The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town

by Brian Alexander

By June, Watkins was receiving emails like “YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE, YOU SON OF A JACKASS!!!!!!!!!!” The mayor of Pioneer, Ed Kidston, seemed to think Covid-19 was an enemy coming over the hill to attack a fort. “Americans are not do-nothings!” he wrote to the Bryan Times. “We never sat silent and let the enemy creep in, regardless of the casualties.” It was the “regardless of the casualties” part that worried Watkins. When attending a meeting to discuss the cancellation of much of the county fair, the president of the Williams County fair board wore a “Don’t Tread on Me” baseball cap (the slogan used on the so-called Gadsden flag, featuring a coiled snake, which had been adopted by the Tea Party and white nationalist groups) and a white mask on which he inked a sarcastic, and grammatically incorrect, whine: “IT’S FOR THE KID’S!!”