Monday November 14, 2022 - The First Day I Fell:

Skipping to Monday. The weekend sucked. You know what it is like to live everyday and expect tomorrow? Doesn’t matter what your feeling about tomorrow is; whether you think it will suck or be the most magical day ever, just that you expect it. I didn’t have that expectation. I lived in every breath feeling that it could be my last. I pulled air into me and shot it back out in terror that I wouldn’t get another. I shook like I was chilled. My eyes watered. I couldn’t get food down. I looked around behind or to the side constantly because there was something coming for me just out of my vision. There was a low hum in my ears; not a hum, it was a faint buzzing. At this point it sounded like electric arcs from a transformer in the distance. A muted crack every now and again but a constant current slicing through the air right behind me. The hair on my arms stood up straight and that sense of smell I lost in Corona was coming back. I smelled. ...dank cave is the only way to describe it. The smell of a fetid water in a dark place with the husks of big bugs that had cracked their way through their old forms into something bigger. That smell was in my nostrils constantly.

Sharon had gotten me to go to my primary care doctor on Monday because I was shaking and wouldn’t eat or sleep all weekend. She figured it probably wasn’t the new virus, just regular sickness, but could lead to the new virus, so better safe than sorry. I had Her sickness but I couldn’t very well tell Sharon that. I went along to the doctor that morning, knowing the only way to get right would be class with Herat 2:30. I didn't have any Corona-like symptoms; no headache, no fever, no nothing that screamed: “Virus!” It was a minor miracle he even saw me though. Plague Time was in the consciousness by then and if you were black, you had a hard time getting a doctor’s appointment. There was still no official tie between the “new virus” and race, but people didn’t need the government to tell them. They knew instinctively. How? That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer and neither do you so, don’t act like you do. We just knew. Hospitals would take folks, well, some hospitals would take folks. Remember the footage of the black and brown crowd trying to get into the Wisconsin hospital? Remember how they were chased off and a few got shot? That was this day, November 13, 2022. I checked. It started getting medieval right about this time. I don’t know what Sharon said to my primary care doc, Dr. Rapparort, to get me in but Sharon, she has her ways.

Dr. Rappaport was white. I didn’t have a lot of personal conversations with him, over the years, but knew he specialized in allergies and went on trips with Doctors Without Borders to help kids in rural Appalachia, I think. Sharon said he was “One of the good guys.” I wanted him to be on of the fast guys, never mind good. I knew I didn’t have whatever the new virus was, or rather, if I did, it didn’t matter. I was sick with Her and 2:30 class was the only cure. I sat in his waiting room staring at the TV, not really seeing or hearing, until Multiple Mitch came on to give his press conference. Here’s the shared event I promised for each day- to ground you in our shared experience: Multiple Mitch’s press conference.

He came to the well of the Senate already crying, looking like an undercooked biscuit. Mitch took off his glasses and rubbed his red rimmed eyes, took a dramatic moment to look into the camera and then that lying pig got up there and told the truth: “I stand before you today as a son of Kentucky. The son of the blue grass, the fertile soil and the rolling fields of wheat that has fed this country since its founding.” He paused for a moment and collected himself. I don’t know if you ever heard Mitch talk during his twenty something obstructionist years in the senate, but he wasn't known for waxing eloquently. Mitch was a shameless bureaucratic brawler and told you so. Coming up crying and poetic was way out of character. I started paying attention. Mitch went on: “I have just learned the results of my genetic testing which all senators were required to take before you, the people, received yours.” I perked up even more; senators were ‘required’ to take the genetic test first? Mitch went on: “All the people of Kentucky are in me. (Slight sniffle and a dab of the nose). The farmers and the millers, the shopkeeps and the businessmen... (Dramatic pause and full blow of the nose) The white and the...multiple races.” Boom! That pause and his inability to say “black” in relation to his own genes earned him the name “Multiple Mitch.”

