Write-in mayoral candidate Aaron Johnson after the debate at the Allison Hill Community Center in October.
Tuesday night, around 7 p.m., three supporters of Aaron Johnson—the write-in candidate for Harrisburg mayor who, despite having entered the race only in October, managed to score nearly 18 percent of votes cast—sat at a table on the second floor of Rookie’s, a television-screen-and-fried-food place next door to the Derry St. Car Wash.
The room was hung with blue West Virginia curtains and painted West Virginia gold, with posters for the West Virginia Mountaineers. The supporters, speaking on cell phones, were telling out-of-town college students they ought to have voted absentee. Besides a young waitress, a few tables under white tablecloths, and a pair of incessantly loud jumbo-screen TVs, they had the room to themselves.
Then, suddenly, Aaron Johnson was there, in a brown newsboy cap, a brown suede jacket, and a striped Oxford with an open collar. He circled the table, hugging the supporters. One of them, a white woman with short gray hair, said, “My whole household voted for Aaron Johnson today!”
Johnson took a seat, and the supporters began relating their experiences at the polls. “We had a gentleman ask about your mathematical qualifications,” someone said. The waitress walked over; Johnson ordered water and potato skins. The lone reporter, sensing the futility of his effort to be invisible, mentioned he’d seen Johnson on TV, in St. Louis, during the World Series.
“You saw me on TV? They treat you like royalty out there,” Johnson said. “People mistook me for Ozzie Smith.” He’d attended with members of M.O.S.E.L.F., or Men of the South-East League Field, the inner-city baseball organization he has led for 20 years, and whose senior division he helped lead to a national championship in August. Johnson took a phone call and sucked his pint of water down to bare ice.
Images of the mall in Paramus, N.J., where a 20-year-old gunman killed himself Monday night, filled the giant screens. “Oh no,” the TV-news narrator intoned gravely. “Not again. A madman opens fire at a mall.”
“Did y’all talk to Jason?” one of the supporters asked. “The one that’s running for mayor in Steelton? Said there’s a lot of negativity towards him.”
“What’s the negativity about?”
“Racial.”
“Oh, that’s a surprise?”
“Down there it is.”
“Across the country, people are training for the nightmare that is a gunman at the mall,” said the TV reporter.
Johnson retired to a nearby couch and took more calls.
“Nobody could give me a real reason about why they were supporting Papenfuse,” one of the supporters said.
“Our guy asked them, ‘What church does he go to?’ They couldn’t answer. ‘What church does Dan Miller go to?’ They couldn’t answer. I’m not saying it’s the most important thing, but it’s something you should know about the candidate.”
Johnson returned to the table. “Field artillery,” he said, in response to a question about his job in the army. He yawned, pushed up his glasses, and adjusted his cap. The waitress came over and deposited red plastic baskets of food.
“And the grandfather now faces drunk driving and reckless driving charges,” said the television anchor.
More supporters filed in. Johnson stood up for hugs. Shawn Wilson, the director of M.O.S.E.L.F.’s Pony League (“a step under midget, and a step above tee ball”), has known Johnson for more than 20 years, as long as Johnson has worked for the city. “You would think we was brothers, because we’re so close,” Wilson said. He had picked Johnson up at 6:30 that morning and shuttled him between polls all day. “As it got a little later, he started getting a little concerned as far as the votes. He wants to win, but he’s not gonna be upset if he don’t. No bitterness at all.”
At another table, Rhoda Howard, a Harrisburg native who grew up with Johnson, said she was proud of how much he had made out of so short a campaign. “I think he did very well tonight. I know he did better than what the pollsters said.” (Last week, a poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research, commissioned by abc27, had predicted Johnson would draw a mere 6 percent.)
“Aaron was raised in Harrisburg, went to Harrisburg schools, was in the military, and worked in the city,” Howard said. Should Johnson win, what did she hope would be his top priorities? “First, job creation. Blight in the city. School district—well, education. Not necessarily school district education.”
“That should be on all of their agendas,” someone added.
“Get the city back on track. That’s first!” someone else said.
“Yes,” said Howard, nodding.
Nearby, Kelly Summerford, the city councilman whose term expires in December, checked for the latest count in his race for prothonotary. Summerford, also wearing a newsboy cap, along with a black leather jacket, black turtleneck, and a miniature pair of comedy-tragedy masks on a necklace, was running as a Democrat against the Republican incumbent, Stephen Farina. He asked the lone reporter what publication he worked for, and when he heard the answer, his look grew stony.
“Were you behind the cover?” He was referring to the cover of the November issue, whose parody of Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom from Want,” portraying Mayor Linda Thompson in a matronly dress and apron, had become controversial. The reporter, his invisibility further compromised, offered a meek defense.
“I’m an artist. I know just about every piece of Rockwell,” Summerford said. “But the difference between a family and enemies, and a husband and a wife—it’s that kind of thing. It was offensive, at first.” But, he said, “art is not to be judged.” Then he added, “If it is art.”
As more and more precincts reported, there were some murmurs about totals, but there was no one, it appeared, officially charged with keeping an up-to-date tally. Johnson was in a far corner, sitting on a barstool. He learned from the lone reporter that Dan Miller had already conceded the race.
