With people like Jesse, it was one thing; I knew them, and expected it, and knew that even if they wanted to make me look like a fool, they didn’t actually wish me harm. But some of the people I called—I felt they would’ve killed me if they could have. Maybe not in the sense that they’d hold a gun to my face and pull the trigger. But if they had a button they could press to make me disappear, without having to see the mess, they’d press it. Not because of my specific self, but because of the things I believed in and some of the things I was. One guy with a big Decent cross hanging on the wall behind him told me he wished that AIDS was still untreatable, so me and Stein and “the rest of you” could come down with it. One woman told me I was the downfall of America, and that if Stein was elected it was only a short time until we were invaded by Europe and Asia—“unless, of course, he gets all the other Jews to help him.” Another woman asked me if I was having sex with Stein, if I was his “little butt boy.” She said this as she held a baby in her arms.

  And I was speechless. I literally didn’t know what to say. I knew that hanging up on them would only give them the satisfaction that they’d won our encounter—since that’s what they’d made it, a conflict to win or lose. So I wouldn’t hang up. I would just sit there, silent, as they told me I was against God, against America, against Family, against Decency. Eventually they’d tire themselves out or realize I wasn’t going to say anything back, and they’d hang up. But even when they did, it didn’t feel like I’d won. Only one time—this one woman started attacking me for being immoral and disgusting. I shut myself down and just watched. Then, in midsentence, she stopped. She stared at my face in the screen, actually took the time to look at me and how old I was, and she stopped. Our eyes met over our screens and she couldn’t go on. She didn’t say sorry; she didn’t apologize for taking things out on me. But she stopped. And stepped back. And hung up.

  That made me feel a little better, but only until the next mean response. I found myself only calling the people who were coded as Stein/Martinez supporters. They thanked me, but most of them didn’t understand why I was calling since we already had their votes. Finally I gave up. I’d wander over to Jimmy’s phone booth and stand in a corner where the phonecam wouldn’t spot me.

  Of course, Jimmy was better at this than I was. He was charming with the Stein supporters and more charming with the all-important Undecideds, especially the ones who wanted to talk. When he was mooned, he would say a polite “Thank you very much for your contribution” before hanging up, and save his laughter for later. With the mean people, I could definitely see a tension—but he could control it. Again, he’d manage to stay polite—“With all due respect, you’re wrong about that” and “That’s simply not correct” and “If you would read the Stein position paper on that issue, you’d see that what you’ve heard is erroneous.” Even when they got graphic in their insults, he refused to let them see him riled. He would say “I don’t think there’s any call for that kind of language” before hanging up, so that their offensiveness became the cause to end the call. Only after the call had been disconnected would he unleash a string of his own graphic insults, until he was calm enough to make the next call.

  This, I guessed, was politics.

  He didn’t say anything about me being in the back of the booth, so I hovered there until Gus popped in and said he was going to hit the streets. I knew Jimmy would be cool about me staying with him, but I also knew that every call he made would mean a call I wasn’t making. I didn’t want to feel that defeated, and I didn’t know how to tell him about it, because clearly it was something that wasn’t bothering him as much. So I decided to act like I’d planned all along to join Gus in his canvassing. I’d still be dealing with strangers, but this time I’d have someone by my side. Someone talkative.

  We had an easy assignment—to head to Gus’s church to make sure everyone was registered to vote. We got there right before people arrived for mass.

  “Let’s go inside and say hi to Pastor Graciela,” Gus said.

  I’d never been inside Gus’s church before. It had been built in one of the buildings that used to house those old-fashioned power generators. All the heavy equipment had been moved out, and the result was an abundance of space. Everything—the section of comfortable chairs in the middle, the long colorful chains that dangled the lights from the ceiling—seemed designed to make you feel like you were part of something larger, without being made to feel small.

  Over the altar, where a crucifix would preside in most churches, there was a beautiful statue of Jesus, peacefully watching over everyone who wandered in, his face showing sympathy, patience, wisdom. Even though it was carved in stone, his eyes shone bright. I was Jewish, but I was still familiar enough with all the old paintings and the old ways to be struck by this.

  “You’re seeing?” Gus said. “You expect there to be a cross there. But what matters to us, and what mattered to God, is Jesus’s life, not his death. A miracle happened, but the miracle happened because of who Jesus was. The point is to live like him, not to die like him.”

  He reached to the thin chain around his neck and pulled the small gold Jesus out from under his shirt. I saw that Jesus was in a pose similar to the one above the altar. “Take a look. That’s love. Compassion. That’s why we care about him. That’s why he was special.”

  As he put the necklace back where it had been, as close to his body as anything could be, a woman wearing a purple robe walked over to us. She was no taller than my shoulder and her hair was dotted with gray. I figured she was the pastor. I knew that churches like Gus’s used to call their priests Father, until the Jesus Revolution and the decision that titles like Father and Mother needed to be retired. (“Pastor Michael isn’t my father,” Janna once said to me. “Why would I call him that? There are other ways of showing respect without creating these weird family power roles.”)

