If the past year has taught me anything, it's to always leave room for disappointment. I graduated college without a proper goodbye. I spent my summer at home rather than a summer camp (I had plans to be a counselor). A lot of friends lost their post-graduation jobs, and most of them live with their parents, as do I.
This vaccine proved to be no different. The day before my appointment, I got a call from the St. Clair County health clinic. I wasn't eligible, I shouldn't have gotten the link, and if I showed up I'd be turned away. I was disappointed, but not sorrowfully so.
That night, I met some friends at a county rec center to play basketball. (As Washington University students, these friends get saliva tested weekly, and I hardly leave the house, so we figured the risk of catching or spreading the virus was low.) It was 8 p.m. and cold. Ours were the only cars in the parking lot. As we shuffled one by one past the front desk, a woman measured the temperatures on our wrists. She nodded silently until each of us was through. It felt like we were entering a speak-easy.
Later, A— and I sat courtside watching the game. Our heads followed the ball as it traveled from one hoop to the other. Shoes squeaked like many birds whistling.
"I feel less bad about doing this now that people are getting vaccinated," A— said.
"People are getting vaccinated?" I said.
"J— did the other week. R— has been for at least a month."
"How?"
"It's a little sketch. J—'s mom hooked him up. I don't know how. R— was volunteering at a vaccine drive, though, and at the end of the day they had extras."
I sighed.
On Sunday, February 14, despite not having an appointment, I decided to drive to the Belle-Clair Fairgrounds & Expo Center in Belleville, Illinois. I would ask a few questions for my story, see what a vaccine drive looked like and ask if they had extras. There was a snowstorm forecasted to begin in a few hours, so I threw a shovel in the trunk. It was 9 degrees. On the way, I passed a burning car. Black smoke curled into the sky.
The Belle-Clair Fairgrounds & Expo Center is a huge parking lot surrounded by a fence. Above the top rail runs three rows of barbed wire. Across the street is a McDonald's. That day, there was a layer of old snow over everything. Guarding the entrance were two police cars and a sign that said, "COVID 19 VACCINE SITE / BY APPT ONLY."
When I turned inside the lot, a man in a beige jumpsuit stepped forward and began pointing at my car, then a lane made of cones and caution tape. I rolled down my window and said I was a reporter and I had some questions.
"A reporter?"
I confirmed. He mumbled into a walkie talkie on his shoulder. Then he lifted the caution tape for my car to crawl under. I parked on the snow and got out to take pictures.
"Who are you with again?" he yelled from a distance.
"The Riverfront Times!"
"Riverfront Time," he murmured into his shoulder.
A little while later, a white Ford Escape approached. I got back in my car. The Ford stopped with its driver-side door across from mine. The window rolled down, and a man looked out.
He introduced himself as Herb Simmons, the St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency director. He had thin white hair and rectangular glasses. In the passenger seat was another man, maskless, who tapped at his phone.
I told Simmons I was there about the ineligible registrations, and he eased into a speech. I grabbed my phone, hit record and held it out the window, but soon I realized I wasn't wearing gloves. I devised a system: When one hand held the phone, the other warmed against my breath. Simmons told me how well things were going. I switched hands. There were hiccups with all the ineligible people showing up on Friday, but now that was over. They'd had to turn away a lot of people — how many they weren't sure. A breeze picked up. I eyed the gloves, which lay mockingly in the seat next to me, and calculated how I could put them on without dropping the phone. Would it balance on the door?
See Also: Shot Chasers: Confessions of a Vaccine 'Cheater'Simmons and I continued like this, a follow-up question here and there, until it seemed he had said all he wanted to.
"One last thing," I said. "Have you had to throw away any vaccines?"
"No. No vaccines have gone to waste."
Trying not to seem disappointed, I nodded. I set the phone aside, rubbed my hands, then sat on them. Simmons offered to show me around the place, and I said sure, why not?
For the next half hour, Simmons was Virgil and I was Dante. I saw the entrails of a mass vaccination site. My favorite part was a big metal shed with three sections labeled "Cows," "Swine" and "Sheep." This had nothing to do with the vaccination process; I just enjoyed the commitment to labeling.
After I waved goodbye to Simmons and his friend, I rolled up my window and turned the heat as high as it went. Despite the setbacks, I was confident I would find my vaccine scenario someday. I left the fairgrounds hoping to be home before the storm arrived.
On a recent Tuesday, the first warm day in months, I went to the park to play basketball. I didn't stay long, though. The courts were all taken. I had gotten there early, as did one other friend, so we texted the group. The others quickly made plans for Three Kings happy hour or Forest Park.
As I got up to leave, I noticed the friend was putting on his shoes.
"You staying?"
"Yeah, I think I'll play with those guys. They're grad students, and I've played with them before."
"You're not worried about the virus?"
"No," he said. "Got vaccinated last week."
"How?"
"I work at a hospital, and they had extras."
"Do they ever have extras still?"
"Sometimes, but they only give them to employees." He stood.
"Well, if they're ever about to throw any out ...."
"Yeah, I'll let you know." Then he jogged off towards the court.
Read the other story in our "Shot Chasers" package.
