Pandemic Pondering
Pandemic Pondering
Lessons from COVID-19 for when the next once-in-a-lifetime pandemic inevitably arrives in the next five years.
The first time I ever took coronavirus seriously was in February 2020 while in Costa Rica with a friend and four strangers. Patrick, a guy I had come to like, kept talking about the virus in a way that made me think he spent a little too much time in the seedier corners of the internet (not that I would know anything about that).
But he was a smart guy, and he turned out to be prophetic. I think what made me realize this would be a big deal was reading about China erecting hospitals in ten days to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Holy shit, I thought, for better or worse, America couldn’t build a hospital in ten days. I returned to America thinking the only developed country in the world without nationalized healthcare and a gameshow host as president would probably have a rough go in the budding pandemic. Not that that stopped Trump supporters from calling it the “Kung Fu Flu” and other racist nomenclatures while laughing at projections it could kill 100,000 Americans.
Triage care came to Italy in early March. The Blue Jackets tried to host games at full capacity because they had “special ventilation systems.” Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted to hold his annual international steroid exhibit and martial arts tournament in downtown Columbus and was thankfully rebuffed by our traditionally feckless leaders.
On March 14th, The Dispatch captured me in my natural 2020 aesthetic: Mentally depressed and guzzling double Tito’s and sodas at The Main Bar. I told the reporters that I was in a bar because I felt it would be the last Thursday with some sort of normalcy for a very long time. Also that I planned to spend the summer in Cuba, a civilized country with a world renowned healthcare system that would be more affordable to me, the American dipshit, should I contract the virus. The quotes proved too hot to print, though apparently I was sexy enough to model in a few pictures.
I never made it to Cuba. In the end I didn’t want to be a sieve on a poor Caribbean country that would rightly use a limited ventilator on a citizen rather than me, the dipshit who traveled to their country in the pandemic. Not to mention, Governor Mike DeWine, heeding the advice of Dr. Acton, had Ohio leading the country in pandemic response.
I spent the rest of March like most Ohioans: Staying home, smoking weed, playing video games and jacking off in every room of my landlord’s spare house.
We all know what happened next. The Facebook Virologists and the Big Business Community went ballistic over their loss in revenue and demanded that DeWine re-open the state. Armed militias picketed Dr. Acton’s house and she chose to resign.
When the bars opened, I got offered a job at The Patio, the oldest bar in the oldest neighborhood in Columbus. I figured why not earn a few bucks before DeWine inevitably shuttered the bars again so I could collect some of that sweet, sweet unemployment money. It was about time somebody paid me to live in this godforsaken state. That proved to be an error in calculation.
Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd on tape shortly thereafter and America erupted in indignation that I have never seen in my life. Suddenly the pandemic was cancelled as we took to the streets all over the country. I was honored to be arrested, beaten, tear gassed and shot by a rubber bullet all in the same week before grifters and teen-agers co-opted and neutralized the decentralized movement.
Two weeks later I woke up in the trauma wing of the intensive care unit at Grant Hospital. I had been in a serious single-car accident, the doctor explained. I had broken my jaw in three places, lost two and a half teeth, cracked nine ribs and shattered my ankle. Oh, and I was on a ventilator and restraints around my wrists were to prevent me from pulling the tube out of my throat.
I thought this was another one of those sick, demented dreams that my mind loves to produce. Sadly it was not. I hobbled home after six days at Grant Hospital with a jaw that was wired shut. I ate soup for a month and depended on the care of my little brother to nurse me back to health. As I’ve always said, they’re not your brother until you see them carry a jug of your urine up the stairs to dump in your landlord’s spare toilet.
The FBI arrested then-Speaker of the House Larry Householder on RICO charges the day I was set to get my jaw unwired. The secretary asked me how I my day was going. Lady, I said, the only way this day is going to get better is if you hand me the winning Mega Millions ticket. She said why would I give that to you if I had it? Good point, I said. Can’t blame me for trying.
I ate my first meal of solid food at Tommy’s Diner. Eggs, sausage, toast and potatoes. I thought it would be a glorious redemption but it felt as pleasurable as chewing shards of glass because my muscles hadn’t be used in a month. I picked around my plate, suffered a few bites, and waved the white flag. It would be awhile before I could eat normally again, even while missing teeth.
I decided to return to work at The Patio. I knew the hospital bills were about to run wild on my bank account. My small business tyrant of a boss had wanted me to return to work while my jaw was wired shut since he could make out what I was saying even after he drank 15 Budweisers. I thought he was joking but my co-workers had saved my job and covered my shifts so I figured I owed it to them to get back in the game.
I returned to work a month after the crash. I’ll never forget that first hobbled jaunt down Bellows Avenue while wearing a walking boot, totally resigned to catching coronavirus while trying to pay down my medical debt by selling beer and liquor to the retired, unemployed and criminal elements that frequent The Patio during the day shift. The American Dream! We love it, don’t we, folks?
