Quarantine 2020

Po-Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Free Hugs

Or

Morale Exhaustion

            So, what did you do during quarantine, Maybelline? Did you have a good time, Clementine? Did you drink some fine wine, Caroline? Eat some salami, Tommy? Had a banana, Anna? Go crazy, Miss Daisy? Did you self isolate, medicate, immolate, masticate, insulate, meditate or just get fat? Did you fix lavish meals, use the Waterford, drink some Moet, listen to A Little Night Music or did you pour that can of Hormel chili into that bag of Fritos, pop a tall boy, put on some Little Feat and possibly make a baby?

            We all handle it in our own way. Or not. We stay up later, sleep in, grill meat outdoors, home school the kids, walk the dog, ride the bike, drink and dial, get tanked and text; how did you handle crazy? “Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, try to find Jesus on your own”? Did you binge watch Will and Grace, the Golden Girls and/or rediscover that Everyone (not necessarily) Loves Raymond? Did you (tell the truth) stalk your ex on intsagram?

            Did you go nuts trying to get through to the unemployment office, realize that you’re running out of food and money, wondering if you still have a job, waking up to us all being in the same boat (sans paddle) and concerned that the check is NOT going to be in the mail hard, fast and big enough?  How will I pay rent, mortgage, utilities, child support?  Are my expenses going to become cumulative?  What happens to the poor, the homeless, the children?  Am I really gonna catch it?  Should I get tested? Did you hear about whatshisname? Will I die before this is over?

            Were you part of the panic shopping for water and toilet paper, bread, hand sanitizer and face masks? Did you stock up on dog food, Kitty litter, bottles of booze, disposable gloves and potato chips? Did you call your broker, your brother, your bartender, your banker, your bookie? When will this end?

Did you miss going to work, getting the kids off to school, the farmer’s market, the theater, movies, basketball pick-ups, bars, restaurants, and/or were you afraid to go out in public altogether? Did you become a news junkie? What did you miss while you were sociologically invisible? Did you, like me have a moral breakdown? Did you suffer from tactile withdrawals?  Let my people go!

In my spare time, and I’ve got plenty, I picture the folks that I used to have physical contact with: the hello/goodbye kisses and hugs; the hand shaking; the pat on the back; the chest bump and even being able to count change into a check out person’s hand. New Orleans, as we knew it, is a tactile city; we’re not compatible or comfortable living in a ‘Social Distancing’ environment, we’re just not cut from that cloth. I’m not. It’s just too damn Yankee.

For me, that’s the hardest part, living in what is now the new normal… a demonstrative desert.  Face it; waving at your friends just doesn’t cut the mustard. Do they really know what Social Distancing means to a New Orleanian? Torture.

I picture a dystopia where we’ll all be walking around in facemasks and surgical gloves six feet apart from each other while the shelves of the stores run out of food supplies. Smaller shops are boarded up while rubbish is blowing in the streets because there are no more trash pickups. No more fresh produce, we eat out of cans with government labels. Processed cheese and meat substitutes. Soylent Green and Funistrada; we return home with a bag of peanuts and a loaf of bread substitute. Buttered ermal and braised trake on the menu tonight. Neighbors have set up stills to produce high octane liquids that have caused blindness in some of our youths. Soma is sold in back alleys. Police cars now question groups of three or more. Helicopters whirl overhead and in the distance a lone wolf howls.

The telly is forever playing messages from the state while our Supreme Leader tells us how well we’re doing in black and white images. People disappear from their homes and feral animals prowl the night. The virus has shrunk the population. We retain our social distances; we lose the power of speech and language. Our armies are the greatest…. WAIT! What am I thinking? None of that is happening. Yet. You see how the mind tricks when isolation is the rule of the day?

I test the radio; yep, still on. I still get the news and weather; my computer is working and my phone has a dial tone. The electricity, gas and water flow.  My cats are not going to kill me so that the dog has something to eat. It’s all a dream, right? I rush to the kitchen to make tamales, my go to meditation therapy. The steam of the pots and my hands in the masa calm me.

My theory is that we’ve been bad custodians of the planet and now the Earth wants rid of us. The horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding. The question is this: what have we done, what are we doing that is so great that we deserve to be here?  To inherit this place and to pass it on to our children and grandchildren?

We have raped, pillaged and destroyed. We have polluted, gutted and ruined our habitat. Pestilence, war, famine and death riding their white, red, black and pale horses respectively. We have created gods and then wondered why they have forsaken us. The seeds of our destruction have taken root because we’ve done nothing to respect, honor and protect our mother. The conclusion is that somehow we deserve this.