My Bout of COVID 19

for Randy Abbiati

I’m pretty sure I caught it when I went to a show downtown at a venue that is ostensibly “outside” but really is just a rectangular box without a ceiling and one side (the entrance) open to the street. Unless the weather is coming down between the two higher buildings on either side, it feels like you are inside. And in this case, the weather was calm, no moisture or breeze to speak of, yet we were all packed in like we hadn’t all been cooped up in our houses and apartments for the last year avoiding this type of situation. And it showed. As the band, the Red-Light Cameras, came in we all crammed to the front of the stage with our beers. By that time, I’d already shared a pipe with someone and drank a friend’s whiskey when they passed it to me because they thought it tasted, “Bleah.”

And we danced and sang along with the band, smiled with each other and reveled in the communal event with a certain relish that could only be described as “really letting go.” I would say we’d “thrown caution to the wind,” but that cliché doesn’t really work in this case. What we’d done is stand in a room of shared air for the better part of three hours. It was fun; it was exhilarating; it was community, and I remembered what I’d been missing about my town and loved it.

The next night I did it again, only this time in a less confined space with two less walls, and again on a Sunday afternoon in another outdoor venue. Neither of those events set off the alarm bells like the one mentioned above did, but in reality it could’ve…