Mr. Potato Head Votes for the First Time
Mr. Potato Head is wearing green glasses with blue shoes. He is wearing his obstruent nose, and his open eyes. Mr. Potato Head is arriving home from work. He worked a double-shift, dialing phone numbers to collect data for university institutions. Two hours of that time he spent offering haircuts to his coworkers while they were outside on their breaks smoking cigarettes. Mr. Potato Head is a hair-stylist and he maintains his tools inside his butt. If you speak to him for a bit too long, he will offer you a haircut. He will cut your hair. He will then ask you for ten dollars.
Mr. Potato Head dials numbers for approximately forty minutes of each hour when he is at work. The other twenty minutes, he’s outside. Today, he’s made thirty dollars, three haircuts. Today’s been a good day. At work, he was insulted through the phone and told to “call back when you got someone who knows how to speak English.”
Mr. Potato Head carries along within him his portable radio. When he stations himself to offer haircuts, he pulls the radio out from his butt and presses play. Usually it’s a Ramones live album, because it’s really, really fast, but lately he’s been listening to the news radio station because he’s trying to keep himself up to date with the current town-mayor election. Nancy O’Neill is running for mayor. He saw her for the first time at a town rally and she gave the most beautiful speech, Mr. Potato Head saw. Saw, because Mr. Potato Head was not wearing his ears at the time. Mr. Potato Head could not listen. He had removed his ears because the noise of the crowd had overwhelmed him. He had stored his ears in his butt.
Nancy O’Neill had dead lace black hair, and slightly tanned skin; a stern, sexual face; a presence that ramified. That day, Mr. Potato Head decided he was going to vote for the first time in his life. He was going to vote for Nancy O’Neill because he wanted her to be the town mayor.
Arriving home he carries a letter. He opens it. He reads it. It says that Mrs. Potato Head has not paid her loans for six months and the attempts at contact with her have ended in futility. It says that because Mr. Potato Head cosigned the loans with her, he is now obligated to continue with the payments.
When Mrs. Potato Head was rejected from the public university Mr. Potato head was attending, she became miserable. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head lived miserably. Mrs. Potato Head wanted to attend a university, and Mr. Potato Head wanted her happy. She was accepted by a private university, but couldn’t afford it. She needed someone to cosign on her loans so she could pay tuition. Mr. Potato Head cosigned.
The private university was located in the city and Mrs. Potato Head moved there. She began to be played with by another man and was soon selling off pieces of herself on the streets. Soon, she had no parts left and was a gestureless, brown plastic shell. Then she disappeared, and now Mr. Potato Head is expected to pay off her loans.
Lying in bed, he removes his eyes because he does not want to cry, but he still cries inside. He feels sensations within his hollow, plastic body. Things move around inside him. He’s not sure what these things are, but he knows they are definitely things, and they make him feel sad, but he is grateful, because at times, he thinks he’s empty, and now, he knows he isn’t. He wants to die badly, so he takes a nap.
*
Mr. Potato Head wakes up and imagines Nancy O’Neill telling him that she is in love with him, and he replaces his unmotivated lips with a smile. His cell phone vibrates: today is voting day.
The streets to the post office where the election is being held are littered with hipsters, because there’s an independent movie festival going on this weekend. Mr. Potato Head had forgotten about it. A year ago, before Mrs. Potato Head had entirely sold herself—she still had her mouth, eyes, and hands; she'd sold her accessories, like her watch, hat, and wristbands—she had stayed the weekend with Mr. Potato Head, and they had fallen in love again. They ate in humid restaurants where droplets dewed on the surfaces of their plastic faces. They agreed that she’d return the next year, which would have been this weekend. So on his way to vote for Nancy O’Neill, Mr. Potato Head thinks about Mrs. Potato Head for a second.
Mr. Potato Head is wearing his hat. He is wearing his mustache. He likes seeing the reflection of his face wearing his mustache while he walks the streets. Mr. Potato Head is jaywalking without his ears. He removed them because he wanted an excuse to ignore people who might know him. Mr. Potato Head is excited. He is dressed up. He’s wearing a suit he bought at a clothing store for the deformed. Advertisements saying “Vote for Nancy O’Neill” mesmerize him and Mr. Potato feels in love and therefore lost and retarded—clinically both lost and retarded. He bumps into hipsters on their way to see films. Someone pushes him and his hat flies away in the wind. He runs after it.
The hat, on its flight, is hit by a moving car and lands on a hipster’s bicycle rear-basket. Mr. Potato Head can see this, the hat being sequestrated by the bicyclist, but it becomes lost from his sight. He has no choice but to follow in the direction that he last saw the bicycle move in. He marches through the town at a focused pace, determined to find his hat. He recognizes who the bicyclist is, a near-living townie who Mr. Potato Head sees running errands everyday when he is on his way to work at the Data Lab. The bicyclist on his way to breakfast, then school, then work, then home. Mr. Potato Head has even cut the bicyclist’s hair.
Mr. Potato Head paces east and west on the main avenue; he paces north and south on the main street—all with the bicyclist’s daily schedule in mind, hoping that he will be able to catch him on his way somewhere. He doesn’t find the bicyclist but remembers that the bicyclist returns home every afternoon at the same time, so Mr. Potato Head heads home, quickly, because he knows that if he wastes any more time, he will miss his opportunity to get Nancy O’Neill elected town mayor. He cannot disappoint her. She’s depending on him.
