Illustration by Shannon Wheeler

BY JAMES CONRAD

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been used to the idea that vaccines simply are part of life. The youthful fear I may have indulged in as a toddler notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure that before I was ten I found that their practical application made sense. Moreover, on more than one occasion throughout my life, my mother related her experience of catching scarlet fever as a very young girl in the 1940s, back when such a thing was commonplace. In fact, her older sister, who was infected at the same time she was, nearly died of the disease.

Throughout 2021, as the coronavirus pandemic was in full effect, I began to take in developing accounts of a vaccine. I swear I don’t remember being so full of impatience in my life, as I had spent at least a God damn year panicking every time a migraine came on. That sort of thing gets old quick. Don’t it?

Quite eagerly, I got vaccinated at the first opportunity. Predictably, when I actually contracted COVID-19 in the summer of 2022, I was able to kick its ass in all of six days with a hearty regimen of orange juice, beef broth and Scotch whisky.

Hey, it worked.

Obviously, had I not been vaccinated, it would have been a different story.

Shortly after my bout with the dreaded ‘rona, I felt brave enough to test a new vaccine for streptococcal pneumonia that had not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The upshot? A few hundred or so extra dollars to burn and a mild but annoying case of strep throat that went away after less than a week.

Most recently, I am in the midst of testing the current coronavirus vaccine, having received my shot before the FDA gave the green light. So far, so good. The low-grade fever neither put me out of business nor even lasted that long.

Maybe I’m made of tough stuff. Maybe, at least as far as I’m concerned, vaccines actually do work.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2023. The singer for a band in which I play guitar strongly recommended that we all get our flu shots in addition to the most recent coronavirus vaccine, which I had been testing. Taking his advice for a mandate (we can’t rock if we’re sick, after all), I booked the appointment at the Walgreens on Market Street near the Powell Street BART Station.

I went to the pharmacy, arriving just after four p.m., and saw two people ahead of me in line. The man right in front of me was kind of a large person, probably about an inch or so above six feet and nearly as wide as he was tall. His head was shaved completely bald to the point that his head reflected the overhead lights and he was wearing glasses, a close-cropped silver goatee and an olive drab green camouflage T-shirt with the words “Ideas Are Bulletproof” on the front. Just by looking at him, you could tell he was one of those privileged white dudes who viewed a bogus claim of oppression as a trendy status symbol. Next to him was a cart containing groceries and a laundry bag.

A burly man with a white coat came into the aisle where I was standing.

“Excuse me, sir?” I asked. “Do you work in the pharmacy?”

“Yes,” he replied. “How can I help you?”

“I have a four-fifteen appointment for a flu shot. Do I have to wait in line?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Why the hell do I have to wait in line if I have an appointment?” I snapped to nobody in particular, irritated. “That doesn’t make any damn sense.”

The man in front of me turned around. “Did you say you are getting a vaccine?” he asked, his voice a condescending challenge.

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Why not?”

“You’re not worried about side effects?”

I shook my head, rolled my eyes and laughed a little. “I’ve been getting vaccinated all my life,” I said. “Hell, I’ve even tested a couple for money. No serious ill effects so far.”

The man reached into the cart and pulled out a copy of The Real Dr. Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I suggest you read this book,” he said, holding it so that I could read the title on the spine.

“I’m not reading that plague rat bullshit,” I growled through my teeth. “Fuck all that.”

“I dunno. He’s a pretty smart guy. He’s a Democrat, you know.”

“Fuck him,” I said. “He gives Democrats a bad name.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. They don’t play nice with him so he became an Independent.”

“Yeah, he can still get to fuck. I was vaccinated against COVID-19 and I kicked its ass in six days. Vaccines work.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, man, I lived it.”

“Well, it’s your funeral.”

Just then, somebody from the pharmacy called my name, and not a minute too soon. I went toward the counter. As the pharmacist did the intake, I overheard the idiot vaccine denier talking to the other pharmacist at a nearby window.

“I don’t have any kids,” he said.

“Thank fuck you don’t have any kids,” I hissed under my breath.

A couple seconds later, he made a little small talk with the pharmacist serving him. “I don’t really talk politics,” he mentioned with a nonchalant chuckle.

“Yeah, what does your shirt say again, asshole?” I muttered.

Yes, I admit I was kind of a dick to the guy. But in the face of a statistic showing over one million people dead of coronavirus in the United States alone, does anybody see a reason to be polite about it anymore? I don’t.

Anyway, after the Ts were crossed and Is dotted, I was led into a cubicle where the big man in the white coat I had first asked about my appointment gave me the jab. As I predicted, I didn’t have a bad reaction. No anaphylaxis, just an extremely mild ache at the injection site and a very low-grade fever that seemed to go away after I slammed a Gatorade. As a matter of fact, I was well enough to take my Guild 12-string guitar to the Neck of the Woods open mic and give them a rendition of “Jacaranda” by Luiz Bonfá, which ain’t exactly beginner’s work. Best of all, Walgreens was running a promo where if you got a flu shot, they gave you $15 in store credit pending certain other conditions, which gave me the perfect opportunity to treat myself to Buffalo chicken sandwiches for dinner.

Of course, one thing has crossed my mind through this. At risk of sounding embarrassingly grandiose, before the coronavirus pandemic and Donald Trump and all the other right-wing fuckheads in the government and media spreading lethally misinformative bullshit, I never figured that getting a vaccine would become an act of defiance – a kind of activism, if you will. I just always figured it was a practical thing to do. That’s all.

But here we are.