“Why in the hell did he do that?” Johnson mused. “I’m riding it all the way out.”
Jennifer Smallwood, the school board president, approached. “What’s up, baby?” Johnson said. She gave him a hug and a kiss.
“I love you and I’m proud of you,” she said.
When she left, Johnson, alone at the bar, began to reflect on the race. “It was about 40 people that met with me in the church”—Trinity, at 4th and Maclay—“and asked me to consider a write-in. My sister gathered them up. She knew they’d make me consider it. That was right before the World Series in Minnesota, so I said I had to give it some thought while I was out there for two weeks.
“I don’t look at myself as being a mayor. I’m just a community-oriented guy. I love the city, and I do what I do. Even though I’ve been in leadership positions, in the military and things, even in public works—that’s what I get paid to do, and I just do my job. I’m not no career politician or nothing. I think you just need a regular person in there, that makes sure everybody get a piece of the pie.”
Johnson, who said he delayed his entry out of deference to his boss, the current mayor, had no stern words for the previous mayor, either. “Mayor Reed is the one that jump-started my baseball program. He put the seed money up for me to get started. His concern was the investment, whether the kids would take care of it. We put a perimeter fence around the field. But all the other stuff—I don’t have proof. People make accusations, you know.”
Someone approached with a little notebook, asking Johnson for his name and contact info. There was mention of a church database, and keeping in touch with the community. Johnson scrawled in the book and handed it back.
“Basically, what the community’s feeling is that grassroots folks are never brought to the table,” he continued. “And that’s essential, because they’re the eyes and ears of the community. We gotta start getting back to the basics. This city’s divided, but it don’t have to be. But these grassroots folks gotta sit at the table.”
In the room with the televisions, a man named Darryl Charles Troup said he became committed to Johnson after going door-to-door and gaining “a lot of knowledge about the character of Aaron Johnson as viewed by the public.” Troup, a native of Camden, N.J., usually goes by the moniker Minister 50. He is known for his rendition of Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” a recording of which is available on YouTube. “I’ve been prepared to work with somebody like Aaron a long time,” he said, reflectively.
Morgan Chisholm, a softball player in Johnson’s league, was too young to vote, but had come to support her director. “His speeches are very good,” she said. “I was watching something the other day, saying they thought it was gonna be between the other two candidates, that they didn’t think Aaron would have much of an effect. I don’t think that’s true, because he’s such an important person in the community. He has a big heart, he does so much for people.”
The lone reporter, refreshing his computer screen, showed 28 out of 28 precincts reporting. A few people peered at the screen. Papenfuse commanded 3,618 votes; Miller, 2,333; and there were just over 1,300 write-ins, most of them presumed to be Johnson’s. The candidate, meanwhile, was being shown something on a cell phone—photo? text? video?—and was laughing.
Then the television, piercing as ever, declared that Papenfuse had won. Johnson muttered something to the waitress, and she muted the screens. He stood with his back to the room for a moment, looking at the television and wiping his lips. He spun around, paced a moment, and turned back to the TV. Nothing in particular was on. Voices in the room dimmed to whispers. Johnson spun again and strode forward.
“Hey everybody, gather here,” he said. “I know it’s late now. I want to say a few words to everybody.”
Someone said his name. The room erupted in applause. Johnson scratched his head.
“First of all, thank you to everybody who supported me. It means a whole lot to me, because again, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. For you to have that sort of confidence in me, that I could become a good mayor… it means a lot.”
He expressed concern about what was in store for Harrisburg. “They want to privatize parks and recreation. That’s where a lot of our youth get their summer jobs from. If they outsource that, we gonna be in bad shape.”
He brought up the issue of money in the race, and hinted that some of his acquaintances had boosted other candidates just to get paid. “I know it’s hard times out there. I just hope that’s why they did what they did. I saw some guys I’ve known since kindergarten—I was shocked when I went to some of the polls. Literally just out there badmouthing somebody, just for the sake of getting somebody in that they don’t know.
“We started the race in August. We got a shoestring budget. But it’s important for me, that these kids can look at me and respect who I am. And that’s important to me. I’m gonna be straight with them. We got a meeting tomorrow at 9 o’clock. We’re gonna try to identify, who are the black leaders in Harrisburg? ‘Cause we ain’t got none. We need to identify them, because we need to be sitting at these tables, making these decisions.
“This little pettiness and stuff, the division, we gotta work on it. Either we gonna stand together, or you ain’t gonna be part of the agenda.” He mentioned Brenda Alton, a top aide to Mayor Thompson, who recently announced her bid for Lieutenant Governor. “We have to get her in, because it’s important for us to be in these seats,” Johnson said. “Because if we don’t get in, we don’t get our issues out.
“I’m gonna be off tomorrow, I can tell you that.” The room laughed. “But Thursday, I’ll get your trash, don’t worry about it. Whoever the commander in chief is, I’m gonna make sure they’re OK. I protect whoever the mayor is, because that’s my job.
“I just want to thank you again for coming out, supporting me, believing in me—”
“We love you, Aaron!” someone cried. There was another round of applause. Johnson had hands to shake and people to say goodnight to. He thanked the room once more, stepped out of the spotlight, and got to work.
