June 6, 2020

Back before shit got real, before we as a country clicked up the volume a few more tics, before George Floyd was murdered and we saw days of hundreds of thousands of Americans protesting his murder and nights of smashing wealth redistribution delivered through left and right news lenses against burning night skies … of continuous coverage of American’s latest latent awaiting powder keg lit by perpe-traitorous police who took a knee on the neck of George Floyd and murdered yet another black man in the street for no reason, only because they thought they could get away with it, and we as a country were already in the grip of a global pandemic, a new economic depression, with the right and left fighting about whether reopening would add more deaths to the 102 thousand dead at that time and was it worth it, I had to go out and pick up some stuff for Jenny.

Way back then. It was last Wednesday a week ago.

Jenny almost left the house. She was so close. She needed to pick up some varnish and mineral spirits to get these painting to Los Angeles, but at the last minute she decided I needed to do it — because freeway traffic and COVID-19 and not having gone out in a long while on her own. I really wanted her to get out of the house and see there’s a world that still exists out there but she didn’t want to just yet. My work meetings were over for the day as it was around 3:00 so I said I’d go.

All the gear was in the car, the gloves, the masks, the sunburnt COVID-19 free bandannas on the dash, the hand sanitizer. That’s just part of the regimen now. 580 was busier than it’d been for a while. As I drove westward I observed intermittent quarter miles of close cars slowed to almost pre-pandemic rush hour traffic speed interspersed with wide open patches of pandemic maniacal speeders accustomed to the last three months of open freeway heading eastward.

At the Park Avenue pedestrian bridge BLACK LIVES MATTER banners had replaced the prior COVID related banners.

I took 24 down into Berkeley because I’d forgotten where Blick was (at 10th and Gilman) and ended up driving through town where it’s still surreal seeing all the citizens wearing masks. Us urban centers are wearing our masks so much that an unmasked person really sticks out. Driving past all the small businesses with CLOSED signs in the window. A man and his son stood waiting outside the coffee shop, both wearing masks. The kid’s child sized mask had SpiderMan on it.

Seeing those lines of people wearing the blue and white surgical masks, the cool new buy anywhere online custom cloth masks, the old school N-95 duck and rounded masks most likely bought during the last California fire season when the sky was toxic, all standing six feet apart waiting in long lines to get some outside pickup of some sort. All standing, staring at their phones as they bid their time against the hot back day casting shadows at odd pandemic angles like some memory of communist countries I recall from a long time ago when I was a boy, when shortages of food and provisions were supposedly a thing. But you know, MAGA.

As I drove up San Pablo, every CLOSED sign on every small business I saw made me think of an owner somewhere behind that sign worrying about whether they’ll survive this. Did they get the loan from the stimulus? How long can they hold out? Even when they can re-open, will they see people coming in again? How long can this continue..

I’m lucky to have been remote ready before the pandemic. But I’m seeing our clients in Shelter in Place where before they met over remote apps all in those big glass walled conference rooms with their laptops and microphones hanging from the ceiling and large screens where we interacted when I wasn’t onsite.

One meeting I was in the main guy was in a room and someone asked, “Is that a painting on your door?” referring to some impressionist looking color combo on the door behind him and he turned, laughed a little then replied, “Yea, this was my kid’s playroom, art room before COVID. That’s art”. In another larger meeting people were going around the room speaking their part for the project. Each having time in the monitor. When it was Michael’s turn the meeting leader said, “Ok Michael, let’s talk about your”… thing. There was a silent pause then the leader asked, “Michael, are you on mute?”

Suddenly the virtual room audio exploded with at least two small dogs barking at maximum pitch YARK YARK YARKing excitedly to immediately be joined by at least two baby sized children screaming at the top of their lungs all YAMA NAAA YAAMA as Michael’s spoken presentation about something marketing related barely made it through the pandemonium in bits and snippets right as most likely his wife joined the clamor somewhere in their house, yelling at the dogs, then at the children to BE QUIET, which only made them all become louder and more agitated at which point the meeting leader calmly said, “That’s good Michael, but let’s follow up with an email”, and all was quiet again jarringly as Michael went back on mute.

I drove along Martin Luther King Jr Blvd to go past the old house I lived in two blocks from Ashby in the 1990s, last century, before 911, before all this fascist crap at the highest levels of our government was running the show incompetently. Back when we took the idea of a free America for granted and you could joke about it. Back when we thought the internet would make us all smarter and more free because there will never be an America where we could be tracked and suppressed and rounded up for doing the first amendment thing..

They’ve remodeled and painted Seth’s old house we used to live in. Looks good. As I approached downtown Berkeley I saw a car ahead slowing down and I saw a protest sign aloft as the car pulled over to the right. About fifty kids were walking up the street, most likely from Berkeley High, walking to the middle and the right lanes with signs. “I Can’t Breathe”, “George Floyd” and “Black Lives Matter”, chanting “I can’t BREATHE”. At the first intersection I turned off with a supportive car honk to get past them. I lived in Berkeley for a while. I know protests but at the time I didn’t know much about how George Floyd had died.

Blick was easy. Dude comes masked to the door and you tell him you’re picking up for Jennybird. He nods and says “yea, Jennybird”, closes and locks the glass window door behind him then disappears into the store. You wait a minute until he returns and gives you a Blick bag with the stuff in it. You check that it’s all there because coming back from across town is a pain in the ass. It’s all been paid for already and you thank him through your mask bandanna and go.

You can tell when people smile by their eyes and the skin around them now. I can’t wait to see your smiles again. I miss them so badly. But now isn’t the time for smiles.

Thinking back now, Blick has a lot of big glass windows. I imagine those are all plywood covered now.