It was during this time I made the second best decision of 2020. The neighborhood kids knocked on my door one night when I was drunk and playing Call of Duty. What’s up, children? Nothing much, they said. Our mom just wanted to know if you (the creepy bachelor who feeds feral cats) would take this kitten? What’s wrong with it, I asked? Nothing they said. Okay, sure, I said. What’s its name? Snowbell. Ah, I said. Welcome to my life, Snowbell. She’s sleeping next to me while I write this.
You might be asking what was the best decision I made in 2020? Good question. That decision was deciding to make the illustrious KGB Stacey my girlfriend.
I had known KGB Stacey through Twitter since my failed campaign for Statehouse. We were both dating other people at the time but we both became single and moved to Columbus. She slid into my DMs (and that’s the God’s honest truth) around the George Floyd protests and we hit it off.
Driving my car into a wall like a dipshit and having to rehab for a month put a damper on the budding romance but this woman was relentless. And who could blame her? I was a crippled communist with a broken smile and three cats that worked as a bartender in the Bottoms.
One night we were leaving The Patio and I thought I heard her tell somebody that she would never move to The Bottoms. I spun around angrier than a rattlesnake who had just been stepped on by a city slicker. Drunker, too. What did you say?
Hey, you idiot, she said. I said I would never move to the Bottoms if I wasn’t your girlfriend.
Oh, I said. You want to be my girlfriend? She nodded. Congratulations, lady, we now go together. Hope you’re satisfied with the three inches of pink steel in my pants.
About a month later I came to the grim conclusion that DeWine would never close the bars, and I was stuck like an alcoholic hamster on a wheel that would have me serving degenerates for eight hours and then spending all my tips right back into the bar. In my defense, what else do you want to do after standing on a cement floor all day besides sit down have a stiff drink?
I retired from The Patio and went to work with Shawn, one of about 20 customers I didn’t want to murder while working. He was a 35-year-old with a budding construction business that specialized in building decks and remodeling bathrooms. It was perfect because those were the two things I considered “must-haves” in the house I was probably never going to buy.
December was his off month, a time he cherished to spend with his family. Tragically, he had a seizure that turned into a fatal heart attack. His family traveled to Columbus from Missouri, claimed his remains, and took his 13-year-old daughter who had never been to Missouri with them after refusing to answer his girlfriend’s calls. They didn’t even give her the rent money that was in his wallet before absconding back to the Show-Me State. But hey, at least Shawn was an organ donor who saved four lives, ranging from age 14 to 60. I will always be able to find peace in that.
On January 1st, I said I would never speak of 2020 again outside of KGB and Snowbell. But that proved impossible considering America was reckoning with the results of gathering together for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Who could have seen that coming other than anyone who had googled the Spanish Flu? As of this writing, coronavirus has killed at least 564,000 Americans — a number I still can’t wrap my head around.
One thing America did get right is kicking that bum Donald Trump to the curb and electing Joe Biden. I’m not here to suck Biden’s dick. Sure, he’s the most left-wing president of my lifetime but that’s nothing to write home about when the competition is Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and President Business Deals. They’re all Republicans in my eyes.
I have grave concerns about Biden’s handling of the border and his demented idea that we should spend $14 billion more on our military-industrial complex than even Trump requested.
Those critiques aside, however, we are seeing the effects of having a competent adult in charge of the vaccine rollout. Critics said Biden’s goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days was pie-in-the-sky ambition. We smashed that. Hell, even the Canadians are envious of our rollout.
I was resigned to not getting vaccinated until June. And it probably would have been later than that if that fucking idiot Trump had retained power. But last weekend I was able to hug my 89-year-old grandmother for the first time since December 2019. Today I will receive my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine in Chillicothe, a city that will forever hold a special place in my heart for doing what Columbus couldn’t.
I’m looking forward to going to a bar or a restaurant and not feeling like a reckless asshole, though I do take pride in supporting the service industry through the pandemic and miraculously escaping infection. If you want to shame me for those decisions, that’s your right as an American.
I saw Bill Gates, that billionaire fucker who impeded global access to vaccines, say that the world as a whole likely won’t return to normal until late 2022.
I don’t think that’s fair to people who weren’t born in the land of the free and the home of the brave, especially considering how our disastrous response helped spread the virus all over the globe.
America is currently enforcing intellectual property laws around a cure to a global pandemic that prevents other countries cheaply producing it and distributing it to our population. We are putting Big Pharma profits over the lives of millions of people in developing countries, not that that’s much of a surprise considering we routinely do the same within our own borders as well.
However, all I hear from American media is about the evils of China, Russia and Cuba. They’re not perfect but they’re producing their own vaccines and will gladly distribute them to the rest of the world, free of cost. Seems to me if I were these other countries I would remember which one helped my people and which one decided to enrich Pfizer’s CEO, who already made $17.9 million in 2019.
I want everybody in the world to feel the joy I will have when a nurse jabs my flabby arm with the second shot free of charge. In a perfect world, that would be America delivering that freedom through a vaccine rather than a bomb. But I’m no longer naive enough to think that will be the case.
THOSE WMDs. The ugly narratives surrounding Justin Fields’ draft stock… Death to America’s manicured lawns… Tommy Chimms: Farewell to the weed man… When you can’t quit a crush… How to fix your messed-up sleeping position… Daunte Wright: A doting father, ballplayer, slain by police.