Corona
March 1: The Border
By the time May lost her job when the pharmacy shut down, Corona had expanded past Junction Boulevard to 92nd St, just two blocks away from where her manager Gary was droning on to her co-workers about letting them know about available positions in other store locations while May slowly backpedaled past the magazine racks, grabbed the Elle with Zendaya on the cover and pivoted out the entrance door, finally giving in to the impulse to see this thing up close.
Jackson Heights was impossibly quiet for a weekday afternoon. She walked down Northern Boulevard to the corner of 90th Street and looked eastward towards the contagion. At least at first glance, it appeared to be an underwhelming micro-apocalypse. Everybody knew that the boundaries of the contamination zone weren’t visible to the human eye, but still she expected to see something--a wall of semi-gelatinous air maybe or a slight refraction of light. Instead she only saw a man-made border of flashing patrol cars and scattered strands of yellow police tape, standard elements of everyday Queens ambiance. The sky over Corona was the same cornflower blue as it was over Jackson Heights, Northern Boulevard’s scraggly trees were budding on the same schedule on 93rd St. as they were on 91st.
She called her mother but Mia picked up the phone, thrilled to hear that Mommy would be home early. The poor kid had only been stuck at home for two days and already she was torturing her abuela, bouncing off the 12 walls (she could count them off as she bounced) of their one bedroom apartment. “Tell abuela that I’ll bring pizza home for dinner and I’ll see you real soon,” May said before she hung up, but instead of starting the long walk to Roosevelt Ave to catch the bus, she drifted another block over to 91th Street.
Up close, the differences were clearer. Jackson Heights was stale and stagnant in anxious quarantine, but Corona was a neighborhood abloom with activity. Streams of workers in hazmat suits rushed gurneys in and out of a dingy old motel repurposed as an army field hospital. Across the street, larger waves in regular clothes moved more slowly but still purposefully towards a bodega and came out carrying enormous Costco bags of rice and paper towels. Elsewhere in this street scene as impossibly crowded as a Diego Rivera mural, May saw a weeping old man sitting in a lawn chair next to a young woman in glasses looking on in professional empathy, a crowd of young people with with picket signs in English, Spanish, and she guessed Korean harassing a politician holding a press conference, a ragtag group of men women and children hard hats taking hammer to a boarded up building, and about 7 helicopters buzzing dangerously close to one another on their way towards an unknown destination deeper in the neighborhood.
May pulled out her phone to find out more about the helicopters, but was stopped short when the screen flashed 7:12pm. She cursed at herself as she hurried down to Roosevelt, apologizing to her mother for missing her panicked calls. Yes mami she’s fine, she just forgot to turn the ringer back on after work; yes of course she understands why mami would be worried sick with her working so near the virus; no she won’t be going back, Gary told them the store was closing; no Mia doesn’t know; yes she loves mami too and she knows they’re going to get through this.
30 minutes later, May leaned her head against the window of the Q33 as it rolled down Woodhaven Boulevard and decided that she was going to go to Corona before Corona came to them. Mami would say absolutely not, but she’d come around by morning because the rent was due in three weeks. Gary had given them unemployment forms, but Mami didn’t believe the news reports that ICE couldn’t use those forms to find you and bash in your door in the middle of the night, and who could say for sure that she was wrong?
What May couldn’t figure out was what to say to Mia, and she was still at a loss at midnight as she pushed her spoon across a bowl of Frosted Flakes. A seven year-old wouldn’t understand May’s risk-reward analysis of Corona’s 3 percent mortality rate versus its much more likely opportunities for financial security. Or maybe the problem was that she’d understand it too well--her girl could always see right through her. Mia might sense even more clearly than May that this wasn’t only about money, that Mommy actually wanted to go to this scary place, even if she couldn’t know the specific plans forming in May’s mind: join a medical unit; finally get started on that path to nursing school; be a part of saving lives instead of selling ass wipes.
And in that moment, sitting in her dark kitchen and plotting the abandonment of the daughter she adored, 29 year-old single mom May Herrera made a discovery that at the time had still eluded the world’s leading biologists and public health specialists. This contagion was spreading not through sneezes or blood transfusions but through magnetism. It was a death force with a polarity precisely attuned to attract those looking for life.
