Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - The Return

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

Your host escapes the island, and returns to New York. Plus writer Tim Kreider on Vaccine side effects. Radiotopia is a network of creators who are able to follow their curiosity and tell the stories they care about the most. Show your support for my fellow Radiotopia shows during our Spring Fundraiser. Donate today at https://on.prx.org/3wl9pWn

You are listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. At Radiotopia, we now have a select group of amazing supporters that help us make all our shows possible. If you would like to have your company or product sponsor this podcast, then get in touch. Drop a line to sponsor at radiotopia.fm. Thanks. episode. Why is there something called influencer voice? What's the deal with the TikTok shop? What is posting disease and do you have it? Why can it be so scary and yet feel so great to block someone on social media? The Neverpost team wonders why the internet and the world because of the internet is the way it is. They talk to artists, lawyers, linguists, content creators, sociologists, historians, and more about our current tech and media moment. From PRX's Radiotopia, Never Post, a podcast for and about the Internet.

Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. This installment is called The Return. My friend Ethan told me to meet him at the entrance to Fort Greene Park, on DeKalb. He would have Ollie with him. Ollie was born last April, at the peak of the crisis, so he's not actually a COVID baby, but rather a baby born into COVID. I can relate, and I've been looking forward to meeting the little guy ever since I first saw him on Zoom. When I spot the new stroller coming at me from across the street, I start jumping up

and down. This is my first meetup since landing in the city the night before. Ollie doesn't have a clue about what's normal and what's not. He certainly won't judge me for my awkward social exuberance. I take out my phone and start snapping pictures of the Olimobile as it gets closer and closer. And then there he is. He looks at me with his big open eyes. It's so awesome to meet you, I scream. I can't believe it. You're already so big.

Look at you. You're not a baby. You're a giant. It is shocking how big this one-year-old is. I've already forgotten just how fast it goes. But then the stroller pulls away. Wow, I think to myself, Ethan really is serious about the social distancing.

Earlier, he declined my offer to hang out on my rooftop because he didn't want to spend any time in the hallways of my building and while he and his wife are both vaccinated little ollie is not of course i'm fine with a meet-up in the park but as ethan pulls the ollie mobile away from me it feels almost like rejection wait for I shout, following from six feet behind. Then, Ethan turns around and takes off his mask, and a guy who is definitely not Ethan growls, Do I know you, man?

I try to explain myself, how I had mistaken him for my friend and that I was just a little excited because I was meeting his kid for the first time. But this guy could care less about what I have to say. Before I can even finish, not Ethan pulls his mask back up and strolls off with not Ollie. Eventually, real Ethan and real Ollie show up. This time, I'm more reserved. And even though Ollie is a baby who was born into COVID, he does in fact have a clue about what's normal and what's not.

Looking at him, look at me, I can see just how socially grotesque, how awkward and abnormal I have become. I escaped from my French Island prison. I'm back home in New York City for three weeks. I get to see friends, eat food I didn't cook, and get vaccinated. Earlier in the morning, I rode my bike across Manhattan to Javits Center, where they've set up an emergency vaccination facility. It was like walking onto the set of a disaster movie. But a big-budget disaster movie.

Definitely not Hulu or Amazon Studios. HBO. There were custom LED signs, new white modular furniture, and soldiers directing you from check-in to check-out. After I got my shot, I was herded into the 15-minute observation area. A soldier with perfect hair was in charge. Most of the people sitting with me had just gotten their second shot, but we were all directed by this soldier to sign the Wall of Heroes on our way out. I was confused as to what this meant. Were we to show our gratitude to the frontline workers and scientists

responsible for us getting the vaccine? Or were we, the newly vaccinated, expected to add our names to the wall of heroes? I spent the entire 15 minutes trying to figure this out, settling finally on the notion that it most certainly had to be more a wall of thanks than a wall of heroes. But then, on my way out, I saw many pages taped to the wall containing personal stories and testimonials. So I drew a little picture of my island, Ile de Ré,

and I wrote a little note about how I'd spent the past 14 months there, and how guilty I felt because even though we lived next to the beach in the farmer's market, I was miserable. Even though the schools had remained open all year and our son had been able to attend kindergarten full-time in person, I was still miserable. I wrote about my feelings of loneliness and isolation and despair. But then, a woman walked up and posted her note of thanks to all the hot soldiers.

