Ten days after Littleton’s spring election, this guy contacted me:

That’s Jim Karr.

(Google didn’t have much by way of close-up images for him.)

Despite the outdated photo, many Littletonians will recognize Jim as he is a former member of Littleton’s (formerly named) Board of Selectmen, a former Littleton Light and Water Commissioner, and—in case you were not aware—a former Littleton resident.

The sale of his home in Littleton, for $840,000.00, was recorded on July 17, 2023. The deed named “James Karr of New Ipswich, New Hampshire” as the “grantor,” i.e., the seller.

Jim left Littleton over a year ago, so you can imagine my surprise when ten days after the election, I got this:

Setting aside the unhinged ranting about “illegals” and women in positions of leadership, Jim Karr, whom I sat next to at the Big Kids’ Table for a short ten months over ten long years ago, took time out of his sunny New Hampshire day to send a single-issue, small-town political candidate, who brought attention to the poverty that 6.3% of Littletonians live with every day, a message like that.

For what it’s worth, the subject line of his email was “WOW,” and was what I said in astonishment in the wake of reading what he’d written.

I went ahead and replied to him on the same day:

Dear Jim, 

I’m proud of the campaign l ran.

Poverty is wrong, and l worked to open people’s eyes to the possibly of making meaningful changes to local policies with the objective of helping Littletonians who don’t have life’s basics.

I’m truly grateful that the election result was, in your characterization: “a pure ASS KICKING.” That unambitious result tells me the sort of town l live in: one uninterested in abolishing poverty.

Your email, perhaps meant to try to shame me, has instead, left me feeling compassion for a man who would use his (short, remaining) time in his life to, in essence, go out of his way to be, well, be something of a prick. 

For a time, l thought you were, underneath it all, a ‘softy.’ I was wrong about this as this email of yours deftly illustrates the opposite. 

You ended your email in wishing me ‘good luck,’ 

I end mine wishing that you find the time to bring good and meaningful things into the world instead of catering to your default, which, at the heart of it, seems to have always been your mean-spiritedness.

Pitingly,

Jenna 

That was my day-of reaction.

Since then, it has become clear how simply bizarre, dare I say weird, for some guy who left Littleton over a year ago (irrespective of how very important/super influential/well-connected he believes himself to still be) to write an email to a (resoundingly defeated) candidate who wanted to end poverty in town.

Why do this?

Why bully me across state lines?

What threat do I pose in 2024 that motivated Jim Karr, resident of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, to write such a mean and hateful email?

While I’d like to think it’s because he didn’t like how I portrayed him in GINNED UP—excerpted scene included below—I think it’s bigger than that.

Much bigger.

King-sized,

Jenna

* * * * *

The weather had turned from dry and cold to heavy wet snow. The treacherous drive to meet Jim for lunch reminded me that my car, even with snow tires, was not the safest. Unsurprisingly, I found Jim in the bar area of the restaurant with a half-drained beer in front of him. As I slid onto the barstool across from him, he waved the waiter over, who arrived promptly and heard Jim ask me, “What are you drinking, Jenna.”

“I’ll have a decaf coffee,” I said.

Jim rolled his eyes and shook his head at me. To the waiter, he said, “Okay, decaf for her, and I’ll have another one of these.” He tapped the rim of his pint glass.

Once the waiter had retreated, I said, “I have to admit, I’m a little surprised to be sitting here with you today, Jim.”

Jim’s face showed what I’m sure he had hoped would be read as shock—as if we were old pals who had lunch on the regular, and I’d just said something ridiculous. He smiled wide and said, “We’re on the board together, Jenna. Why would having lunch together be surprising to you?”

I laughed at the preposterousness of his rhetorical question that I fully intended to answer. “Why? Well, given your ongoing hostility toward me, it seems a little strange that we’d be sharing a meal together.” The waiter returned with our drinks and asked what we’d like to order.

I said quickly, “I’ll have the house salad.”

Jim said to the waiter, “We haven’t had a chance to look at the menu, but I’m guessing you’ve got a burger. I’ll have mine with cheese and bacon, medium-rare with a side of fries.”

