Moving thru the Chute
Atlanta, GA
May 23, 2020
This week I endured a doctor visit and enjoyed a graduation ceremony in ways I never had before.
They were the same morning, so I had to rush from one to the other. I arrived at the parking lot at 8:30 for my 8:45 physical…and waited in the car. Within a few minutes, the call came. And the questions.
“Have you had a fever in the last five days?”
“Have you had respiratory problems or difficulty breathing?”
“Any persistent coughing or sneezing?”
“Have you been around anyone with any of these conditions?”
I felt like I was at the airport being asked whether anyone else packed my bag or if I had recently left it unattended. If I had all these conditions yet no scruples, and really wanted to clear this hurdle, I could probably do so.
These questions don’t prevent much, but they make the inquisitors appear to be on the case. The woman asking them was pleasant enough. But her tone was that of someone merely checking the box as she was checking the boxes.
I apparently passed the test. I was invited into the building, but only if I brought a pen and wore a mask. I donned the mask as I entered the lobby. By the time I emerged from the elevator, I wanted to change my answer to the second question. Under the cloth, I was now having difficulty breathing.
My answer to the first question was then verified. Outside the main waiting room, a woman dressed as if she’d just emerged from a uranium mine was camped at a small table.
Blue strips of floor tape guided me to her, like a crosswalk toward Checkpoint Charlie. Like an East German border guard, she held up a hand and asked me to stop at the tape nearest the table. When I did, she stood up slowly, walked toward me, and asked me to be still and look straight ahead. She pointed something at my forehead, her index finger hovering over a trigger.
I felt uncomfortably like the innocent driver Javier Bardem pulled over in No Country For Old Men. Fortunately, instead of a cattle gun, this woman held a heat seeking laser. Apparently, it detected an acceptable amount, and I was allowed to the next corral in the chute.
I gave my name at the check-in counter, and was instructed to wait in one of several chairs separated by small sofas turned toward the wall. Only one other patient was in the room when a door opened in the far wall.
Thru it came another, indistinguishable woman dressed as if planning to patrol the surface of Mars. She called my name, took my weight, and led me to the exam room.
A few minutes later came a knock on the door, and the nurse thru it. I made a comment relating to the earlier conversation we’d had when she walked me to the room. She had no idea what I was talking about. I then realized this wasn’t the same person.
With their identical head covering, mask, and gown, I had few ways to tell one nurse from another. I soon noticed that this one revealed more than her eyes. Above her mask were her nostrils, which breathed freely over the ornamental cloth. I empathized, and pulled mine down as well.
The place was eerie. All faces, whether patients or caregivers, were covered. Expressions were shielded. Eyes were all we could see, but they were often averted, as tho’ looking at someone might attract some ambient toxicity.
That tinge of suspicion and tension hangs in the air at many public places and private businesses. The environment is sterile, but not necessarily in the intended way.
Centuries of implicit social mores and civil convention…handshakes, smiles, high fives, eye contact…have been discreetly dispensed or explicitly discouraged. Many people are on edge, not quite sure how to act or what to do. It’s creepy, like being in a Vonnegut novel or a Kubrick movie.
I understand the notion that wearing masks is a sign of consideration to alleviate people’s fears. But we should also recognize it as means of perpetuating them. And, to an astute observer, that almost appears to be the point.
When we were told the virus would kill millions, masks were discouraged. Now that evidence indicates it predominantly targets a narrow, easily identifiable group, and that the vast majority of people are at minimal risk, they are almost mandatory. Again we wonder what’s really going on here.
Meanwhile, mask efficacy is by no means certain. They may even be detrimental to those who are healthy. If they can deflect a bug, they may also inhibit necessary oxygen, retain noxious carbon dioxide, or trap infectious germs.
Some say they help certain wearers, but are useless to others, shielding the virus the way a chain link fence prevents mosquitoes. Nobody knows much, yet everyone is an authority.
In any civilized assemblage of free people, everyone should decide for himself, and for his property. I prefer not to wear a mask. But if a store requires it, I’ll abide by their policy…or not go in. Their place, their rules. I’m not looking for trouble, and certainly not with people who are just trying to do a job, follow indecipherable guidelines, and serve their customers. The last thing they deserve is some petulant instigator trying to make a point.
But, unfortunately, masks are – like a tiresome number of things these days – becoming political…emblems less of health than of obedience or defiance. A statement, like a trite bumper sticker, of where one stands. A way to get in someone’s face, by having a piece of cloth on or off your own.
Mine soon came off. From the doctor, I quickly scurried home.
We were off to Alexander’s drive-thru commencement, circumnavigating Walton High School. Rita and David hopped in the backseat. Alexander rode shotgun, so he could receive his diploma and wave at well-wishers. The parade proceeded thru another choreographed chute, past stations of teachers dispensing certificates and parents holding signs.
Under the circumstances, the school did what it could. These seniors were deprived of most memorable festivities of their final year of high school. With the formal graduation ceremony also cancelled, this at least offered an opportunity to say goodbye and receive good wishes. And for us to show our pride.
Music played and student names were announced as each car approached the final tent. As we drove thru it, Alexander received his diploma, rolled up the window against the light rain, and exited the school grounds. That afternoon, he started online Calculus and Biology classes at Auburn.
The following night, George and Molly came by to help us celebrate over lobster. Ashley concocted and shipped the means by which we washed it down. No masks interfered with either, nor with the in-person gathering that has been in such short supply the last two months.
Since the beginning of the year, the world has changed with unimaginable speed. Trends in motion have been expedited: online schooling, meal and grocery delivery, remote work, electronic surveillance, monetary and fiscal insanity, retail bankruptcies…and our son heading to college.
Lenin, on one of his revolutionary coffee breaks, once said that “there are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.”
These have certainly felt like one of those weeks.
JD
