WEBVTT - Tommy Orange: Reopening 0:00:15.130 --> 0:00:24.450 Pushkin. It's that time of year again, or is it? 0:00:24.530 --> 0:00:27.410 After new guidelines and new plans in place, it's going 0:00:27.450 --> 0:00:29.530 to be the parents and teachers left trying to make 0:00:29.530 --> 0:00:32.810 the school year work. In a school year gone haywire. 0:00:33.290 --> 0:00:36.690 Sometimes art is the only thing that can make sense 0:00:36.690 --> 0:00:41.330 of it all. For millions of students from Florida to Indiana, 0:00:41.570 --> 0:00:45.370 Louisiana to Arizona, the new school year is already off 0:00:45.410 --> 0:00:48.410 to a rough start. I'm Ashley Ford and this is 0:00:48.450 --> 0:00:51.810 the Chronicles of Bath, where we ask writers to dream 0:00:51.890 --> 0:00:56.810 up short stories inspired by the news. Tonight, as cases rise, 0:00:57.290 --> 0:01:01.210 parents are sounding the alarm over reopening schools. The approved 0:01:01.250 --> 0:01:04.330 reopening plan to send students back to school in Osceola 0:01:04.370 --> 0:01:08.050 County ignited outrage during the school board meeting. The fact 0:01:08.050 --> 0:01:12.130 that you all are even opening schools is disgraceful. It's 0:01:12.170 --> 0:01:17.850 sociopathic that you're willing to sacrifice our children. But in Massachusetts, 0:01:17.850 --> 0:01:21.410 a rally for reopening with few cases across the stage, 0:01:21.610 --> 0:01:25.450 the governor says most students should be in school. While 0:01:25.450 --> 0:01:29.730 adults argue about how to safely reopen schools, what about 0:01:29.770 --> 0:01:35.770 the children? What are they thinking for kids? The political 0:01:35.810 --> 0:01:39.730 realm is really abstract. Tommy Orange is the author of 0:01:39.770 --> 0:01:43.290 the best selling novel They're There, which won the Pinhemmingway 0:01:43.330 --> 0:01:46.050 Award and was named one of New York Times ten 0:01:46.130 --> 0:01:50.850 Best Books twenty eighteen. For this week's chronicle, he imagines 0:01:51.050 --> 0:01:53.250 what it's like for a nine year old boy to 0:01:53.330 --> 0:01:55.850 go back to school this year. It's a lot of 0:01:55.930 --> 0:01:58.330 kids that we're putting her risk. It's a gamble with 0:01:58.370 --> 0:02:06.930 their lives. The boy watches his reflection in the car 0:02:07.050 --> 0:02:09.370 door while he waits for his mom to unlaw kid, 0:02:10.890 --> 0:02:16.530 which feels like forever, watching his fat body stretch along 0:02:16.570 --> 0:02:20.890 the curvy contours of their Subaru, to the point that 0:02:20.930 --> 0:02:23.290 he feels a flash of heat in his cheeks. About 0:02:23.330 --> 0:02:29.530 seeing kids, about kids seeing him again after all this time. 0:02:32.290 --> 0:02:36.450 He knows he's gained some weight. He can feel it 0:02:36.450 --> 0:02:43.250 in his cheeks. He knows he's not fat, not fat fat, 0:02:44.210 --> 0:02:46.170 But when he sits down in the car as the 0:02:46.210 --> 0:02:49.850 engine starts up, he can feel his stomach jiggle in 0:02:49.890 --> 0:02:55.170 a way it never had before. It's because he's been 0:02:55.210 --> 0:02:58.930 inside so much. He couldn't run or tag or throw, 0:02:59.130 --> 0:03:03.130 or push or pull or play against his friends, has 0:03:03.170 --> 0:03:05.130 not even really talked to any of them in what 0:03:05.290 --> 0:03:07.570 felt like two or three bad summers in a row, 0:03:08.450 --> 0:03:12.170 and what kept more and more feeling like the life before. 