Miles of Gold

"How long do we need to wait before getting tested?"
"I don't know, let me Google it."
"KLB said if we protested, the responsible thing is to get tested."
"Some of these places want a doctor's referral.  Wait, they are turning me away because they say I have to have symptoms.  I did the online registration."
"These tests are only 70% accurate, they give out false negatives."
"They say days eight after exposure has the lowest rates of false negatives, only 20%."
"Wait, I found a place that does a PCR test, it is supposed to be 99.6% effective and you can be asymptomatic."
"It takes 48-72 hours though to get results, what is the point if we go on day eight, and get results on day eleven?  Might as well just stay inside and wait for symptoms until day fourteen."
"I've been called back in to work and I can't walk into that building with all of those people without being tested.  It just wouldn't be right."

We registered online, which in itself was a ridiculous process full of dead links and crashed pages.  We finally got appointments, after several tries on various days, and then headed to the site hours ahead of our appointments.  A police car blocked the driveway to the drive-up clinic.  We drove around.  We came back.  We got in a car line in the Sherwin Williams next door.  We drove away and left.  We called, after never even getting a confirmation of our registration.  No answer. We checked the websites of the Fulton county health department testing sites, and they said we needed to call and register, but no one answered the phone.  We started driving to a Fulton county health department site that friends had said was easy, but turned around because we wanted the accurate test, even though we had to use our insurance to pay for it.  We returned, and Alec walked up to the police car. 

"He said people are waiting in the Waffle House parking lot."
We drove over, parked the car and waited with a bunch of other people sitting in their cars, with masks on.  No one went inside the Waffle House.
The clock was ticking.  The parking lot at the clinic was empty, but the cop car still blocked the entrance.  Cars were lining up again at the Sherwin Williams.  It was ten minutes ahead of our appointment time, but we still hadn't received any sort of directions from the clinic. 

Then, the police car ripped away from the entrance to the clinic. 

I put the car in reverse as quickly as a 2006 Honda Hybrid can move, looking into the mirrors as all of the other cars in the Waffle House parking lot did the same.  I pulled out onto the superhighway-type road, hoping to cut off the Sherwin Williams people that came after we did when I noticed, in horror, that cars were pouring out from all of the massive parking lots on all sides of the clinic, all headed toward the same entrance.  I NASCAR-ed the shit out of it and got into the clinic parking lot.  As soon as no more cars would fit, the cop reappeared and blocked the entrance, leaving god knows how many competing cars driving around N. Decatur and Lawrenceville Highway, until the entrance would open again. 

Three months into the pandemic, I don't know about you, but I am really tired of winning. 

Take it Away

There is a small little yellow house, on the southwest corner of Grant Park.  Right behind the zoo.  But it's not a house, it is a police precinct.  It's a few minutes walking distance from my home.  I jog past it all the time.  Probably for the last twenty-odd years, even before we bought our home.  They are Zone 3 police.  I remember when I first started living around here the Zone 3 police were in the newspaper all the time for extorting money from drug houses for protection.  Then, though Zone 3 is housed in my community, we are policed by Zone 6.  Zone 3 continues to nearly kill anyone in their path when they tear up the street in front of my house, only to turn their lights off the minute they see food. The police that killed Rayshard Brooks are stationed there.

I'm disgusted that murderers drove down my streets and through my neighborhood, everyday.  That I jogged past them.  And then, when protestors engulfed their precinct they came out like in a way that shocked me.

"The helicopters are really loud tonight...."  Alec and I mentioned to each other, last Saturday, the 13th.  We weren't budging, we were only less than a week from being exposed to large crowds.
I looked at the photos and videos of what had happened mere minutes from my home Sunday morning.  The most terrifying parts were when rows of police stood in full riot gear, calmly, only to charge at our residents on cue, swinging clubs and throwing tear gas.  All because people, residents, decided that those police didn't belong here.

