Wars, Foreign and
Domestic

parked my little Honda in one of the thousands of open spaces, stuffed my fists in my jacket pockets, and marched towards the sign with the arrow that said "Vote Here". "Here" was the bottom floor of Holyoke's Prospect Heights, a five storey brick residential building. The heavy steel door creaked when I pushed it open.

Old ladies sat behind card tables stacked with binders and papers, some loose, some stapled in the corner. There were six voting booths, with fold-away privacy flaps. A couple of people stood in the middle of the room, looking confused. I went up to the nearest card table and gave my name and address. A woman with white hair and big pink glasses handed me my ballot with a polite smile.

I nabbed a booth and started filling in the little ovals. When I had gone through the whole ballot I returned to the question of Senator. My heart beat faster. John Kerry and Michael Cloud were listed. "Fuck you, John Kerry," I said to myself. I wrote Randall Forsberg's name and Cambridge address in bold strokes. A smug and indignant expression flashed across my face.

Of course Randall's name and address wouldn't fit in the tiny space provided for write-ins, but I had expected something like that. I confirmed my name and address at another card table, and fed my ballot into the ballot box. The ballot went in with a whirrr, like a dollar into a Coke machine. I walked towards the door shaking my head. I grabbed the wooden handle and pulled. "You've gotta use some muscle," said the white-haired lady who had given me my ballot. I smiled at her with just my lips, yanked the thing open and went out.

The sky was blue with a cool breeze, and as I walked to my car I remembered what Jesse Jackson had said two weeks before at an antiwar rally in Washington: It don't rain on the righteous! I looked at the sky and laughed, a little embarrassed for the Reverend.

I opened my Honda's trunk: a fat stack of Randall Forsberg For Senate flyers and two double-sided campaign signs lay on top of a pile of my dirty clothes. "Oppose the War in Iraq!" "Write in Randall Forsberg for U.S. Senate" they said, in white italics on a blue background. Each sign had an unflattering portrait of Ms. Forsberg. I hoped the picture wouldn't work against her.

I grabbed the signs and the flyers, slammed the trunk, and walked back across the street. It perplexed me how few people I saw coming and going. I thought there'd be a long line of voters, shoving and elbowing each other, eager to be the first to participate in the democratic process. The turnout hardly seemed representative of the ward; downtown Holyoke is packed with Puerto Ricans, but there were more old white people here than Hispanics. It didn't occur to me that most everyone else was at work. Having determined that I was at a legal distance from the door, I jabbed my signs into the ground next to the parking lot's driveway. On the other side of the driveway, two beefy white guys were hard at work clearing the lawn with leaf blowers. One of them noticed me, shrugged, and shouted over the roar, "Sure beats rakin'". I considered handing them flyers, but didn't. When they moved on I pulled up my signs and moved over to the rectangle of lawn they had tidied. It was a little closer to the door. The cop, who kept an eye on things from a Ford Explorer in the corner of the parking lot, had said that would be fine.

So there I was, finally, strategically positioned to get the word out that there was indeed an alternative to voting for John Kerry, the political acrobat. Leaflets in hand, I paced up and down the sidewalk, watching for receptive voters, determined not to let anyone slip by without hearing the good news.

Hardly anybody came. Sometimes five minutes would go by without a single voter. Of those I was able to talk to, most were dismissive, or glanced briefly at my flyer before folding it up and putting it in a pocket. Some spoke little English, and wrinkled their foreheads or conferred with each other in Spanish. I should have known something was up when I got there and didn't see any other volunteers, not even for local candidates or the ballot questions. This was simply not a hot spot. I looked at the ground, kicked dirt.

I caught sight of my landlord's white hair as he drove by. He looked right at me, but didn't recognize me until he'd already driven past. He threw his Honda in reverse, and stretched across the passenger seat to throw open the door. "What the fuck are you doin'?", he asked in his hoarse, nasal bark.

