I’ve been stalking pharmacies like I’m a tiger and they’re Mowgli. The vaccine rollout across the world has been as chaotic as one had imagined, but the American obsession with individuality over common sense meant that all 50 states had different laws for who could get the Covid vaccine when. California let literally anyone who drove up in a car and claimed to be an Uber Eats driver get one, which probably accounted for second-tier porn stars sporting a “Just Vaccinated” sticker before grannies in Europe had a chance at the jab. Places like Florida and Texas exist in a fantasy land that both denies Covid but is angry they aren’t more vaccines, while in New York there’s been a cautious trot towards opening up categories one by one.
Or so I thought, until this past weekend New York opened its requirements to include “incarcerated people” and “people over 30” in those eligible to be vaccinated. Relief doesn’t begin to cover it. I was getting so antsy I was a day away from buying an oxygen tank and performing a monologue from Angels in America at the local CVS. I already knew that the key to getting an appointment was to check at unusual times. I am recently-returned enough that jetlag is still my friend, and one morning I bolted up at 4 am and grabbed my phone. Completely prepared for a day of doing nothing but clicking the “refresh” button and sporadically cursing at pop-ads, I punched numbers blindly on my phone through bleary eyes. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, you can feel the universe on your side. And so it was that without warning, reason, or fanfar, the screen loaded a page with the words “Appointments available” - a phrase that, after a year of nuclear grade anxiety, is enough to inspire spontaneous orgasm.
I panicked at my good fortune, furiously clicking on the first available tabs I saw with little mind to what they said, until I emerged through the war onto a page telling me my appointment for the first vaccine was confirmed for the next day at 6:10 am, with an automatic follow-up in exactly a month. I could hear the choir of angels behind me, and my halo was radiant. Having achieved so much before 6 am made me feel weird, and I spent the rest of the day googling symptoms in case the whole thing was a hoax and I had stolen a sick person’s appointment.
The next morning I got to my local pharmacy 20 minute early. They gave me a form to fill out, most of which was about contact information for tracing purposes. There were five other people in line with me, each keeping their distance from each other at this last sprint towards mental calm. Eventually a kind looking man named Jose asked me to step into a room. Inside a frazzled looking blond woman was already filling her needle.
“You’re going to have some side effects,” she said without looking away from her vial. “All the young ones do.” Thrilled at the young comment, I didn’t even notice her stab me.
“Is that it?” I asked. “All that for two seconds?”
She smiled. “A year wasn’t long enough?”
I was told to wait in a special section outside for fifteen minutes so they could monitor if I was having any side effects to the vaccine. I sat down among the same people who were in line with me (they had all had appointments earlier), and the mood has shifted from tense and scared to nearly jovial. People were talking to each other through masks, sharing stories about the pandemic, their quarantine, how difficult the last year had been.
“What gets me,” said a woman who worked at a pet store, “is how goddam EASY it could’ve been. I mean if we didn’t have that man denying everything in the White House, we could have been here months ago!”
“I know right!” said the 40-year-old NYT food blogger. “Do y’all remember when no where had toilet paper?”
“Or the clapping?” said a school teacher. “That kept me going, especially those early months, when we didn’t know what the hell was going on and the morgues were overflowing.”
There was a murmur of agreement being masks.
“New York, man,” said the blogger. “May it always be crazy.”
I laughed, and as we kept chatting I felt elated. I hadn’t spoken to a stranger in a year, and this spontaneous gathering talking about our shared traumas here made me feel at one with this place in a way I haven’t felt before.
“We’re all in this together,” I said, and people nodded.
“You know,” an older man said, “I remember being here for 9/11. Was anyone else here for that?”
Three people raised their hands.
“I mean, that was scary. But this was so much worse. At least with 9/11 you knew who to blame, ya know? We knew who to bomb, who to arrest. I mean, at least we had that! There’s the guy who looks like a terrorist, get him, ya know? None of this microscopic death shit. ”
“Right! Replied the pet store woman. “I’ve been sayin’ the same-”
There was an immediate sense that our little groups’ communal joviality had fractured. One of the women and this man went on for a bit about things that made me feel anxious for reasons older than the pandemic. The school teacher and blogger shot me a concerned look, but never spoke. I said nothing for two minutes until it was safe for us to turn away from each other for good. As I walked away, vaccinated with a fragile peace of mind for the first time in a year, I realized that not even micro-aggressions of racism were enough to damper my mood. There will be time for that, once we have all forgotten the virus and remembered our hate, but for now, for today, it felt good to be around people.