Papí and I walked down there the following night, with our masks.  Dozens and dozens of police cars blocked the road between our house and there's, they just sat there, parked.  At least forty cops in riot gear stood in front of the cars.  We cut through the back streets to the other side of the park.  A tank-like military vehicle was parked at the corner of the park, flanked by at least fifty-more cops in riot gear.  Atlanta avenue glowed with unmarked cars, all the way up to Boulevard.  The Atlanta ATV guys, the ones that tear through traffic en masse came.  I could hear their engines coming closer and then, I saw dozens of them at the top of the hill, looking down at the almost military like force of police.  In formation, they backed up and road away.

The police stared at us.  And stood around, joking with each other.  If anyone got too close, they shined flash lights in their eyes and yelled "Get back!"
They were really comfortable and it infuriated me.  This is my neighborhood.  None of these cops belonged here.  I have more right to this ground and they were the ones that needed to leave.  And they were all here to defend the murderers that they housed in that little yellow house.

I've heard that most of those guys, I don't use the word 'pigs' because pigs are dignified creatures worthy of respect, got a case of the blue flu the last few days.  I'm glad they are gone.  I jogged past the area where the park and it was nearly devoid of their personal vehicles as well as their po-cars.  But I burn again in my stomach when think of what would happen if I, as a public school teacher, sat in the parking lot and refused to to teach.  I don't understand this power, or this relationship with the community.

I can't imagine saying that I won't work unless I get to kill people.  And, that it would be rewarded.

Fourteen Days

"Do we protest, march, just to make ourselves feel better, aggrandize ourselves?"
"Do protests or marches actually make any difference?"
"Do we protest just to say we did something, if anyone asks?"

I've done some activist type things.   More than marching, but yes, I have marched before.  Some of them were wildly boring and uneventful.  I wondered why I was there.  Other things, not marches, I worried I would be jailed, for more than one night.  I've taken action too, wether it was voting, or cooking in a migrant shelter, leaving water in the desert or making a difference in my day to day life with the way I view and react to Black people and other minorities.  Here I am, talking myself up.  But this one freaked me out.  The virus.

"I don't want to get sick."
"These protests are different.  The numbers are making a difference.  They need bodies."
"I hear them.  They're here.  Get your mask, let's go."

And we went.  I was happy about all the pop-up marches, not just marches in downtown Atlanta, but marches in Kennesaw, Stonecrest, Athens, everywhere.  When we heard the chant coming down our street, we went.

We marched with them up the street and around the block.  Then, they gathered in the park and Alec and I split.  For downtown.  We walked to the Capital and when no one was there, we went to Centennial.  It felt like a river that swept us up immediately and we walked.  And walked.  We kept our masks on and held hands the whole time, never letting go.  The street was full.  Traffic was blocked by the stream of people, but the cars that we blocked raised fists in the air, Black fists, cheering and screaming.  We were in midtown and sheets hung from the balconies, declaring that BLACK LIVES MATTER.  A man, a young organizer, yelled instructions through a megaphone, telling us when to go right when on-coming traffic was coming, or when to run to the sidewalk altogether.  All I could see were blocks of people in front of me and blocks of people behind me.  In midtown, he told us to take a knee.

"Ya'll are starting stuff and you can't do that.  She'll call the curfew on us again and you have to stop.  When you hear this beep beep from my megaphone, I have something to say and it's important.  Let's go."
We simultaneously stood.  And marched.
We were headed back south to my part of town.  I heard a car, squealing, and started to run, dragging Alec with me.  Charlottesville was all I could think.  I saw a man, in a sports car, his back wheels squealing and dragging, creating mountains of smoke.  He was Black, and his fist was out the window while he screamed into the air.

We marched back to Centennial, and then Alec and I walked home the extra mile.  We didn't really talk.  We just went home.