"Aw, Owen, I'm so bored",I told him.

"The CIA's gonna be lookin' for you. They're gonna have your fuckin' place staked out".

I liked Owen, so I adopted his register when we spoke. "Those CIA bastards can go fuck themselves. D'you vote yet?" I was going to give him a flyer if he hadn't.

"Yeah, this morning.

"I mailed your check yesterday. Sorry."

"Saw it this morning, no problem. All right, be careful."

He reached across and pulled the door shut.

"Take it easy, Owen."

Just after Owen drove away a wiry black kid in sweatpants and t-shirt with a blue bandana on his head road past me on a tiny bike, weaving from one side of the street to the other, slalom-style. "You eighteen?", I asked him. "Yeah."

"You votin' today?"

"Naw." He, too, rode away, and I had just about had enough.

A white Chrysler minivan, windows plastered with signs reading "KANE" in huge block letters, pulled into the Prospect Heights parking lot. A fleshy-faced, bespectacled man in business attire jumped out, talking on his cell phone. He could have been twelve years old if it wasn't for his size and his pattern baldness. I figured it must be Michael Kane himself, incumbent candidate for State Representative. He seemed to be asking a television station if they would be there to cover something or other. He was emphatic, and by the time he shut the phone off, he seemed to have achieved his purpose. He looked at me:

"You get something? Food, soda or something? Get this guy something." And then he went off into the building. An older guy—his father, I guessed—got out and opened the minivan's hatch to reveal a smorgasbord of election day rations. Little sandwiches stuffed with chicken, egg, or tuna salad, which I recognized from the deli counter at Big Y, cookies of several sizes and varieties, and cold Cokes and Sprites. I took a chicken salad sandwich and was about to ask for a Coke when I noticed it was the last one. The old man's voice was scratchy:

"It don't matter if it's the last one; if it's the last one, it's yours." I stuffed the Coke in my jacket pocket, smiled and said thanks, and started walking back to the place where I'd been standing. Then Michael came out, strutting with brisk importance, and called out to me: "You get something to eat?" I held up the Coke and sandwich, and bowed my head. He jumped in the minivan and they drove away, waving and smiling even though I was the only one standing there. After I ate the sandwich and put the little ball of plastic wrap in my pocket, I remembered the cookies, and kicked myself. The leaf blower guys were loading a commercial John Deere- one of those stand-while-you- ride chariot mowers- into the back of their truck. On the side of the truck, in white block letters on a blue background, was the company's name: ALL POWER Rt. 202 Granby, Mass. Power Sports, Marine and Power Equipment. I pulled my signs out of the ground and walked to my car.

My apartment was half a mile away. I decided to drive home and log onto the Commonwealth's website. I'd type Owen's address into the poll finder, then go to the place where he'd voted. I hoped there'd be more people there; more approachable people, people who spoke English. I had already spent two hours outside with little if any effect, and I was frustrated. Owen's poll was only a five minute drive away, but it was a different world. As I got closer, I passed middle class, single family houses with small yards. I saw a group of kids walking a big blond retriever down the middle of the street. I thought, "Shit, I could have grown up here." Republicans and Democrats vied for attention at the mouth of the driveway that led down a hill to the E.N. White Elementary School: Romney/Healey, O'Brien/Gabrieli, Kane, Franco and others. I wondered why they were all standing so far from the entrance. After I parked at the school I was chastised by a police officer for handing someone a flyer. I asked the officer to please show me exactly how far away I had to stand. We ambled around the parking lot for a couple of minutes while he searched the asphalt for some sort of mark. When I saw the confused look on his face, I decided to give him a break. I walked around to the front of the building and positioned myself at a crosswalk, where anyone coming or going would have no choice but to pass by.

