hangover

As the first few hot days of the year arrived in Los Angeles, Covid-19 cabin fever hit full peak. I went for a socially distanced walk with friends last week and found a busy Venice boardwalk at 7 a.m. After a 20-something neighbor headed out Friday night to watch sunset by the pier, I was surprised to hear his skateboard back in the yard a few minutes later. I went out to find out what happened. “There were so many people,” he called up to my balcony. “I didn’t feel safe.”

The senior neighbor has more than enough sourdough, so yesterday’s loaf went to a colleague. I had been looking forward to an adventure of driving to the South Bay to leave it on his porch, but he texted that he had to get his family of five and their puppy out of their house and said they’d come up to Venice to get it. I could hardly begrudge their trip when I had hoped for the same. I agreed to meet them at home.

All day on Saturday, a parade of mostly young people made their way through the alleyways and streets of my neighborhood — so many that it felt almost like any normal beach day. The sidewalks between the homes and the water of the canals here are only about three feet wide and it isn’t possible to pass other people with six feet of space so, for the past month of widespread closures in California, there have been signs at the access points urging people to find another route. There was an air of teenaged defiance about many of the people who passed my window onto those prohibited sidewalks -- like kids playing hooky from school. I watched one college-aged tough kid pick up a Covid-19 warning sign and start walking away with it. His friends convinced him to put it back, but not before he defaced it -- adding a “13” beside the word “Venice.” The Venice 13 is a notorious local street gang. Meanwhile, a handful of other 20-something neighbors played a game of beer pong a block away.

And when my colleague and his family arrived, blonde and bandana’d, we joined the other scofflaws for a little walk around the canals. People largely kept their distance, or tried to, with the exception of a pair of self-important Boomers who stood nursing beers in brown paper bags in the middle of a five-foot wide bridge. They had masks, but slid them aside to drink their beers. “Do you want to be over there?” one of the men called out. “Why don’t you cross?” Passing on the narrow bridge is tight and uncomfortable at the best of times. “It isn’t ideal,” I called back, and they shuffled derisively to the other side.

I felt like the fun police. Am I making a fuss for nothing? People’s sense of concern is waning. Georgia hair salons and tattoo parlors are open, a South Dakota dirt track held sprint car races this weekend. Golf courses are back in business in Southern California. And it’s hot outside. 

There are so many mixed messages it is hard to know the right thing to do. The president is vacillating between support for opening and condemning governors for moving too quickly, while also suggesting that powerful light brought “inside the body” or injections of household cleaners could be a possible treatment regimen. In response, the manufacturer of Lysol issued a warning against any internal use and Brad Bitt parodied a hypothetical Dr. Fauci reaction with a Saturday Night Live facepalm.

All this as meatpacking plants across the country are shutting down due to outbreaks. Three of the largest pork processing plants in the country have gone offline. Between them, Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, JBS pork processing in Worthington, Minnesota and Tyson Fresh Foods in Waterloo, Iowa, supply about 15 percent of the nation’s pork. More than 1,000 cases of the virus in Sioux Falls are linked to an outbreak at the plant, which employs 3,700 workers.

And the CDC has continued to hold fast on restrictions for large gatherings. The safer-at-home order that has been in effect in California since March 19, 2020, has been extended indefinitely and Los Angeles says May 15 is the earliest possible opening day.

But more news doesn’t seem to provide more information -- just more noise. A friend last week gave me her password to Canada’s Globe and Mail national newspaper and it has been a relief to see the virus sensibly nestled on the front page amid stories about other things. There are no other things here in the American media. And yes, I recognize the hypocrisy that I’ve stolen access to a news outlet that I have now come to rely on. I’ll make it right when my Washington Post subscription runs out and I swap it for the Globe.

My friends left and I retreated into my apartment until after sunset when an unusual sound drew me back outside. There was music that seemed to be coming from multiple directions at once and I wondered if maybe there was an interesting livestream or broadcast happening that multiple homes were watching. FOMO overwhelmed me and I decided to investigate. I pulled on a long hoodie against the chill of the night fog and one of the two black facemasks I have made myself. I looked like a bank robber.

Following my ears, I walked about half a block to the canal around the corner where I discovered a very Venice performance: a spot-lit man in top-hat and tails standing in a rowboat, belting show tunes though an amplifier perched on the bow. His craft was wafting slowly up the canals, powered by an assistant leaning over the stern with a tiny electric engine the size of an egg beater. Neighbors crowded to their balconies and lawns to applaud, some calling out requests. I followed the minstrel as he passed under a low, wide bridge. I crossed halfway and sat down with one leg slung over the side to enjoy the show.

The quirky little showboat was nearly out of sight and I was wiping inexplicable tears out of my eyes when a drunk, 20-something guy took a slow-motion tumble off his bicycle and nearly landed in my lap. He had been attempting to balance a case of beer on the handlebars of his beach cruiser and lost enough momentum on the uphill slope of the bridge that he was forced to choose between his beer and his equilibrium. He chose the beer. The whole crash and recovery took more than a minute of his full attention and it wasn’t until he got his feet under him and the beer safely rebalanced that he looked up and realized he had an audience

“You’re not going to jump, are you?” he slurred in my general direction. He was clearly intoxicated but also seemed genuinely worried. I was touched by his concern, although I also wanted him to please go away; he didn’t seem like the kind of person who makes good decisions about his health.

“Wouldn’t be much of a jump,” I replied gesturing to the water, less than eight feet below us. The minstrel had hunched down as he crossed beneath the bridge earlier so it didn’t knock off his top hat.

“What are you doing there?” he asked, wearing the kind of confounded expression that’s familiar to any dog owner who has ever affixed one of those big wide cones around their pet’s neck after a trip to the vet. “I’m sorry. I’m really high right now.”

Clearly.

I started to explain about the singer, but realized the scene I was attempting to describe was completely improbable and my new friend couldn’t focus well enough to see the figure on the boat, who was by now starting to make a turn out of sight about a quarter mile from us. I stopped trying, and he filled the silence.

“Can I ask you a question? Do you always wear that mask? There’s nobody here.”

At this point in Los Angeles, people are required to wear face masks or other type of covering over their noses and mouths when they are in groceries or other essential businesses. People are further encouraged to wear them when they are interacting with other people who aren’t members of their household in public and private spaces. It’s in some government order or other, and I’m not sure if it’s mandatory. It seems like a little more than half of people I encounter in the neighborhood are wearing them.

I’m reasonably certain this guy had used every ounce of his limited focus to put on his flip-flops, so of course he wasn’t wearing a mask. And there wasn’t anybody there: except him. I was now closer to a stranger than I have been for more than a month and I was feeling uncomfortable. I realized suddenly that I had the power to solve that problem, and I stood up. “I’m not wearing it for me,” I said, as I walked away. “I’m wearing it for you... what if I have the virus?”

Behind me, his bottles clinked as he gathered up the case of beer. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw him pass through a puddle of yellow fog under a streetlight. He laughed ghoulishly as he disappeared into the night.

As I got home and ready for bed, a screaming fight erupted between two neighbors and the uncomfortable sound of revelry bled out of the house party down the street. It all felt like a hallucination at that point and I was happy to pass out and leave the day behind me. When I woke up this morning to a haze of fog, it felt like a city sleeping it off. Venice has a hangover, and I’m going back to bed.

Today, the USA recorded 987,160 total cases, 55,413 deaths.