CARLTON FLETCHER: Sometimes life teaches us lessons the hard way

“I can’t be right for somebody else if I’m not right for me.”

— Sammy Davis Jr.

When I saw the number on my telephone display, I groaned out loud. On a day filled with any number of semi-calamitous events, this was, I thought to myself, the last thing I needed.

In all honesty, I considered not answering the phone, but in the line of duty …

I’d talked with the caller — a man I’d had verbal run-ins with on a number of occasions, most of them surrounding his perceived understanding of my “politics” — plenty of times before. And I must admit that there was not a lot of civility in most of our conversations. Most might have started out that way, but something usually touched off a disagreement that led to not-so-friendly exchanges and one of us hanging up the phone on the other.

Needless to say, we rubbed each other the wrong way.

But when I did answer the phone, I was surprised at the voice on the other end. It was weak, weary sounding, and had it not been for the fact that I recognized the number, I never would have guessed that this was my old fremesis calling.

After he said, “Hey, old man, this is your good buddy, — — —-,” I tried to add a note of humor to the exchange: “I don’t have a ‘buddy’ by that name, it’s just some ornery old cuss I’ve had the displeasure of talking with over the years.”

Then, after a brief pause, I asked, “Before you get into telling me what I’ve written lately that was all wrong, let me ask you what’s up? You sound horrible. I didn’t even recognize your aggravating voice.”

There was a longer pause, then he dropped a bomb on me.

“Man, I’m just getting out of the hospital,” he said. “Truth is, there were a few days they didn’t think I would get out. I’m very tired right now, and it’ll be a few days before I’m able to get up and around.

“Doctors say, though, it’s a safe bet that I’ll recover. And they add, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’”

He stopped, so I asked him the obvious.

“COVID?”

He hesitated, and I heard him take in a deep breath.

“Yep, the COVID got me,” he said.

Neither one of us said anything for a while, and I started to ask a follow-up question when he said, “I don’t want to hear any of that ‘I told you so’ right now. I just called you up to tell you you were right.”

The uncomfortable silence between us grew, and I thought about one of the last conversations we’d had. He told me I was just being a “scared sheep” by getting the COVID vaccine on the first day I was eligible and wearing masks when I went into crowded places. I told him that the results were pretty clear, what with an overwhelming number of the people getting the so-called delta variant of the virus being those who hadn’t been vaccinated.

He said I was just falling for liberal propaganda (he threw in an “as usual”) by getting the vaccine and that real Americans were too free and too smart to fall for such nonsense.

It was not long after that conversation, he told me, that he started feeling ill and actually had to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room, where he remained for eight days before finally starting to turn around.

Then he surprised me.

“You and me don’t always see eye-to-eye,” he said. “And I know I made cracks about how you were stupid to get those shots. But the reason I called you is to tell you that I wished about a million times over the last few weeks that I’d taken the vaccine. Because I listened to people who were politically motivated and read stuff on the internet that turned out to be bullsh–, I almost died.

“So I wanted to call you and tell you that I’m sorry. And I want you to write somewhere in the paper and tell people to quit listening to anyone who isn’t a doctor. There is no politician or no ‘cause’ worth dying for. And do one more thing for me: Tell people to go and get their shots. My whole family has since I went into the hospital.”

When he hung up, I thought, “Damn, now how can I go on thinking ill of anyone like that?” And I assured myself that the next time he calls, there’s no question that I’ll answer.