I pushed my signs into the earth. Things were already going better. I never had to wait more than twenty seconds for contact, and almost everyone was middle class and English speaking. I stood at the crosswalk and stuck my hand out to every car. About half the cars slowed and rolled down the window. They must have thought I was an election official directing traffic. When the cars didn't look like they were going to slow down, I started walking across the crosswalk, and they were forced to stop. I approached one silver minivan in this way, and, after the man riding shotgun figured out what I was doing, he looked slighted and said, "I don't think you're allowed to do that."

"I don't see why not," I said, pretending I didn't know what he meant. I was surprised by my self-assurance. After they drove away I got scared the guy might complain to the cop, so I moved down ten feet and gave up my crosswalk tactic.

I noticed a guy in a blue baseball cap standing on the other side of the road, looking at my signs with his eyebrows drawn together in a confused way. "Fo'uhsberg..."He was muttering to himself. He glanced over at me. "What? For Senate?" I walked across to talk to him. He was taller than me and thick, in a tan utility vest sporting buttons for Mike Franco and Mitt Romney. The skin of his jaws was wind-chapped; his mustache had refused the razor at a point just below his right nostril. I gave him a flyer and started into a shortened version of my Forsberg pitch.

"She..."

"Oh, it's a woman?" His voice was deep and he made "r's" into vowels. "Yeah. She's running write-in at the last minute because Kerry voted for the War Powers Act. Nobody's running against him except for that kooky Libertarian. It's a way to protest the war and send Kerry a message." Then I explained, in simple terms, why the war was a bad idea.

"Here it comes", I thought. "Is he gonna spit on me, tell me I'm unpatriotic, call me a terrorist?"

"Now, let me be honest with you. I'm in the National Gawd, so, generally speakin, whoever the President is, if he says Iraq's the enemy, all right; they're the enemy, I'll go to war. And to tell you the truth, what we've gotta do here is prevent another nine-one-one. I'm sure you agree that was a horrible thing.

"Of course it was a horrible thing! "I felt like I might lose control of myself, so I stopped for a second and tried to think of the best way to handle this one. Everything that came to mind sounded stupid.

"Wha'd we do after 9/11? We bombed the hell out of Afghanistan, right? Why? To find Bin Laden. Did we find him?"

"No, sure didn't..." Jim agreed, listening. He bent over and set down what he was carrying: an empty Coke can in a plastic cup and a dirty napkin. "How many people died in the WTC? Something like three thousand?"

"Something like that."

"You know how many Afghani civilians we killed looking for Bin Laden?" Jim looked at the ground, solemnly:

"Probably a lot."

'Something like four thousand. Didn't find no Bin Laden, though." "Nope." I felt guilty for arguing this way. I knew that what we'd done in Afghanistan was not a reason for ignoring the real threat of Iraq. But he was trying to establish causal connections between Iraq and 9/11, which was just as far from the mark. "Still", I thought, "that doesn't excuse me." "It's really good you're out here doin' what you're doin'", he said. "A lot of people, especially on the left, I ask 'em, why are you out here supportin' this guy? You know what they say? 'Because he's my brotha.' No idea what the issues are! I respect you bein' out here, because you know what the issues are." There was warmth in his voice, and I felt that he was more committed to being friendly than he was to winning an argument. I told him about the antiwar movement, and how bad the media had been about covering it.

"I know where you're comin' from", he said. "Not getting' press sucks. Sucks. Same thing happened to you guys happened to us. On Fatha's Day we had a ma'uch and rally in Boston, for fathas' rights, but the media wouldn't touch it." Fathers' rights? This was something I'd never heard before. Jim explained:

"I'm in a fathas' rights group. We help out guys who are discriminated against by the court system, unfair custody and child support rulings, men's rights, that sort of thing." "So- not only is he a Republican, he's a misogynist, too", I thought to myself.

Jim went on to talk about the differences he saw between the right and the left, going even so far as to refer to President Bush and Mitt Romney as possessing "good moral character". I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Before he picked up his plastic cup and walked on, we shook hands. This was Jim.

