Part IV: Defending my Honor

Following is Part IV of a series sharing the story of a time in the Pacific Northwest when I was a paid signature gatherer for a variety of issues. I couldn’t have imagined when I started this job, the highs and lows I would experience, the kind and incredibly interesting friends I would make and the strange and dramatic way it would all end.

Part I is free to all subscribers. You can find it at WhatABeautifulMess.Net

Parts II, III and IV is available to paid subscribers.

PART IV

Every Sunday morning we were paid cash in a plain white envelope for the signatures we’d collected. It never quite added up with the records we’d kept on our own, but it was always close enough to call good. And over the weeks, I’d saved nearly enough for a bus ticket to - and first and last month’s rent in - my next home. But I needed this last week’s pay. And they didn’t have it.

This was the end of the line for me. Some of the people I’d grown close to had been with this group for a long time, traveling all over the country working on ballot initiatives. They didn’t want to rock the boat because, I think, they had come to depend on this couple for their job and their security. I, on the other hand, was ready to move on. We’d been lied to, compromised and taken advantage of. Now they weren’t going to pay me for the work I’d done. And they weren’t going to pay my friends.

I packed my bag, called a cab and hugged Bobbi and Eric goodbye. My days of gun shows and champagne were coming to an end. My cab took me to the Greyhound station where I boarded a bus north to Salem.