Governor

Like I said earlier, I’m a reader. That’s how I know my governor’s a dick. It was all over the papers, newspapers—I always liked newspapers, the feel of them, the sound the pages make when you snap them open. Even helped the old man deliver the paper when I was a kid. Only job I could stand. You were throwing stories onto people's front lawns. Yeah, I like newspapers, too bad about them. So I read about the Amendment. How the people had voted for it like Miss Smiley at the library told me they did. But she didn’t tell me the whole story, probably ’cause I’m a man—she was pretty clear about that. She didn’t tell me what the papers told me: that when the people said felons can vote, Governor Dickhead said Sure, as soon as they jump through a few very expensive hoops.

So I wrote the governor an email and tried to explain the situation, my specific situation—there were over twenty of us arrested—but the longer the email got the more pissed I got so the email kept getting longer and longer and I suppose somewhere along the line I did call him a dick, maybe more than once—all right, I checked it out in my Sent folder. I called him exactly what he is—but that’s the problem: Send. You mean to hit the stupid paperclip icon to attach another picture of a donkey penis, but you hit Send. We’ve all been there. So now I’ve got a court hearing next week, I have no idea where Laila is, and even if I did I don’t think she’d pony up the money to replace the dipshit lawyer I got. Never should have gone to the library that day. What the fuck. Some things you can’t get back.

 

 

Richard Downing

Richard Downing has received awards and recognition from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (1st place), New Delta Review (1st place), New Woman (Grand Prize), Boston Review, Writecorner Press (Editor’s Award), Press 53, Colorado Review, and Solstice (Editor’s Award). His work appears in Arts & Letters, Two Thirds North, The Malahat Review, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds a PhD in English, co-founded the Florida Peace Action Network, and is an activist concerned with meaningful and immediate actions to keep our planet livable and equitable for all writers of fiction. Richard recommends Feeding Tampa Bay.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, August 21, 2023 - 11:14