Plague Journal, Day 32: Learning to love auto repair

Monday. A storm blows from the west; wind batters the 14-story apartment building, rain slams into shuddering panes. I have a list of chores (laundry, pharmacy, shopping); I postpone all until tomorrow. The Girlfriend and I sleep in, feel stronger. Even our deepest breaths elicit no lung tightness. 

We sign up for a couple of blood tests (through Mt. Sinai Hospital, the National Institutes of Health). We’ve not been tested but assume we’ve had Covid-19, given the positive test of a friend with identical symptoms to The Girlfriend’s. Perhaps our antibodies would enable us to donate platelets, do outside work during times of confinement. We’ve read enough to know the promise of “immunity” outpaces the science: no one knows whether this coronavirus’s infection confers any immunity to reinfection, much less the immunity’s strength or duration. (Ethical questions raised by proposed “immunity certificates” feel like something for science fiction writers to untangle.)

In what’s probably an excess of caution we’ve decided to wait until Friday to move The Kid from The Co-Parent’s to my apartment. 

“You’d hate it here today anyway,” I text. “The wind’s been whipping through the windows, whistling and howling all day.” 

“Aggggh. Nooooo.” 

Later, we chat. 

“Dad.” 

“Yes?” 

“You were supposed to write yesterday about my awesome skating accident.” 

“I was?” 

“Yes. Instead you wrote about drums. And death.” 

“That’s what you got out of that post?” 

“Well, I only skimmed it.” 

“You just skim my posts to see if you’re in them, don’t you?” 

“I plead the Fifth Amendment.” 

The Kid’s been getting too little exercise. After I dropped off her roller derby gear Friday, she skated this weekend in Prospect Park. Though she’s a novice, the absence of Gotham Girls workouts has been one of CoronaWorld’s real costs.

But “Steals On Wheels” — all Gotham Girls pick a derby name — was happy to get solo exercise in the park. She avoided the steepest hill by cutting west on Center Drive, skirting the park’s northern half, but still had to navigate a downhill run on West Drive’s southern end. This may have been a mistake; she’s yet to master the plow stop. Careening out of control, she dropped to one knee, skidded for “quite a few” feet — 6? 10? — then dropped to both knees, hit a curb, fell on her side. 

“People were asking if I was OK from all over the road, plus both pedestrian paths. It was pretty dramatic.” 

“Wow.” 

“I’m glad I wore my full derby gear. You should see how scratched my knee pads are.” 

“Imagine if those had been your knees.” 

“I’d rather not.” 

One of the things The Kid dislikes about CoronaWorld: no more after-school trips to gas stations or bodegas to buy her comfort food of choice: Pringles and soda. She still has access to Pringles at The Co-Parent’s. 

“I’ve never liked Pringles,” I say. “They taste too — I don’t know. Pressed. Industrial.”

“They’re the best. They’re the perfect blend of chip and salt. Plus they stack so perfectly. I gauge how my day has been by how many Pringles I stack up to eat at one time.” 

“OK, you’re going to have to explain that.” 

“Pringles are comfort. If it’s a good day, then I only need to eat one chip at a time. If it’s an OK day, then I eat two chips at a time. Not so good: three chips. Bad: four chips. One time I had such a bad day that I ate them five at a time.” 

“What happened that day?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“OK. How about in CoronaWorld? Are you stacking more chips these days?” 

“Pretty much every day in CoronaWorld is a three-stack day.” 

“That’s not so good.” 

“Exactly.” 

At his Monday press conference Gov. Cuomo says, “I believe the worst is over, if we continue to be smart.” New York’s numbers continue to be “horrific” but are stabilizing: 671 deaths on Sunday was the lowest figure in a week; 1,958 hospitalizations the lowest figure in two weeks; 6,337 new Covid-19 cases the lowest in almost three weeks.

The president, meanwhile, was miffed by The New York Times’ Sunday story of Trumpian inaction throughout January and February described by contemporaneous emails among government and ex-government pandemic experts. He also disliked promises of coordinated action to reopen economies by seven East Coast and three West Coast governors. He uses his press conference to unveil a campaign-style triumphalist video; to lambaste reporters with more than typical spite; to declare that, under presidential emergency declarations, he has “total” power to re-open the economy. Every second I spend listening makes me feel stupider.  

The Girlfriend and I are getting along pretty well in CoronaWorld. But spending 23 hours, day after day, seeing only one person outside of an hour’s exercise: we’re like friendly cellmates. As The Girlfriend regains strength she starts to feel her confinement, gripes more. 

“I hate New York City in CoronaWorld. Even when I go out there’s no place to go. Nothing’s open. I don’t like seeing the same streets.” 

“You have to vary your walks.” 

“I’ve just started to feel good enough to walk more than 15 minutes. I can’t even sit on a bench.” 

“You could go to Prospect Park.” 

“You have to let me complain.” 

“All right.” 

Early evening the storm breaks. Through crisp air I walk south, then east on Bergen Street. As I cross Underhill Avenue I hear loud music, loud voices. I approach. The sign reads Tri-State Auto Repair. I looked this up last week after I saw a stalled ambulance on Greene Avenue: in CoronaWorld auto repair is an essential business. 

I live in fear of auto repair shops. My mechanical knowledge consists of “righty-tighty/lefty-loosey.” When they tell me I need new hoses, belts, fantabs, cognozzles, my only response is: How much? The only certainty: I will leave less confident in my intelligence, my masculinity. I spent a high-school summer working for my Central Valley Friend’s father, who ran a farm equipment shop. My friend got to deal with customers at the register; I worked in the warehouse with the mechanics, smells of grease and stale coffee, narrow bathroom with black-stained porcelain, gritty soap powder, calendar pictures of semi-naked women reclining on combines. I put together small tractors shipped in crates from Japan four-fifths assembled; I had to uncrate them, attach handle bars to the steering column, put on tires, fill them with air, gas, ready them for rental. I don’t know why my friend’s father agreed to it; charity, I guess. I was terrible, hated every day. The guys were friendly enough, but, though I grew up within 10 miles of the shop, I was a city boy fearful of their condescension. After a few weeks, though, I got into a rhythm; by the end of the summer I could put together two tractors in an 8-hour day, if I was flying maybe part of a third. Perhaps I hadn’t wasted my summer; perhaps with a bit of elbow grease I could achieve things I’d imagined impossible. In my last week one of the guys had a lull, asked if he could put one together. Sure, I said. He finished in 25 minutes. 

Like I said, I fucking hate auto repair shops. 

Now three men, masked, sit on different sides of a car on blocks. Sly Stone’s “I Want To Take You Higher” blares. 

“That ain’t real!” 

“I guaran-goddamn-tee you it is!” 

“Man, you are full of sheee-it.” 

“I tell you, I’ve seen it!”

Lucky bastards. I feel a primal urge to walk into the garage, pull up a stack of hubcap covers, grab a cup of stale coffee, listen to these gentlemen for an hour. And I realize: CoronaWorld is a deeply weird, deeply lonely place.

(New York state numbers as of Monday: 195,031 diagnosed with Covid-19, up 3.4 percent; 671 dead, to a total of 10,056, up 7.1 percent. Overall U.S. deaths: 23,398, up 6.7 percent.)