18 months ago: Visiting New York City, the very epicenter of COV$D
Editor's
note: Here we are, dear reader, about to view a rough draft of Chapter
3 of my proposed book about traveling throughout America during that
strange first year of the Great COV$D Pandemic. "2020: My Year of
Living Dangerously During the Lock-Down" is the book's working title.
PS: This adventure took place back in the "good old days" when travel was still allowed.
Nobody is allowed to travel hardly anywhere any more. My next scheduled trip to
the Middle East was just cancelled. Why? Because of petty COV$D lock-downs of course -- but also because no one there trusts
Americans. Can you blame them?
April 11, 2020:
Holy moley! I'm leaving for New York City tomorrow morning at the
butt-crack of dawn. New York City -- where apparently freezer-morgue
trucks line the streets and corpses are being buried in mass graves due
to COV$D. Talk about being a war correspondent? I'm going to be
entering what sounds like a war zone. This opportunity is just too good
to pass up. Plus airfares and hotel rooms are all super-cheap right
now. Might as well take advantage.
April 12, 2020:
After all this time, is it any surprise that I am the absolute queen of
organized packing? And at exactly 4:45 am, I hauled my suitcase and
laptop and purse and box lunch and cup of hot tea out into the dark and
damp streets of Berkeley, only to sit on the curb for 27 minutes while
waiting for the F bus to San Francisco.
"This isn't a bus stop, lady," said the driver but I looked so pathetic
that he let me onboard anyway. And it still isn't even daylight out
yet. My three-day adventure has officially begun. Go, me! No Fear! Except for the fear of missing a bus.
You simply can't believe what happened next. I was the only person at the TSA security checkpoint.
Let me say it again. The only one. Unreal. And now I'm one of
perhaps ten passengers on a plane that should hold over 200 travelers.
How cool is this! If only it wasn't so sad.
And here I am on the airplane, reading a murder-mystery paperback about
a private security company that tried to take over America by creating a
giant fear incident. The fictional company's name was Blackthorn --
and guess what? Eric Prince's Blackwater company will now take over
security for the current COV$D-19[84] fear incident. I'm speechless.
"Life imitates art." The flight attendant also fed us some most
excellent granola bars on the plane. I even got two extra ones all to
myself.
JFK airport was empty.
"A city brought to its knees," was my first thought. And of course my
next thought was, "Where is the restroom". JFK's airtrain is empty.
Will the subway be empty too? I'm just about in tears. I curse the
bastards who did this.
Holy cow. I just realized that none of these poorest of the poor will
be receiving any of that "stimulus package" relief money either. That
sucks eggs. $1,200 would have at least bought them each a good meal and
a roof over their head for at least one last night, sort of like when a
condemned prisoner gets one last meal.
I don't have to go over to Bellevue Hospital and look for
refrigerator-truck morgues to see the effect of COV$D on New York City.
All I gotta do is look at its streets, any street.
I love
my hotel. Totally cool! I've got an 18th-floor up-close view of the
Empire State Building, winking at me, right outside my window. And the
room itself? A high-tech modern design, newness and tile and wood and
chrome. Way beyond IKEA. So I watched cable TV and then went to
sleep. Discovered the Hallmark channel. Pure schmaltz. Just what I
need.
April 13, 2020:
Perhaps there is something to all this COV$D-19 panic after all. I just
woke up from a horrible dream wherein I'd taken a handful of salt
crystals from an old baking soda box, added some peach pits, poured them
into an old pressure-cooker, filled the pot with water and waited for
it to boil. So far, so good. But then things got weird. Horrid
half-dead insects started crawling out of the boiling water, trying to
get away. Repulsive. I tried again and again to kill their ugly
selves, stepping on them with my feet. Translucent albinos, mutants,
creepy-crawly things with pincers and multiple legs. Gross!