Mitch closed out his short speech, the one that defined his whole career, with prophecy: “In these multiple races, I know today, lies my genetic vulnerability to this virus. This new plague that has been created in our nation. ” There was a swell in the senate chamber. A rush of voices reacting without coherent words. The sound was like a wave rushing then breaking hard. Mitch had obviously said something that either wasn’t supposed to be said or wasn’t believed. I didn’t know which but I reacted as well. Multiple Mitch had just said, on the floor of the senate, that Plague Time was made, made here in America, to kill black folks. When the wave of reactions died down, Mitch closed with: “This plague that reaches out its cold hand to touch us from we know not where. We know not how. (A long, gathering pause) This plague that is taking this son of Kentucky back home. Home to his roots in the Kentucky soil. I leave the senate today with a gracious and thankful heart. With gratitude to my friends and colleagues over the decades. And a warning to the enemies of freedom who created this plague. Know that what you have done will strike down the guilty and the innocent, the sinners and the saved, the unjust and the just alike. You cannot control its fearsome reach.” I sat there amazed. Mitch had gone all biblical and told the truth. The most hard core Washington aparachick had actually been articulate and truthful. The shame and death that hung over his speech was what pulled me in. I came out of my stupor for a few moments to experience a little joy in Multiple Mitch’s reaping. All the sowing- the race baiting, the demonizing and demagoguery, was bearing fruit. Multiple Mitch was going to die by blackness. Ah, life is sweet sometimes.

The doctor saw me and confirmed what I knew already: There was nothing physically wrong with me. Sharon peppered him with questions and the poor man tried vainly to fend her off but Sharon would not be denied. “He’s getting to that age, right? We should probably start doing screens for prostate cancer and such.” Jeez, she wanted me to ride the silver dragon before I was even fifty! Dr. Rappaport shook his head and talked like a professional to a lay person; mistake. “No, we are not there yet. Besides, Curt isn’t exhibiting any signs of…” Sharon cut him off: “I’m not saying he has prostate cancer now, I am saying we are getting to the stage in his life where we should be checking for these things.” And that, was that. Dr. Rappaport ran some tests; I was poked and drawn from and asked to give two good coughs. The problem was the same as when I walked in and the cure was the same too- get me back to Her.

***

I stumbled up to the second floor of CFA at 2pm. I had made it. My sickness would be cured and I would finally start to get better. None of the students were there except Soon Yee. She was standing outside the door with her scrawny boyfriend who was puffing himself up and glaring at me. Soon Yee pointed to a letter taped to the door of my classroom in a university envelope and stepped back sadly. “I’m sorry.” She said. Scrawny boy sucked his teeth. “We done?” he said and took her arm to pull her away. I remember thinking that she could take him if it came down to it and he better stop pulling. “Stop,” she said to him and he let go. Turning back to me, Soon Yee said: “I wanted to thank you for all that you gave us... before. You were a really good teacher for a while..” I couldn’t say anything. I just stood there in agony. There was no class. No Her. Soon Yee left and Scrawny boy followed, still glaring. I stood there staring at the envelope. Eventually I opened it. From the Dean. Short and sweet: “This section has been reassigned. Continue teaching your other sections while we reassess your continued employment with the University.”

My hunger took me outside. I wandered around campus in search of something to fill the hole; the shakes came hard. I must’ve been a sight. Disheveled professor stumbling around campus shaking, crying a little. Students testified to seeing me that day. Soon Yee gave an affidavit about the conversation at CFA. So this day happened just like I said up until around 6:30. Evening falls that day and the world that you and me and the government all agree is real, splits apart.

The Sarah Reade building was favored by drama students for rehearsing scenes, having late night parties, and romantic encounters. It was under construction at the time, but the drama students, being a mischievous lot, wouldn’t give up their spot. They had made a secret entrance in through the plastic sheeting and yellow tape. I must’ve known about the secret entrance; heard about it in an off hand joke in class one day, I think. But I had never been in the building myself since the construction started. Why would I? I didn't rehearse, party or romantically encounter. Well, I found myself inside Sarah Reade that afternoon. I was drawn there. I remember going under a plastic sheet and thinking: “This is disgusting. And dangerous.” I clearly remember thinking that. But in I went.

I was in a lonely corner of room Three. The room has large windows along one wall which face out to dorms and the track. They were covered by dust covered, plastic sheeting. The whole room was covered in dust. It was a gray, rainy day. The air was thick with that cold Pittsburgh heaviness which pushes down on you. Inside room Three, in the half light, making its way through the sheeting, it was even heavier. I pulled my mask down and cried. Cried like I did when my mother died, way back in high school. Long, heaving sobs that left me gasping for breath. I sat with my knees to my chest, sobbing, holding myself like a child. Rocking back and forth alone in my absolute abandonment and grief.