0:03:15.930 --> 0:03:18.050 His mom had told him plenty not to worry about 0:03:18.050 --> 0:03:23.050 his weight, but this she didn't get. Telling him not 0:03:23.090 --> 0:03:25.730 to worry about his weight was her saying there might 0:03:25.770 --> 0:03:33.850 be something to worry about on this dreaded morning. They're 0:03:33.890 --> 0:03:36.850 in the driveway. Their bodies had moved slow, out of 0:03:36.850 --> 0:03:42.250 the door and into the car, hesitant his fall. As 0:03:42.250 --> 0:03:45.650 the summer keeps on longer and longer every year, the 0:03:45.690 --> 0:03:47.410 boy had a better sense of what it meant that 0:03:47.490 --> 0:03:53.210 the world was on fire. They're over or underthinking all 0:03:53.210 --> 0:03:57.010 of what the disease could mean, which means they're late. 0:03:57.250 --> 0:04:01.890 His first day back, they lagged like the boys. Video 0:04:01.970 --> 0:04:05.730 games lagged when the internet was slow, dragging their feet 0:04:05.770 --> 0:04:10.810 about the boy going back to school, about her taking 0:04:10.890 --> 0:04:17.610 him to possible what his death, his mild sickness, his 0:04:17.730 --> 0:04:23.450 asymptomatic isolation in his room, getting food brought to his door, 0:04:23.890 --> 0:04:27.330 and endless allowances of movies and apps and screen access. 0:04:29.970 --> 0:04:33.610 Nothing had been real these months, or it had all 0:04:33.650 --> 0:04:40.810 been too real. The boy saw it all as a 0:04:40.850 --> 0:04:43.610 good time to see better. That's how he told his 0:04:43.770 --> 0:04:47.330 mom about what it could mean. It's clear what matters 0:04:47.370 --> 0:04:56.210 when all seems lost. He wouldn't have even been going back. 0:04:56.930 --> 0:04:59.850 It's that the school is reopening and the other kids 0:04:59.890 --> 0:05:02.890 are going, some of them as friends, some of them 0:05:02.890 --> 0:05:06.690 he misses wants to see, plus is required by law, 0:05:07.290 --> 0:05:10.970 which for some things he knew. His mom thought. Who cares? 0:05:12.930 --> 0:05:15.490 Most of all that his mom doesn't have any options. 0:05:16.090 --> 0:05:20.490 She needs him to be in school while she works vance. 0:05:20.930 --> 0:05:26.130 Her manager openly hated children. She'd asked if she could 0:05:26.130 --> 0:05:30.130 bring the boy in. The sitter had backed out suddenly, 0:05:30.210 --> 0:05:33.690 and her backup had at first said yes, then backed 0:05:33.690 --> 0:05:38.170 out herself last minute. The restaurant she worked at was upscale, 0:05:38.690 --> 0:05:43.130 served only brunch and lunch with the kind of upscale 0:05:43.290 --> 0:05:49.130 elderly clientele who didn't even eat dinner. But supper Vans 0:05:49.170 --> 0:05:51.410 had said he couldn't risk having a kid burst out 0:05:51.410 --> 0:05:54.450 from the back like a wild animal. These people had 0:05:54.530 --> 0:05:58.330 heart conditions. She told the boy, this is why he 0:05:58.370 --> 0:06:01.770 had to stay home alone that first time. He had 0:06:01.810 --> 0:06:05.330 to stay home alone, that first time she left him 0:06:05.370 --> 0:06:13.970 there that whole shift. Why does it feel like reopening 0:06:14.010 --> 0:06:17.290 schools is like when I which I know you hate 0:06:18.050 --> 0:06:21.970 pick off a scab and the thing opens back up again, 0:06:22.050 --> 0:06:25.450 and I have to start all over again, the boy said, 0:06:26.290 --> 0:06:30.050 looking out the window from the backseat, deciphering what he 0:06:30.050 --> 0:06:32.450 could of the news. His mom never stopped listening to 0:06:33.330 --> 0:06:36.170 the news voice always with them in the car and 0:06:36.210 --> 0:06:40.530 at home, and every hour of every day, new news, 0:06:40.650 --> 0:06:44.290 always mostly just new and bad news, always just bad 0:06:45.490 --> 0:06:51.010 and good news. If ever, then never for long. If 0:06:51.090 --> 0:06:54.130 staying home alone and not going to school, us finding 0:06:54.130 --> 0:06:57.170 a homeschool for you, if that feels like an option 0:06:57.210 --> 0:06:59.210 for you weekend. I don't want to stay at home 0:06:59.410 --> 0:07:04.770 and homeschool. That sounds terrible, they say, you know that. 0:07:05.210 --> 0:07:09.530 They don't think kids can really, she said about the virus, 0:07:10.210 --> 0:07:13.890 but didn't finish the sentence. That's how they really feel, 0:07:14.810 --> 0:07:19.490 the boy said, what's that? That's how they really feel 0:07:19.490 --> 0:07:23.970 about us. Us who if some of us have to die, 0:07:24.450 --> 0:07:29.290 so be it. I saw fourteen thousand on TikTok. You 0:07:29.330 --> 0:07:33.530 saw fourteen thousand. If a certain percentage die from it, 0:07:33.970 --> 0:07:37.570 and we're all exposed, a certain percent of us will die, 0:07:38.170 --> 0:07:44.490 that's like data, Like that's just information. We know, honey, 0:07:44.930 --> 0:07:50.050 we won't get it, she said, we won't that's the point. 0:07:50.530 --> 0:07:52.770 Everyone thinks they won't get it and are willing to 0:07:52.810 --> 0:07:55.450 gamble with their kids' lives. But even if it's a 0:07:55.450 --> 0:07:58.010 small percentage, it's one that adds up to a lot 0:07:58.050 --> 0:08:01.930 of kids whose parents don't think they'll get it. People 0:08:02.050 --> 0:08:09.330 love their kids, she said, way too enthusiastically. Then a 0:08:09.370 --> 0:08:12.890 pigeon flew by, swooped across their view. She hit the 0:08:12.890 --> 0:08:16.370 brakes too hard. Both of their heads went forward from 0:08:16.370 --> 0:08:20.370 the pole, almost like they were bowing. Then she sped up, 0:08:20.490 --> 0:08:28.730 as if to compensate. People hate their kids, the boy said. 0:08:31.330 --> 0:08:33.730 And then it was as if some other thing had 0:08:33.770 --> 0:08:37.250 just then swooped in front of him, some blinding light, 0:08:38.690 --> 0:08:42.490 the truth of which they couldn't then see through. Not then, 0:08:43.250 --> 0:08:45.930 not how they were before, the countless seasons of sickness 0:08:45.930 --> 0:08:51.170 ahead of them, much later, had those spare moments between 0:08:52.010 --> 0:08:55.330 when memory creeps up, the boy would return to right 0:08:55.410 --> 0:08:58.570 there in the car with the pigeon, then the brakes, 0:08:59.210 --> 0:09:02.130 the hating or loving of kids, and the approach to 0:09:02.170 --> 0:09:05.570 the abyss that was his reentry, as they accidentally bowed 0:09:05.570 --> 0:09:08.210 to Gravity's pole in the car, just waiting for the 0:09:08.290 --> 0:09:14.210 pole to obey, the reentry into the reopening all felt 0:09:14.210 --> 0:09:18.570 like some backward kind of wound. A backward wound is, 0:09:18.610 --> 0:09:23.250 for some reason not healing. This whole memory would end 0:09:23.290 --> 0:09:26.770 up meaning something more and more each time as it 0:09:26.850 --> 0:09:30.250 came to the boy, as he became less a boy, 0:09:30.970 --> 0:09:33.970 the memory more and more meaningful, as less and less 0:09:34.050 --> 0:09:41.090 explanation seemed. The point is said, there are seeings, moments 0:09:41.090 --> 0:09:44.490 in our lives we can't not keep remembering, and some 0:09:44.570 --> 0:09:48.010 of them tell us something about ourselves, and some more 0:09:48.050 --> 0:09:50.530 than we'd like to admit, tell us how much we 0:09:50.610 --> 0:09:55.570 not only don't but can't know at all, a lot 0:09:55.610 --> 0:10:01.090 of investment we are in you, we're