Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's that time of year again, or is it?
Speaker 1: After new guidelines and new plans in place, it's going
Speaker 1: to be the parents and teachers left trying to make
Speaker 1: the school year work. In a school year gone haywire.
Speaker 1: Sometimes art is the only thing that can make sense
Speaker 1: of it all. For millions of students from Florida to Indiana,
Speaker 1: Louisiana to Arizona, the new school year is already off
Speaker 1: to a rough start. I'm Ashley Ford and this is
Speaker 1: the Chronicles of Bath, where we ask writers to dream
Speaker 1: up short stories inspired by the news. Tonight, as cases rise,
Speaker 1: parents are sounding the alarm over reopening schools. The approved
Speaker 1: reopening plan to send students back to school in Osceola
Speaker 1: County ignited outrage during the school board meeting. The fact
Speaker 1: that you all are even opening schools is disgraceful. It's
Speaker 1: sociopathic that you're willing to sacrifice our children. But in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: a rally for reopening with few cases across the stage,
Speaker 1: the governor says most students should be in school. While
Speaker 1: adults argue about how to safely reopen schools, what about
Speaker 1: the children? What are they thinking for kids? The political
Speaker 1: realm is really abstract. Tommy Orange is the author of
Speaker 1: the best selling novel They're There, which won the Pinhemmingway
Speaker 1: Award and was named one of New York Times ten
Speaker 1: Best Books twenty eighteen. For this week's chronicle, he imagines
Speaker 1: what it's like for a nine year old boy to
Speaker 1: go back to school this year. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: kids that we're putting her risk. It's a gamble with
Speaker 1: their lives. The boy watches his reflection in the car
Speaker 1: door while he waits for his mom to unlaw kid,
Speaker 1: which feels like forever, watching his fat body stretch along
Speaker 1: the curvy contours of their Subaru, to the point that
Speaker 1: he feels a flash of heat in his cheeks. About
Speaker 1: seeing kids, about kids seeing him again after all this time.
Speaker 1: He knows he's gained some weight. He can feel it
Speaker 1: in his cheeks. He knows he's not fat, not fat fat,
Speaker 1: But when he sits down in the car as the
Speaker 1: engine starts up, he can feel his stomach jiggle in
Speaker 1: a way it never had before. It's because he's been
Speaker 1: inside so much. He couldn't run or tag or throw,
Speaker 1: or push or pull or play against his friends, has
Speaker 1: not even really talked to any of them in what
Speaker 1: felt like two or three bad summers in a row,
Speaker 1: and what kept more and more feeling like the life before.
Speaker 1: His mom had told him plenty not to worry about
Speaker 1: his weight, but this she didn't get. Telling him not
Speaker 1: to worry about his weight was her saying there might
Speaker 1: be something to worry about on this dreaded morning. They're
Speaker 1: in the driveway. Their bodies had moved slow, out of
Speaker 1: the door and into the car, hesitant his fall. As
Speaker 1: the summer keeps on longer and longer every year, the
Speaker 1: boy had a better sense of what it meant that
Speaker 1: the world was on fire. They're over or underthinking all
Speaker 1: of what the disease could mean, which means they're late.
Speaker 1: His first day back, they lagged like the boys. Video
Speaker 1: games lagged when the internet was slow, dragging their feet
Speaker 1: about the boy going back to school, about her taking
Speaker 1: him to possible what his death, his mild sickness, his
Speaker 1: asymptomatic isolation in his room, getting food brought to his door,
Speaker 1: and endless allowances of movies and apps and screen access.
Speaker 1: Nothing had been real these months, or it had all
Speaker 1: been too real. The boy saw it all as a
Speaker 1: good time to see better. That's how he told his
Speaker 1: mom about what it could mean. It's clear what matters
Speaker 1: when all seems lost. He wouldn't have even been going back.
Speaker 1: It's that the school is reopening and the other kids
Speaker 1: are going, some of them as friends, some of them
Speaker 1: he misses wants to see, plus is required by law,
Speaker 1: which for some things he knew. His mom thought. Who cares?