But, in the dream, I did feel sorry for this one mutant butterfly,
painfully trying to crawl out, with one large deformed translucent
wing. But they were all mutants, having been bred from the darkness at
the bottom of the salt box. And there was only one thing I could do in
the midst of all this horror -- one obvious thing. I got on the phone
and called Mr. Rogers. And, I'll be damned, he actually came over,
sweater and all. "Kindness makes everything better," he said. Was that
the moral of this dream? Do dreams even have morals?
It was rather cold last night in my perfect little hotel room 18
stories above New York City. I'll ask for another blanket tonight.
2:00 pm:
Holy sheep dookie, what a morning I've had. Well, actually it wasn't
exactly all that exciting -- unless you consider that I did it all in a
rainstorm with 40-to-50 mile-per-hour winds.
First I walked down Broadway to Harold Square, then on to Union
Square. And, no, Soho Press wasn't open. It's my favorite publishing
house. Rats. All I got was a photo of the doorman shooing me away.
"They are all working from home." But the Food Emporium was still open
so I bought a huge Caesar salad for later and half a rotisserie chicken
for now -- which I ate while walking down Second Avenue toward B&H
Dairy.
St. Marks Place was shut up tight. Nothing. Not even cars parked at
the curbs. Not even the Gem Spa was open. I street-hiked down to
B&H Dairy. Fingers crossed! No, nope, it was closed too. But.
Coming to the Lower East Side without eating rice pudding is a crime
against nature so I stopped by a grocery store and bought some "Kozy
Shack" rice pudding. Not as ethnic as B&H but who cares. This is
an emergency! It was delicious.
Then over to East 5th Street for even more Remembrance of Things Past.
I used to live here back in 1965 -- but don't remember those stairs
being so steep. Used to pay $28 a month for an apartment with a toilet
in the hall and a bathtub in the kitchen-slash-living room. Now all
those rent-controlled apartments have been converted into truly
expensive condos. Sigh.
At the nearby Ninth Precinct police station, I asked directions to the
neighborhood food give-away. "I used to live next door to you guys 55
years ago," I told two cops standing in front of the precinct. They
smiled indulgently.
"You walk down to First Avenue," said one cop, "then left on 3rd Street
for the free lunch." And, yes, there it was. Turkey sandwiches, milk,
generic Cheerios and carrots to be exact, being distributed to us
plague victims by civic-minded volunteers. At that point, however, the
wind turned my umbrella inside out and it was time to get back to the
hotel. On the bus up First Avenue, I passed several hospitals. None of
them looked busy to me.
More rain. More wind.
Now I'm back home, snug in my little hotel, eating salad and rice
pudding and happy as a clam. Oh, and I also went up in the elevator to
the hotel's rooftop garden on the thirty-second floor to eat there. No
fun at all. "Terrifying" would be a better word. A terrific view,
sure, but far too much wind and rain. Yikes.
The hotel sent me up another blanket, a huge white comforter, so now
I'm totally ready to hunker down and shelter in place like the rest of
New York City's elite. But then I got bored. Back to hitting the
streets. Getting wet all over again. Using my little pocket camera to
document this once-in-a-million-lifetimes event.
Went off to visit historic Penn Station and guess what? "They tore it
down way back in the 1960s." Oh. But it was still a nice walk. Ate
more salad and more rice pudding for dinner plus a half-glass of that
cheap wine I bought at Walgreens last night. What to do tomorrow? I'm
thinking perhaps The Cloisters? Central Park? That's gotta still be
open, right? Maybe Bellevue hospital. If I have time.
April 14, 2020:
And now I'm totally freaked out! Couldn't get to sleep. At all. The
ghost-like quality of New York City still haunts me. It's now 4:00 am
-- and all I want to do is go back to Berkeley! And not because I'm
afraid of catching the coronavirus either. It's because of the images
of this sad and deserted city -- and also because of that creepy 5G. Or
something like that. I'd brought my electromagnetic measuring-device
thingie and it is currently flashing its red lights like crazy and
beeping its little heart out. But whatever is causing all this
insomnia, I can feel it deep in my bones. My ears ache, my body is
tense. I have a headache. And, no, it's not COV$D. Perhaps it might
be COV$D-1984 however. I feel like I'm being slowly microwaved by the
fear that electrifies New York City right now.
