Not the Brightest Star

            “You know, I’m getting pretty tired of hearin’ my neighbors complain about wanting to get back to work.” Orange Bandana Mask Man and his Shephard mix have emerged from one of the well-groomed homes on Clinton Street. I see him every day on my walks. We nod, say hello, sometimes stop to chat. So today, with Ian in tow, I stopped to ask how he was doing.

            “They just are constantly harpin on it. I wanna get back to work. I need to get back to work. Work work work.” He shakes his head, clearly fed-up.

            Ian pipes in, “Well, maybe they need the work. Maybe they have bills to pay…” His voice trails off. He’s lost his job driving cab because of the Plague. Who knows when or if he’ll ever get back to it. I think back to “No Work” man whom I’d run into several weeks ago now. The agony and panic of his loss of work. The desperation of not having his income and not being able to control the environment around him. I think of my own situation. Just last week learning that my summer class only has one person enrolled.  No one wants to go to school in a Pandemic, esp if they have to take a flight from India or Uzbekistan. And, so, my boss had canceled the class. The Virus. It’s taken a toll on the economy and our livelihoods. Yet, Orange Bandana Man seems completely unsympathetic as he continues his rant. “I’m retired.  And I come out here and walk every day, hell, I do. It don’t make no difference to me. My wife….” He pauses for a moment, chuckles softly, “….she is good with savin money. We got 4 or 5 years left on the mortgage. That….” he nods toward the massive black jeep Cherokee parked on the street. “…is almost paid off.  All these years I wanted things and she said, no we need to save for our retirement and sure enough here we are and I’m glad I did without!”

            The dog lies down on the sidewalk. His walk postponed. “I don’t wanna go on and on…” he continues, going on, “but the Federal Government, it needs to do something. Trump, he needs to do something….”

            “I heard that the banks have come up with a mortgage deferment plan or forbearance?” I begin, trying to remember the details, but all I can remember is the punchline. “And the problem with this was that yeah, you could not pay your mortgage for 6 months, but then wham at the end of this 6 months, you’d have to pay it all back in one lump sum. That’s not gonna help!” I exclaim, pissed off at the stupidity of it all.

            Orange Bandana shakes his head, “Yeah, I’m not the brightest star in the sky, but even I know how you gonna get money back from people if they don’t have the money to begin with? It just don’t make any sense!”

            He shakes his head, clearly empathy growing now for the unemployed. What changed? Did our presence and our predicaments that we hadn’t really even shared with him come through? Is he more sensitive than he seems? Even if he isn’t the brightest star in the sky?

            Who knows, but there was a shift. A hatred of the Federal Government and Trump, perhaps?

            This could have been it. A common bond here with all citizens of Richmond. Trump is the reason for all the ills of the world. Why even the spread of the Virus. He didn’t get on it quick enough. He dismissed it as no worse than the flu. I’d read a story in the paper this morning of one woman’s harrowing survival of the Covid-19, “I don’t care what anyone says,” she narrates,  “it’s NOT like the flu. I was sick for days with a fever of …..”

            I’d stopped reading the article after a few paragraphs. Convinced of her argument. Glad that at least, I hadn’t contracted the Virus. At least not yet….And it’s this fear of the future, of the unknown, of how the Virus spreads and why and what to do to prevent it and the lack of testing etc etc etc that is beginning to take a toll on everyone. Carl Nolte, in his Sunday SF Chron column, had written about how when he was a kid, there was the invisible fear of a nuclear bomb being dropped on us, destroying civilization as we know it. And this, too, is invisible. We can’t see the Virus. We’re still out here walking and complaining. The birds are still singing and the kids are still screaming and it all seems so ‘normal’ and yet…it’s not…

            Now, the dog rises. Ready for his walk. Paces around in a circle. Sniffing the sidewalk. He’s been patient through all of this and it’s his time.

            Orange Bandana laughs, “Guess, Riley here is ready to go.”

            We wave goodbye. Riley leads the way. Ian continues the discussion. But right now, I just want to get home and lie down.