March 18: We’re Fine
Hello?
Oh wow, Ma, it’s good to hear your voice! How’s it going? Are you guys okay?
Davey! Good, good, we’re good. Hold on, let me get your father. Walter! It’s Davey! He’s in the living room watching an old football game I think. I swear he’s somehow watching more sports now that there’s no sports.
Ha! Calvin’s the same way. Pathetic right? But how are you guys holding up?
We’re fine. Things have been very strange, as you might imagine. And a lot of people are getting sick, of course. But we’re fine, not much to report in that department. Okay he’s here. I’m putting you on speaker. Where’s the button Walter?
It’s your phone, Marie, how am I supposed to…
It’s a goddamn iPhone just like yours, Walter, so just tell me how…
Ma, Dad, I can help if you just tell me what’s on the screen when you...
Oh, here it is. Davey? Can you hear us? We’ve got you on speaker!
Hi son! How’s it going?
I’m fine Dad. But I’m not the one living inside the syndrome. Tell me how you’re...
That’s true, son. But that doesn’t mean you’re not very busy: two jobs, a relationship, improv classes. I don’t know how you manage.
A part-time job and an internship, and thanks Dad, but can we talk about what’s happening with you and Ma? I literally haven’t heard a word from you since Long Island got swallowed. If they weren’t releasing the names of the dead I wouldn’t have even…They’re limiting phone calls to 10 minutes, so there’s not a lot of time for small talk. Just tell me if you’re okay.
Oh, Davey, we’re sorry. We would have called you sooner but you couldn’t make calls outside the Corona for the first 36 hours after it came.
I know that, Ma. Everybody does. This is the lead story on every news site and it’s all anyone’s talking about, but nobody on the outside knows anything because they haven’t let us hear from you. So please please please tell me what’s going on! I want to know about your blood pressure, Ma, about Dad’s back, if you guys are doing okay mentally, all of it.
I know you’re anxious, son, but don’t be. I’ve been watching lots of old Jets games. I figure maybe one of these times we’ll beat the Patriots!
And I’ve been using that chess app you showed me last month with my old friend Janine Ferreira--do you remember the Ferreiras? Their daughter Cindy was I think two years ahead of you in school and they moved to Ohio? Anyways, Janine’s not the best chess player but neither am I with all the sirens and shouting.
That’s great guys, and I’m so relieved you’re okay. Can I ask a question? Everybody’s wondering what it’s like. Not the sickness itself which thank God you don’t…just what it’s like being in… the…
Tornado? That’s what we’re calling it.
Okay sure, the tornado, what’s it like? Ma, you mentioned lots of noise, and that’s the stuff we can see from the helicopter footage - ambulances and construction and soldiers - but all that’s the human reaction to this thing. Out here we’re all struggling to understand the thing itself, if you know what I mean.
I’m not sure we do.
Sorry if I’m not being clear Dad, let me put it like this: What was it like the exact moment the Corona engulfed Plainview? Did you notice a change before all the sirens emergency personnel flooded in?
You want to know if we noticed? Hah hah, oh, sweetie, that’s too much.
What your mother is trying to say is that this is hard to explain to outside people. I wish we were as good at expressing ourselves as you--like that poem you write that won the 8th grade contest? There was no moment before the sirens, before the soldiers, before the helicopters and the screams. We call it a tornado because that’s how quickly it came and now the chaos is swirling around us so we can’t even tell apart the sickness from the response. But maybe that’s because we’re not sick--well I guess everyone here is now sick because that’s how this works but so far we have no symptoms except my eyes are a little watery.
But Dad, eye moisture is one of the symptoms! You have to report that. Ma, tell me you’re reporting that!
We’ve been meaning to, son. It’s funny but the hours have just been slipping away, I can’t quite tell you why.
Jesus Christ, this is important! It’s great that you both are so calm and I don’t want to yell at you but I’m not sure you’re getting how serious this is.
We’re terrified.
Sorry, Dad, what?
You can’t hear that in our voices?
No. You both sound like you always do.
He thinks we don’t know it’s serious, Walter! Ha ha! It’s too much.
Your mother is crying. How can you not hear that?
I don’t know, I just don’t! Mom, are you okay? I’m so sorry!
We’re going to get going, son. I think you’re right that I should report to the medical unit about my eyes.
Can you call me afterward?
Let’s talk tomorrow okay?
But Dad, I really want to know what’s happening.
Hey sport, I’m guessing you can’t hear what’s going on on this end, so I’m asking you to understand. I’ll call you tomorrow. Have a great day!
April 1: Elbow Fireworks
I’m making this a short entry tonight because I can barely sit up to type. I’d croak some words into my Galaxy S20 but there are three other patients crammed into my room and none appear to be the type with whom I care to share my innermost hopes and fears, especially not the man on my left who keeps trying to strike up a conversation in his thick Jamaican accent about how the 76ers were going to win it all this year.
I had thought this affliction was unpleasant enough when at around 3:30pm I started getting the so-called kidney fireworks--one of the many recently coined phrases that sounds assinine the first time you hear it but within half a day your find yourself repeating like a moron: Corona Cramps, Plague Pee, Homeland Infection, etc. Kidney fireworks makes the pain sound like a 4th of July celebration rather than the 5th circle of hell (that’s semi-clever, try to remember that) but it does approximate the sensation of explosions coursing through my torso, a feeling not helped by each new nurse telling me to sit at a 60 degree angle to dull the pain--the same information I’ve heard 100 times on the opioid ads that run on every Hulu show--which would be great advice if I had a giant protractor attached to my hip instead of a broken hospital bed whose remote adjuster doesn’t stop rising until about seven seconds after you take your finger off the button, at which point my nose is almost touching my knees and invariably the genial Jamaican calls out, “Nah, that’s too far.”
It’s ridiculous to journal under these conditions, but that was the whole point of my coming here, right? Isn’t this why I flew across the entire country and penetrated a quarantine, to confront and document my fears? Well, here I am Lawrence and fuck you for urging me to do this, you New Age quack I can delete that later. But I don’t want to, fuck you twice Lawrence as you wait my return from the safety of your mansion in Atherton. Who am I kidding, you’ve already forgotten about me because I’m not one of your tech bro celebrity clients, just a schmuck in advertising making 500 grand, which doesn’t go as far as you think when you’re surrounded by billionaire nerd kings and their multimillionaire shrinks who cater to them and get rid of their lesser clients by suggesting they travel to a goddamn plague zone. Okay, stop. That’s the superficial chatter keeping me from getting in touch with the Real Anxiety Underneath. So let’s just get this over with so I can start trying and failing to go to sleep.
What’s my current proximity to death? Well, when I arrived here I had a 3 percent chance of dying like everyone else. Once my symptoms got severe on Day 2 that jumped up to 20 percent. Elbow fireworks puts me at 40-50 percent. So we’re not trending well, and even though I’m still statistically likely to survive, it feels like I’m being hurtled headlong towards the thing I’ve always feared and I don’t even have time to process it. How am I supposed to be confronting my dread without judgement when I’m stooped over in pain and fully consumed by the very non-existential question of how to work this lousy bed?
It doesn’t help the way I’ve been treated by the EMTs and hospital staff, who don’t bother hiding their contempt. I try to tell myself it’s just that famous Philadelphia charm but they’re more compassionate with locals. This morning I said “How are you?” to a nurse just to be polite and she told me her brother died the night before. When I said I was sorry, she just looked at me blankly and said, “He has a wife and three kids--he didn’t choose to be swallowed, but now he’s dead because of all the people who did.” Then she muttered something to herself about how the plague tourists should be in jail instead of taking hospital beds from locals who didn’t do anything wrong. I was shocked at her unprofessionalism, and if she wasn’t in the middle of taking my blood, I would have snapped back that the people at the Rittenhouse Hotel certainly seemed happy for the “plague tourists”. Okay, stop. I’ve bobbed back up the surface, gotta remain underdeath--Jesus look at that Freudian typo--underneath. So okay, okay, next question.
Describe what my death will likely look like: Well, if I die in this hospital within the next few days, it will look like a divorced 52 year with thinning hair who has lost God knows how many pounds and is experiencing heart failure after his failed kidneys flood his bloodstream with poison, whose last human contact will be the sound of a thick Jamaican accent speculating on the chances of the Eagles making the goddamn playoffs. You know what, Lawrence? I’m not into this. I’m choosing to stop looking up the effects of renal failure to try to get in touch with the physical manifestations of my mortality. Because I know something you apparently don’t--certainly it’s not in your book--and it’s this: When you’re dying you don’t feel like spending the precious five minute intervals that you’re not doubled over browsing WebMD.
I’m not gaining clarity, I’m simply losing life force. That’s the big revelation, Lawrence. I’m just as afraid of dying as ever but my body won’t let me devote what’s left of my precious energy to that fear. Dying without the energy to cry out against dying may look peaceful to outsiders but it’s actually like having full body paralysis, only of your emotional hormones instead of your muscles. Is there wisdom in this paralysis? Will this be an epiphany that I can shove into my carry-on and bring back to California in the 50-60% likelihood that I survive? I highly doubt it, Lawrence. It’s far more likely that if my emotional energy returns along with my kidney functioning, that this nightmare will provide it with a deep trauma to revisit for the rest of my life. No, Lawrence, the only flash of divine inspiration I’ve had tonight is this: If I recover from this thing I’m going to fly back home, patiently wait for it to swallow the Bay Area, and see how you confront your own Raw Anxiety Underneath. And then, Lawrence, if you’re able to recover--and I’m sure you will--I’m going to stab you in both kidneys I can always delete that later.
April 8: Epaulettes
Mia puts her hands through the wire mesh of the fence on Junction Boulevard and lets her forehead touch the cool metal as she stares at life in Zero, where the Corona monster was born. She heard a kindergartener call it that last week, and even though Mia’s in second grade and doesn’t believe in stuff like that, now she has these words stuck in her brain--Mommy was taken by a monster--even though Mommy calls home every night from Zero and not only that but she doesn’t sound scared or sad or even tired like usual even though she’s so busy giving medicine to sick people. Sometimes the happiness in Mommy’s voice makes Mia refuse to talk when abuela gives her the phone. That changes Mommy’s voice really quick, but instead of making her feel better Mommy’s sadness makes Mia angry at herself for being a spoiled baby at home in One while her Mommy is helping little kids in Zero whose mommys and abuelas are sick or even dead.
Inside the fence it looks normal--helicopters, sirens, and shouting just like on Woodhaven Boulevard--maybe a little less. The biggest difference Mia could see is that there are no cars or buses on the street--abuela told her that Zone One is a donut and Zone Zero is the hole inside, so small that people didn’t really need cars or buses except when old people had to go to the supermarket. Mommy said on Friday that Zone Zero and Zone One were now almost the same and they were going to take down the fence so Mommy could come back home to live--Mia remembered the day because she was doing the Disney Plus Freaky Friday Word Search for extra credit when she heard the news. But then abuela said last night that the presidente idiota changed his mind and the fence was staying up at least for another week. Mia screamed and cried until Abuela promised that they would go see Mommy the next day and she kept going until Abuela added they would get Baskin Robbins after.
Mia sees her Mommy when she’s half a block away, striding down the freshly painted double lines on the middle of 57th Avenue, walking straight towards Junction but not yet seeing her daughter among the dozens pressed against the fence. The Community Care Officer uniform frames her broad shoulders much better than the pharmacy polo shirt with the dumb name tag that Mommy always complained about not knowing where to put on her chest. Today everything is in its exact place--the wide black strap of Mommy’s red emergency medicine bag crosses her body like a Miss America sash and rests on her shoulder right next to the bright red epaulettes--Mia’s current favorite word--that flash in the sun. Mia is pretty sure that Mommy doesn’t need to wear this fancy uniform today but that she was being a showoff.
It’s taking Mommy forever to reach the fence because she keeps getting stopped by people in Zone Zero who yell out “Captain Herrera!” and then go to the double lines to shake Mommy’s hand and talk in normal voices that Mia is too far away to hear. Mommy smiles at some and looks concerned at others, slowing down but never stopping or breaking off her straight path. Mia wonders if Mommy is playing a game even though she’s a grownup where you can’t step off the double lines and that she’s at the point of the game that happens to Mia where you’re actually a little bit scared of what will happen if you lose. She’s about 10 feet away from the fence when she looks down and finally sees Mia, which breaks her out of her Captain Herrera straight walk and sends her running to the fence like Mommy.