Screaming sirens! Right in my own room! I'm grabbing my passport, a
paperback book, my jacket. I'm trying to imagine how I'm going to be
able to climb down 18 flights of stairs in my nightgown and bunny
slippers -- and my painfully sore knees. Trapped in a towering
inferno! I'm panicked.
I call downstairs to the front desk. "It's only a false alarm."
Literally. "Sorry about that." OMG, I'm still freaked. A glass of
warm milk wouldn't be out of place here. Or a homeopathic sleep
remedy. Or even a Valium. Yikes. Will I ever get back to sleep? Do I
even want to? Will I dream about creepy bugs again? Will it be all
their dreams of creepy bugs that will drive New Yorkers away? The last
straw? And where would they move to? Sucks to be them. Hell, it sucks
to be me.
Somehow I managed to go back to sleep around 6:30 am. It's now 11:15
am. I've wasted my only morning in New York City where there is actual
sunshine. I've got to pee but am too sluggish to get out of bed. But
there is leftover rice pudding in the mini-fridge. Maybe thoughts and
dreams of rice pudding will lure me out of bed.
Hey, it worked.
Now let's watch the news. "If you can get online, you can apply for
your $1,200 supplement too." That is, if you can get online and have a
real bank account and an actual physical address. Too bad for the rest
of you.
Hey, I got a plan on how to stay longer in the Big Apple. I go get
tested. I test positive. They put me up in a COV$D-designated hotel
room. I get to stay in NYC for 14 more days for free. I'd do that in a
(New York) minute except that I won't test positive. But now it's time to watch a webinar on how to get unemployment
payments. Took me a full half-hour to hook into Zoom. Voila! Boring.
But it gave us lots of numbers to call, URLs to investigate and other
bureaucratic information.
But then I made up for lost time. Harlem! Central Park! St.
Patrick's Cathedral! The #M2 bus! There were a hundred people standing
in line outside of the Harlem Whole Foods -- and I was one of them.
And parked alongside of the line was a highly-decorated food truck. But
instead of tacos or hummus, this truck was selling marijuana cookies!
How entrepreneurial is that.
And I loved Central Park. And loved the down-and-out streets of Harlem
too. I'm going to miss New York when its manic COV$D, 5G and techie
craziness finally turns it into a ghost town.
There is so much to see here. I love that the African-American
underdogs of 125th Street are still not caving in to discrimination,
poverty and despair -- to say nothing of the constant pressure from
fierce gentrification. Then there is the obvious contrast between
Harlem poverty and the masses of European-American have-it-alls
frolicking along the jogging trails of nearby Central Park. You can't
hate any of them, either Black or White. They all seem to be enjoying
life. Perhaps that is the human condition after all -- and what, in the
end, we all have in common.
Look at me, getting all philosophical. Am I making the most of my lightning-strike trip to New York City? I guess.
April 15, 2020:
Five hours of sleep is just not enough. I'm awake and nervous as a cat
this morning. It's 5:00 am. Checkout time is noon. Looks like I'm
going to be forced to involuntarily "shelter in place" between now and
then while I sort myself out. Crap. There's just too much going on in
Manhattan for me to sleep, but now I'm a nervous wreck. Damn, I'm so
jealous of those people who can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.
Yesterday, when my #M2 bus drove past Trump Tower, there were two SWAT
guys locked and loaded and stuffed into full body armor, standing out
front. I wonder how much that is costing us taxpayers?
Enough of this existential angst. I'm either going to fall back to
sleep -- or I'm not. Apparently not. More TV. Now the talking heads
are going on and on about how people are dying in rest homes. Duh.
That's what people in rest homes do. With a lot of help from Governor
Cuomo.
