Save One For Elijah

It would be so much easier to just chalk it up to the survival of the fittest and leave it at that, but last week the United States saw its biggest uptick in COVID-19 cases in months. Twenty-six states reported an increase in the number of new infections. If you were the sort who listens patiently to the "president," you might believe this is because we are so good at testing. That's not what scientists say, which comes as little or no surprise. The east coast is one of the few spots in the US that has managed to keep their caseloads down in May and June. Now might be a good time to remind everyone of how the "president" used to tell us that the warmer months would bring an end to this plague. It would just disappear. Some of us harbor this feeling about the "president."
Neither one seems to just go away. And as each day passes, the virus and the "president" seems to defy predictions by getting worse instead of better. I rely on our "president" for continuing to mine the lowest of all common denominators, but I had hoped that as a country we would get better at pandemic. Instead we seem bent on finding ways to bring ourselves back to normal. I paused there for a moment before I typed the end of the sentence to decide whether or not to put quotation marks around that last word: normal. It is the thing that continues to evade us. It is the reckoning with this obscure state that keeps folks champing at the bit, or mask, as the case may be.
Leaving the somewhat protective bubble of my neighborhood to travel four hours down the coast to visit our son brought a bit of a shock. California's governor had only recently made a statewide mandate for residents to wear a mask while in public or high-risk settings, including when shopping, taking public transit or seeking medical care. Perhaps because I'm a fan, or because I have decided to surrender my freedom to the state that wants to keep me alive, I have continued to cover my face when I leave the house. Not everyone seems to feel the way I do. Across California, at least a dozen municipal governments have asserted that Governor Newsom is not the boss of them. If the soft-sell of his "do your part, wear a mask" is wasted on those who prefer to imagine this as draconian oppression it would explain the number of noses, mouths and chins that I saw on my travels. Our son, the softhearted individual his mother and I raised continues to be skeptical of the loosened restrictions in his county. He steered us away from the temptations of sit-down restaurants. When we went out into the world, our smiles were hidden from one another. Even so, my wife and I worried that our social bubble might collide with someone else's. 
In the background there was the hue and cry of those who felt that fascists were keeping them from breathing. I briefly considered the overlap between that group and those that insist there is no pattern of systemic racism in our country. Elijah McClain wore a mask. He was doing that a year ago this August when he was contacted by police in Aurora, Colorado. At that time, a young black man in a ski mask generated a 911 call. Officers were dispatched and when they encountered the twenty-three year old on his walk back from a nearby convenience store. When a frightened and confused McClain "resisted arrest," officers used a carotid hold to subdue him. Paramedics who responded to the scene injected Elijah with ketamine to "calm him down." Elijah, who was wearing the mask because he sometimes experienced cold as a result of his anemia, died of a heart attack on the way to the hospital. 
So, I guess we can see just how dangerous wearing a mask can be. Meanwhile, save a prayer for the one hundred thirty thousand Americans who have died from COVID-19. And one for Elijah.