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.