Arriving, Mr. Potato Head sees the bicyclist.
“Hi,” Mr. Potato Head says.
“Hi,” says the bicyclist.
Mr. Potato Head cannot hear the bicyclist’s response, only see his lips move, and remembers that he is not wearing his ears. He opens his butt and puts on his ears.
“Sorry, couldn’t hear you. Have you seen my hat?”
“Hat?”
“Yes. The hat my father, Father Potato Head, gave me before he died.”
“The pastor?”
“Yes. My father, Father Potato Head, was the pastor.”
“Okay. Well, I don’t know. What did it look like?”
“Well, you know, like any Potato-Head hat would look. Classy. Very tall. Kind of shines in the dark.”
“I don’t remember seeing it.”
“And where have you been since I last saw you?”
“You saw me?”
“That’s how I know you took my hat. The wind flew it away, and it landed on your basket, and you pedaled off.”
“Oh. Okay. Where did that happen?”
“By the movie theatre.”
“Oh, well, after that I went to the grocery store and bought an energy drink with my food-stamp money. Then I biked around town feeling fidgety, and trying to catch people’s eyes with mine. I got some free pizza at the restaurant the guitarist of my band works at. I tried to do some school work but became depressed. I thought obsessively about the girl I’m obsessed with. I went to the grocery store to get another energy drink with my food-stamp money. I went to the park and lay down.”
“Did you notice my hat?”
“Should I have?”
“I don’t know,” says Mr. Potato Head.
“Well, I saw a hat when I was at the park. It was on the ground, and a bum asked me about it. He said it was magnificent—”
“It is.”
“Okay. Well, he asked me if it was mine, and I said ‘No,’ that I had no idea whose it was and didn’t know where it came from. I assumed it had been there before I came to the park and told him he could have it.”
“Thank you,” says Mr. Potato Head.
Mr. Potato Head opens his butt and takes out his roller-blades. He removes his shoes and replaces them with his roller-blades and places his shoes inside his butt. He closes his butt and skates to the park. He skates through the park looking for the bum who has his hat. He knows finding the hat won’t be difficult, because the hat will call on him when he nears it. He hopes that the bum is here in the park right now. The bum is here. Mr. Potato Head approaches him.
“Now what can I do for you, good sir?” says the bum wearing Mr. Potato Head’s hat. The bum wearing Mr. Potato Head’s hat is hanging out with a crowd of other bums. They’re all drinking 40s.
“You have my hat.”
“Your hat?”
“That hat you’re wearing is the hat my father, Father Potato Head, gave me before he died. It was the last time I saw him.”
“Pastor Father Potato Head?”
“Yes, the pastor, Father Potato Head.”
“Well, I don’t know. This hat was given to me by my great Uncle Sam four years ago. You must be mistaken.”
“Sir, inside the hat, there is an upside-down cross pinned into the lining.”
The bum removes the hat and looks inside it.
“Wow. Well, you must be right. Wonder how that could’ve happened. I wonder where the hat my Uncle Sam gave me is.”
“So, can I have my hat back, please?”
“Well, one second. What will you give me? I don’t like this giving and not receiving thing. It’s unfair. Not right. Inhuman.”
“Well, since you’ve taken off my hat, I see you seem to be in need of a haircut. I’m a professional hair-stylist. I’ll cut your hair in exchange for finding my hat.”
“That’s why I didn’t want to let the thing go. I was afraid of people’s impression of this mess of hair I got on my head. So, would you like some drink while we do this?”
Mr. Potato Head removes his styling kit from his butt and changes his roller-blades for his shoes. Mr. Potato Head takes out his portable-radio and plays the news. The radio says that today is the day to vote for the town mayor. The bum sits on a park bench, and Mr. Potato Head begins to cut his hair between swigs of a 40 the bum gave him. When he’s done cutting the bum’s hair, Mr. Potato Head takes his hat back, puts it on, and heads towards the post office, which happens to be near.
Mr. Potato Head enters the post office and follows the lines glued on the wall saying they will direct him to the voting booths. He gives his ID to the volunteer working the booths, and the volunteer gives him a hard time because in his ID Mr. Potato Head isn’t wearing his mustache.
Mr. Potato Head removes his mustache and says, “See, look. I’m the same person.”
The volunteer is satisfied and gives Mr. Potato Head his ballot.
Mr. Potato Head enters his booth and looks for the town-mayor portion of the card. He reads:
“If you are not to believe that by voting for Nancy O’Neill you are being a true American, and you feel surely confident at all times, past and future that, if you select Nancy O’Neill as town mayor, this town will be better off more than worse off (don’t forget: you do have the option of voting for the American, male candidate, John Lee Fogerty, who was star quarterback of the local team and owner of the local beer-mug store, father of seven children, and whose skin is without craters) mark “Yes” here and leave as a despondent.”
Reading this, Mr. Potato Head doesn’t feel too sharp and cannot concentrate on the wording of the ballot and marks “No.” He doesn’t fill in any of the other portions of the card and returns it to the volunteer. He feels like taking a nap. He replaces his shoes with roller-blades and leaves the post office.
Andy Riverbed is the author of Damaged (Coatlism Press, 2008), Afternoon Drinking is Okay (EveryDayYeah, 2009), and Missed Connections (read some words, 2009).
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