Speaker 1: Most of all that his mom doesn't have any options.
Speaker 1: She needs him to be in school while she works vance.
Speaker 1: Her manager openly hated children. She'd asked if she could
Speaker 1: bring the boy in. The sitter had backed out suddenly,
Speaker 1: and her backup had at first said yes, then backed
Speaker 1: out herself last minute. The restaurant she worked at was upscale,
Speaker 1: served only brunch and lunch with the kind of upscale
Speaker 1: elderly clientele who didn't even eat dinner. But supper Vans
Speaker 1: had said he couldn't risk having a kid burst out
Speaker 1: from the back like a wild animal. These people had
Speaker 1: heart conditions. She told the boy, this is why he
Speaker 1: had to stay home alone that first time. He had
Speaker 1: to stay home alone, that first time she left him
Speaker 1: there that whole shift. Why does it feel like reopening
Speaker 1: schools is like when I which I know you hate
Speaker 1: pick off a scab and the thing opens back up again,
Speaker 1: and I have to start all over again, the boy said,
Speaker 1: looking out the window from the backseat, deciphering what he
Speaker 1: could of the news. His mom never stopped listening to
Speaker 1: the news voice always with them in the car and
Speaker 1: at home, and every hour of every day, new news,
Speaker 1: always mostly just new and bad news, always just bad
Speaker 1: and good news. If ever, then never for long. If
Speaker 1: staying home alone and not going to school, us finding
Speaker 1: a homeschool for you, if that feels like an option
Speaker 1: for you weekend. I don't want to stay at home
Speaker 1: and homeschool. That sounds terrible, they say, you know that.
Speaker 1: They don't think kids can really, she said about the virus,
Speaker 1: but didn't finish the sentence. That's how they really feel,
Speaker 1: the boy said, what's that? That's how they really feel
Speaker 1: about us. Us who if some of us have to die,
Speaker 1: so be it. I saw fourteen thousand on TikTok. You
Speaker 1: saw fourteen thousand. If a certain percentage die from it,
Speaker 1: and we're all exposed, a certain percent of us will die,
Speaker 1: that's like data, Like that's just information. We know, honey,
Speaker 1: we won't get it, she said, we won't that's the point.
Speaker 1: Everyone thinks they won't get it and are willing to
Speaker 1: gamble with their kids' lives. But even if it's a
Speaker 1: small percentage, it's one that adds up to a lot
Speaker 1: of kids whose parents don't think they'll get it. People
Speaker 1: love their kids, she said, way too enthusiastically. Then a
Speaker 1: pigeon flew by, swooped across their view. She hit the
Speaker 1: brakes too hard. Both of their heads went forward from
Speaker 1: the pole, almost like they were bowing. Then she sped up,
Speaker 1: as if to compensate. People hate their kids, the boy said.
Speaker 1: And then it was as if some other thing had
Speaker 1: just then swooped in front of him, some blinding light,
Speaker 1: the truth of which they couldn't then see through. Not then,
Speaker 1: not how they were before, the countless seasons of sickness
Speaker 1: ahead of them, much later, had those spare moments between
Speaker 1: when memory creeps up, the boy would return to right
Speaker 1: there in the car with the pigeon, then the brakes,
Speaker 1: the hating or loving of kids, and the approach to
Speaker 1: the abyss that was his reentry, as they accidentally bowed
Speaker 1: to Gravity's pole in the car, just waiting for the
Speaker 1: pole to obey, the reentry into the reopening all felt
Speaker 1: like some backward kind of wound. A backward wound is,
Speaker 1: for some reason not healing. This whole memory would end
Speaker 1: up meaning something more and more each time as it
Speaker 1: came to the boy, as he became less a boy,
Speaker 1: the memory more and more meaningful, as less and less
Speaker 1: explanation seemed. The point is said, there are seeings, moments
Speaker 1: in our lives we can't not keep remembering, and some
Speaker 1: of them tell us something about ourselves, and some more
Speaker 1: than we'd like to admit, tell us how much we
Speaker 1: not only don't but can't know at all, a lot
Speaker 1: of investment we are in you, we're actually going on
Speaker 1: in term of the number of The boy walked away
Speaker 1: from the car without looking back. He wanted his mom
Speaker 1: to feel bad. This was new for him. They'd been
Speaker 1: so good to one another over these most recent years,
Speaker 1: Remembering how it had been when the boy's dad was
Speaker 1: still around. It bonded them to be rid of him,
Speaker 1: to be out on their own, away from his moodiness
Speaker 1: and abuse, from his drinking and wrath. The thing the
Speaker 1: boy was mad about was this impossible thing, this new life.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to stay home or go to school.
