As for Dia de Muertos 2020, I think it's clear who we should be meditating on: those souls who need not have passed on. We could go to the origins of this pandemic to focus our anger, but they are too murky. What we do know is that our president was warned about the fatality of the disease, and he told Bob Woodward that he deliberately downplayed its severity because he didn't want people to panic. Also, he owned many real estate properties whose value has declined due to restrictions.
Now there are at least 230,000 dead in this country alone. Had we elected another president in 2016, knowing Americans and their distrust of government, we would probably still have some high numbers. But we can be fairly certain that they would still be significantly lower. Another president wouldn't have disagreed with scientific experts, told people not to wear masks, or even managed to hold super-spreader events responsible for thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths.
As we approach Election Day, I think of a song that reminds me not only of the election four years ago, but also how the Covid-19 pandemic began.
I've written before about what it was like in New York City in March when I moved. Tonight I think specifically of my second to last night in Manhattan. I had been packing for four days, and was completely exhausted, getting a few hours of sleep each night. I'd driven 6 hours round trip the day before so I could leave some belongings in my parents' barn, and I greeted them from ten feet away and never went inside their house. Then I'd driven home, spent a few more hours packing, and then, right before I was going to drift off to sleep, I foolishly checked the news and read about the governor potentially closing certain streets to open up foot traffic, which I misinterpreted as he might close down my street and my car would be stuck and I wouldn't be able to get out. Packing up your life and getting out of town on short notice is one thing, but doing it as a sleep-deprived zombie while the world goes to hell is another matter.
I still had had to wait two more days to move to receive this privileged gift of living here in this cabin, and it was going to pour rain all day Monday, so Sunday night was my last night to wander my neighborhood with some impromptu sentimental reminiscing.
It was hard to feel sentimental though. It was more like confused awe, and not the good kind. I was more concerned about being stuck in Manhattan than about getting the virus, although if I did get stuck, the concern for the latter would have increased exponentially. More on my mind was a serious fear about the future of society, something I've always had in the back of my mind with respect to our approaching climate catastrophe.
That Sunday night, all the businesses were closing early. The governor had announced new restrictions, and Broadway in west Harlem felt like a ghost town. It was unseasonably cold and windy, and the sun had just set. People were shuffling along to get back home, keep their distance, eyeing each other suspiciously, some of them wearing masks. It was as if we were a haunted town in the mountains, everyone had to shutter their windows and latch their doors before the monsters wreaked havoc after nightfall. The pizza place next door, Olga's, closed up shop as I walked by, never to reopen.
One of my favorite pastimes has always been strolling around the city, but especially at night. I liked to walk to the Hudson River and feel the wind on my face, take some deep breaths, look down to the Grant Memorial and all the way to the World Trade Center, across the river to New Jersey, and north to the Palisades, beyond the GW Bridge. There was always this gigantic flag illumined by massive lights on the other side, and sometimes, when I was concerned about our nation's future, I took solace upon seeing it, knowing that we'd been through plenty before.
However, my last night walking the streets of New York City, the flag was not flying. It wasn't even half mast. It looked dead.
I walked up 136th to Amsterdam, right by City College, where there is an incredible view of the city skyline from a hilltop. I would often stand there and just stare at the lights, sometimes with a song on. Once a woman had walked by and realized what I was looking at and said, "Wow! I've lived here my whole life and never noticed that!" I think redirecting people's attention to the beauty all around them is one of my main functions on this Earth. But on my last night there, nobody else was around, that is, except for two homeless people who asked me for change. I dropped a dollar in their hand from a distance, and then put my headphones on.
If you want the ultimate scary tune for 'The Day of the Dead,' I insist upon listening to the 17 minute "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The first time I heard it was in the eighth year of the Bush administration, and with all they did to speed up the destruction of our planet, it felt very fitting at the time. However, I couldn't imagine the 2016 election back then, which was the next memorable listen. Same hill as my last night walking Manhattan, but instead of 9 or 10 pm it was 4 in the morning on Veterans Day.
As I stared at the skyline of the most powerful city on Earth, which was quickly becoming the epicenter of the worst pandemic in a century, each line seemed to speed through my ears and straight to my spine, eerily on point in every way.
"The car's on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows
The government is corrupt
And we're so many drunks
With the radio on and the curtains drawn
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death
The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles
It went like this:
The buildings toppled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies
Picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair
The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze
I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -
These are truly the last days"
You grabbed my hand
And we fell into it
Like a daydream
Or a fever"
I walked around the neighborhood some more, checking out all my old haunts while the haunting music continued. I got one last glance of City College, St. Nicholas Park and that enormous evergreen they adorn with lights for the holidays, the exquisite brownstones on Convent, Striver's Row, Alexander Hamilton's old house, The Grange, Amsterdam, Broadway, the river again.
"We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death
I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood"
I walked for half an hour or so, pausing after the second track to just take in the quiet of the streets once more. When I reached my apartment, I began the third track from "******* Infinity" on the stoop before going inside. It's called "Providence" because the opening interview was conducted on the streets of Providence, Rhode Island:
"Do you think the end of the world is coming?"
"The preacher man said it's the end of time. He says that America's rivers are going dry, the interest is up, the stock market is down. You guys got to be careful walking around here this late at night."
"Do you have change sir?"
"This. No, we don't ma'm, I'm sorry.... This, this, this is the perfect place to get jumped."
"But do you think the end of the world is coming?
"No. So says the preacher man, but I don't go by what he says."
I listened to the rest in my empty room, the walls barren, a street lamp shining in through the window.
"Where are you go-ing...."
Two nights later I got on the highway with all my possessions and rode five hours north to where I've lived ever since. As I rode through the snowy mountains well after dark, my mind was filled with uncertainty. When would I see my loved ones again? How safe were my friends? How long was this going to last? How many would die? Would my language school survive more than a couple months? What kind of jobs would be available if I got laid off, and how could I safely work them? I was looking at two weeks of quarantining alone in a cabin without insulation or heat except for firewood. But would I be able to shop for basic necessities in two weeks time? How much would the restrictions increase? Would we be like Wuhan, with soldiers delivering food, or Italy, where they needed passes to go to the grocery store? What would be the ripple effects in the economy? And on top of all that, would this president get re-elected and continue destroying the environment and risking nuclear war with his chest thumping?
As my mind swirled, I heard "Providence" whispering:
"Where are you go-ing...? Where are you go-ing...?
Where are you go-ing...? Where are you go-ing...?"
As Joseph Campbell said, "Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be."
What I do know is that I've just given money to Joe Biden's campaign, and at the behest of Uncle Al, tomorrow I'm going to volunteer to make phone calls to get voters to the polls.
Every four years we have to deal with some level of political fear. This year, we need to stare it in the face and save the human race.
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