How I Beat the Pandemic

My nights end with watching the sunrise. After last call, clean up, then employees’ last call, by the time I hopped – or stumbled, depending on the night – out of the streetcar – the buildings were all outlined in gold light. Getting a camera was one of the many things on the old To-Do list once I had the money. It was, I should say.

It had been almost a year since all the bars closed down and I knew things were getting weird because on that Blurs-day I woke up with the sun.

My perfectly organized, spotless apartment had run out of things for me to occupy my mind and time with. The silver lining of that whole “stay home” deal was that I could finally pursue my dream of drawing for a living. I remember a deep feeling of dreed whenever I looked over at all of my dull pencils and page after page of doodles. To this day, my doodles feel like my way of admitting defeat.

Not even the light that now flooded my home, outlining my life like it did the buildings, the golden hour couldn’t inspire me. There was nothing inside of me.

Time used to fly by, even looking back now I couldn’t explain where all that time went. I would go to bed promising myself I would wake up early and go on a golden-hour-bare-faced walk. Out of nowhere, it was 11 AM, and the sidewalk was filled with joggers dodging strollers and old ladies.

That day I had to hit the bank, probably depositing a check that could have been wired to me. I bet that pissed me off, I was angry at many things back in those days, and they probably kept me from enjoying a clear and beautiful morning just because it wasn’t “golden hour material”.

One thing occurred to me – that I still believe whole-heartedly – was: there must be nothing more depressing than standing in a bank line wearing a mask. You had to laugh at the worn off “10 people max” sign on the wall but the mask would keep that joy all to yourself. It made me think of those nights, in the bar, when someone yelled their order so drunkenly loud that they showered me in their last drink. On those nights, I would tell myself “I’m better than this”.

Very similar thoughts ran through my mind while I stood in line, on that day, those thoughts came along with a shock of reality. I was still in that line with everyone else waiting to deposit their government benefits. If I had the money, I could delete all of it from my routine. No bank, no groceries, no time consumers and I could finally focus on making some art again. I could draw for hours on end; buy that camera…

No, I was not better, but I could be. I had the potential, I could feel it. All I needed was to take that first step.

On my way out the bank, head in the clouds, someone bumped into me and, when I looked over, I’m sure I very visibly flinched. This guy’s face is now burnt in my eyelids forever.

He had evil Buscemi eyes, a horrible scar on his forehead and a look on his face that turned my stomach every which way.

I remember standing on the sidewalk trying to understand why his face struck such a chord with me. Then I spotted the office supply store across the street. Inside, I had to ask the clerk if the store was new, she looked at me with crooked eyebrows and said “no(?)”

That had been my bank for years prior to the pandemic. My visits nearly doubled that year, after my job was cancelled. Never once had I stopped to look around me. That was quite a nice area of town.

I left the store with my brand new black notebook and a sharp pencil, then bought a lemonade from the stand next door and made my merry way around the corner up to the park, looking around for something to sketch.

Just then, SCREETCH, tires ripping the asphalt up the road. I barely had time to turn around, waiting to see a collision, when I saw the red pickup tearing its way up the road in the same direction as me. The window on the passenger side slid down and Evil Buscemi looked me dead in the eye once again, then tossed a black duffel bag at me and, before I could memorize the little details of the face I wanted to draw, the car seemingly vanished into thin air.

I froze. I didn’t know what was in the bag but I had a good idea. There was no time to check, the sirens began blaring off in the distance. My mouth was bone dry, what were my options? Wait for the cops, give them the bag and tell them everything? Drop the bag and run? Don’t drop the bag and run?

Sirens were getting closer.

I drop the bag. Pick it back up by the handle and continue my merry way, my notebook under my arm, sipping on my lemonade and carrying my duffel. Nothing to see here. To my surprise and delight, no one saw anything, no one said anything and a cop car flew right by me.

There was a nice little spot in the park midst the trees. A hideout I would revisit many times in the coming years. There, sitting on that big bag of money, chewing on the edge of my empty lemonade cup, I sketched Evil Buscemi. His icy eyes staring out the car window. I wasn’t sure what emotion I saw, if any. This guy looked like he could hand me a bag of money just as easy as he could break my elbows.

When I looked at the finished drawing, I didn’t see malice in the Evil Buscemi’s eyes, but I didn’t see Robin Hood either. I saw a man struggling to make ends meet who took all of it way too far.

But who was the driver? It could have been anyone. “It could have been me,” my own voice echoed inside my mind.

I could see it, Evil Buscemi and I on the run from the law with a hundred thousand stolen dollars, and just let my imagination run with it.

When I got home that night, I had a goldmine under my arm, in that little black notebook.

The news people said Evil Buscemi and the driver actually made it out with about $15K and that the scar was a bad makeup job. Fooled me… I could see it so vividly I filled page after page of what became a best-selling graphic novel with his mug and my dumb-bumble-butt outliving the COVID-19 pandemic on an insane road trip.

What happened to the money is still a mystery. It definitely wasn’t where I left it when I checked a week later. All there was left was hope that it helped someone.

It has been many years since the pandemic ended and a lot did change for the better but, every time it does, there is a new catastrophe or pandemic that divides and reunites us.

My struggle was never worse or more meaningful than anyone else’s. I spent too much of that suffocating time trying to find an escape from that bullshit situation, something refreshing, something different. But I was only thinking about myself. Never the bank teller, or the clerk at the office supply store, or the nice old woman who sold me the lemonade.

Turns out, nothing is better or worse, everything is always the same for everyone. All we can offer is our best, our own different perspective and empathy.