Did I mention that yesterday I walked past the "Billy Graham
Chaplaincy" trucks and tents set up in Central Park's east meadow? "How
many patients do those tents hold?" I asked a cop.
"60," he replied -- but this emergency area didn't look all that busy
either. And a few yards away from the enclave was a sad bunch of
handmade signs saying, "These people are haters" and "We don't want
these haters here". Apparently the Billy Graham Chaplaincy's offshoot,
the "Shepard's Purse" disaster relief organization, is homophobic.
Shame on them.
There's just all kinds of wrong going on with this COV$D-19[84]
operation. No wonder I'm in angst. This thing is of such gigantic
scope, who the freak can deal with it all. So many lies. So I climbed
back into bed with some breakfast sausages from Whole Foods and another
half-glass of cheap wine. Decadent. But, hell, this is New York City.
Decadence here fits like a glove. Screw it. No more going back to
sleep for me. Waste of time to even try. And I still have one more
thing left to do before I leave. Time to get my arse over to the actual
World Epicenter of COV$D-19 itself -- Bellevue Hospital!
There was hardly anybody there. Ambulances sat empty on the street in
front of the hospital. The ER ambulance bays were empty. The lobby was
empty. A security guard told me to stop taking photos and move on. So
much for the World Epicenter of COV$D-19.
Up the street at another hospital (First Avenue is Hospital Row), there
was a long line of 30 to 40 people in scrubs. What were they lining up
for? Waiting for ambulances to arrive? No. They were waiting in line
at a food truck. "BBQ," read the food truck but most of them were
waiting to buy designer coffee. Hey, I want some designer hot water! I
brought my own teabag just in case, but the line was too long.
On the walk back to the hotel, I looked everywhere for a place that was
open to sell hot drinks. Nope. None. There was a Trader Joe's that
was open but its line was also too long. 61 people in it to be exact. I
counted. Finally I found a small coffee shop near the hotel that was
open. Good. My hands were really cold. Ah. I'm in hot water now!
Back at the hotel, I even managed to take a short nap. Ten minutes?
Power nap? Sure. Now I'm sitting in Row 10, Seat A of my airplane. No
food service, no one in the TSA security checkpoint but me, no luck
getting my wi-fi hooked up at the airport -- but I'm here! On my way
home! Living on stale Clif Bars that I scored from the 13 Reasons Why craft services snack table six months ago, back when they were still making films.
"$80." Oh. So I waited and waited some more. Out in the cold. Finally a bus to downtown San Francisco arrived.
And now I'm still waiting in downtown S.F. Opened my suitcase, pulled
out an extra pair of pants and put them on too. Right in the middle of
the bus terminal. At midnight. 3:00 am, New York time. Who knew I
could be this resilient, living on granola bars for the last ten hours.
If I don't get COV$D-19 after tonight, then I'll know that we are being
lied to for sure!
But, hell, I've also been to Bellevue Hospital, the world's Ground
Zero for COV$D -- with no serious side effects from that either. So far
so good. And I still have one more Kind bar left too. I shoulda taken
that cab.
April 16, 2020:
It's 2:30 am here in Berkeley! I finally made it home, but it was
never at any point a sure thing. Caught the last bus of the night from
the airport to San Francisco. A long wait at the Trans-Bay terminal.
Finally the very last night-bus to Berkeley arrived. Next question? Do
I have time for a hot bath before I pass out?
Resources:
How does Dr. Merrick even do this? Gives you everything you need to know about COV$D in record time: https://rumble.com/vnrqz7-dr-lee-merritt-packs-mountains-of-information-deconstructing-fallacy-of-the.html
And how to say "Yes, but..." to the vaxx: https://www.williambernardbutler.com/vax-letter-2-0/
And if you need any advice regarding your legal rights in a time of COV$D, here it is: https://www.crrow777radio.com/360-god-given-rights-are-permanent-unless-free/
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Stop Wall Street, War Street, Big Pharma and Big Tech from destroying our world. And while you're at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM
