The Plan to Make America Great Again
How would you feel if your doctor sat across from you after you came to the ER in an ambulance with COVID symptoms and said, “I don’t have a plan YET. But I will. And you will see it’s a very good plan.”
That’s what my doctor said, anyway. And I’m like, am I gonna live or not, man?
To which he says as his hands play an accordion, a mocking song, “You will be great. You will live a long life. You’re very young. Only the old die.”
So what’s the plan, bro?
His accordion inflates, “It will be a very good plan. I don’t have one yet. But it will be very good.”
So, I sit here, wishing I had someone who will deliver anything but a false promise. Who gives me hope for a better tomorrow. Because they have a plan. Even if it’s just to lower my premiums, at least I know I can afford every possible treatment.
I return home. I’m dying, clutching my chest. No plan. Everything is too expensive. It gets harder to walk. My neighbor is outside, and as he watches me stumble out of the car, he tells me to go back to Mexico.
Well, I was actually born here, friend, I say.
I’m still dying, and I actually kinda like the dude because he’s repaired some things I’ve broke before. I don’t know why he’s yelling today. We usually are quite cordial.
I feel like crying. I’m dying. But he continues to shout. Then I say, “It’s terminal.”
I still should go back to Mexico.
At work, I’m dying more. My neighbor tagged my car last night. Go back to Mexico.
In the morning, my students ask over Zoom, “Why is writing political? We don’t want to read about a Black man’s life. That’s so one-sided. Writing isn’t political.”
Well, I try to catch my breath. I mute my microphone. My lungs are caving in, but I find the breath to speak, Hemingway, Poe, Emerson, and Thoreau wrote about their lives. Were they not political?
I leave my mic unmuted, wheezing. I am dying. But they need to know.
“They weren’t complaining of lynchings or marching in the street for freedom. They weren’t thugs, but men who were in crisis. Don’t you know white people are oppressed too? Death is nothing new.” The voice overpowers my own.
I pause. My heart stops for a moment but finds the will to restart itself. I blame it on a glitch and clutch my chest, maintain my composure. Neutrality always wins. The difference is, my voice shakes, Black people didn’t get a choice. Black people never stole someone’s land. The Black man was never asked to work this hard for basic freedoms — to take a breath. I suppose that’s freedom. I gasp again, The white man can breathe, love, pray, and say whatever is on their mind. But they don’t die.
They ignore me. Someone hacked the feed and kept me on mute. They write on my Rate My Professor, “She’s a nice lady, but clearly doesn’t know anything about writing. I didn’t learn how to improve my grammar. Someone must have given her a handout and a college degree. If only she knew how hard it is to be like me and learned our history.”
At home, in my bed, I read Facebook posts while gasping for oxygen. My friends write, “My dad was harassed today. He’s white. Reverse racism exists. But his COVID treatment is going well, otherwise. Someone gave him a very good plan.”
I laugh the loudest laugh that transcends me to my death. At my funeral, I overlook the procession. As I was in life, I am in death, a picture, a statistic. I am silent.
That was the plan.
