I am sick of Covid19. I shuttle between work and home with a few brief, terrifying stops at the grocery store. When I get there I put my mask on before I even get out of my car.
Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly vulnerable I will put on my nitrile gloves that have found a home behind the passenger seat. Big signs in front of the store sing “Masks required, per city mandate.” You don’t need to tell me.
Not everybody shares my concern. I see so many people without masks, wandering around, looking at me, sometimes with pity, sometimes with amusement, often with scorn, always with a smugness bred from the belief that they know something I don’t. I know how they feel, I have a similar opinion about them.
I wear a mask; doctors, my doctor, and scientists say it helps.
I wear it at work when I can’t socially distance. I definitely wear it when a delivery person comes. Gloves, a mask, an overwhelming fear and a silent prayer make up my uniform.
Yesterday a delivery man came to drop off an envelope. It was a man who delivers tax and payroll information, comes two or three times a year, has for several years. Normally we talk about college sports or the weather, or some other polite, pointless topic. He is an older man who dresses in patched jeans, a wrinkled, worn flannel shirt. He drives an old, dented, rusty Ford with the trunk held tightly closed with wire. We’ve always been cordial.
He saw my mask and my gloves and his face twisted a little tighter, he blinked rapidly. I’m in the age group that faces a greater risk from the novel coronavirus, and he is older than me. He handed me the envelope.
“How you been?” He asked.
“Good, things are a little slow. But, we’re still here. At least a few of us, most of the people are working from home. How about you? I haven’t seen you since last year, I think.” I said.
“Oh, you know, it’s really slow. Really cut into my business. I was going to get a new car, but I just can’t afford it. There was a new customer, but they went out of business a couple months ago.” He looked at his car for a long second. When he looked at me his eyes were bright with anger.
“Damn rioters. Really scared everybody off.” He was mad. “Damned looters, ruining the country, the economy.”
We talked for a while, not long. Long enough for me to understand he was sinking fast. His debts were rising and his income was plummeting.
He was a private contractor, delivering documents for accounting firms and law offices. His business was drying up, and he had to find someone to blame. He found plenty. All he had to do was listen to the next campaign rally. He probably thought I was at least a little to blame with my face mask and gloves, and all my prissy, cautious self-concern.
He didn’t understand what to do next.
And I knew, no matter what happened to him personally, no matter how bad things got, he was going to vote for Trump, because health care and climate change were too abstract, law and order were concrete. If he got sick, really sick, he would die in debt, because he couldn’t afford to pay the medical bills, and he certainly couldn’t afford insurance, but that was “if.” He wasn’t going to get caught up in probabilities when he needed something or someone to curse. He needed a scapegoat.
I don’t know how we are going to defeat that kind of fear in November, but I know we have to. Fear like that breeds hate, and hate is the enemy of democracy. It strangles compromise and reason.
Vote, get everybody you know to vote, and hope it’s enough.
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