Column: Journal of a plague year
When you are living in a plague-infested city, there are phases.
Closing Manhattan restaurants was something akin to a two-by-four moderately applied to the forehead. Closing of the schools didn’t make any day-to-day difference to us grandparents, but the shuttered schools and no students on the streets were eerie.
Our grandkids in Brooklyn are adjusting, but we don’t really know what their learning day is like. The boy is not a school enthusiast so he must feel like a great gift has been delivered. The girls like school so we’ll see how this plays out, although visits don’t seem to be in the cards, which is something of a pain.
The present phase is a general appalling realization of the plague’s immensity and timeline. Just today, the city is asking for residents to wear face masks, a major distressing step.
As commentators have noted, we are not a face-mask culture or country. A great sewing in-law is sending us some custom masks from the Midwest. In the meanwhile I’m trying to dig up my red bandana from 30 years ago.
The next phase appears to be the city running out of urgently needed medical equipment and the spike in deaths as patients lie in hospital hallways.
As yet death has not come to our friends, family or workplace chums, but it feels like it is lurking. There is a mildly comforting normalcy when I journey outside the apartment into Pathogen Land. We are abiding by the stay-inside edicts, but one must hit the corner supermarket to keep the body nourished, and the few people on the street seem oddly unperturbed.
With great wisdom, the liquor store down the block has been deemed an essential enterprise. Yet these people, with whom I have an abiding relationship, have taken prudent measures to cope with a high-traffic business. Customers are not allowed in the store (a broom shoved through the inside door handles makes this point emphatically). So you call ahead or, sometimes like me, you stand in front of the door forlornly until somebody spots you to conduct a transaction.
A couple of nights ago, CNN had a counselor talking to Jake Tapper about how the pressure of the plague could lead to sudden changes in alcohol consumption. But Jane came in, talked over the segment and I missed the counselor’s warning signs. I’m pretty sure I know what she said and didn’t want to hear it. It’s pretty much commonsense.
Speaking of Jane, The New York Times, where she’s an editor, has sent everyone home to work remotely. For years we have joked how we would tear at each other’s throats when she retires as we contend with a 24/7 marital cycle. I am happy to report that our throats are unscathed, but it gives us pause as we get a full taste of what those days could be like. Of course cohabiting during a plague is a major special case.
There will be happy, uplifting stories during plague time. My niece sent me a story she spotted about an Upper East Side couple who has taken to setting out a sound system on their balcony and blasting music, apparently to their neighbors’ approval. We know this because we heard it from around the corner. I’m not sure that we would dig this concert if it emanated from across the street. But still, plague decisions during plague time can vary.
One night on the news we saw a bunch of firetrucks lined up outside a busy hospital standing in their gear applauding the bone-weary (and possibly infected) doctors, nurses and staff inside. Soon a smattering of staff came out and stood across the street, many crying. Probably no good can come from an evil plague, but this comes pretty close.
Oh, did I mention a temporary morgue truck has appeared around the corner at Lenox Hill Hospital?