So, I scribbled over everything I'd just written, making sure none of it was legible. Although, if anyone looked closely, they would still be able to make out words like waves, birds, and oysters. The vaccine hit me immediately. On my ride to Javits, I'd had my first encounter with New York's outdoor dining. And as I biked through this shambolic rolling landscape of haphazard ad hoc and ad-libbed ugliness, I was overcome with sadness. The sidewalk lean-tos and street yurts felt like dashed-off monuments commemorating America's response to the crisis itself. But then, on my ride back home, the yurts and lean-tos were filled with people. Living, laughing, brunching people.

Again, I was overwhelmed, but this time it was with elation. Now the structures felt like they were cornerstones of a new city, a new New York, a New York that would be more fun, more accessible, more humane. After I left Ethan and Ollie in Brooklyn, I rode my bicycle back to Manhattan. I felt the jet lag kicking in, but I didn't want to go back to my apartment, so I went to Tompkins Square Park and laid down on the grass.

I awoke to someone calling out my name. Benjamin. Hey, Benjamin, is that you? Where's Arcto? I rubbed my eyes and sat up. It was a dad from Arcto? I rubbed my eyes and sat up It was a dad from Arcto's old preschool He was looking at me with concern Like he thought it was odd to find me sleeping alone in the park Next to the playground without my kid Arcto's in France, I replied

And then I explained to him how we had decided to stay in France for the year once we learned that these schools weren't going to open in New York. Well, my kid's been going to school full-time for months now. And even last fall, we found a center where she could go on the days when she was supposed to be remote. Was he admonishing me? Was he saying we could have stayed in New York or should have stayed? I'm so happy for you, I blurted out, rising to his provocation. Arctos loved being in school full-time as well, and since we're on an island, he's been taking sailing lessons.

You are living on an island? Totally ashamed by my needless escalation, I started rubbing my eyes again. Sorry, sorry, I said. I'm a little jet-lagged. Plus, I just got my first shot. That's one of the downsides of being in France right now. No vaccines anywhere. You guys are lucky. Everyone I know here in New York is already vaccinated.

Not me, he replied, taking a step back. I'm not taking the vaccine. I've read way too many things on the internet about the vaccines. Makes you think. What do you mean? I asked. You know, people getting sick and dying. I've read some things. After he walked back into the playground,

I noticed that his daughter wasn't wearing a mask, and that she was part of a group of kids who were all playing together without masks. They were easy to spot, because most of the kids in the playground were wearing masks, even the infants. And while all the kids mixed together, there were clear demarcations, Two distinct camps coexisting together, at least for the moment. Watching all this play out on this New York City playground, I was struck by a horrible premonition. I feel like I'm watching a flashback scene from a big, big, big budget disaster movie. You know the scene,

the one where the main character tries to explain to the audience how the war began and how no one expected so much cruelty and inhuman violence or the collapse of civilization. so you you're actually more than two weeks out from your second shot now. I don't understand why we're outside together, and yet you're insisting that we are remaining over 12 feet apart. Well, yeah, I originally thought that, okay, we all got a little de-socialized and went a little feral and got weird in quarantine, but we'd all gradually re-immerse ourselves in society

it might be a little painful but we would return slowly to normal but i don't know ever since the vaccine i'm feeling like i'm not going back to normal and also my definition of personal space has expanded considerably in quarantine i can really only take about two hours max of human interaction. Like, I'm invited to dinner after we do this, and I'm probably not going, because I'm not going to meet a friend and then go to dinner in the same day. That's too much. And, you know, I went to a movie for the first time, and they had three seats in between you and anyone else, and I was like, that seems about right. Yeah, I don't think I want to go back to one seat in between it definitely not next to other people like you remember sometimes you used to have to go to brunch and meet