  Pastor Graciela welcomed me, then gently told Gus that although she of course supported what he was doing, there couldn’t be any campaigning inside the church. Whatever we wanted to say, it had to be outside.

  “Absolutely,” Gus told her. “We just wanted to say hey.”

  After a few minutes of talking with Pastor Graciela, we headed outside. People were just starting to arrive for mass—not too many of them, but enough to spark some conversations. Gus was at the center of our invisible stage on the steps, with me half curtained beside him. Mostly I watched. I watched as we got kind nods and small words of affirmation. I watched as other congregants took Gus by the arm and swore to him that they’d be there on election day. This was the kind of swearing I could stand, not the kind I’d been attacked with on the phone. I started to get back some of my faith in people. Here, and later in the week when Gus and I stood outside my synagogue and did pretty much the same thing, and at least a dozen other times when I worked with Stein supporters or met people who respectfully disagreed, I felt the work that the mean people had done on my mind becoming undone. Because that’s the thing about mean people: They make you think that the world will never work, that there are divides you will fall into if you approach. It takes a whole lot of good people to fill in the breach created by a single mean one.

  “It’s our future!” Gus would sing to anyone who came past. “You’ve got to participate in our future!” His belief in this was so strong that it made his body dance. He would sway in his no-logo jeans and whirl from person to person with the Jesus figure shifting along with his heart. I wondered if this, really, was how he stayed so fit.

  Even when the election was over, his buzz of energy remained.

  “C’mon, my friends,” he said to us now. “I’ll meet you by the doors as soon as the school releases us.”

  Mira and Keisha said they’d have to meet us at Stein headquarters for the victory party, since they had basketball practice after school. But Mandy, Jimmy, Janna, and I said we were in for a quick run to the ghost mall. The point of places like the ghost mall was for us to be together…and being together was exactly the point we wanted to make right now.

  six

  On the way over, we loaded one of Stein’s old speeches and listened.

  * * *

  —

  “If we can be caring individuals, why can’t we be a caring society? If we can build our lives on the foundation of kindness and love, why can’t we build our country on the same foundations? Is this idealistic? By all means, yes! We as a country have always had ideals, and we should live by our ideals. Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. What are these if not expressions of kindness and love, of caring and compassion? There is nothing wrong with idealism. You can’t tell me that we as people are motivated by greed or hatred or jealousy. You cannot tell me that we do not care for one another. Parents care for children. Children care for parents. Brother cares for sister, sister for brother. Not always, but most of the time. What satisfaction does a dentist get from being a dentist? He is paid well, yes. But the satisfaction comes from knowing he makes his patients’ lives easier. What satisfaction does a builder get from being a builder? She makes a structure that will last, yes. But she gets her satisfaction knowing that it will give people shelter, that it will be of some worth to their lives. We all want to make the world a better place. We all want to matter, and we know that what matters is caring. What matters is the difference you make in the lives of the people around you and generations to come. We know this on an individual scale. We must also know this as a nation, and as citizens of the world.”

  * * *

  —

  One of the key ingredients of the reign of fear has been disembodiment.

  The theory behind this is simple. It is much harder to attack someone in person. It is much harder to lie to someone in person. It is much harder to deny the humanity of someone who is standing right in front of you, undeniably human. (I’m not saying it’s impossible. It is very possible. It’s just harder.)

  Our bodies are designed for human interaction. When we don’t get it, we become lonely. When we become lonely, fear speaks to us in a louder voice. The politicians and the corporations behind the reign knew this. Separated from other people, we will buy more, to quell that loneliness. Separated from other people, we will argue more, to feel the power of our own assertions. We will crave more attention. We will want to have followers, gather likes, because we will use those things to (momentarily) make us feel less lonely. We will broadcast ourselves because otherwise all we feel is void. When nothing is in person, we are vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation. We think we are building our own virtual space, but the manipulators are providing all the furniture, all the walls.

  Even though it’s been a few years, I remember what it was like in lockdown, what it was like to not see my friends. Now I think, Look at what happened when no one could see their friends. People who weren’t their friends entrenched them on sides of various arguments, because arguing gave them a rush. Social media set up a toxic popularity contest, and you had to compete in it alone.

  When the insurrection attempts came, I could almost understand it. Those people storming the Capitol, banding together to threaten democracy—they were euphoric because finally they could hang out in a crowd of their friends again.

  We’d been told this story: Each generation would love technology more and more, would depend on technology more and more, would be happier and happier in a virtual space. And for sure, there were plenty of kids my age who lost themselves in worlds of “content”—a noun masquerading as an adjective. Our phones functioned as a body part. But ultimately, this idea that we’d fall so willingly into technology’s embrace was a “truth” designed by technology companies, not by us. The lockdowns were a wake-up call. This is what it would feel like if we didn’t have each other anymore, if we stopped being bodies and relied entirely on being whatever we projected onto other people’s screens.

  My friends and I didn’t want to disempower ourselves into data. We wanted to be in person as much as we could.

  That’s why we went to the ghost mall. It was never busy, and it was always a little sad. There wasn’t anything inside that we couldn’t buy online. But buying online didn’t involve any senses besides sight. And buying online couldn’t be shared in the same way.