Groceries are a bit more intense with the Rona. There’s that weird tinge verging on possible panic, the sudden claustrophobic clusterfuck when you’re inside the grocery store and find yourself stuck between customers at the top and bottom of the isle with someone edging up close to you oblivious, wearing their mask on their chin talking loudly on their phone and you calculate the widest berth escape route out of the isle to freedom over in the vegetables. Or the order of operations after your shopping excursion of being inside for must be what, thirty minutes, touching only the things you need to, but maybe forgetting your gloves and having to use the touch pad at checkout bare finger tipped, or your mask slipped down and you were walking around for a few minutes then realized it and adjusted your mask but hadn’t taken off your glove you used to touch all the things, so you just dumped COIVD all over the mask you just breathed through because order of operations.

So you just don’t breath deeply. It’s all about the breathing hoping some virus doesn’t infect you and take your breath away. Or some dictator threatening to take your voice away.

Or like Sunday when I went to get Chinese food at one of my favorite East Oakland places I hadn’t been to since before the pandemic and the dude in line about four feet away was coming home from work, wearing the dayglow construction or traffic white and bright orange vest, with his little mask covering his mouth but not his nose as he ordered and was spooned up and I looked over past him and saw the CASH ONLY sign I’d forgotten about. The girl filled up my three items order, Sweet and Sour Pork, Broccoli and Beef and that salty fried fish.

CASH ONLY. I haven’t touched cash in months unless I was giving it to some dude in the Home Depot parking lot so he could get a beer and I still have the cash in my wallet I took out of the bank three months ago. I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and it looked so odd, kind of like when you see money after being on the playa for a couple weeks, and handed it to her. Then she held out my change. It took a second for me to process that. The change was too much for a tip, so I dropped the change and a couple dollars in their tip carafe and put the rest in my pocket. I realized at that moment that even though she was wearing gloves, she didn’t take them off to spoon up your food or ring you up at the register.

As I walked to my car I put my hand in my pocket to click the keys to open the Kia’s doors and then used the same hand to adjusted my mask as I realized the keys were in the same pocket with all those grimy change dollars all spread like a virus blossom and COVID possibly on my hand was just transferred to my mask so I stopped breathing until I got inside the car, removed the mask, Purelled my hands and sat there thinking what the fuck am I doing. Then I noticed the Purell is almost out.

I opened the windows and took a deep breath. Lucky to take those breaths are we and not to have someone who hates us take them away at a whim in eight minutes 46 seconds with their fucking knee on our neck just because they think they can get away with it. But that was a passing thought before shit got real. Before the rage we see again and again spread across our country. Before a privileged white guy like myself was reminded yet again just how fucked up this country has always been for our black brothers and sisters because that powder keg will be set a blaze by one hateful asshole killing a black man because he thought he could get away with it again and again until something foundational changes. Before I was reminded yet again how many Americans live in fear of the police who are egged on by a weak imposter racist President who accidentally got into office. This has to change or we are not going to survive as a country.

I believe that the virus demonstrated that we have power if we strike to bring the country to a halt. George Floyd’s murder has shown us that Americans will rise up and unify greater than any propaganda enhanced MAGA rally. Dictators fall when the people assert their strength and solidarity. There are more of us than there are of the right wing cowards. Try as they might to stop it, the future is black and brown and diverse and as Kimberly Jones said in that David Jones video, “They’re lucky black people are looking for equality and not revenge”.

Driving back from Blick the medians along San Pablo were all orange and red California poppies blooming and bursting but again, all those CLOSED signs. I was driving along with the music blaring, arm out the window just taking in all the current reality.

I stopped at the intersection with my window down. In the car next to me the driver had a coughing fit and I slowly held the door button as my window went up and I slipped the mask and bandanna back over my mouth and nose. Maybe it’s better to turn on the AC snd just go with that.

I decided to go through town and drove up Ashby and had to come to a stop at the corner by Rockridge BART. Long light. Long enough to hear a train pull in with that ruhhhhrerrr rush shushing as it braked to stop with little squeaks and clanks then I heard the weird ding as it pulled forward out of the station after disembarkment to move to the next stop. At least two minutes passed sitting there. The light changed and as I slowly turned left I looked over to see the exit steps where about four people were walking down the stairs. It was rush hour.

Ghost BART.

I got home and Friday night in Oakland the protests started. On FaceBook Jmal Davis livestreamed his walkthrough from downtown Oakland at Broadway and rather than work I was transfixed on the protest I didn’t go to because of COVID-19. Wish I’d have gone. Jmal was there for the Broadway and 7th cop encounters all the way to the looting of the Walgreens to Target. At one point a guy was coming out of the Walgreens with a big pack of diapers. Jmal said, “You’re getting diapers?” and yea, that was his loot. Oakland is Wild West shit and gangs have organized to hit more sophisticated targets since then, but that night was pretty amazing to watch.

He deleted his livestream the next day because too much incrimination for faces that weren’t wearing masks. Bet he wishes he had that livestream backed up somewhere. It was raw.

Now .. “His Name is George Floyd.” “No Justice No Peace, Fuck Racist police”. I had to look up ACAB, spray painted everywhere. “All Cops Are Bastards”. “Hit them in the pocket book.” “Looting let’s them know we’re here.” No one is playing around right now. Trump’s surrounded his compound, what used to be the “People’s House” with a wall because he’s weak, afraid and in way over his head, just as he is with the pandemic. Oakland’s active with the OPD out, right as the fireworks and shooting season begins. We’re locked down out here in the almost burbs flatland Cuts.

Demand justice. We are powerful. Breathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9_qGOa9Go&feature=youtu.be

https://www.facebook.com/jmal.omari