This poor bastard is standing outside in a cold drizzle, wearing an ACLU vest and waving at strangers approaching him from 20 paces. He uses all the tricks from training to get their attention—“hey, Chrome bag, all right! High five. Hey, got a second for civil rights?” He’s always got his fist out for a friendly bump, but people point to their earbuds, making a banana with their thumb and pinky. Sorry, I’m having an important conversation with no one about how I’d rather cut off my own gangrenous foot than talk to you.
He’s young, but not young enough for this shit. Grad school must not have panned out. So he’s canvassing while he figures out how he’s going to make a difference in the world. Or if there’s any point in trying.
An older canvasser walks over. They talk sometimes when foot traffic slows down between trains. It’s hard to imagine they’re making small talk, since they make an exhaustive volume of it with the people they stop on the street. It seems more likely they’re trading tips or descriptions of the ones that just barely got away. Maybe they’ll be back. Most people pass back the same way later.
When he burns out and needs a break, he takes out his phone to make a call of his own, little bits of talking followed by long drags on a vape pen. I imagine a canvasser for some other charity walking up to him and trying to get him to talk. Do these guys ever prey on each other? What happens if you locked two of them in a room?
How does the recruitment process work for canvassers? Probably happened on a college campus. No doubt it involved other canvassers standing on sidewalks near the student center, under the train, outside the sociology department. But instead of looking for donations, they needed warm bodies to stand on sidewalks elsewhere. To find donations. Can it be a pyramid scheme if the compensation is hourly and low, or nonexistent?
I picture today’s canvasser walking out of one of those campus buildings, deflated and disillusioned, realizing he’ll never finish his thesis and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference in the world if he did anyway. He probably had sad eyes and a slow, directionless gait. A look the recruiters are trained to spot and jump on. Fresh meat. An ideal candidate.
“Hey there,” I imagine them saying to him. “You look like you could use someone to talk to.” Or maybe, “Hey man, you want to help us make a difference out here in the real world?” Two day-long training sessions and a couple days of shadowing, and he and his clipboard are making the world a better place at last.
The way he points at passing women and beckons with his fingers for them to come over and talk to him seems barely distinguishable from catcalling. He is persistent, even as they say, “Sorry, no.” Sometimes he leans in toward their path, or follows them for pace or two.
Turns out you can get away with a lot when you’re wearing an ACLU vest. A similar windbreaker is available for purchase on the ACLU website. Actually it’s on sale.