I went back to my post, and tried to think about what had just happened. Here was this guy, proclaiming himself a tin soldier, willing to fire bullets at human targets on the orders of a Texas coke fiend. But Jim wasn't a fascist or a killer; he was friendly and he was human. He even reminded me a little of my uncle. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 3:45. I remembered that I had an appointment at 4:30 in West Springfield, to have my windshield replaced. Jim came by again, walking back up towards where the Republicrats were hawking their wares. He saluted me with his thick hand, and promised to check out the Forsberg website.

I had some flyers left over, so I paperclipped them to one of the signs in case someone was interested. I walked up the hill to where Jim was standing to ask him one more question.

"You mentioned that you're in some kind of men's rights group. I was just wondering how you got involved in that?" Jim gave me a serious look.

"I got a restraining order against me, and I was lookin' for help. And I found these guys. They help out guys like me. Why, you know somebody?"

"No, I was just sort of curious. I go to a real liberal college, so I hear a lot about women's rights issues and this and that, but I never heard of any men's rights movement."

"A lot of women's groups are against us because they think we're tryin' to be unfair to women. But we're just tryin' to be fair is all." I nodded to show I didn't disagree. "So how d'you think you did?" he asked.

"Aw, I don't know" I said" I feel like I fulfilled my moral obligation."

"That's the right way to look at it." He took out his business card and jotted down his email for me, in case I wanted to find out more about his group, the Fatherhood Coalition. I noticed the number had a Boston area code. Jim lived in Somerville, but had driven the two hours to Holyoke to help with Mike Francoís campaign. Franco was Michael Kane's Republican challenger in Holyoke's state representative race, as well as the organizer for the Fatherhood Coalitionís Pioneer Valley Chapter.

"Well, it was nice talkin' to you, Jim."

"Absolutely, John. It's nice when people can discuss things and really try to see the other personís side. Some people, you know, just yell at each other,' I'm right! No, I'm right!'"

"That doesn't do any good..."

"No, it doesn't. But when you really do open up and listen... you'll learn a lot'

At Western Mass Autoglass, the same cheerful lady who'd scheduled my appointment was there to take my keys and tell me it would be an hour or so. I had a horizontal crack runnning all the way across my windshield at eye level. I'd been driving just fine with it for two years now, but the time had come to finally get my car registered and inspected in Massachusetts, so I had to fork over the hundred and fifty bucks to get it taken care of.

I walked across the street to the brightly lit IHop to grab a bite to eat and wait. After I finished off my fiesta chicken salad, I took out the President's NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STAES OF AMERICA. I took notes, and shuddered occasionally. At a booth across from me there were five high school kids sipping Cokes and laughing. I pictured myself sitting at their table, excited and fresh, sharing the inside jokes. They were at the most four years younger than me, but they seemed so far away. I'd have placed Jim somewhere between thirty and forty. I wondered if I was more like them, or more like Jim.

I walked back into the autoglass store just as my keys were brought in. "Perfect timing", said the dark haired lady, with a motherly smile. Her eyes sparkled. "There's some tape around the edges of the windshield. Leave that on for a couple days. If it comes off by itself it's no big deal- rain won't hurt it, but don't go to a carwash or powerwash it or anything." I remembered her voice--- its gentle persuasiveness.

"I haven't washed that car once since I got it four years ago" I said and then grinned. Being a little dickens.

"Now that is not something to be proud of", she said, smiling back. Two guys who were waiting there laughed along with us. I wondered what the hell was wrong with me--- trying to be some sort of rebel. It wasn't until I went out and started my car that I remembered how I'd asked the woman her name when I made the appointment. I asked just in case there was some sort of difference between the price she'd quoted and the price I had to pay. She'd said her name was Dawn.

