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.