The waiter asked, likely out of courtesy and not because he harbored a belief about Jim’s preference for victuals, “And would you like the salad that comes with the burger?”

Jim waved his hand dismissively, causing the waiter to turn on his heels. As he headed for the kitchen, Jim called after him, “You can add mine to hers,” causing me equal parts embarrassment to be sitting with him and an appreciation for the offer of additional mesclun.

Thankfully, the weather had kept people home and the kitchen was quick in preparing our meals, leaving little time for small talk. I had the overwhelming sense that I wasn’t there for small talk, given how awkward small talk with this man was.

With our meals in front of us, Jim’s time to come clean about why we were eating lunch was ticking away. Not wanting to prolong the inevitable, I asked, “So, why are we here?” I took a large bite of my salad, precluding my ability to say more, if even briefly.

With a nodding head—as if to encourage himself to say what he had intended, the ulterior motive to this lunch—he smiled and then spoke: “Well, it’s mid-January and even though the spring elections are months off, I am hoping that you will support my reelection campaign.”

I wanted to spit out the masticated leaves and sprouts that had just gone fetid in my mouth. Are you fucking kidding me? was what came to mind but was not said aloud. Instead, in a wish to sound diplomatic, I said, “You’ve decided to run for another three-year term?”

Jim had just stuffed a quarter of the immense burger in his mouth, juices running down his chin and into his gray beard. Instead of answering me with words, I took his simioid grunt as an affirmative.

I said, “I thought it was considered verboten for a sitting selectman to endorse anyone running for a seat on the board.” As soon as I saw the confusion on his face, likely due to not being familiar with the German loanword, I added, “I thought it wasn’t allowed.”

“Says who?” he asked defensively, head sliding back on the horizontal as if blown by a hard wind, mouth half full.

“I’m not saying that anyone, in particular, said so. I was simply led to believe that it wasn’t considered good form. It could look like we were working together—”

He interrupted, “We are working together.”

I couldn’t tell if his blurted comment was meant to distract me from my point, or whether it was to prove to himself how very superior he was by pointing out the infinitely obvious to a woman he presumed his inferior.

What I could tell was that his four-word assertion only confirmed for me that he was the sort of person who let bygones be bygones when it benefited him, and he seemed to believe that, at this point, I held enough political cachet in good old Littleton that my endorsement would be beneficial to him. This was as contemptible as it was entertaining: Jim Karr looking for Brownson’s support.

“Okay, Jim, that’s true, but by working together I mean that you and I are somehow perceived as having similar goals and object—”

“We both want what’s best for Littleton. There’s a similar goal that we both want,” he said, now twice interrupting me.

You will get up and leave—without explanation—if this happens a third time, I told myself. I set my fork down and wondered whether he was going to let me speak. After a pause that seemed long enough, I said, really hoping that I wouldn’t get spoken over, “Jim, while that may be true, I think you’re failing to see the bigger picture here. I consider it bad form for a sitting selectman to endorse the candidacy of someone running for a seat on our board. I think that people should be elected for their ideas and not on a friend’s suggestion. But most of all, if I endorsed you, my friends wouldn’t vote for you anyhow.”—Here, he appeared uniquely interested— “They wouldn’t vote for you because they have minds of their own and would likely question whether I’d lost mine.”

Jim’s expression, forever etched on my brain, was priceless: a blend of finger-in-the-light-socket with a touch of cartoon-mallet-to-the-head. When his face finally relaxed, he said, in the patronizing tone to which I was now almost inured, “Jenna, Jenna, Jenna.” He took a swig off his second pint, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and shook his head as if I’d just handed him a football with not enough air.

I met his stare and didn’t say a word, though I did blink empathically a couple of times in the hopes that my affect might express, with body language alone, that whatever would be said next would have to be said by him.

A short exhale of a laugh puffed from his nostrils. He blinked, cocked his chin, and said, in one long, unbroken breath: “Are-you-fucking-kidding-with-me-right-now?”

“Jim, I’m not kidding, and I’m not doing it. It wouldn’t be right.” I stood, unhooked my purse from the back of the chair, threw it over my shoulder, and grabbed my coat off the bar stool. “Thanks for lunch.”

* * * * *