I've Got No Words

"Um, we are under curfew now so.....it's almost nine...."  I mentioned hesitantly to the men repairing our toilet.  Yes, the toilet that decided to nearly fall through what ended up being a rotten subfloor, which also had to be rebuilt.  In the middle of a pandemic, when I would prefer to be about twenty feet away from all humanity but cannot live without peeing.
"Do you think they will stop people on the highways?"  one of the repair men responded.  I found myself worrying about his skin, his slightly darker skin and what the police would do to a man of his color driving down the street after curfew while protests against America's treatment of black people filled the streets of our city and spread across every state in the nation.
"I don't know," I answered, "I've never experienced something like this."
It was the first night of curfew, after the protest erupted the Friday night before.

People that aren't from Atlanta don't really know the layout.  No one lives downtown, in the business district where the tall buildings are.  We just don't.  We live in neighborhoods with different names within the city of Atlanta that surround the downtown area where people work or go to school.  My neighborhood is one of the closer ones to downtown, about one mile from the Capital, even closer as the crow flies.  I can see its gold dome when I walk around the neighborhood.

Soon there was the ever present buzz of helicopters.  Sirens screaming and cops speeding down my street on their way downtown.  Ambulance sirens.  Convoys of police trucks all headed in the same direction.  The National Guard driving military vehicles in front of our houses.  And worse, later, when it got darker, loud booms resonated from downtown while we watched the news on TV, impotent, while they tear gassed the protestors and fired rubber bullets at them.  A mile away.

After days of protest in Minneapolis, Atlanta finally got going on Friday, the 29th.  Our mayor appeared on the television, begging protestors to go home and to not destroy things.  I voted for Keisha Lance Bottoms and I believe in her.  I believe in black leadership for the city of Atlanta.  It can be no other way.  She seemed honestly in fear for the protestors and in fear of what people might lose if their stores were destroyed.  Immediately after, T.I. took the microphone with the same message, followed by an impassioned speech by Killer Mike.  I turned my face to the side so that Alec wouldn't see that my eyes were tearing up.  I could only imagine how hard it was for them to implore the protestors to not destroy things when in the back of my mind all I could think was tear it up....tear it up....no one pays attention unless you do....we deserve it....we deserve this place to be burnt to the ground.....Berenice King followed Killer Mike and my emotions swirled with love for my city and the eloquence of our community leaders, combining with immense sadness and anger.  I can't breathe.... his haggard voice filled my ears and I squinted my eyes to avoid the image in my brain of his face, crushed under the knee of a nonchalant cop.

The buzz of the helicopters continued and I continued, sitting in my house, one mile away, watching the news.  Day three, I noticed a different kind of buzz.  By Sunday, I saw things on Facebook and whispers from neighbors that "they" were going to target residential neighborhoods.  WHITE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS.  I love my house and obviously would prefer it wasn't burned down, but it sounded ridiculous.  THEY were coming for us.  I saw the buzz from Grant Park to Decatur and even worse, people in fear that their Target store might get hit.  Oh, god forbid the Target.  I like Target too, I buy a pair of flip flops there every summer and even a pair of cheap sunglasses but jesus christ, you care more about a Target store than what this really means?  A man died, another man died.  I looked out on my street that night and saw that a number of houses had their lights off, as if you closed your eyes no one could see you, even though you are the one with your eyes closed.

One of my neighbors ran afoul during a COVID construction project in their backyard and ended up on our front porch with masks on.  They brought a bottle of wine, which I uncorked immediately and basically put in juice glasses.  We realized the minute that we drank it that it was exceptional wine, and we later found out it was the most expensive wine we had ever swilled and that they were asking us for something special.  When I realized we were flanked by another high-priced neighbor, I felt like a Beverly Hillbilly.

I watched when the tree men came to cut down the oak.  They had a 100 foot crane.  When they sawed at my oak, which is even taller and older, I winced.  And I stood in my yard and watched.  But then, I stayed.  I saw a rustling way up in the beautiful tree that was coming down on our property line and realized there was a man, way up in it, suspended by only ropes, with a large chainsaw hanging off of his ass.  I was stunned.  I sat there for four hours, watching this guy work in coordination with the crane, cutting the tree down, limb by limb.  I cringed when they took large limbs off from over the top of my house, the crane swinging from side to side, mere feet from my roof and kitchen windows.  I watched and I watched.