actually going on 0:10:01.250 --> 0:10:07.010 in term of the number of The boy walked away 0:10:07.010 --> 0:10:10.050 from the car without looking back. He wanted his mom 0:10:10.090 --> 0:10:15.010 to feel bad. This was new for him. They'd been 0:10:15.050 --> 0:10:17.650 so good to one another over these most recent years, 0:10:18.810 --> 0:10:21.170 Remembering how it had been when the boy's dad was 0:10:21.170 --> 0:10:26.770 still around. It bonded them to be rid of him, 0:10:27.490 --> 0:10:30.170 to be out on their own, away from his moodiness 0:10:30.210 --> 0:10:34.650 and abuse, from his drinking and wrath. The thing the 0:10:34.650 --> 0:10:38.890 boy was mad about was this impossible thing, this new life. 0:10:39.970 --> 0:10:41.970 He didn't want to stay home or go to school. 0:10:43.050 --> 0:10:45.370 He didn't want life to return to what had been before. 0:10:46.170 --> 0:10:50.250 But it couldn't stay like it was. That wasn't living, 0:10:51.610 --> 0:10:58.090 that was waiting. He knew he shouldn't have blamed his mom. 0:10:58.130 --> 0:11:00.490 It was that she'd use the words he'd heard use 0:11:00.570 --> 0:11:04.730 by those gross old white men in the news, taking 0:11:04.770 --> 0:11:08.090 advantage of vulnerability, as gross old white men were always 0:11:08.130 --> 0:11:13.290 want to do. He'd heard it called rhetoric. His mom 0:11:13.410 --> 0:11:15.410 used that word for what other people did when they 0:11:15.450 --> 0:11:21.370 repeated the news people. But here she'd used it herself, 0:11:22.010 --> 0:11:32.370 the rhetoric against her son. But he didn't get sick 0:11:32.450 --> 0:11:36.370 that day. One student did in his grade, in his class, 0:11:36.810 --> 0:11:46.570 and they sent everyone home, so he ended up home alone. Anyway. 0:11:47.090 --> 0:11:50.010 He watched a lot of YouTube those first days home alone, 0:11:50.850 --> 0:11:53.570 and he played with his toys in the backyard, the 0:11:53.650 --> 0:11:55.890 game he loved to play, and his mom's raised beds, 0:11:56.250 --> 0:12:00.570 where she kept meaning to start a garden. He'd have 0:12:00.610 --> 0:12:03.890 his guys rise up from the ground like zombies. Usually 0:12:03.890 --> 0:12:06.850 he had the guys he liked most, his toy mutants, 0:12:07.930 --> 0:12:11.730 one half alligator human named Reginald and a half tiger 0:12:11.730 --> 0:12:18.650 half human named beast Bob. Normally they'd defeat the dirt 0:12:18.690 --> 0:12:22.330 clod freshly risen zombies, but one of those first afternoons 0:12:22.330 --> 0:12:24.650 where he ended up home alone during his mom's shift 0:12:24.690 --> 0:12:28.250 at work. He had all the zombies be people who 0:12:28.330 --> 0:12:33.250 died from the virus in that time. They got their 0:12:33.250 --> 0:12:37.410 revenge on the living. They killed Reginald and beast Bob 0:12:37.890 --> 0:12:42.250 and made a new life for themselves, one without dying 0:12:42.370 --> 0:12:48.010 or disease, resurrected lives. And sure they were zombies, and 0:12:48.130 --> 0:12:50.850 sure they had died when they didn't have to, but 0:12:50.970 --> 0:12:55.570 they were back. They were here, they were alive, and 0:12:55.650 --> 0:12:57.930 that felt as close as he could get to a resolve, 0:12:58.890 --> 0:13:02.370 something to answer the question this new impossible life imposed 0:13:02.930 --> 0:13:06.010 when freshly nine, the virus came and took everything he'd known, 0:13:06.090 --> 0:13:11.690 it all to me. But here he was. He was 0:13:11.770 --> 0:13:16.010 still here, and his mom was alive and school. Be 0:13:16.130 --> 0:13:18.330 damned was her attitude about what to do about all 0:13:18.370 --> 0:13:22.090 of it. He could do what he wanted at home alone. 