On Voting with Norman Mailer

Norman was loyal and that loyalty extended beyond people; it reached profoundly into his choice of where he called home. When he first came to Provincetown to work on The Naked and the Dead in his early twenties, he was not immune to the town's allure which infects virtually everyone who sets foot on its shoreline. For Norman that appeal never diminished and, in fact, grew into a passion. He retained a passion for the town and its people. The part of him that commanded he live close to the water of Provincetown harbor was nurtured with each wave of season. He'd lived near the sea in other states from time to time and traveled the world in his life, but he always returned faithfully to Provincetown. And above all, Norman was passionately American in the ultimate sense of that description.

In the 2004 election, which pegged John Kerry against a second term George Bush, I drove Norman to Town Hall here in Provincetown to cast our ballots. Norman, of course, had written about contemporary American issues and in the process, became part of history itself. He had authored numerous politically centered books and countless op-ed pieces in his career and as a result his left-conservative views were well known if not altogether understood. Agree with him or not, his opinions were universally measured as sturdy, rampant with intellectual vitality, and among the finest opinion writings of the twentieth century. Norman was a political giant of American letters, a distinction attached to him as indelibly as his proficiency as a novelist. To vote with him was an extraordinarily surreal experience because it is rare to find oneself so close to a man whose writings had prompted abstemious social scrutiny from so many. None of that came up for conversation as we made our way toward the Judge Welsh Room to vote, however. It would have been utterly out of character for either of us to mark the moment as being anything other than just two men going to the polls together.

The ladies who volunteer each election season to mark off names of those who come to vote in town all stood when we entered, the clop of Norman's two canes likely giving forewarning that he was entering. Their rise was a purely organic response because I was certain some of the ladies' political leanings were not aligned with Norman Mailer's. This did not stop them from demonstrating their respect. That, to me, was wholly unexpected and penetrating to witness.

"Hello, Mr. Mailer," one said as he approached the table

"Oh, ahhh, hi, hi," Norman responded with a cheerful, gravelly voice and wide smile. He looked around the room at the other people there who had turned to get a glimpse of him. He waved a cane-laden hand to the entire room to say hello and most of them made a small gesture back. Standing to Norman's left I noticed that every single person there was smiling at the fact that their ordinary voting experience had suddenly taken a novel twist. It was safe to say that Norman didn't personally know a soul in the room other than me but to watch him greet the ladies administrating the vote and give nod to the others in the room you would have sworn that he did. His inherent appeal was at full potency, encouraged by the inclusive kinship he had with his fellow town voters.

Norman and I entered our respective booths which were directly next to each other and I could hear him fumbling around next door. A moment passed as I looked over the ballot in front of me confident that Norman, just plywood's thickness away, was doing the same thing. Then I heard him mutter through the separator: "This one's not too sharp." At first I thought he was referring to Bush but then it dawned on me that he was talking about the dull pencil he'd apparently picked up to mark his vote.

I never asked Norman how he voted (frankly, I didn't have to) but I'm sure he finally found a sharper pencil to place his "X" next to the sharper candidate.