Self-isolation isn’t jail. We have been going to Green-Wood Cemetery or the park, choosing the sparsely populated grassy slopes to release Boo Boo into the great outdoors rather than going to the playground. Mostly the people we’ve been seeing are people with children, pets or both. Usually there are also teenagers playing baseball or soccer, or extremely close contact sports like basketball. Groups of smokers, usually men, still huddle around to pass around blunts, and many other people are merely walking home from the grocery store, usually with at least one roll of toilet paper in tow.
When people gather, they talk, and when they’re standing six feet from each apart, they talk louder.
My Dentist Called Me The Other Day
“My dentist called me the other day to see if I was going to come to my appointment tomorrow,” said a woman standing at the edge of the pond near the 34th Street entrance of the cemetery. She held on to her toddler’s hood to make sure he didn’t fall in as he used his whole body to launch twigs into the water.
“That’s crazy,” said her friend, who was shadowing her own toddler while pushing a stroller back and forth get get her baby to sleep. They were several yards and several gravestones away from us as we made our own effort to prevent our son from falling into the water or pick up dried goose poop. While the dead greatly outnumber both live folks and geese, the populations of geese and the living were on par with each other.
“Yeah. like my biggest concern during a global pandemic is getting my teeth cleaned.” She picked up some twigs and passed them to her child. “I’d say my dentist is a nice guy, but I wouldn’t say he’s a smart guy.”
And You Have Your Fucking Phone Out
“Yo, we have coronavirus out here and you have your fucking phone out? Just waving it around?”
The teenagers were sitting on a bench at the top of the park near the basketball courts and the soccer field and passing around a blunt. Boo Boo and I were passing a ball back and forth nearby. It was dark out and the brightest lights were at the soccer field, otherwise we’d have moved to a place with nicer language and nicer smells.
“What, you don’t use your phone?” The teenager’s friend put his phone in his pocket as he took the blunt.
“Yeah, but I’m not holding it all the way out to here for people to cough on,” said the teen, extending his long arm to its fullest and gripping an invisible phone in his hand to demonstrate.
Do You Own or Do You Rent?
“Do you own or do you rent?” asked one parent to another.
Last week this parent, a dad, had been riding his bike to the ferry, which he took to Wall Street so that he could avoid taking the subway. Now he was working from home. Since 5 pm had passed all the work-at-home folks had come to the park with their kids for fresh air.
“We rent,” said the other parent, a mom.
“I bet soon it will be a really good time to buy,” the dad said as his daughter stomped in a puddle. “I mean, usually when the economy goes down it’s usually a good time to buy, if you have the money.”
“I guess, if you’re lucky enough to have a job.”
Just Use Your Shirt
I tried to open the door with my elbow. It usually worked when I wore my coat. You don’t realize how much padding your coat has or how hard a metal handle can be until it digs into your naked elbow.
I had considered opening the door to our building with a tissue, but didn’t know if tissues would run out like toilet paper, and if I use tissue for the handle then it would follow that I should have used a tissue when I entered my PIN when I used my card to buy food, or a week ago when I bought a Metrocard and used my bare finger on the same surface that hundreds of others had touched that same week, if not that same day. And then the number of occasions in which I could have or should have used a tissue started mounting so high it became easier to just not care, or to at least use my elbow to open the door.
Yesterday was the first day not using my coat to open the door and also the first time I went out without Boo Boo, for it was nice out and I was going on a run.
After a protracted but useless battle with the handle I gave up.
“Fuck it,” I said, loudly. After all, what if my elbow ended up scratched and particles of COVID-19 entered my bloodstream?
I aggressively grabbed the handle with my bare hands just to show it who was boss and flung open the door to find a man laughing at me. He was leaning against his car, tossing a cigarette butt onto the sidewalk. He was older, and wore a Yankees cap over his grey hair. I can’t remember for sure if he was also wearing a Yankees jacket, but I would be surprised if he hadn’t been.
“Saw the whole thing,” he said. “Don’t blame ya.”
I wasn’t too proud to laugh. “Hey, it usually works when I have my coat on.”
“I guess next time you could use your shirt.”
“What?”
I looked down at my shirt not because I had forgotten that I was wearing a Bernie 2020 shirt, but because I couldn’t figure out if was supposed to be a dig, or if somehow it was sexy and this total stranger was suggesting I take it off to open the bloody door. Just a Boomer trying to squeeze in some final politically incorrect comments before he dropped dead of the coronavirus, which would hopefully happen before the general election. Fucking asshole.
“Your shirt,” he said, pulling at the bottom of his own shirt with his thumb and index finger and as he mimed pushing down the handle, effectively communicating with two words and simple charades that I use the bottom of my shirt as I would a tissue.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“See?”
I did. But after being so wrong about this guy I wanted to be right about something, or at least feel less insane for trying to open a door with my elbow so I couldn’t concede entirely to this man’s extremely valid suggestion. “Yeah, but then you have to wash the shirt, right?”
“True.”
“And it’s just easier to wash your hands.”
“Is it easier to wash your coat?”
“But I don’t wear my coat all day.”
“Well, you’ll figure it out.”
“I hope we all do!” I shrugged, smiled, and looked up the block.
“Stay safe,” he said with a wave.
“You too.” I waved back, and starting trotting up the block.
Please Don't Lick the Taxi 
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