Soon, they were down to the trunk.  I watched while they cut off ten feet.  And then another ten feet.  Then, they cut off the rest.  It was large and round.  It took a really long time for the chainsaw to get through the base and then, the claws of the crane lifted it into the air and through the sky over the yard.  It looked like a human body.

I watched it, suspended and swaying in the air and cried like I haven't in a long time.

Stuck in the Middle With You

I took hydroxychloroquine once.  Or, for like multiple weeks.  I had malaria.  I have never been that sick in my life and it was hard to get my hands on it in the United States.  I was twenty-eight and weighed 135 pounds.  I was not a seventy-something year old fat man taking it for off-label, false preventive measures.

I dreamed that I saw Steve climbing on the rocks the other night.  When I woke up, I was sad that it was just a dream.
I had another dream about my dead friend, Margaret.  She was leading me through a mall with empty classrooms, again.  But it wasn't sad.  It was just weird.

I'm going to have to say something about the Rona, the COVID, whatever the fuck you want to call it.  Three things could have happened.  In November-December, it was obvious there was some janky shit happening.  We are the United States of fucking America, and anyone saying that there were no ears to the ground is crazy.  Or, negligent, which brings up le'Orange.  Inclusive, massive testing should have been put in place, as well as contact tracing, before all this shit hit us.  PPE.  Get the beds ready.  We wouldn't have had to shut down like this, which was the last choice because nothing was left.  And now... now.  A culture war.  le'Orange created a shut down because of lack of planning and then, rallied against it, saying it was some sort of violation of human rights.  The mighty le'Orange has won again. 

I'm from Michigan.  My mom moved us to Georgia when I was ten, but I still have an affinity for the state.   When I see "protestors" wearing tactical gear, Confederate flags and carrying massive weapons, I have doubts.  Those are not ordinary activists.  Those are people that have an agenda and were probably shipped in.  When I see random folks that joined them, out of fear for their livelihoods, I wondered why the state and the feds didn't provide enough for them to stay safe and stay home.

My mom gave five hundred dollars. She sent it to my account and I took it out in twenties, along with another two hundred other folks put in.  I bought a bunch of potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, fresh things and dried things:  rice, macaroni, whatever.  I drove the car onto the ramp and entered the abnormally vacant highway.  I haven't been that far away from my house in months.  The large, electronic signs that usually warn of traffic jams and accidents instead said "SICK?  STAY HOME"  and "SIX FEET DISTANCING".   I drove to my student's house and knocked on the door.  It was flimsy.  All the dogs were barking and no one was answering.  But I knew they were there and was relieved when I heard foot steps and their mom opened a window on the rickety second floor.
"Come to the other door..."  she said, poking her head out and smiling.  The steps to the other door looked kind of crazy.
I climbed up the steps and placed the bags of food in front of the door, the envelope of money hidden between the produce.  She opened the door and my little girls peered around it, still in their pajamas.

I smiled and waved and ran back to Alec's car, hoping this would help them at all.

Wish You Were Here

I watched Steve inside her terrarium for weeks.  I would monitor the weather app on my phone, trying to figure out when temperatures wouldn't be down in the forties at night.  It has been unseasonably cold.

The day arrived when it would be warm enough and  I took her terrarium outside to the backyard and opened the lid.  I thought she would flee, run away immediately.  She didn't.  I sat on this Mexican blanket I have and watched her.  For hours.  Finally, I turned the terrarium on its side and kind of scooted the moss she was riding on out of the cage, with a stick.  She eventually jumped off.  And sat there.  I encircled her with branches so that she wouldn't camouflage herself and went inside to pee.