I took the steps two at a time down to the basement of UMass Lowell's Coburn Hall. The men's room was supposed to be down there somewhere. I found myself in a grimy hall of munchkin-sized doors. "What the hell", I thought. One door was slightly ajar; I could see buckets and mops inside, in the dark. I finally found the door to the men's room; was only a little bigger than the mop closet. I did my thing and ran back upstairs to find Jim.

After a couple minutes, Jim found me, looking around the big conference room. There were huge dark windows on both sides; the wind whistled through one that was open, bringing cool air and the smell of trees.

We sat down, and Jim apologized for eating. I could see fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cole slaw and biscuits through the transparent lids of the plastic KFC containers. I wanted to ask Jim if he knew what that chicken had looked like alive. If he knew that he was eating a mutant bird. Instead, I pointed out that our black leather jackets were nearly identical. Jim looked at his jacket, looked at mine, and seemed pleased. I asked him to tell me about his restraining order, and how that led him to the Fatherhood Coalition.

"In '95, '96, I broke up with a girlfriend. And I tried to get back to her so I kept on botherin' her and botherin' her. So she took out a restraining order, and I continued... I didn't take it serious so I kept on callin' her and, you know, she would talk at times, so I kinda felt welcomed. And sometimes she wouldn't like it. So basically I broke the restraining order. And they, um, they take you to court. Their initial offer to me was probation. I refused that because I felt as though, well, I'm not botherin' her or hurtin' her... well I am botherin' her but I'm not hurtin'her or doin' anything that I thought was illegal or bad or whatever. I didn't understand the whole concept so I took it to trial and I lost. And I spent six months in jail. I lost my job as an engineer, and obviously my credibility and community because a lot of people knew."

Jim leaned in closer and took a sip of Pepsi.

"This is the interesting part: when I went to jail I learned there was a lot of guys in the same boat as me. Not everybody's gonna tell you the truth of course, they're gonna shade it their way. But it was a lot of guys who basically didn't do anything harmful, but just might have called too much or blah blah blah. Or the woman got a restraining order without a problem, and all you have to do is walk up to the house or do anything wrong and it's broken. So, when I was in prison,a guy came up to me and he showed me this group, and he told me they were filing bills to change the laws. And I thought that was very interesting."

A couple of years before Jim broke up with his girlfriend, he had run for alderman in his home of Somerville, and lost. At that time, he primarily identified as a Democrat, although he would, at times , vote for Republican candidates he happened to like. It wasn't until he got out of jail that he realized he belonged further to the right.

More guys streamed in and took seats around the long table. I was nervous. I had no idea how they felt about me being there. Did they think I was some sort of ambassador, sent by God, to discover and disclose their mission to the public? Or was I a feminazi plant, come to gather dirt and twist their words against them? I assumed a more masculine posture.

"Basically we are a chapter of the Fatherhood Coalition and our goal is to get justice from this corrupt system for children, specifically, and for parents that're bein', um, unjustly treated. So that's basically what we do, and, um, whatever means it is to bring about the corruption that's goin' on to the fathers and their children through this, uh, the court systems in Massachusetts but in the whole country, is basically our goal. Our goal is to use any means possible to bring to the attention of the medier, or the public, or the court systems. And to try, you know, right the injustices that's on."

Brian talked through his fierce goatee at the head of the table. He wore a black t-shirt that commemorated the "Daytona Beach Biker Week,'94". He went on: "And any and other means that we could possibly get our issues into the public and help, try to help, us, our children, other parents..."

Pete interjected: "We've also, we've got a dual role, every one of us. We're trying to save our own skins, and we're trying to fix the system at the same time." Pete wore a black sweater and had blond hair that hung down the sides of his face. At Jim's urging, he told me he paid $6,500 a month in child support and alimony, although his income was now half what it was when that amount was set.

Tom and David, the two newbies, sat across from me. Dunkin' Donuts and Wendy's boxes, bags and cups were scattered across the table in front of them . Tom wore a sweatshirt from Teamsters Local 25. His face sagged long, and his rough hands and red eyes had years burned into them. As a newcomer, he was supposed to tell his story.

