Cor-virus

Downtown became a Gregory Alan Isakov song. Quiet in the front, but a lot going on behind. The streets are cautiously traveled by numbers so small they are almost fractions; groups divided into smaller pieces. The quiet peals a quiet truth, much like a little banjo or steel guitar can Americanize a song without a power chord.

Fewer people have fewer places to go. Destinations have become shells with pithy signs laughing through their tears, to reopen at a date be determined by an acceptable viral death count. We now live in the times when hugging has become lethal to those who need it the most.

There it is. That voice. That rising note of realization swelling over the guitar. Things really are different. It looks like after midnight in any town that’s small enough to fold into itself quietly when most reasonable folks are in bed. Maybe a Tuesday. A school night—predestined for homework and preprogrammed for mid-week angst. But it’s Saturday, and it’s warm. And it’s barely after dinner. The traffic lights seem ridiculous, blinking their orders into empty space. Quiet space. I can smell the rain, as one does. Rain makes sense. If it’s raining, then people are inside. One wouldn’t expect them to be wandering down the streets, annoying their designated driver with loud voices, turned free by iconic microbrews. That is how it should be now—would typically be now. Reasonable people strumming their footsteps on these now bleak streets. If there is rain, then maybe it’s not wouldn’t be so odd for people to be communing elsewhere. Somewhere dry.

However, there is no rain. No traffic. No people.

It changed. Priorities have been recalibrated for basic survival. The silver screen and stage are gloomy dark, and the best table in the place has the chairs flipped on top. The playgrounds are tied up with yellow bows with black type, and nothing is open 24 hours in a row. We see the worst of those we hired to be the best. Yet, the wage earners are at their best, and all they ask for is more masks.

The bad words and separations and bad luck of the last two weeks or two decades lose their point. The background rumblings from the past can fuck right off. Anger is fuel for change. If there cannot be change, then anger shouldn’t be making choices. Well, it shouldn’t be.

I could tell he was going to talk to me before I tried to pass him on the sidewalk. Downtown has devolved into a mixture of people for whom movies and plays and fine dining are distant ghosts. There was something different about this guy. He had a calm focus, so I let him get within six feet of me. But no no closer than five and a half. There was no conversation about money. Is there a McDonalds down the street there? I got a gift card and I can get food. Maybe sit down for a bit. You’re about two blocks away, but no one can sit down anywhere inside, buddy. Where’s the Grocery Outlet? A couple miles. An easy walk. We looked at the sky, thinking the same thing. I asked him if he knew where the shelter is. Piercing me with kind eyes, he told of fear and meanness peeling the paint off the walls. I can’t go back there. We looked at the sky again, like it was our muse. Getting to Grocery Outlet seemed to give him a thing to do. I didn’t need to know why. You’ll make it before the rain. I like to walk—it’ll be good.

I trust it was.

Part of history. Again. Lucky me. At least when the towers fell, people came to the movies. We played a French comedy. We filled the place that September evening. Eight years later, when the stock market came tumbling down, we turned one of our auditoriums into something rented by someone else. I crawled around on the floor, collecting the screws from the remodel. We used those same screws, entombed tangled and dirty in the bottom of popcorn tubs, when in 2018, the prodigal auditorium returned. So there is one of my stories from that historic time.

Film dissolved into pixels in 2013. Cast iron was traded for silicon. Reels and splicing tape and huge, heavy machines are shuttered in dark places out of the way. The projection booth has become like looking out from the inside of a Christmas tree. Twinkly lights everywhere. LEDs, not the beautiful flickering movies rattling out the business end of a projector—a little of the show reflected onto the walls and ceilings of the small, black room. Touch screens and LAN lines now.

Now a shelter-at-home order. The virus. March 16th, 2020 was the last show at the Darkside for a while. History: The; the first time all theaters in the country and almost all over the world are closed. Like air travel 19 years ago. Time to start collecting those screws leftover from this mess. I’ll toss ‘em in a popcorn tub for when we climb out of this hole, and it’s time to rebuild.
I’ll keep the popcorn tub handy.

I’ll keep the tub will be handy. ‘Might need it soon, with any luck.

 

Comments

[mossum]

A+

[Gerry Frank]

Thank you Paul, especially for the memories "Film dissolved into pixels in 2013. Cast iron was traded for silicone. Reels and splicing tape and huge, heavy machines are shuttered in dark places out of the way. The projection booth is now like looking out from the inside of a Christmas tree. Twinkly lights everywhere. LEDs, not the beautiful flickering movies rattling out the business end of a projector—a little of the show reflected onto the walls and ceilings of the small, black room. Touch screens and LAN lines now."