Speaker 1: He didn't want life to return to what had been before.
Speaker 1: But it couldn't stay like it was. That wasn't living,
Speaker 1: that was waiting. He knew he shouldn't have blamed his mom.
Speaker 1: It was that she'd use the words he'd heard use
Speaker 1: by those gross old white men in the news, taking
Speaker 1: advantage of vulnerability, as gross old white men were always
Speaker 1: want to do. He'd heard it called rhetoric. His mom
Speaker 1: used that word for what other people did when they
Speaker 1: repeated the news people. But here she'd used it herself,
Speaker 1: the rhetoric against her son. But he didn't get sick
Speaker 1: that day. One student did in his grade, in his class,
Speaker 1: and they sent everyone home, so he ended up home alone. Anyway.
Speaker 1: He watched a lot of YouTube those first days home alone,
Speaker 1: and he played with his toys in the backyard, the
Speaker 1: game he loved to play, and his mom's raised beds,
Speaker 1: where she kept meaning to start a garden. He'd have
Speaker 1: his guys rise up from the ground like zombies. Usually
Speaker 1: he had the guys he liked most, his toy mutants,
Speaker 1: one half alligator human named Reginald and a half tiger
Speaker 1: half human named beast Bob. Normally they'd defeat the dirt
Speaker 1: clod freshly risen zombies, but one of those first afternoons
Speaker 1: where he ended up home alone during his mom's shift
Speaker 1: at work. He had all the zombies be people who
Speaker 1: died from the virus in that time. They got their
Speaker 1: revenge on the living. They killed Reginald and beast Bob
Speaker 1: and made a new life for themselves, one without dying
Speaker 1: or disease, resurrected lives. And sure they were zombies, and
Speaker 1: sure they had died when they didn't have to, but
Speaker 1: they were back. They were here, they were alive, and
Speaker 1: that felt as close as he could get to a resolve,
Speaker 1: something to answer the question this new impossible life imposed
Speaker 1: when freshly nine, the virus came and took everything he'd known,
Speaker 1: it all to me. But here he was. He was
Speaker 1: still here, and his mom was alive and school. Be
Speaker 1: damned was her attitude about what to do about all
Speaker 1: of it. He could do what he wanted at home alone.
Speaker 1: Let them come, his mom had told him, as if
Speaker 1: the authorities had the capacity to worry about their little family.