0:13:23.650 --> 0:13:26.370 Let them come, his mom had told him, as if 0:13:26.370 --> 0:13:29.330 the authorities had the capacity to worry about their little family. 0:13:30.850 --> 0:13:33.170 And it's what he had Reginald and beast Bob say 0:13:33.210 --> 0:13:36.530 before the zombies rose out of the ground. His good 0:13:36.530 --> 0:13:41.890 guy Zombies post coronavirus post life. Let them come, his 0:13:42.010 --> 0:13:45.450 favorite toys had said to the zombies before letting them 0:13:45.490 --> 0:13:48.370 kill them. They said to the rising zombies his least 0:13:48.370 --> 0:13:54.130 favorite toys, Reginald and beast Bob said to them, let 0:13:54.170 --> 0:14:10.170 them come. Let them come back that forest. Good luck 0:14:10.330 --> 0:14:15.250 reading Reopening by Tommy Orange. Hi Tommy, Hi, We're in 0:14:15.290 --> 0:14:18.930 the midst of the weirdest back to school season ever. 0:14:19.450 --> 0:14:21.730 I've never seen anything like it. I don't think any 0:14:21.810 --> 0:14:25.410 of us ever have. According to media reports, it's hell 0:14:25.450 --> 0:14:28.730 own parents, it's hell own teachers, but we're not really 0:14:28.850 --> 0:14:32.970 hearing about how kids are experiencing it. Is that why 0:14:32.970 --> 0:14:36.370 you wrote this story from the boy's perspective? Yeah, the 0:14:36.450 --> 0:14:40.450 story a little bit goes into this internal feeling the 0:14:40.490 --> 0:14:43.970 boy has that the adults don't really care about kids 0:14:43.970 --> 0:14:47.210 as much as they pretend to. And I just I 0:14:47.250 --> 0:14:49.730 like the idea of getting on the inside of young 0:14:49.770 --> 0:14:52.850 people's minds. I think it's as explored as I think 0:14:52.850 --> 0:14:55.450 it should be. I think the consciousness of kids is 0:14:55.490 --> 0:15:00.410 sometimes not respected as worthy of our attention. The mother 0:15:00.450 --> 0:15:03.210 in your story says people love their children, and the 0:15:03.290 --> 0:15:07.210 voices people hate their kids. Who's right? Well, I think 0:15:07.290 --> 0:15:09.490 there are a lot of people going around, not only 0:15:09.490 --> 0:15:13.330 the administration, and obviously pretending to have family values is 0:15:13.330 --> 0:15:16.050 one thing, but I've seen a lot of parents who 0:15:16.490 --> 0:15:18.650 say they love their kids, but they can't wait to 0:15:18.650 --> 0:15:21.170 get back to work, or they can't wait to drop 0:15:21.210 --> 0:15:23.970 their kids off, or you know, there's all this kind 0:15:23.970 --> 0:15:29.090 of gross language around, this hidden detesting of their children, 0:15:29.850 --> 0:15:32.650 and I think the kid sees it and wants to 0:15:32.650 --> 0:15:34.490 be able to say it. And you know, the kid 0:15:34.490 --> 0:15:37.050 probably doesn't feel that all the way, but it can 0:15:37.170 --> 0:15:41.290 feel that way for kids, and parents can show that 0:15:41.330 --> 0:15:44.810 without knowing it. In the story, the government has completely 0:15:44.850 --> 0:15:48.090 failed this mother and this boy and put them in 0:15:48.130 --> 0:15:50.930 this predicament of having to go back to school when 0:15:50.930 --> 0:15:53.970 it obviously might not be safe. But the boy's not 0:15:54.010 --> 0:15:57.370 mad at the government. He's mad at his mom. Why 0:15:57.490 --> 0:16:02.210 do you think we often attack those closest to us 0:16:03.130 --> 0:16:07.290 instead of the perpetrator of our pain. I think for 0:16:07.330 --> 0:16:10.410 a lot of kids, the parents are to blame. Even 0:16:10.450 --> 0:16:13.370 if he sort of understands it's outside of his mom's control. 