This is My Vaccine Photo

Two nights ago, I set alarms at midnight, 2:00AM, 7:00AM, and 8:00AM. I refreshed the same four pages and called the same number over and over, waiting for the drop like a craven sneakerhead or NFT addict. I was not, however, trying to overspend on clout but was instead hoping to make an appointment for my coronavirus vaccine on April 6, the day New York dropped the eligibility age from 30 to 16.

Most of my peers have been posting their proofs of vaccination to Instagram to encourage vaccine adoption and perhaps signal their own relative cleanliness. Consider this my version of that. It will take longer to get through, but at least you don’t have to see my bandaid.

On the phone that morning with one of the most polite, helpful government employees ever (jumbo shrimp), I was offered an appointment for 4:00pm that very afternoon somewhere called the Aqueduct in Jamaica Plain. I jumped at the opportunity and sheepishly asked what the Aqueduct was if not a water-carrying apparatus. Employee of the month told me that the Aqueduct was a horse racing track out by JFK.

The horses at the Aqueduct must also play water polo, because I don’t think that many know how to swim.

I had been claiming I wanted to get my shot at the Javits Center so I could see the National Guard and be a part of this whole operation. I wanted to feel like I was in a factory farm and really part of something bigger than myself, you know? Naturally, then, I was over the moon at the prospect that I would do this at a racetrack where my vaccine might get mixed up with a bit of horse tranquilizer.

Champing at the bit, I left around 2:30 to ride the A train a very long way indeed. As the train turned toward JFK, a  large mural of a jockey loomed in the distance as though to say “this is the place.” Laminated signs that might have looked nice on my wall at age 19 marked the way to the entrance.

A national guardsman took my temperature. A second officer taught me that my address is not in fact listed on my passport. Who knew! At her behest, I stepped aside to drum up proof of New York residency. I stepped to the wrong place and unnerved a supervisor whose pupils were bigger than any I’d seen outside a music festival. The neon words “horse tranquilizer” buzzed through my head again. At his behest, I moved to a third location to guess my bank password on my third and final opportunity. I found my address in the app and gained admission to the paddock.

Upstairs, I marveled at the purple, blue, and yellow color scheme. The municipal floors and the underside of the bleachers recalled the public pool era of New York City infrastructure. The finishings at the Aqueduct, including the old silks and the photos of Great Moments in Racing History, implied that whoever anointed horse racing the “sport of kings” had never so much as met a viscount. The place made Shea Stadium look like the Louvre.

I followed some school-carwash handwritten signs until I found myself standing next to a guardsman before some 30 vaccination stations. I got him to laugh when, pointing over his shoulder at the off-track betting races on the TVs, I asked if his bets had paid out today. The Queens Guard was not exactly the Queen’s Guard.

Over at station 12, I met Donna, a middle aged woman whom I charmed by asking “Aren’t you thrilled that people our age are finally eligible today?” Donna and I chatted about the $80 people spent on Ubers here from Long Island City. We plotted a $70 option for second shots; I’d stand outside to take reservations for all the first-shot people wobbling out. She asked if my eligibility criteria had changed since the morning and, in the same breath, told me that she doubted I’d admit if they had now that I was in the home stretch.

Registration complete, I moved to a different folding chair to chat with Grace, a nurse who had just been to Hawaii but who nevertheless complimented my tan. She saw my jitters and assuaged my fear of needles by mentioning a couple of tough 16 year olds and a father so scared he wept in front of three young foals. She swore it was a small needle, but—she whispered conspiratorially—they could swap mine with one of the horse needles if I was still nervous.

I had thought she was continuing to banter when she said they were “making more vaccines,” but sure enough she was out. A guardsman skipped by and handed her a few syringes out of a plastic bowl that might have held Halloween candy a few months before.

Before I knew it, they had jabbed me. She handed me the “I voted” sticker’s older brother, reading “I got vaccinated at the Aqueduct Racetrack” (yikes), my vaccine card, and another sticker reading “4:26.” This is a verse in Ephesians reading “Be angry, yet do not sin” but was also the time, 15 minutes henceforth, when they would let me leave.

I sat with some 100-odd regular-seeming people in the waiting area and tried to not freak out. I thought about the scene in Casino Royale when M gives Daniel Craig a microchip and he utters the most nonchalant “Ow” of all time. I decided that, on my way home, I would walk in circles to trace out “YOU'LL NEVER FIND THE TREASURE” with my steps just in case somebody was tracking me after all.

The waiting area was made up of airport-style rows of chairs facing the track. None could see the track itself, and most couldn't see the TVs, raising questions about their actual purpose. It’s as though racetrack architects plan for disaster management. It is, after all, a place where unlikely events routinely drive people to their knees in disbelief.

At some point, the off-track racing footage was supplanted by CNN, where Biden preached the need for us to get our vaccines. I frantically dug through my backpack only to realize I’d forgotten my choir robe.

Just before I left, the radio concluded one pop-country hit “You Should Be Sad” by Halsey and interpolated an army recruitment commercial before a second, “The Git Up” by Blanco Brown. Join up! See the world! Come to a Queens racetrack! Make people form orderly lines! Hand out bottled water! Giddy-up!

On the way out, I realized that the caution tape had been facing away from me the whole time. It turned out we were the danger, and those on the other side had to take caution.

I may be the last person I know to get it, but you know, go get it.