Once a Sears, Now a Phoenix Rising
When I booked the vaccination, I knew that it was going to be administered in a Sears. My roommate had signed up for her first dose at that very location, had messaged me the direct sign-up link for that very site. So I knew it was going to happen at Sears, some Sears I’d never been to. I pictured a version of the frayed, beige store I’d lived next to in Orange 6 or 7 years ago, except this time there were nurses and chairs in the automotive department.
Somewhere in the middle of my mind, the thought arose: didn’t all the Sears stores shut down? But I hadn’t been thinking too much about the location, only about securing my slot and keeping my date.
I drove over a hour to get there, not sure exactly what to expect. When I arrived, there was no doubt that I was in the right place, but my imagination had been way off the mark. This was a high-volume site. Big signs and traffic cones and vested volunteers directed a steady stream of cars into and around the parking lot; still sealed in my car, I interacted with 5 different workers before I even parked. I began to wonder if it would be like the Dodger Stadium site, where they give you your shot through your car window.
But no, people were walking inside. The letters had been removed from the side of the corrugated concrete building, but the gesture had been futile. Behind every letter, a perfectly-formed stain held fast. “S…E…A…R…S.” Even the font was correct. I walked past several more volunteers and into the unmistakable vast beigeness of a former department store.
Every once in a great while, if you’re paying attention, you get a few moments where life feels like a movie. The time I was in that Salzburg square and the church bells started ringing. The time I got caught in the rain with a handsome boy and we had to run, laughing, to dry shelter.
Had there been a single moment in this poor-excuse-for-an-apocalypse year that felt more like a disaster movie than this late scene? Picture a Sears, any Sears. Now remove all the stuff. Nothing for sale, no smiling models on paper signs in metal frames, no racks or counters or window displays. Instead, there are folding chairs and folding tables, laptops and plastic coolers, yard after yard of orange cones, and hundreds of people — many working, many more filing through with eyes wide, alert to this wonderful yet distinctly dystopian new setting.
The shot itself was over in mere seconds. I didn’t even have time to get emotional. Well, ok, maybe a LITTLE emotional — I thanked the nurse and the woman who scheduled my second dose appointment with a tone that I hoped would convey profundity, a deep, honest thank-you-so-much. Then I went to sit and wait. Just in case.
We were told we had to time ourselves. I chose a seat, just one of maybe 100 chairs, spaced a few feet apart, all facing the same direction, as if we were about to watch a 15-minute performance.
For me, the stage was set. The show was us.
A friendly woman who was stationed in front of the seating area welcomed all comers by asking if it had been their first or second dose. Anyone who said they’d just gotten their second dose was given a hearty “Congratulations!” I heard one slim, older fellow, polo shirt tucked into his khakis, joke back, “I’m gonna go for a third!”
A nurse walked through and told a lingerer that he was probably okay to leave, but he explained that he was waiting for his mother-in-law to get her vaccine, too.
Someone’s 15 minutes elapsed; their phone blared Ennio Morricone’s famous lick from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, all whistles and waa-waas.
“It didn’t even sting!” a young man in board shorts behind me told his companion, comparing it favorably to a flu shot.
An over-it young woman in cheetah print Tom’s was told to sit anywhere but the first two rows. As she sat down in row three, she sassed, “this ISN’T the second row.”
Someone I couldn’t see was scolded, “Sir, you can’t be filming.” I was glad no one had stopped me from snapping my few photos.
My 15 minutes elapsed without incident. But just before my first visit to this Surreal Spectacular ended, there was one final twist. I got a text message from a friend of mine.
“I can see you.”
I was over an hour from home, in a sea of strangers, but one of my closest friends had scheduled her appointment at this site for the same time, on the same day as I’d scheduled mine. I requested special permission to go talk to my friend as her waiting period began.
“Isn’t this bizarre?” I said to her, in lieu of a hug.
“Being in a room with this many other people?” she replied. “Yeah.”
Dystopia, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder.
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