0:16:14.170 --> 0:16:17.490 What he's really bothered by her using the rhetoric that 0:16:17.610 --> 0:16:21.610 she's talked about as a bad thing of these girl 0:16:21.690 --> 0:16:24.770 I think I called him gross old white men in 0:16:24.810 --> 0:16:27.930 the news. I think for kids, they don't know that 0:16:28.050 --> 0:16:32.250 same outrage. Once you understand systems and the systemic damage 0:16:32.290 --> 0:16:37.650 that comes from decisions from politicians, from the way history 0:16:37.730 --> 0:16:40.210 has set people up. All of that when you're a 0:16:40.290 --> 0:16:43.850 kid is just sort of parent talk, like come on, mom, 0:16:43.930 --> 0:16:46.650 do something. Can't you do something? It's more of the feeling. 0:16:47.930 --> 0:16:50.610 You're right about the boy he didn't want life to 0:16:50.650 --> 0:16:53.530 return to what had been before, but it couldn't stay 0:16:53.570 --> 0:16:57.330 like it was. That wasn't living, that was waiting. And 0:16:57.410 --> 0:17:00.490 he's not wrong, right like we all seem right now 0:17:00.530 --> 0:17:05.010 to be waiting for things. To do something, go back, 0:17:05.130 --> 0:17:09.490 go forward, just do something. But why do you think 0:17:10.290 --> 0:17:13.810 so many people are so desperate to return to a 0:17:13.930 --> 0:17:19.650 sense of normal, even when normal is not very good. Well, 0:17:19.690 --> 0:17:21.930 I think there's a lot of people who were who 0:17:21.930 --> 0:17:25.530 were very comfortable in their lives, and they want to 0:17:25.530 --> 0:17:28.450 go back to the comfort because it's uncomfortable to be 0:17:28.530 --> 0:17:31.610 in purgatory. But I think that people who are seeing 0:17:31.610 --> 0:17:36.930 the social changes and addressing old wounds, I think we 0:17:36.970 --> 0:17:39.410 don't want to go back because this whole thing has 0:17:39.450 --> 0:17:42.930 shaken our country up and revealed things that some of 0:17:43.010 --> 0:17:45.810 us knew were already there. So the sense of going 0:17:45.850 --> 0:17:49.210 back to normal, I think can be really tone deaf 0:17:49.730 --> 0:17:53.450 for others of us who know it wasn't right before, 0:17:53.490 --> 0:17:55.690 and they's kind of opened our eyes to a lot. 0:17:56.050 --> 0:17:58.010 We do want something different, but we don't want to 0:17:58.010 --> 0:18:02.650 go back to the way it was. Yeah. Well, Tommy Orange, 0:18:02.810 --> 0:18:05.330 thank you so much for your story and thank you 0:18:05.370 --> 0:18:07.730 for coming on the Chronicles of Now. It's been really 0:18:07.730 --> 0:18:09.810 great talking with you. Thank you so much for having me. 0:18:11.410 --> 0:18:15.450 That was Tommy Orange. You can read my full interview 0:18:15.450 --> 0:18:18.690 with him on our website Chronicles dot Fm, where you 0:18:18.690 --> 0:18:21.730 can also read the story you just heard and other 0:18:21.770 --> 0:18:26.290 short fiction torn from today's headlines. Our sound designer and 0:18:26.370 --> 0:18:30.010 composer is Bart Warshaw, our producer is Curtis Fox, and 0:18:30.050 --> 0:18:33.930 our associate producer is Emily Rostick. Tyler Cabott is the 0:18:33.970 --> 0:18:38.490 executive producer and founder of Chronicles of Now for Pushkin Industries. 0:18:38.690 --> 0:18:43.570 Our executive producer is Letalla Mallad. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg, 0:18:43.970 --> 0:18:48.730 Carle Migliori, Heather Faine, and Eric Sandler for the Chronicles 0:18:48.730 --> 0:18:52.010 of Now podcast. I'm Ashley Ford. Thank you so much 0:18:52.010 --> 0:18:52.570 for listening,