“Can they do that?” the examiner asks me out of nowhere as I pour over my paper, pen in hand, trying to figure out the problem he had assigned some moments ago.
“I’m sorry?”
“There, look,” he instructs as if still in examiner mode, throwing his phone on top of my math, right in front of my face. “Right there, look at what the mayor is saying. Can they do that?”
It’s a news article. L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti calls on city’s residents to wear masks when not at home…
In the middle of the test, I thought… really?
“Hmm… doesn’t sound like a requirement to me,” I submit, “seems like he’s requesting people to wear a mask, maybe urging them, not really requiring them to.”
I say this as I hold in a searing, burning urge inside of me, as difficult to hold in as a stray cough that wants to burst its way through out of your chest but which you hold in to avoid admonishing glances in this age of COVID-19. You see, faced with a question like this, it is each attorney’s wired instinct to lean back in his chair, place the tips of his fingers against each other, resort to a serious face consumed in wisdom and roll out a matter-of-fact “it depends”, as a red carpet toward a long, winding path of nuanced rules embezzled with learned words, hovering behind a screen of smoke and mirrors.
Mentally, I pat myself on the back for not succumbing to this legal knee-jerk reaction, instead navigating my thoughts into words that actually mean something. “He’s calling upon residents – sounds unimposing.”
“But could they require it, you think?”
Why are you doing this to me, man? Hanging on to the fast-depleting resource of staying focused in the moment, I zone out again and find myself trying to read his reason for being so intent on the matter… Was I being pulled into a constitutional law discussion? Now, during an exam? My thoughts flicker through my rolodex of issue-points: freedom of speech? No. Right to bear arms? Imagine that. Right against search and seizure? Not warranted (hah! that sounds smart). Encroachment on privacy? Could be. Wait… is this an examiner tactic to distract me? Hmm…
“Probably,” I gasp as I come back to the surface from my self-argumentation dive. “In the current state of affairs with this ongoing emergency, probably, yeah, one can make an argument.”
Urgh! I escape the “it depends” trap and fall into the pit of “one can make an argument.” If a tree was planted somewhere in the world each time I had said those words – with a serious face consumed in thought, in a matter-of-fact way – then, unbelievably, there would have been no place on this planet for people to get a suntan.
“Yeah, that’s probably right.” He smiles contently, picks up his phone, and goes on reading, as I continue to scratch my paper with my pen as I would scratch my head in bemusement.
I pass the exam.
Later that day in the evening, I visit Ralph’s to a normal scene… but it’s not until the next day that I have a flashback of the examiner’s phone in front of my eyes. Waiting in line for about a half-hour to enter Whole Foods, being courteously greeted by a young man who offers me a choice of a disinfected cart or a sanitized basket (I chose the latter, simply for size), and being motioned by the security guard at the entrance that it’s my turn to enter the store, I step into a scene of perfectly social-distanced Americans deftly finessing the rows and aisles of the supermarket, and all, ALL – with no exception, with no apology, ALL covering their face with a mask.
I rarely find myself in a situation where I feel as if I stick out like a sore thumb.
“I stick out like a sore thumb,” I say to myself.
Was it fear? Was it reason? Was it Garcetti? It was probably all of these, but whatever it was, it was truly fascinating.
Fascinating. The human capacity to sense, to maneuver, to adapt, to look out for oneself but also for one another, to stand in solidarity when circumstance suggests it’s every man for himself, the selflessness which dawns upon us, the boldness which instills us when we are least expected to be selfless and bold – when our brutal instinct of survival is supposed to kick in but instead, the law of nature is defied and set aside – it’s in those moments when we realize what we are capable of and why we have come this far.
It’s not just about them. They, the warriors on the frontlines, in the hospitals and clinics and test centers that expose themselves – and through themselves also their loved ones – to the threat of harm and suffering… this is not only about them. This is not their fight alone. They are not the only ones who wear the mask. As a symbol of this struggle, as a reluctant uniform of this unintended global human army, as the visual battlecry of our changing times, we shall all wear the mask.
I reach into my pocket for my phone to find the article the examiner had showed me the day prior. On the screen, I see two texts from my parents, received a while ago.
Knowing I’m leaving for the supermarket, Mom had texted, “Wear a mask and gloves.” “Be safe,” Dad had added.
Chronicles 