"We separated... '96. She had my first child and she was carrying my second. I paid her support, I took care of her, I saw my kid every weekend. Then she wanted to get back with me. I lived in New Hampshire, she lived in Mass. They were gonna take my kids away from her because the child was positive for THC. He was just born. My oldest was six, and the newborn tested positive for marijuana."

"In his blood??",someone asked.

"Oh,yeah",Tom said "It was in his blood, right? She was smokin', term. They would've taken the children away, right? But since she moved back up to New Hampshire with me I find out afta. That lasted a couple years. I wanted to buy a house so I worked extra. She was dealin' drugs outta the house. We had another kid, and I thought everything was workin' out. It's, it's it's: she's outta control." Tom looked around the table. Nods of sympathy and understanding from all sides.

"So I go to the police station, they don't wanna get involved. I go to DSS , they don't wanna get involved with me. So I move out because of the fighting. She says: 'I think my husband or someone at his sister's house molested my child.' They tear up, their whole family, and they found no finding, you know, after they embarrassed everybody. I go to stand up for myself and I'm bein' aggressive---

"You're bein' defensive!"

"I just------ "

"You're wrong no matter what. No matter what." Heads shake, "Yes", all around.

"So she cleaned up. I moved back home and we dropped the divorce. She was gonna go to counseling. She decides she doesn't wanna go. I been in counseling, I tried to fix the marriage for two years, I been to marriage counseling, my children go see psychologists, I spend all the time with them----"

The big train----"

"Yep. And what happened? She just doesn't even come home. Tonight, she's,' Oh, I'm workin' late'. She comes home between eleven and two. The kids are with my motha, they're with me every night. I bathe 'em daily, feed them, go to school. I'm involved with the schools now. The medical, she's way behind on the medical, you know?

"Just a simple story: I chaperoned a field trip for pre-kindergarten. I get this one kid Nathan, and my daughta. It's about forty-eight degrees out? Nathan, he's wearin' a t-shirt and sweatpants. I go, 'Nathan, go gitcha coat'. He says,' Uhh, I don't have a coat. My mommy didn't give me one.' So I said to the teacher,' Look, I have enough problems'. I go:' The kid doesn't have a coat'. She goes,' Oh, we'll get him somethin'.' I go,' If I dropped my daughta off like that, you'd be all over me...'"

"Of course!"

"I go, 'Why didn'tcha say somethin'to his motha?' She goes,' Oh, she was probably in a hurry, or----"

"Oh, yeah, that's different..."

Ted folded his hairy arms indignantly at the other end of the table. He was as vexed as Tom.

Tom explained all he wants physical custody and for expenses to be fifty-fifty. He doesn't trust his wife with the kids. Pete tells him he's got to get the drop on her and push it through.

"Everything's locked in because you already filed. You can't sell anything. You have to act before you run out of resources, because what she's doing is grinding you. It's the grind, and what's gonna happen is they're gonna grind you down 'till you don't have any more resources left, and then they're gonna WHACK ya." Pete slapped his hands together. "You're gonna be like EUH! and you're not gonna be able to defend yourself and you're gonna lose. You've gotta push it through... that's my opinion"

"I agree..."

"He's right..."Jim nodded to confirm Pete's analysis. Tom pushed his reading glasses up on top of his head, trying to take it all in. Pete went on. "Otherwise you're gonna get ground down with the therapy and the blah blah blah, and then all of a sudden you're gonna get whacked with a phony violence thing---"

"That's what I feel comin'. I feel it comin'."

The room erupted with stories of women who were allowed to pass through court metal detectors uninspected while their husbands or ex-husbands were frisked to the bone; stories of court officers who treated men like abusive beasts at the whispered suggestion of a wife or ex-wife. Tom rose slowly from his seat to go. He didn't have email, so he would keep in touch with the group by telephone.