people who are like your girlfriend's friends from graduate school's boyfriend and then at the end of brunch you're supposed to hug this dude you just met and there's no way around it without looking like some stick in the mud or And then, at the end of brunch, you're supposed to hug this dude you just met. And there's no way around it without looking like some stick in the mud or like you're autistic. You just have to hug these people. And I'm never doing that again. I'm never hugging another fucking stranger. I'm glad that this epidemic put an end to hugging altogether. And I'm not going back. I am never hugging another guy I met at Brooklyn School. I can't sleep.

It's the evening after my second shot, and I can't sleep. At first, I'm worried my insomnia is a reaction, an adverse reaction to the vaccine. Or, perhaps, it's dread. the dread I feel about returning to France. Tomorrow, I fly back for another six weeks of exile on the island. Or, perhaps, I am unable to sleep simply because of the noise. I get out of bed and go to the window. There are parties on almost every rooftop and scores of people down on the street laughing and shouting. I contemplate closing the window, but I can't do it. The noise is not disturbing me. I contemplate closing the window, but I can't do it.

The noise is not disturbing me. In fact, every celebratory shriek and drunken woo is like a bomb. I go back to bed. I try to concentrate. I try to put my finger on what exactly is keeping me awake. Across the street, my neighbor's big-ass American flag is still hanging from the makeshift pole he installed on his balcony the month before Covid struck. And while this flag used to keep me up casting shadows on my wall, now it hangs limp and in tatters.

Plus all the metal balconies of his less than three yearold building have now rusted, exposing what a cheap and terrible builder my neighbor is. No, that's not it either. I take out my phone and look at the news. The situation in India is getting worse, and there are concerns that this new variant will wreak havoc on neighboring countries as well. Perhaps it's this cognitive dissonance that's keeping me awake. The party outside celebrating the end of COVID while the pandemic rages out of control in

other parts of the world. This idea that a vaccine will protect wealthy countries from a virus that is adapting and mutating unchecked in poor countries. The hubris. It's almost comical. But this is not what's keeping me awake either. Finally, it comes to me. Earlier in the afternoon, I ran into an acquaintance on the street.

And as we departed, he said, here's to returning to normal while pumping his fist in the air. That's it. I don't want to return to normal. I want better. Well, I know people had some bad reactions. People told me in particular the second dose made people ill, so I sort of braced myself for that, set aside a couple days to just lie on the couch on drugs watching TV, which is what I basically set the previous 400 days aside to do anyway. And in the end, I didn't have any ill effects at all.

I felt fine. What I felt was very calm and very clear in my mind. And a lot of inchoate feelings I'd had before the vaccine cohere into what I would call convictions. Like before, I'd been very concerned that I had quit caring about anything. I'd forgotten how you cared about things. I wasn't sure once you stop how you go back to caring. And now I've realized caring is bullshit. Once you start caring, you know what's next? Doing shit. As soon as you care, that's how they get you to do things. Remember how we used to have to do things all the time before the pandemic? I'm not going back to that. Doing shit is for suckers. If you don't care, you don't

have to do shit. And I am not only not anti-vaxxer, I'm very pro-vax. I think everyone should get vaccinated because I think it not only strengthened my biological immune system, but my psychological immune system. I think I'm now immune to the right bullshit. You have been listening to Benjamin Walker's theory of everything. This installment is called The Return. This episode was written and produced by me, Benjamin Walker, and it featured Tim Kreider. Special thanks to everyone I hung out with when I was in New York last month, especially the one and only Andrew Calloway.

The Theory of Everything is a proud founding member of Radiotopia, home to some of the world's best podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.