  If there was one thing making me a little nervous as we headed to the ghost mall, it was the fact that Jimmy’s birthday was coming up in a few days, and I still hadn’t gotten him anything. I knew I could (and would) donate to one of his registered charities, but I also wanted to give him something he could hold in his hand. It didn’t have to be expensive, only valued.

  We were jammed against each other in the backseat of Gus’s Prius, Jimmy half sitting on my lap and me half stroking his wrist, playing with his bracelet. We had been going out long enough for our affections to be casual. I no longer looked for meaning in every touch, every gesture. Only the unusual ones.

  When Stein’s old speech was done, Janna called out, “Gus, can you load up ‘Lord Enuff 4 Me’? Please please please!”

  Jimmy leaned back into me a little harder and I tried not to roll my eyes or laugh. We were so stuck. Perhaps the biggest test a friendship can face is when one of the friends wants to blast a truly crap song.

  As Janna, Gus, and Mandy yell-sang the chorus (“Baby, you don’t need 2 B / Lording it over me, / ’cause any fool can C / the Lord is Lord Enuff 4 Me”), Jimmy leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you think we can get Stein to ban this music?”

  I said we could only hope.

  Luckily, we arrived at the mall before the next Holy Ghostwriter song (“Baby B My Sunbeam”) started to play.

  I thought for one evil second of getting Holy Ghostwriter’s Most Inspired Hits for Jimmy for his birthday. But that would have been too cruel—he would have felt bad deleting it, so it would’ve haunted him every time he went to shuffle.

  No—I needed something he would love. I was a little uncomfortable when nothing immediately sprang to mind. For a second I found myself envying Keisha and Mira. Not only could they finish each other’s sentences—they could finish each other’s paragraphs. Even though they lived in two different houses, it was like they had only one wardrobe, mixing and matching so often we had no memory of which clothes were Mira’s and which were Keisha’s. In April, Keisha had arranged for Mira’s favorite author to give them a call for their birthday; the hour-long conversation was the present. And in June, Mira had given Keisha a sweater they’d spent almost a whole year making, having taught themself to knit in order to do it. For my birthday in May, Jimmy had planted me a tree, right outside my bedroom window. (My parents were a little surprised, but they let me keep it.) I wanted to do something just as cool, but the only ideas I had were everybody else’s ideas.

  I hoped to find some direction in the mall. As we’d expected, we were practically the only people inside who didn’t work there. During the holiday season it was more crowded, and maybe that’s how they stayed in business. But on an average November afternoon like today, it felt like walking through the ruins of an ancient civilization, a museum dedicated to the short era when humans had to walk into a store in order to buy something.

  The first shop we stopped in was a fragrance store, which wasn’t a whole lot of help in my search. They had a scent bar where you could create your own, but I didn’t want Jimmy to smell like anything other than his usual mix of shampoo and body heat and spark.

  The scent of the season was marshmallow, and Janna spent a good amount of time experimenting with the different kinds before deciding that lightly browned was her favorite.

  Next we went to the jeans store. Gus couldn’t get there fast enough. Just as I predicted, he went directly to the newest style of you-fit jeans. He loved the way the denim contracted to mold against his body, then expanded to let him back out again.

  I was lucky Jimmy hadn’t really known me in seventh grade, during my Period of Indecisive Style (as Mandy liked to call it). It had happened after Jesse Marin and a lot of the other guys started to outgrow their friendships with me, and I hadn’t yet figured out which new friendships I was going to grow into. Having read a few too many of Mandy’s advice blogs, I decided the problem was that I really didn’t have my own style. So I experimented. First came the Sports Irony look, where I mimicked Jesse’s baseball wear but upped it two notches too much. That struck out. Then I decided I would only wear that season’s big fashion push…which, unfortunately, was the W-neck T-shirt, heralding the Jagged Collar phase. As winter approached, I decided to layer—with a white shirt always on top and stripes or patterns always underneath. The Hidden Meaning look, which then turned into Mix-and-Not-Match when I ran out of white shirts. I spent a week in flannel hoodies—Badass Lumberjack. Then I started wearing things inside out. That lasted two weeks, mostly because bullies kept pulling on the tags. Spring came, and I thought it would be cool to wear shirts that mimicked street signs. My Yield Caution phase.

  The end came quickly. I ordered a One Way T-shirt, and once it arrived I realized the arrow pointed to my crotch. When Mandy came over later that day, I held it up and asked them what I was doing. They told me I’d always had a style; I just needed to realize that style was like personality—it didn’t always have to be consistent; it just had to be something you lived with. I asked them how they knew that. They said they’d read it on an advice blog. Then they helped me bring all the W-necks to Goodwill.

  Now I didn’t try to have a style. There were just things I liked and things I didn’t like. It made shopping much easier.

  I watched as Jimmy wandered off to the retro section, holding up a pair of pleated stonewashed jeans and taunting me to try them on. Again, I thought about how I could be evil and come back and purchase them for his birthday. I knew Jimmy was really eyeing a pair of never-wash jeans, but I wasn’t sure never-wash said I love you the way I wanted to.