I heard her before I saw her. Sliding steps along the dusty floor in the hall beyond the double doors. I saw something moving closer through the small, square, window in the door. Flowing rings of brown hair. Green eyes. The door opened and She came in. The smile on her face. Why was she smiling? There I was, curled up in a ball, with snot and tears flowing down all over and she smiled. Satisfied. She looked down over her body; ran her hands slowly up from her waist taking the white tee shirt off. Her light pink nipples stood out against the alabaster skin. I was in too much shock to speak, but managed to get to my feet. She admired her breasts, felt them like she was judging them. Then she looked up to me and said: “”Does this girl drive your lust, boy?.”

I was in too much shock to reason then, but thinking back I remember how angry her voice sounded. How disgusted she was, that she had to use those breasts to make me excited. “Does it?!” she demanded. I nodded, more because I was terrified of her anger, than any lust. She acknowledged my response with: “Of course it does. All Niggers lust for this.” That snapped me into consciousness. “What?” I mumbled. The light in the room changed. Like a fast moving cloud passing in front of the sun. I couldn’t see her clearly across the room anymore, just a blur of white in the darkness. And in that blur the shape of Her changed. Something that stood stooped, with skin less luminous, more weathered than the girl, was standing across the room from me. And there was a new sound: wings rubbing against each other. Insect wings. Thousands of them, swarming. I was terrified. My stomach seized up and I pushed myself back against the wall.

As quick as it came, the darkness passed and the room was dimly lit again by the grey Pittsburgh evening. The stooped blur was gone and she stood there, topless looking at me sadly. The sound of wings was gone and she spoke like I knew Her, like a young, modern woman: “Won’t you hold me?” She laid down on two of the old, black, rehearsal blocks. She laid down on them, just like I did in class, turned her head to me across the room and said: “Please play with me…” I don’t know how long I stayed there, looking across the gloomy room; I wasn’t considering or wondering what the hell was going on. I was refilling. The sickness, semi starvation, the shock of seeing her and then seeing her change had drained me. I stood there looking across the room at sexual perfection (I know now, that she was perfectly formed out of my fantasies) laying there, with a perfect little pout and sad green eyes, begging me to come and fulfill her. I was filling back up with my lust. She saw it growing in me and purred: “Please, I’m cold…”

I sprinted across the room.. She raised her arms, inviting me in and her pouty lips pulled back slightly towards a smile. I came down on top of her. It wasn’t romantic. It was needy and desperate. It wasn’t hot and aggressive either. It was like… have you ever had food poisoning? Ever spent a few days retching your guts out then lay there, knowing you need to eat? Not wanting to eat, but knowing, in your body, that you have to? This first time with Her was like that first piece of toast you choke down when you can finally hold something in your stomach. Necessary. Needed. Finished. I came. She was gone and I was standing outside in the rain.

***

A young black student, wearing a kente cloth mask, passed me. He said, too loud: “Some folks think they light enough to pass on wearin’ a mask.” He was on a call, talking into his earbuds but he meant it for me. I came out of my stupor to see his saggy jeans and hoodie going up the hill, disappearing into the rain. I realized I was standing outside. The cold rain hurt when it hit my face. Like the raindrops were little needles stabbing me. I pulled up my mask and looked for somewhere to get out of the rain. Behind me the Sarah Reade building was blocked off and dark. It was a dangerous place. How had I gotten in? You don’t look at me and say: “That guy would go into a dark building under construction, at night.” That’s not me. I would never go in there. Why had I done that?

I knew I had been inside. Down in the dust with her. And now I was standing outside looking back and knowing that inside it was still dark and dangerous. There was danger inside that darkness and I did not want to go back in. But I needed to eat, right? I needed to stop the sickness and finally eat again. That made rational sense but … I am not a brave man. But I had gone in. And I had done something with a girl in there. At least I thought it was a girl. I felt the cold, bloodless, satisfaction of my hunger. For the first time since I saw Her in class on Friday, I felt well. Well as in not sick. She was the cure. I was going to need more to keep the sickness down. And I knew I would go back into the darkness again.