’ve known me all your life.” 

Martha shook her head.  “Not exactly.  Since you didn’t move here till just about ten years back.” Zeke shrugged.  She could be a stubborn as he was, and worse, since she was a natural born Northerner and as she had pointed out, he was a relative newcomer.  She wasn’t going to bend the rules for anyone.  Especially since he’d won.  Zeke reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out his driver’s license.

            “It’s expired,” Martha said, handing it back to him.

            “Yep.  Not going to pay the state just so I can drive down to Bangor twice a year.”

            Martha looked steadily into Zeke’s watery blue eyes.  Finally, he reached into the wallet again and pulled out a fishing license.  Current.  That was worth keeping up.  A man shouldn’t have to pay the state to fish, either, but there was no way around some amount of government.   Martha gave the license a careful examination, then handed it back to him.  She pushed the voter registration book to him.  Zeke painstakingly printed his full name in block letters, then wrote Independent next to his name.  Martha turned the book around, flipped back almost to the beginning, and held out her hand. 

            Zeke dropped the pen into her waiting palm.  She carefully drew several lines through Zeke’s old, faded registration, crossing out his name, written in firm, bold letters, and the word Republican next to them.

            “You can’t vote in no primary any more, you know that don’t you?”

            “When the Independents have their primary, I’ll vote in it.  Otherwise, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to vote on the President.”

            “Don’t forget to wear your mask, Zeke.”

            “Wouldn’t think of forgetting, Martha.  That’s what keeps our democracy safe.”