MARCH 12-, 2020
THE PANDEMIC BEGINS
(Sickbed Blues)
INTRODUCTION
It is pretty clear, looking back, that we all have lived (or not) through an history-making epoch in the form of this novel COVID-19 disease pandemic. So for posterity we are collecting the issues that referenced the pandemic during the early days.
MARCH 12
So anyway. First Pesach, then Easter came and went. With all the social distancing, the usual traditions just did not happen. There was no Seder meal and no egg hunt. At the Household, which is located in a bigger building than the old one bedroom cottage on the Island, it still was difficult to maintain social distances and sure enough, Martini developed a fever and a cough.
So Pahrump and Denby and Tipitina scrounged up some lumber from an empty construction site and built a small shed in the back. They ran a power cord out the window and setup a cot and a powerstrip and a camping stove and a heater and so Martini moved in to his new digs. Once a day Marlene came out with a plate of something for Martini to eat and would wait a ways from the door until he came out, hacking violently.
And so members of the household would pass by or look out the window to see the shed where Martin spent his days and his nights drowning all alone.
The inevitable happened and Marsha got the disease. Then Xavier. Then Piedro, followed by Denby and Suan. Each one got a little convalescent shack one by one, and Marlene and Andre kept busy supplying meals and dealing with chamber pots and toilet paper so that Pahrump had to dig a lime pit for the chamber pot contents.
Some, like Xavier, got only a little sick. Others, like Martini, were wracked with terrible symptoms of sore throat, chills and sweats, swollen eyes, and always that terrible cough.
Denby, lying on his sleeping bag in the dark cabin enjoyed the runs so his chamber pot was always full.
Of course no one got tested because this Country's set of medical arrangements is just that, a sad arrangement, and not a logical System. So none of the Household was counting in the daily stats of infection. Nor were the cases on the Island when Latreena Brown, Malice Green, Angus McMayhem, Kid Viper, Mr. Terse, Pandora Thighripple, Marvin of Marvin's Merkins, Maeve of Jacqueline's salon, all got sick and Sgt. Rumbo died. Yes you heard right; the scourge of the Sanitorium of St. Charles for over 40 years and the curse of the basement lady's lingerie department of Macy's Union Square did not survive this pandemic.
All down Church row the houses of worship stood empty this Easter with no services save for ones that were live streamed via Zoom.
Father Rich Danyluk continued to take his pensive daily walk clockwise around the block. Pastor Nyquist continued to take his masked walk as was his wont counter-clockwise around the block, each nodding to each in passing.
Reverend Rectumrod, Baptist minister, blasted out sermons via a foghorn until the police told him to stop disturbing the peace.
Pastor Bland, Presbyterian, and Pastor Nance Haughtboy, Methodist, sat in their salons composing missives to the Faithful, distributed by eNewsletter.
The Church of Sanctified Elvis and the Church of the Truffle Delight remained dark to save electrical bills.
Rev. Howler and Rev. Shouter of the Adelphian Iglesia del Luz de los Cajóns de Estacionamiento del Mundo held loud, broadcasts of their missions with the windows wide open.
Rebbi Mendelnusse heard that the wife of Mustapha Omer Kemal, the head of the Islamic mosque had fallen ill and he strode back and forth all night until a day later he brought that magical Jewish formula for sickness, a pot of chicken soup and left it at the door. Kemal saw him through the window and the Rebbi noticed this and going up to the window touched his fingers to the glass. Kemal did the same and the Rebbi mouthed the words, "IS HALAL!"
And the prophet of Islam mouthed back the words, "THANK YOU!"
The Editor mulls all these things while sitting in his isolated glass cube and all the desks dark, some of them for weeks. There has been no European report and no Asian report desk due to the shutdown. How are we going to behave when life resumes "as normal"? How shall we treat ourselves? Shall we continue to be selfish in buying up all the toilet paper in a store for our own families, or shall we learn that we really, truely are all in it together. Save for old Sgt Rumsbo, may he rest in uneasy peace, the old, authoritarian sod.
For face this incontrovertable fact: we shall face another pandemic and it may occur again next year or sooner so as to test our resolve. Viruses evolve all the time, just as this one that had been out there in the winds for years, and they will come back. Yes they will.
MAY 3
So anyway. We have a coronavirus thing going on and a whole lot of disruption in our daily lives. Last week we reported on how the Household was dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak by building quarantine sheds in the backyard. On the Island people like Mr. Howizer and the Elite are safely isolated in their mansions of stone and swards.
We are not concerned with them for they always have had the best of health care.
Meanwhile Marlene brings out pots of soup and bread once a day to the front of each shed in the back. Pahrump has placed a couple bricks or cinderblock in front of each door of a shed that has an elevated floor, but as people got sick, there were too few people and too little material to keep on doing that, so she sets the pot beside the door.
Then there are the chamberpots. Pahrump started a hole with a shovel but soon was compelled to borrow a backhoe and dig a trench filled with quicklime and charcoal from the pile created by the stove they used in winter to warm the place.
Down the Hill, in Fairfax and San Anselmo people could be seen going from one house to another, bringing flasks and boxes of food for elderly shut-ins too frail to risk the grocery crowds.
There was no May Day parade anywhere this year and certainly no dancing around the Maypole. Nevertheless we have workers out there in this time of contagion
The Editor retreated into his glass cubicle with most of the staff laid off and out sick and mused about these things and the nature of America today.
If you want to know the true mettle of a People, thrust them into dire adversity and watch what happens. At first we saw idiots manufacturing artificial shortages of things like paper goods and meat products by way of binge buying and hoarding. That soon gave way to restrictions on buying which meant people had to start behaving themselves. Then we saw people taking the opportunity to avoid work by flocking to parks and beaches. That soon gave way to additional restrictions since common sense had still not prevailed. Idiots continued to gather in numbers so the universal order to wear masks was imposed.
Now all the idiots have all the restrictions imposed upon them they deserved and the Thinking, Feeling People got busy making masks for their family, then their neighbors, then the front line hospital workers. The TFP then started going out on grocery runs for the elderly -- it was not like being in a nursing home was a safe place to be right now. The TFP then started online virtual dance parties and virtual cocktail hours using Zoom. When the going gets tough, the Thinking Feeling People get going warp speed. They do things for other people because doing things for other people makes us different as a species from lobsters. And it feels good, besides.
The TFP are America at its best. America at its worst is the nutcases that protest the lockdowns and demand we go back to the influenza epidemic of 1918 and millions of deaths instead of a quarter million.
The Editor stepped out of his booth and onto the back porch close to midnight and heard the sound of the horned owls that had established a family in the neighborhood.
"Hoo! Hoo!" And after a few seconds, "Hoo? Hoo?" Over and over again.
MAY 10
So anyway. It has been a number of weeks with NorCal under lockdown and people are starting to come out again and the roads that briefly reverted to the traffic levels of 1982 are starting to return to the same old obnoxious congestion and heavy flow with accidents.
The Island is a natural isolation container. It has limited ingress and egress points. Ms. Sanchez, nee Morales, has been challenged as teacher at Longfellow to keep her charges on track with the curriculum during the Corvid Crisis. She has found conducting classes on Shakespeare via Zoom to be difficult.
The Island has experienced a curious dimension of social togetherness as in some other places that do not see boorish, self-absorbed protests against the lockdown orders via protests that demonstrate not so much American independence as American stupidity via pounding on Statehouse doors in close packed numbers and gathering with firearms, as numbskulls are allowed to do in Open Carry states.
You could see them scurrying down allyways and streets, from block to block - people carrying packages of food and necessities to frail shut-ins during the epidemic that has surpassed in fatalities that of the Vietnam War.
Island acts of kindness to neighbors in this horrid time. Just when you think the world has descended into darkness, there remain angels spinning in infinity through the unimaginable blue celestial, festooning the limbs of the heavens with the thing upon which many people focussed when it all came down to crisis: evidence that many people are entirely full of shit instead of common sense.
There remain angels. Like Betty and Gardenia, nurses at the Hospital, who continue to go to work amidst contagion and the lack of masks and gloves to protect themselves because that is what nurses always do from day to day- give of themselves to their calling.
Sunday was Mother's Day, and because of the lockdown the annual gathering of moms at Momma's Royal Cafe could not take place. So Tipitina arranged a Zoom conference between all the girls and their moms in far-off places. It seemed like a good idea at first, but the problem with Zoom is the way in which people stare at each other unflinchingly without the diversion of other things to distract during conversation. Every tic, every wrinkle, every defect is revealed by the insistent camera's eye, and each girl saw too clearly what they would become in a few more years. And of course, due to the lockdowns all over, no one but no one could get a decent hairdresser or haircut. And because it was Zoom everyone scrutinized each other's mother.
This is a distillation of that Zoom meeting.
"Hello everyone this is Suan. My mother passed away a number of years ago but i am going to be your host for this meeting today. Anyone who has any comments or questions for the group please feel free to employ the Chat and i will do what i can to have your concerns addressed."
Mrs. Pontchartrain: Hello, this is for Tipitina. I am your mother, of course. That is why I am here. Have you found a good man by now? One to replace that horrible abuser . . .
Tipitina: Mom, we have been in lockdown for a couple months so socializing is kind of difficult right now . . .
Mrs. Eastwood: Marsha how about you? How are things going? Do you have enough toilet paper? Did you get the fabric masks I sent you?
Marsha: Thanks mom. I got all twenty masks and shared them out with my friends. Love the paisley ones.
Mrs. Eastwood: And how is the romantic thing going sweetie?
Marsha: Uh well I have tried Flirt4Free.com and have a few prospects, but you know it is kind of difficult to tell how truthful a man can be when it is all online.
Mrs. Eastwood: Darlin', let me tell you a man is always lying. That is their nature. You just have to decide who is the best lier and go with that. Believe me dear, I know.
Mrs. Maldonado: Sarah, are you getting enough to eat? You look pale and thin . . .
Sarah: Mom, I am fine.
Mrs. Maldonado: Do not do this 'I am fine' with me. I am your mother. I raised you from when you were smaller than my thumb, scrimping with all my chilblaines and gall bladder causing me pain from morning to night, and Wilbur not being of any use at all, and saving pennies in a jar to put you through . . .
And there was more of that until everyone wound up weeping online despite the camera's eye. And so it sort of worked out, more or less, the way it always does in life. And it was all good.
Across the Island Mother's Day in lockdown played out via instagram and Zoom and sent flowers as love in the Time of the Virus persisted. There was not a lot of huggin' and kissin', but there remained a whole lotta Love.
MAY 31
So anyway. Denby recovered from the COVID-19 disease as did Martini, with some residual effects. A disease that turns your lungs into the equivalent of Lay potatoe chips does not easily let go once it is done.
Pahrump, who remained unscathed, largely due to the fact that with so many inhabitants of the Household living in the outdoor shacks, it became fairly easy to keep social distance, which Pahrump maintained by taking a sleeping bag out to the woods and keeping to the traditional cleanly habits of his ancestors. He built a sweat lodge beyond the house on what probably was private property belonging to someone else, but because of the pandemic nobody was out walking their perimeters anyway. So a fence, or part of one got knocked down and he dug a trench and thatched it over in the old way and built inside a firepit so as to create steam. The way the old lodges worked, the people inside had a bulrush bucket of water and a pile of stones and a fire. Someone would dip a stone into the bucket and then toss it one the fire and that produced steam. Stone-age sauna, pronto. Then Pahrump took a stick shaved down and scraped his skin to remove the surface dirt and after that ran out naked to jump into San Geronimo creek in a place where it pooled up with frigid water to rinse off and then return to the home-built lodge again.
There was one difference: there were no tribe members to join him until Little Adam glommed onto what was going on and so the communal spirit was restored when Little Adam joined Pahrump the Elder, for Elder he had become in the past 20 years. And this was a matter of thought in Pahrump, who had always considered himself one of the Household Losers, another pawn in the game of chance between the helpless and the powerful. Growing up on the Res, no one ever dreamed of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything important. There were no avenues in those directions.
When Denby came out, the situation was clear -- this is America and no matter the worldwide situation and no matter the lockdown, Denby must work for he was one of the few able to contribute to the Household by way of his job at the Hospital, where fortunately healthcare was considered Essential. For the first time, perhaps in American history.
So Pahrump fired up the scooter and ferried Denby over to the East Bay to earn those dollars as an Essential Healthcare Worker. And if you do not think it was grim, think another thing, for all of the licensed professionals were keyed up tighter than piano wire with this thing they could not order around and control under the name of Urgency. After the Governor began opening up the Golden State, people had already begun doing stupid things. We may be Californians, but not everyone who has the privilege has the intelligence to drive.
One by one the residents of the Plague shacks emerged, pale, thin, weak to return to Life even as Spring began to cease its annual violence upon the Earth.
By the back door an explosion of fritillaries bloomed. Across the street where the bridge crossed over the San Geronimo Creek, a line of dogwoods sprouted legions of flowers.
The man in the glass cube, The Editor, mused on all the events leading up to this night. The late season rainstorms that promise to stave off for a little while longer the inevitable fire season. The long lockdown and economic impact on folks large and small. The effects of the contagion upon his staff. The death of Sgt Rumsbum, who everyone had thought would plague the community on the Island for another half century. Much had changed and much was to change still.
The Golden State was on the first mend of a terrible period that seems likely to last for many years. When you are done with the disease Covid-19, the virus is not done with you. Damaged lungs take a year to heal. Damaged organs like the liver and heart also take time. This thing was not like the flu at all and its effects would linger quite a long time as each new successive wave swept through the ignorant America that had dumbed down by stages each year ever since Ronald Raygun's announcement that the murderous rebels of Nicaragua were comparable to the Founding Fathers. That was how many years ago?
As the newsroom shut down, lights also went dark down the aisles. It was almost as if things were "returning to normal, " but the Editor knew that things would never return to normal, not after all of the outrageous lies and distortions from the Administration. Not after this massive blow to the economy that would take years from which to recover. Not after this major insult to the Republican idea that the Market and the Private industry will handle all with no interference.
The Editor stepped out onto the back porch of the Household and listened to the night. The neighbor's nightly howling at 8 PM had long since ceased, and the nocturnal animals had taken over from the twilight creatures of the dusk. Out there beyond the twittering curtains of darkness there existed a like mind. He felt sure of it. Also doing all for Company.
JUNE 7
So anyway, once again it came around to that Time. The local ER's all stocked up on trauma supplies. Certain individuals and storefronts boarded up their windows. Those who could took vacations far away or hid in basements.
Yes. once again it had come around to Javier's birthday.
This year, everyone had to maintain Social Distancing for the gathering, which caused Jose some significant relief. All the members of the Household who had been released from quarantine gathered behind the Household in Silvan Acres to hold a BBQ. Since exploding propane tanks had been a problem in the past the group made do with charcoal on an old fashioned 50 gallon drum cut-out.
Martini posted scouts on all four corners of the perimeter to watch for incursions from one of Javier's notorious girlfriends, who each each managed to wreak violent havoc and destruction on the day. The old 188 howitzer given him one year proved indestructible and was parked in the corner amid a gathering matrix of green poison ivy and poison oak.
Amazingly enough, perhaps due to the Coronavirus lockdownk, no furious madam showed up armed with scimitars and pistols. It was the first birthday celebration for Javier that had occured in years and as a consequence, Javier had sent over a portion of the birthday cake to the angel nurses keeping East Oakland alive and healthy and tested.
In a sense, some felt disappointed in that this year no one got shot and no one got stabbed.
The sun sank during a heat wave and each enjoyed his and her beer and the music supplied by Denby and by the Monkey Spankers.
Afterwards the Editor walked out in the hot darkness and mused upon the changed America to come. What strange worlds shall we encounter after this savage division has healed up or not healed up per chance? Will we really embark upon an hopeful path of reconciliation between Black and White or shall we fall back into the old, slow revolve of recourse and partial compensation? Token acts instead of resolve to really end the problem?
Cynicism told him that it would be token acts rather than resolve.
Time, the mighty arbighter of change, would tell.
