Bowling with Ebola

"Americans tend to think more about individual than communal rights and are understandably dubious of medical mandates that seem to be always changing. Americans also value toughness and the ability to work through physical adversity without thinking how they might end up weakening other members of the team." Kate Murphy 

                                                         BOWLING WITH EBOLA 

Walt's 10-Pins' Coffee shop was busy for a Monday morning. Several of the Thursday regulars' wives were out of town on three-day weekends, shopping in St. Augustine at the outlet mall. The regulars sat at the table in the back corner, swapping stories of days gone by. 

The town of Mica and its bowling alley have seen better days. When Route 441 was the way to head to points east of the turnpike, Walt's did a good business. But when the Turnpike got extended to Wildwood and added extra lanes, 441 and its environs became a thing of the past.  

The coffee shop is the only decent place in town to eat, because it's the only restaurant left in the 'white' section that isn't drive-thru fast food. On this particular Monday morning, a black man enters and sits at the counter. He is obviously ill, taking his handerchief out and wiping his brow every few minutes. He drinks his coffee and eats eggs, grits and ham, $2.95. Within a half hour he is gone. The waitress, Tess, removes the dishes and puts them in the grey plastic container under the counter. When the dishes are full, she totes them back to the kitchen for the young, white ex-con, former small time drug dealer Jeremy to wash. It's January, cold and bleak out. 

Six days later. Tess calls Walt to say she can't come to work because she has the flu. The next day Jeremy does the same. One of the regulars, Sam, asks Walt where Tess is. Walt says Tess and Jeremy both have the flu.  

Sam thinks about this for a few moments, then turns to Vern, and says "remember that black guy that was here last Monday? Maybe he had Ebola. Do you suppose that could be? He looked kinda African." 

Vern, in turn, shares the notion with Jasper, and by the time it hits the local newspaper, the Mica News, the headline is Ebola comes to Walt's 10-pins? The details are sketchy about the man, but the nature of his illness makes people afraid of getting whatever Tess and Jeremy have. 

Nobody will go to Tess's house. She is a middle-aged woman, single, raised two kids on her own after her husband Bill left with her co-worker Sally, never to return. Tess is running a fever of 102, and can't stop coughing. She decides to go to the walk-in health clinic to try to get some of that flu medicine you have to take before you get too sick and it won't work. When she gets to the door of the clinic, she finds it locked. She sees people inside, but nobody will let look at her or let her in. She knocks; finally, the doctor comes to the door with a mask on.  

"Go home, Tess. You can't come in. We are afraid you might have Ebola. Go on in to Shands and get tested."  

Tess leaves, gets in her car and drives away. Meanwhile, Jeremy's flu has caused his old asthma to reoccur. He can hardly breathe it's so bad. Two years in that cold cell at Raiford didn't help his lungs any. Within a day, he is in severe distress.  

Jeremy rents a room from Mrs. Myers, who hears him wheezing and goes upstairs to see if he wants some hot soup. She sees he's in distress, and offers to take him to the same walk-in clinic that turned Tess away. He gets in her car, and the same thing happens to him at the clinic. When Jeremy tells her what the doctor said, Mrs. Myers begins to be afraid she has now been exposed to Ebola. But she thinks it's her Christian duty to care for this poor, sick young man. She takes Jeremy to the hospital in Gainesville, drops him off, and goes home. 

A week passes. The rumor starts around town that Jeremy has died. This is sure evidence that this is Ebola. A committee that includes the mayor and two town counselors go to Mrs. Myers' house. They arrive at her door with masks on. They tell her she cannot leave her house until 14 days have elapsed. She protests that she's fine, and tries to leave. They don't want to touch her, for fear of getting the disease. One of the town counselors has brought a gun. He points it at her, and tells her to get back in the house.  

The three men take turns standing guard at her house, to ensure she doesn't leave. Mrs. Myers has just enough food for a week. After that time, the wives of the three men leave food for her in packages - grits, corn meal, other dry foodstuffs - not enough for a person to live on. Mrs. Myers begins to have symptoms - a cough, and a rash on her hands. This is clear evidence of Ebola, according to the Mayor.  

Now she's in big trouble - they won't let her out, and she already suffers from COPD, a legacy left her from Mr. Myers' second-hand smoke before he succumbed to lung cancer. She tries to reason with Jim, standing guard at 3 in the afternoon. He says he has his orders. Mrs. Myers knows she's in trouble because of her COPD, and tells Jim she has to leave or she will die. She begins to walk toward her car. Jim has the gun and his orders. As she puts her hand on the car door, Jim closes his eyes and squeezes one off, thinking to scare her into returning to the house. The bullet strikes Mrs. Myers in the back of the head, dead center of the amygdala. She drops to the ground next to the car. Jim calls the mayor on his cell phone. 

Two days later, Jeremy strolls into the diner. All heads turn, and recoil at the sight of him. He asks Walt for his job back, but Walt says no - his presence would be bad for business. Walt tells Jeremy the rumor was he'd died of Ebola. Jeremy says, "I had the plain old ordinary flu. They kept me for a couple days at Shands because of my asthma. Then I stayed with my  buddy Mark until I was strong enough to come back. I'm fine - really.  

Two days later, Tess returns. She went to Jacksonville and stayed with her mother. She said "I had the regular flu - nothing more. Mom took care of my and I got better. I'm ready to go to work. Walt replies that he's already replaced her with a younger, faster girl. 

The obituary for Mrs. Myers appears in the Mica News the day after her death. The only doctor in town - the one that operates the walk-in clinic - defines her death as by 'natural causes'. Tess tries to sell her house, but after three months, gives up and walks away from her mortgage. She moves in with her mother in Jacksonville. Jeremy can find no job in Mica, the town where he was born and has lived all his life. He goes back to Mark's house in Gainesville, and picks up his small time drug trade and habit. Within six months, he's dead of a heroin overdose. The mayor and town counselors are given a proclamation from the rest of the town counsel for "keeping Mica safe" from Ebola. Life goes on.