Well, some people.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com
Or so I thought, until this past weekend New York opened its requirements to include “incarcerated people” and “people over 30” in those eligible to be vaccinated. Relief doesn’t begin to cover it. I was getting so antsy I was a day away from buying an oxygen tank and performing a monologue from Angels in America at the local CVS. I already knew that the key to getting an appointment was to check at unusual times. I am recently-returned enough that jetlag is still my friend, and one morning I bolted up at 4 am and grabbed my phone. Completely prepared for a day of doing nothing but clicking the “refresh” button and sporadically cursing at pop-ads, I punched numbers blindly on my phone through bleary eyes. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, you can feel the universe on your side. And so it was that without warning, reason, or fanfar, the screen loaded a page with the words “Appointments available” - a phrase that, after a year of nuclear grade anxiety, is enough to inspire spontaneous orgasm.
“You’re going to have some side effects,” she said without looking away from her vial. “All the young ones do.” Thrilled at the young comment, I didn’t even notice her stab me
I panicked at my good fortune, furiously clicking on the first available tabs I saw with little mind to what they said, until I emerged through the war onto a page telling me my appointment for the first vaccine was confirmed for the next day at 6:10 am, with an automatic follow-up in exactly a month. I could hear the choir of angels behind me, and my halo was radiant. Having achieved so much before 6 am made me feel weird, and I spent the rest of the day googling symptoms in case the whole thing was a hoax and I had stolen a sick person’s appointment.
The next morning I got to my local pharmacy 20 minute early. They gave me a form to fill out, most of which was about contact information for tracing purposes. There were five other people in line with me, each keeping their distance from each other at this last sprint towards mental calm. Eventually a kind looking man named Jose asked me to step into a room. Inside a frazzled looking blond woman was already filling her needle.
“You’re going to have some side effects,” she said without looking away from her vial. “All the young ones do.” Thrilled at the young comment, I didn’t even notice her stab me.
“Is that it?” I asked. “All that for two seconds?”
She smiled. “A year wasn’t long enough?”
I was told to wait in a special section outside for fifteen minutes so they could monitor if I was having any side effects to the vaccine. I sat down among the same people who were in line with me (they had all had appointments earlier), and the mood has shifted from tense and scared to nearly jovial. People were talking to each other through masks, sharing stories about the pandemic, their quarantine, how difficult the last year had been.
“What gets me,” said a woman who worked at a pet store, “is how goddam EASY it could’ve been. I mean if we didn’t have that man denying everything in the White House, we could have been here months ago!”
“I know right!” said the 40-year-old NYT food blogger. “Do y’all remember when no where had toilet paper?”
“Or the clapping?” said a school teacher. “That kept me going, especially those early months, when we didn’t know what the hell was going on and the morgues were overflowing.”
There was a murmur of agreement being masks.
“New York, man,” said the blogger. “May it always be crazy.”
As I walked away, vaccinated with a fragile peace of mind for the first time in a year, I realized that not even micro-aggressions of racism were enough to damper my mood. There will be time for that, once we have all forgotten the virus and remembered our hate
I laughed, and as we kept chatting I felt elated. I hadn’t spoken to a stranger in a year, and this spontaneous gathering talking about our shared traumas here made me feel at one with this place in a way I haven’t felt before.
“We’re all in this together,” I said, and people nodded.
“You know,” an older man said, “I remember being here for 9/11. Was anyone else here for that?”
Three people raised their hands.
“I mean, that was scary. But this was so much worse. At least with 9/11 you knew who to blame, ya know? We knew who to bomb, who to arrest. I mean, at least we had that! There’s the guy who looks like a terrorist, get him, ya know? None of this microscopic death shit. ”
“Right! Replied the pet store woman. “I’ve been sayin’ the same-”
There was an immediate sense that our little groups’ communal joviality had fractured. One of the women and this man went on for a bit about things that made me feel anxious for reasons older than the pandemic. The school teacher and blogger shot me a concerned look, but never spoke. I said nothing for two minutes until it was safe for us to turn away from each other for good. As I walked away, vaccinated with a fragile peace of mind for the first time in a year, I realized that not even micro-aggressions of racism were enough to damper my mood. There will be time for that, once we have all forgotten the virus and remembered our hate, but for now, for today, it felt good to be around people.
Well, some people.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com