Page 39 of The Man I Hate

“Put this down in your statistics. I’m going to get toilet paper before everyone runs out.”

“Why the fuck would we run out of toilet paper?” I pulled the phone away from my ear and glared at it. “Is diarrhea a symptom?”

“You don’t get it, Brother. I’m going for crapper paper. Call me in a couple of hours,” he said. “We need to brainstorm on how to make money during this deal. What the next big moneymaker’s going to be. I’m thinking sewing machines.”

“Well,” I said with a laugh. “It sure as fuck isn’t going to be toilet paper.”

Anna

It had been nine days since the stay at home order was given. During that time, things changed.

In fact, everything changed.

Nationally, there was no available supply of toilet paper, paper towels, Clorox wipes, rubbing alcohol, and hand sanitizer. Stores had more bare shelves than stocked ones. Essentials like bread, milk, meat and cheese were often unavailable. A few of the independent grain alcohol distributors had shut down manufacturing of their craft vodka and were now bottling hand sanitizer.

The World Health Organization declared a pandemic. The president blamed the media, the media blamed the president, and the American people blamed each other.

Fights broke out at gas stations, stores, and in food lines over people not practicing social distancing measures. Videos were posted to social media showing women in fist fights over toilet paper. An elderly woman was kicked to death in New York City for sneezing on someone. A Chinese man was beaten for being Chinese.

The entire nation was up in arms, and over half the states were shut down from any activities, short of what was deemed essential by their respective governor. The stock market had set a new record for a one-day loss, unemployment was at an all-time high, and the ICU’s in New York City’s hospitals were nearly filled, all from COVID-19 related admissions.

Hospitals in many of the highly infected states feared they’d run out of the ventilators required to keep the critically ill patients alive. Some hospitals had already spent their supply of Personnel Protective Equipment and were now forced to fabricate their own masks or reuse the ones they had.

Those dying from COVID-19 weren’t able to be seen by the living family members because of the contagious nature of the disease. In fact, family members were prohibited from so much as visiting a hospital, let alone seeing the dying patients.

Most were saying goodbye to their loved ones via video conference calls like Skype, Zoom, and Facebook Messenger. My nights were spent watching CNN in a drunken stupor, crying at the COVID-19 death stories as they were unveiled.

Initially, those who were listed as vulnerable were eighty years old with compromised health. It soon changed to include anyone over sixty with compromised health. Two days later, it was anyone fifty or older, regardless of their condition.

Now, it was anyone. Period.

Women. Children. Men. Young. Old. Healthy. We were all at risk.

It seemed every day something changed. The symptoms. The prognosis. The statistics. The vulnerable.

One thing that remained unchanged was Braxton. He continued to come and go at will, driving past my home no less than 3 or 4 times a day.

I had no idea where he was going, but I doubted what he was doing was essential.

It frustrated me that he was zooming up and down the street while I was stuck at home watching the news as if my life depended on it. As frustrating as the information was, it seemed I couldn’t stop watching CNN.

From when I got up to when I went to bed, the news played. If I wasn’t watching it, I was on my laptop, checking the daily statistics of each state, the nation, and the other countries who had a high rate of infection.

The statistics and the stories seemed to be my life blood.

But it wasn’t healthy. I was drinking more than I ever had, eating an unhealthy amount of food, and wasn’t active at all.

At whatever point in time they lifted the stay at home order, I’d have a pickled liver, be grossly overweight, and physically out of shape. One way or another, I was destined to die. If COVID-19 didn’t get me, my failing liver would.

I thought about dying more often than I ever had. Although I was able to accept the death of my parents, I couldn’t find a way to accept my own. Maybe it was because I was young, and I felt that I hadn’t lived a full life. At least not yet.

I sipped my morning mimosa while watching the news. A 36-year-old DJ in Florida contracted the virus and died soon thereafter. He was in good health, had no underlying conditions, and wasn’t considered a person at tremendous risk.

The DJ’s wife and young daughter were being interviewed. Although I was already one glass beyond my self-imposed mimosa limit for the morning, I opened my third bottle of champagne, and poured another. The wife explained how her husband couldn’t get tested because he didn’t fit the criteria. How he became ill, had difficulties breathing, and still couldn’t get tested.

Withing a few days he became so ill that he wasn’t able to stand or walk. She drove him to the emergency room. The hospital then tested him, found that he was infected, and immediately admitted him.

With the hospital on lockdown, his wife was not allowed to come inside.