Speaker 1: And it's what he had Reginald and beast Bob say
Speaker 1: before the zombies rose out of the ground. His good
Speaker 1: guy Zombies post coronavirus post life. Let them come, his
Speaker 1: favorite toys had said to the zombies before letting them
Speaker 1: kill them. They said to the rising zombies his least
Speaker 1: favorite toys, Reginald and beast Bob said to them, let
Speaker 1: them come. Let them come back that forest. Good luck
Speaker 1: reading Reopening by Tommy Orange. Hi Tommy, Hi, We're in
Speaker 1: the midst of the weirdest back to school season ever.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it. I don't think any
Speaker 1: of us ever have. According to media reports, it's hell
Speaker 1: own parents, it's hell own teachers, but we're not really
Speaker 1: hearing about how kids are experiencing it. Is that why
Speaker 1: you wrote this story from the boy's perspective? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: story a little bit goes into this internal feeling the
Speaker 1: boy has that the adults don't really care about kids
Speaker 1: as much as they pretend to. And I just I
Speaker 1: like the idea of getting on the inside of young
Speaker 1: people's minds. I think it's as explored as I think
Speaker 1: it should be. I think the consciousness of kids is
Speaker 1: sometimes not respected as worthy of our attention. The mother
Speaker 1: in your story says people love their children, and the
Speaker 1: voices people hate their kids. Who's right? Well, I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people going around, not only
Speaker 1: the administration, and obviously pretending to have family values is
Speaker 1: one thing, but I've seen a lot of parents who
Speaker 1: say they love their kids, but they can't wait to
Speaker 1: get back to work, or they can't wait to drop
Speaker 1: their kids off, or you know, there's all this kind
Speaker 1: of gross language around, this hidden detesting of their children,
Speaker 1: and I think the kid sees it and wants to
Speaker 1: be able to say it. And you know, the kid
Speaker 1: probably doesn't feel that all the way, but it can
Speaker 1: feel that way for kids, and parents can show that
Speaker 1: without knowing it. In the story, the government has completely
Speaker 1: failed this mother and this boy and put them in
Speaker 1: this predicament of having to go back to school when
Speaker 1: it obviously might not be safe. But the boy's not
Speaker 1: mad at the government. He's mad at his mom. Why
Speaker 1: do you think we often attack those closest to us
Speaker 1: instead of the perpetrator of our pain. I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of kids, the parents are to blame. Even
Speaker 1: if he sort of understands it's outside of his mom's control.
Speaker 1: What he's really bothered by her using the rhetoric that
Speaker 1: she's talked about as a bad thing of these girl
Speaker 1: I think I called him gross old white men in
Speaker 1: the news. I think for kids, they don't know that
Speaker 1: same outrage. Once you understand systems and the systemic damage
Speaker 1: that comes from decisions from politicians, from the way history
Speaker 1: has set people up. All of that when you're a
Speaker 1: kid is just sort of parent talk, like come on, mom,
Speaker 1: do something. Can't you do something? It's more of the feeling.
Speaker 1: You're right about the boy he didn't want life to
Speaker 1: return to what had been before, but it couldn't stay
Speaker 1: like it was. That wasn't living, that was waiting. And
Speaker 1: he's not wrong, right like we all seem right now
Speaker 1: to be waiting for things. To do something, go back,
Speaker 1: go forward, just do something. But why do you think
Speaker 1: so many people are so desperate to return to a
Speaker 1: sense of normal, even when normal is not very good. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of people who were who
Speaker 1: were very comfortable in their lives, and they want to
Speaker 1: go back to the comfort because it's uncomfortable to be
Speaker 1: in purgatory. But I think that people who are seeing
Speaker 1: the social changes and addressing old wounds, I think we
Speaker 1: don't want to go back because this whole thing has
Speaker 1: shaken our country up and revealed things that some of
Speaker 1: us knew were already there. So the sense of going
Speaker 1: back to normal, I think can be really tone deaf
Speaker 1: for others of us who know it wasn't right before,
Speaker 1: and they's kind of opened our eyes to a lot.
Speaker 1: We do want something different, but we don't want to
Speaker 1: go back to the way it was. Yeah. Well, Tommy Orange,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your story and thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on the Chronicles of Now. It's been really
Speaker 1: great talking with you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: That was Tommy Orange. You can read my full interview
Speaker 1: with him on our website Chronicles dot Fm, where you
Speaker 1: can also read the story you just heard and other
Speaker 1: short fiction torn from today's headlines. Our sound designer and
Speaker 1: composer is Bart Warshaw, our producer is Curtis Fox, and
Speaker 1: our associate producer is Emily Rostick. Tyler Cabott is the
Speaker 1: executive producer and founder of Chronicles of Now for Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Letalla Mallad. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Carle Migliori, Heather Faine, and Eric Sandler for the Chronicles
Speaker 1: of Now podcast. I'm Ashley Ford. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening,