---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108-page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/paperback book “Clear Lake” cc&d, v343, the 3/24 issue Order the 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the book In the Moment the cc&d January - April 2024 magazine issues collection book		get the 426-page January - April 2024 cc&d magazine 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Tin

James Bates

    It was January, about one year into the pandemic. When our youngest, eight-year-old Andy, complained about a sore throat, we didn’t panic. Outwardly, anyway. Instead, we put on our best sympathetic parental faces and tried not to freak out.
    My wife, Clare, felt his forehead and silently raised her eyebrows in an Oh, boy, manner while saying to Andy, “Okay, young man. Let’s get you to bed.” To me, she said, “Randy, why don’t you go get your son some ginger ale?”
    So, I went about fixing him a glass.
    A few minutes later, Clare joined me in the kitchen and said, “His forehead was hot, so I took his temperature. It was a hundred. We might have a problem.”
    “What?” I asked, trying, but failing, not to think about Covid. “It’s probably nothing,” I added, not willing to face reality and, at the same time, mentally crossing my fingers, hoping for the best.
    “I’m worried I might have brought the virus home from work,” Clare said. She was a checkout at our local grocery store. They were meticulous in following health guidelines: cleaning, washing hands, social distancing, and wearing their masks. Everything.
    “I doubt it,” I said, commiserating with her. “Hell, it could have been me.”
    I worked on one of the crews for Metropolitan Office, a company that cleaned many of the high-rise buildings in downtown Minneapolis. We followed the same guidelines Clare’s company followed. But Covid? Well, Covid followed no guidelines and was not in the least bit forgiving, as we were finding out with so many deaths, both in our country and worldwide.
    I shifted the glass of ginger ale nervously from one hand to the other. Clare looked at me. She was a tough woman, but there was a tear in her eye as she said, “If he’s not better tomorrow, we’ll need to get him tested.”
    Without thinking, I drank from the glass and barely tasted the ginger ale. “Maybe all of us should get tested.”
    Clare took the glass and had a drink. “Yeah. Me and you and Andy.” Then she made a sideways motion with her head, “The others, too.”
    In addition to Andy, we had his older brother Joel and his two older sisters, Monica and Skye. “Sounds good,” I said.
    Clare nodded her head and then pointed upstairs. “I’m going to go check on him.”
    “Hold on,” I said, rinsing the glass and filling it with fresh ginger ale. “I’m coming with you.”
    I followed my wife upstairs and into Andy’s room, all the while wondering what the next few days and weeks would bring. Later that evening, Clare and I made a pact to stay optimistic, but inwardly we were both preparing for the worst.
    The next day Andy wasn’t any better, so we made an appointment and went to a clinic in Minneapolis that did Covid testing. A day later, we got the results. What’s the best way to look at something like this? I guess it’s best just to be honest, so here it is: at least only one of the kids tested positive for Covid. It was Andy.
    So, we self-quarantined. Clare and I took time off from work. The older kids were fine. Their school was doing distance learning anyway, so staying home wasn’t a problem. And they had their tablets and could Zoom and Snap-Chat with their friends to their heart’s content. Besides, it’s what we’d all been doing for nearly a year anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a change. The problem was with Andy. Now that he had Covid, a new batch of worries set in. The primary one was, of course, that he would never get any better and eventually die.
    So, we kept a close eye on him. He stayed in his room. His fever hovered around 100 to 101 degrees. He didn’t feel too good, but he didn’t feel too bad, either. We kept his brother and sisters out of the room and only allowed them to talk to him from the doorway. They liked the novelty of it for about a day, then that wore thin. Clare and I traded off staying in his room, keeping him company. We had no idea how long this was going to last, but we were committed to being there for him twenty-four-seven.
    Andy was a good kid. He was in third grade and not exactly like his brother and sisters. While they were outgoing, had grown up playing on youth hockey and soccer teams, and had lots of friends, Andy was quieter and more than happy to just be by himself.
    He was a thin, gangly kid with dark hair he kept a little on the long side. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and had large hazel eyes that always seemed to be filled with wonder. He was passionate about reading and drawing. He enjoyed collecting rocks and building Star Wars models from Legos. Oh, yeah, he was a really good student, too, mainly because he loved learning new things.
    “So, how’s it going?” I asked him in the evening after we got the Covid test results back. “You doing okay?”
    “Yeah, I am, Dad,” he said. He held up his tablet. “I’ve been reading about the coronavirus. I think if I just take it easy, I’ll be able to fight it off.” He put his tablet down and made a punching motion with his small fists.
    I grinned at him and rubbed his head. “You do that, buddy. I’ll help you. We’ll fight this thing together.”
    “Thanks, Dad.”
    Every parent will tell you that you’re not supposed to have favorites, and to a certain extent that’s a true statement. But I have to say, while our other kids were more active and into sports and did a lot of the same stuff I was into at their age, having an introverted studious child like Andy was kind of different for me. And that made raising him interesting, which made it fun. I enjoyed being with him.
    We’d chat and he’d read while I looked at stuff on my phone. We also watched movies on my laptop. We did Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and even a bunch of episodes of Doctor Who. He enjoyed them all and it took his mind off the fact that he wasn’t getting any better.
    Clare and I called the Doctor every day to give her an update.
    “His temperature just isn’t going down,” Claire told her.
    Doctor Remington was compassionate to our situation. “I know it’s hard,” she said, commiserating. “Just keep him warm and comfortable and give him plenty of fluids.” She paused, then asked, “How’s his cough?”
    I jumped in, “Not any better.”
    “But it’s not any worse, either,” Clare added.
    “That’s good,” the Doctor said and sighed. “Look, I know it’s hard. Dealing with this virus is new for all of us. You’ll just have to ride it out. Okay?”
    “All right,” Clare said, and I nodded in agreement.
    What else could we do? At least Andy wasn’t getting any worse.
    Our only scare came at the end of the first week when his fever went up to 103. We kept cool compresses on his forehead and had him sip on ice water. After a few hours, it went down again, and he fell asleep, exhausted.
    “Thank god we weathered that little crisis,” Clare said to me while we were talking outside his room.
    “Yeah,” I hugged her. “We’d have to take him to the hospital if his temperature stayed too high for too long.”
    “Which makes sense,” Clare said, and shuddered in my arms. “But I don’t want him to leave here.”
    “I know. Me neither.”
    Unspoken between us was the thought that if Andy left for the hospital, he might not come back home ever again. A thought too horrific to contemplate for long, so we didn’t.
    After the experience of his flaring fever, Andy’s whole demeanor changed. He became more introverted and withdrawn than ever before. It was almost as if he knew something bad was going to happen. He liked to have either Clare or me with him all the time. He didn’t read as much but rested a lot. He was getting worn down by the virus.
    At the end of the second week, he surprised me by saying, “Dad, I’ve got a question for you.”
    I’d been reading about whether or not baseball was going to start up again. I was a big Minnesota Twins fan and missed not seeing them play live at the ballpark. “Sure, buddy. I set my phone down. “What’s up?”
    “You know we’ve been watching a lot of my movies lately.”
    “Yeah,” I said, wondering where this was going. “That’s okay. I like them.”
    “Me, too,” he smiled. “But I was wondering...what movies did you like to watch when you were my age?”
    See what I mean about him being an interesting kid? When I was his age, I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking my parents what movies they had watched. Mainly because I didn’t care. But, like I said, Andy was a little different. So, I thought about it. After about a minute or so only one had come to mind that we hadn’t already watched.
    “Well, I guess the only one I can think of is The Wizard of Oz,” I told him. “I liked that one a lot.”
    Andy grinned. “I’ve heard of that. It was a book, I think. It’s got the Scarecrow and the Lion and a Tin Man in it, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And the Wicked Witch?”
    “Yep.”
    “Neat. It sounds like fun.”
    It was nice to see him smile. “Do you want to watch it sometime?”
    “Yeah, I do, Dad. That’d be great.”
    So, I ordered the movie, had it downloaded to my laptop, and we watched it. It was fun. Clare even joined us. To say that he loved the Tin Man was putting it mildly.
    “I liked that he wanted a heart,” Andy said after the first time we watched. “That’s pretty cool.”
    “It is,” I had to agree, thinking to myself what a thoughtful kid he was. Most people liked the Scarecrow or the Lion. But the Tin Man? Andy was the first kid I even knew who felt that way.
    Thank goodness he’s still with us.
    Yeah, he is. I’m not saying the Wizard of Oz had anything to do with it, but during the next few days of watching that wonderful tale, his fever went down, and his cough went away. When we told Doctor Remington, she wanted us to bring him in to check him over, which we did the next day.
    When she was done, she said, “Andy looks good, nice and healthy. I think you guys beat this thing.”
    We were overjoyed and would have hugged her, but no. Fist bumps instead.
    So, now it’s spring. Andy is feeling great. His school is allowing kids to come back for face-to-face learning with restrictions in place, primarily mask-wearing and social distancing, so we’re sending him. He loves it. Like I said, he likes learning.
    The other day, as I was getting ready to go to work, he came home from school and said, “Dad, guess what?”
    “What?”
    “We’re going to do a play.”
    “Really,” I said, packing my midnight snack. “What’s the play?”
    He grinned, “Guess!”
    He was pretty excited so I played along for a minute or so, taking wild guesses.
    “The Music Man?”
    “No.”
    “Peter Pan?”
    “No.”
    “Romeo and Juliet?”
    “Dad! No way.”
    “Okay,” I said, giving up and grinning, “What’s the play?”
    “The Wizard of Oz,” he told me.
    “Really. That’s very cool.”
    “It is. And do you know the best part?”
    “What?”
    “I’m going to be in it.”
    Well, knock me over with a feather. Andy had always been a loner, not a joiner. “What brought that on?”
    “I don’t know. It was fun watching the movie with you when I was sick. I thought it’d be fun to be in the play.” He paused before adding, “We already had tryouts. There were, like fifty of us.”
    “Really. What part did you try out for?”
    He grinned. “The Tin Man, of course.”
    “Well good for you. Did you get the part?”
    Andy stood up tall and smiled. “Yep. Yes, I did, Dad. I got the part.”
    I smiled and hugged him. “That’s fantastic! Congratulations. Good for you.”
    “Thanks, Dad.”
    Then he ran off to tell Clare.
    Wow. Who would have thought that my shy, introverted son would have ever been excited to be up on stage in a play? Not me, that’s for sure. But it had been a strange year. Andy had gotten Covid and survived and came out of it with a new attitude. I was happy for him. I was happy for us all. And I was especially looking forward to going to the play. I’ll bet it’s going to be fantastic.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...