“Ohmygod Mia Mija! I didn’t see you here, I thought I was early!” She touches Mia’s hands, which remained wrapped around the wire mesh. “But where’s Abuela? Why are you here by yourself?”
Mia shrugs, enjoying her power to make the great Captain Herrera afraid. Finally she twists her shoulders and points back to the bodega across Junction Blvd where abuela is sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk, raising her hand to wave at Mia and Mommy and slowly bending over to start getting out of the chair.
Mommy winces and squeezes Mia’s hand. “Abuela looks so tired. Please, Mia, before she gets here tell me if she is really starting to get better. Or is she telling me abuela stories?”
Mommy is crouching down so that she is as tall as Mia, who remembers that abuela is Mommy’s mommy and decides to talk. “I don’t know,” she says. “She’s still sleeping a lot, but it’s been okay because I don’t have school so we don’t have to go anywhere.”
Then Abuela comes to the fence and she and Mommy talk about the news. Why is the fence still up? Mommy doesn’t believe that the scientists discovered something new about the contagion timeline. It’s political, mami, they don’t want people in Zero leaving and sharing what we’re learning about how to organize ourselves. That’s the contagion they’re worried about. But then why are all the other zones separated, May? People in Long Island are Zone Two like most of the city but they’re stuck in five hours of traffic because most of the trains and highways run through Zone One.
“But at least they got rid of the phone filters--so we can leave all this for there. Here, now we have a beautiful little girl and her handsome mother, Captain Herrera!”
Mia laughs. Abuela made it sound like she and Mommy were going to get married.
“And their wise and funny old abuela,” says Mommy, who hasn’t let go of Mia’s hands this whole time and now crouches back down to look at her. “I’m sorry this stupid fence is still up, Mija. But it’ll be down soon and I’m going to call every night.”
But Mia suddenly feels restless again and pulls away from the fence. Phone calls are boring, she says, there’s nothing to talk about except fences and diseases. She wants to leave because Abuela promised they’d go to Baskin Robbins.
Mommy nods and stands up. They say goodbye but as Mia and Abuela are turning to go, one of the soldiers on the Zero side of the fence walks over.
“Ma’am?” she says to Mommy, “I hope you don’t mind my eavesdropping but I just want to tell you all that you’ll get through this. At home in Missouri I’ve got a little girl about your age (she smiles at Mia) and her younger brother, and it’s hard on them and me when I’m gone, and sometimes even for a week after I get back, but after that it’s like we love each other even harder.”
Mia is thinking about telling her friends this story about a lady soldier talking to her and abuela starts to say thank you when Mommy interrupts with a smooth but angry voice that Mia doesn’t recognize.
“My family doesn’t live in Missouri, ma’am” (Mia could tell by the way she said that last word that Mommy was annoyed the lady soldier didn’t call her “Captain Herrera”). They live 15 minutes away in Woodhaven, Queens. If you think we have so much in common, tell your CO to give me a pass so I can be with my daughter and take care of my sick mother. Otherwise, yes I do mind your eavesdropping.”
The soldier quickly walked away and Mia, Mommy, and abuela said goodbye again. But this time, Mia wasn’t in a hurry for ice cream. She let go back to the lawn chair while she watched Mommy walk back down the middle of 57th Avenue. This time she was positive that Captain Herrera was afraid to step off the double lines.
April 11: Theories
You wake up on a Sunday to the sound of your boys fighting in the living room over who has to be America: Jacob complaining in his high angry voice that Joshua always gets to be the good teams in FIFA, then muttering as he mashes his controller that this just means Ghana is going to lose to Landon Donovan’s dumb white ass; then Joshua starting his baby cry, and Jacob lowering his volume and tone, saying Hey come on, I’m four years older than you, of course I’m going to be better; then Joshua sobbing louder and more aggressively; and finally Jacob angrily slamming the door of their bedroom and the sniffles of a seven-year old boy who refuses to learn that crying doesn’t get you anything in this world.