"Unless somebody puts me in jail...' he said, adjusting the cell phone on his belt with rough, grease-stained fingers. The guys told Tom they'd hold protest signs outside of the courthouse on his court date. Diane had come in during Tom's story. She was plump, middle-aged and blond, and looked across the table through thick tortoise-rimmed glasses.

Another newcommer rose to introduce herself: Diane had seen a few newspaper articles about the Fatherhood Coalition, and had come to tell HER story.

"I went through hell", Diane said." And I'm not even a father. I knew the husband and I knew the wife. She had gone through forty-two thousand dollars. She took ten thousand dollars in one month, in January, from the savings and the checking account. She had an illegal will prepared for her grandmother. I mean all this stuff is going on, she was cheating on him, he was in the house, he was out of the house. I mean she would have guys over at the house, he would drive by, see a car there, try to go in and get the kids. She ended up having the locks changed on the door. He broke into the cellar, got the kids, took them out.

"He contacted me and wanted me to appear on his behalf. He filed divorce action against her, charging she'd taken the money from the marital accounts. He paid all the bills so he didn't know what she did with the money. She attempted to sell the marital home, and leave him and the two baby children homeless... I mean, there are women that do this... you know?" Diane laughed ironically, shaking her gold earrings. "And I know one!"

Ted glanced nervously my way and interjected in his New Hampshire bass: "Well--- we're all about fairness, really. We're about fairness. It happens to mothas, and fathas and everybody."

Diane nodded--- she didn't care about "principles" at the moment--- what she needed was to tell her story:

"And she ended up getting shared custody, even though the court had all this in front of them. She went in there and filed a series of affidavits saying that he berated and belittled her in front of the children. Do you know what he said? He said, "We don't have a dog anymore because you can't even take care of a dog." Diane said can't like Kant. "I mean it was obvious she was doing drugs, she needed massive amounts of money..."

When Diane mentioned that the court had been in Dedham, Jim called out the name of the judge. Diane began to shake all over and her mouth opened wide when she heard the name pronounced. "Christina Harms!' she shrieked. "That's her!"

Pete counted on his fingers, "They've got one named 'Harms'; they've got one named 'Stalin'... "

"She's crazy!" Diane said." This woman is totally, I mean totally out of her mind. The law does not even enter into it at all..."

Diane trembled as she spoke.

"Diane, I'm afraid to tell you this." Jim looked at her very seriously. "Would it shock you if I could name five or six others just like her?"

"No, not like this woman---"

"Yes!"

"Oh, yeah-"

"Lemme tell ya-"

"Diane, would it shock you?"

"No, you have no idea. I'm not even telling you the whole story. I mean this woman-"

"Diane, I know. Diane..."

"No, I don't believe it---Diane hid her face in her hands, and shook her head in disbelief.

"Diane. Diane! How would you feel if I told you it happens all the time? The judge in my case, the judge in his case..."

"All the time."

"Not only in Massachusetts but in this whole entire country..."

Diane was still shaking, resisting.

"No..."

I heard bits and pieces of other people's stories that night, too. A few guys were involved in court battles to get more time with their kids, or to get their ridiculous child support payments lowered. Some, like Jim, could never get back what they had lost.

The Fatherhood Coalition had a bad reputation on Beacon Hill, because of guys who got so angry-- in court or during protests--that they lost control. None of the guys I met that night were hateful. But I could definitely see them getting pissed off.

But : it's hard to keep your head clear when you just know you're being fucked over. When I heard John Kerry on the radio, a month after he voted to give the President unrestricted permission to wage war, I wanted to pull his heart out and inspect it for worms.

Before I left the meeting that night, I shook hands with Brian and with Jim, who were at my end of the table. Brian said I was welcome to come back next week if I liked. I wasn't sure if I'd be back or not. All the guys looked me in the eye and said ,"'Bye, John." My name sounded round and full in their mouths.