When I came back, she was still in the circle.  The neighbors from the house that used to be orange were having an uncomfortable conversation with tree removal people.  I knew they saw me and wished I would go away, but I couldn't.  It's my yard and I had to make sure Steve was okay.   I sat and I watched.  Alec came out and we moved the Mexican blanket and her terrarium farther away.  I sat on it with my book, while Alec sat on a chair next to our blanket.

Suddenly, Steve ran toward the blanket.  It sort of freaked me out and I moved away.  She hadn't moved a foot all day, but suddenly she was running twelve feet, and then rested herself on the blanket next to me.  Alec and I sat and talked.  And Steve sat there.  Then, she ran into the terrarium.

"Let's take her in..."  I said,
"put the moss back in and she'll live inside."
"No.  You know what the right thing to do is."

We picked up the terrarium with Steve inside and put it on a table we have by our backdoor, sideways.  She sat inside for a minute, then ran out on the table, into the sun.  She sat there for a while.  Then, she jumped and attached herself to a retaining wall.  She ran up onto the top of the bricks and genuinely looked happy, warming her belly on the hot bricks.  Lola and the asshole neighbor dog ran toward her and I was really alarmed when she didn't move.

"Girl, you need to learn some survival skills!"  I sputtered at Steve while I held Lola back from stepping on her.
Alec came out and helped me scoot Steve on a piece of paper to a safer place on the bricks.  I heard large birds overheard, we have hawks and owls, and I reached over Steve to make sure they wouldn't come at her.

When I looked down, she was gone.
Alec and I look for her everyday, hoping she's out there, on the fence, on the bricks, somewhere.

"I really wish we saw her one more time..."  Alec said quietly, one day while we stood where we released her.
"Me too."  I responded.

Georgia Is Open for Business

I hadn't seen my older neighbor in a while.  He's a smart guy, so I assumed he was staying in, but not sick.  I kept thinking I heard the Allman Brothers blaring from his house on certain days and then one day, I think I saw him striding up the giant hill between our houses, Sandinista scarf and long white hair, blowing in the wind.

"Oh my god, it's them!"
Alec and I ran outside, with Lola right behind us.  Jet noises were everywhere.  The Blue Angels were flying over Grady, and our back yard.  We missed them.  I knew it was an unnecessary expenditure, but I was still disappointed that we didn't get to see them.  We forgot that they were coming.

"FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!!!"
I watched a deranged man, early in the pandemic, yelling and screaming down the sidewalk, shaking his head wildly back and forth.
I've seen him again, openly yelling at people.
"Get inside!  Get the fuck inside!  You, get the fuck inside, get inside!"
This was a month ago.

Kemp opened up Georgia.  It's weird to say that I live in Georgia, because I don't.  I live in Atlanta, the largest city in the southeast and a blue dot in a sea of red.  I was scared.  I couldn't believe it.  Alec, Holly and Emma work in restaurants.  I don't want any of them back in, not yet.  They got what, two weeks of unemployment and now, now that was too much?  I don't want my twenty-three year partner, my sister and niece sent off to die because Georgia doesn't want to recognize that their lives matter.  If their restaurants reopened, I knew they would lose their benefits.  Alec would lose his employer-sponsored health insurance, as well and I don't know who would marry us in the middle of this shit storm.  All for some dumb hick's gut feeling and I'm sorry, your redneck ass is not throwing my family's bodies at this.

Most of Atlanta's restaurants decided not to reopen.  And believe me, I was glad.  I thought the rest of our liberal town would follow suit, follow our mayor, stay the fuck in.  I was stunned when I went out for my modified jog in what used to be an isolated area only to find giant groups of fat people in their thirties, bar hopping on bikes that they had never owned before.  Without masks, while I still wore mine.  It was everywhere.  People were everywhere, on my front sidewalk, on my two mile route, every where.

"GET INSIDE!  GET THE FUCK INSIDE!  GET INSIDE!"  I wanted to yell at everyone.
But guess what folks?  We open.  We are fucking open.