But you’re barely listening to the Playstation drama, because you’re tuned in to the same silence out your window that you’ve been hearing for the last month, a silence that’s been growing. Last week it was simply the absence of the constant helicopters and sirens that have taken over Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, and everywhere else. Now it’s even muffling the laughter and fighting you’d normally hear outside your window before all this started.
Eventually, you take a deep breath and exhale, flip off the blanket, and do twenty half-ass crunches before putting on some sweatpants and splashing some water in your face at the bathroom sink. Joshua is still moping on the couch on your way to the kitchen. You bend down to kiss the top of his head and mumble Keep trying and eventually you’ll beat America, then grab a couple waffles from the freezer while you make coffee and turn on WAVY to confirm what you already know. Still not here.
Damn plague is up and down the whole Eastern Seaboard except Norfolk and nobody knows why, supposedly. The news keeps calling it a reprieve but that’s foolish. A reprieve buys you time to alter your fate, change your ways, start a new life, get out of town. What are you supposed to do with this extra time? The airport is closed. So are all the roads out of town. Even if they were open, so is the shipyard--busier than it’s been in years actually--and you can’t just up and leave your job. So you and everyone else pass the time of your “reprieve” talking about the same two things.
The first thing is percents. Every couple of days the numbers change just enough to keep you all talking in the break room, at the checkout counter, over dinner with your in-laws. 100 percent of people in the zone are infected. 2.6 will die. 4.2 will be permanently disabled. 18.4 will lose their jobs, 15.9 their health care, 7.8 their homes. 47.4 will vote Democrat, 46.9 Republican. 14.3 will become extremist in thought, 5.6 extremist in action. 4.3 will develop new skills that lead to better jobs than their last one, 15.3 will discover fulfilling new hobbies. And so on.
Many see in all this the hand of the Almighty, and you might have too before Joshua. For a few years you tried believing that Janet’s death was His way of testing your faith. But when you heard your father-in-law telling his grandkids those very words you raised your voice that the responsibility for their mother’s death rested solely with Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, and that your kids were not going to grow up believing that not only police and doctors and the government but God Almighty himself that was out to get them because they were Black. And even though Grandma Val didn’t say anything as she followed her outraged husband out the door, you could tell she was glad you said it.
The second thing you talk about, of course, is when it’s finally going to come. Everybody has a theory, including the ones who told you ten seconds earlier that none of us can try to understand the way of God. There are those who think that it will be at least a week because it just took such a big jump--most of Virginia and Ohio plus across the ocean--as if the Corona gets tired. Others, including you, say the rate of growth depends on how many new people enter it, and with Ireland and Portugal panicking and sending in thousands of soldiers and medical teams it will probably swell again in another 36 hours.
At your in-laws’ dinner table, Jacob likes being the most outrageous voice in these arguments. He tells wide eyed stories from his YouTubers-- one says the plague is a CIA plot to wipe out Black people, another says Africans have immunity, that Wakanda is real, Kilmonger won, and this is Phase One of his liberation war. But as Jacob raises his voice and slowly wears down the grownups into bemused submission, Joshua squeezes your hand under the table to let you know he wants the conversation to stop, and gives you the same pleading look he’s giving you this morning from the couch to turn off the radio.
You stare back at him evenly as you chew your waffle, an ongoing silent conversation that has lasted for weeks and is eating away at your insides. He’s asking you to please make this stop. And you’re telling him that you can’t even though you love him more than anything, maybe even more than his brother. And he’s saying But didn’t you promise me when I was born that you may not be a perfect father, that you may be moody sometimes and not be able to afford Disney Plus but that you would always protect me? And you say Yes that’s right. You will never forgive yourself for meekly obeying the doctors and nurses who killed his Mom. That’s why the radio is on, and why you’re going to spend this Sunday watching Fox News and MSNBC and reading Israeli websites blaming Iran and Brazilian websites blaming Jews and keep digging until you find something that sounds like the truth.
That’s why when this all first started you didn’t hesitate to tell people that they shouldn’t believe anything from inside the plague zone because there was software distorting outgoing calls and social media. You knew they thought you were crazy but now it turns out you were right. But you don’t care about being right. You just want to protect the boy from the couch, but you can’t change the percents: 4.2 that Jacob will be permanently disabled. 2.6 that Joshua will die. 100 percent that you have become an extremist.