Another Shot
By the time I had been standing in line for fifteen minutes, waiting to get my booster, my grumpiness reminds me of the recent uptick in airplane passengers getting into fights. Nothing about their situation elicits sympathy but you know the history too: First, there was the green, verdant land of America, then several centuries of getting outlandishly wealthy, then Gingrich, Clinton, deregulation, the NRA, Trump and Covid and then, before you know it, a string of stewardesses getting punched for not bringing someone drink. In some past citizenship did not mean, “I get whatever my entitled self wants” and now it does.
To get to the convention center where Amsterdam is offering boosters, I take the subway rather than cycle. A warm winter night and you don’t ride? Ted, you lazy bastard.
This was my own first step up that self-hatred ladder which makes it easy for us to be time bombs in public, another two taken when karma kicks in at the self-service ticket machine I need to use. In the past, I felt proud to have mastered these Dutch conundrums but now discover they have been updated just enough to render me helpless. Instead of adding ten euros to the commuter card I already own, I end up spending thirty-five euros and buying two new cards. I don’t mind being bad with money, as I am, but being stupid with it is different. This is the kind of mistake that makes you want to punch someone in the face, someone who looks exactly like yourself. I fear I will be troiuble on this flight.
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A digression about the subway. Tunneling under a city built on marsh, a place already sinking and tilting, required great engineering and four times as much time and money as had been predicted (which should have been, oddly enough, totally predictable). Like when new coke was ushered out in the 80’s--not a single person you ever met was for it--every single Amsterdamer I've ever spoken with is against the subway. The cost, the corruption, the fact that it barely takes you anyplace trams do not already go, their case is solid.
But coming from America I feel the opposite. Redundancy in public transportation, however expensive, is worth the investment. When you are not able to find your bike keys or realize you have a flat tire, it is glorious to know you can still get where you're going because in ten minutes there's a bus, in five a tram or, if need be, you can take the subway too. Tolerance in the system makes it easier for you to live in your situation and skin. It offers a way to step down the ladder of anger.
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Presumably, the aircraft carrier of a room in the convention center where I stand gets gussied up when a convention is on. But right now the dingy steel above and worn conrete below makes it a place too souless for any devil, the plastic mats and tape showing you where to walk as you proceed from check in to jabbing booth hardly adding mirth to the surroundings.
And none of this would matter if you just breezed through this process, as I had when getting vaccinated. Everything about that had been easy. The location was nearby and I had not waited in any of the checkpoints for more than thirty seconds. Easy and beautiful. Whistle with me the Dutch National Anthem.
But now, the woman who was obviously a guardian I would need to see before getting my booster also needed to explain why the line was backing up. There had been “a hiccup,” she said. They had run out of vaccine and so everyone was waiting until they made more.
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A second digression, this one to New York City thirty years ago and my friend Jim ordering “a slice of ham pizza” every time we went to “Big Nick’s.” He did this not because he really wanted ham on his pizza but because behind the counter the list of slices you could get said sausage, pepperoni plain, ham, and a few others. Yet it was clear they never had more than pepperoni and plain and Jim never grew tired of the joke that the one thing Big Nick claimed to be able to do--provide slices of pizza, including those with ham--Big Nick could not do.
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This pizza problem came back to mind when I was told about the vaccine hiccup. The amount of vaccine demanded should be absolutely determinable, right? At least as predictable as major construction going over budget or someone reading the menu and saying, “you know, one of those ham slices sounds good.”
And also, “making the vaccine?” Maybe Nicks's inability to provide a ham slice suggested a kitchen of questionable cleanliness or a money-laundering operation I could live with for a good slice. But isn’t the vaccine more sophisticated than, “we need to make more?” Is it really like baking brownies? “Two parts Delta, One part Omicron. Stir and inject?”
Well, it required something because there I stood, as the line in front of me moved not at all, the line behind me increased.
Minute by agonizing minute. Heating up. Watching the hordes of humanity rock back and forth on their feet, all waiting, all lined up.
Will this be five minutes or an hour?
No one knows.
Are the people around me infectious? Do they just look inimical or is that how I see them now that more of them surround me and this pressure builds? Is the lack of fighting--so far--a reminder of how we can manage as a species or how, constrained by necessity and impatience, our ugliness can spread from one to all?
When, finally, three or four of the kids hired to help with logistics appear from behind a temporary barrier, their “the dessert is ready” walk alerts the other workers they can move the line again. A collective sense of release goes through the cavernous and deadly space we all occupy.
Twenty minutes later I get my booster. And after ten of my fifteen “wait here to ensure you do not have a bad reaction” minutes, I am on my way out.
To make up for my earlier laziness, I get out of the subway a stop early so as to lengthen my walk home. Here the escalator goes by a display case of things dug up when the subway was under construction: mugs, plates, cups, and yes, human bones. Everything is sorted by kind, mugs next to mugs, plates next to plates, cups next to cups, bones next to bones. Old and forgotten choices given order, a last jab at the virus of time.