On March 4, 2020 after a simple breakfast David, my guide, and I left Kibo Hut on Kilimanjaro to descend Hurumbo Hut. I turned often to eye Africa’s tallest mountain rimmed by hoarfrost. Near a grouping of old volcanic rocks David said, “We can get the Internet here. Maybe even a phone home.”
I tried to contect my wives in Thailand without successs and read the Guardian online, while David spoke to his family in Chagga. I was in no hurry. The Guardian reported how the Coruna Virus was scourging Wuhan, China, Italy, and Iran. The world was a much different place than the one we left eight
David finished his call and asked, “You know about Covid?”
“Just what I’ve been reading over the last days.”
“And what do you think?” David like many of the guides and porters trusted my eye on the weather.
“That we are in for a hard time, but not today.”
Pendaeli, the Park ranger, greeted my arrival at Hurumbo with a broad smile. Basketball tied us tight. He was Lakers. I was Celtics. That night at dinner he whispered, “What do you think about Covids?”
I had been born with the placenta wrapped around my head. The phenomena affected one of 87000 births and the Celts believed the Caul granted the newborn with the gift of sight of the past, present, and future, but I had to admit to Pendaeli, “I see nothing.”
I hadn’t foreseen the death of my longtime friend Dr. Bertoni.
Nor my getting Covid in April.
Nor the closure of the City That Never Slept.
All day I heard the sirens of ambulances bring the sick to Brooklyn Hospital.
Death and illness.
No laughing matter as the world shrunk smaller and smaller, but I hadn’t been so sick thanks to my Neanderthal heritage and O blood and Charlotta’s D3 treatment.
I stayed home alone.
I spoke to the wall.
The walls spoke back in languages I refuse to decipher, but I understood they said, “Don’t go outside.”
I didn’t listen.
I was a man of the world trapped in the USA.
I saw the wonders of Jersey City.
I wished I could click my heels and pass over Kansas to Thailand to see my grandchildren.
The gift of sight was my only power and I remained trapped in Brooklyn.
FDTrump’s HQ was on Broadway.
Fatso refused to believe in the pandemic.
Thousands of people died in New York City during May.
Then the ambulances stopped coming in June.
My downstairs neighbor Brigiite and I became friends.
Jacob too.
We traveled to Catskill.
I lost three more friends.
The numbers were mounting and FDTrump offered voodoo medicine as a cure.
I hate him more and more.
No one visited his Bushwick HQ.
There was no way he would win Brooklyn.
I wander a little farther from the ‘Hood.
Mount Washington.
The SS Crack Den.
Lobstahs.
In Maine social distancing was a rule of thumb.
Even amongst friends.
Except us was us.
August was a slow month.
I still saw no end to Covid.
Antibodies ran in my blood.
I did not feel immune.
I missed Fenway and Mem.
Same with Angie and Sunsun.
I hated being alone.
The walls hated me too.
They refused to say a word.
I had a bad bike accident and then another, but my body healed fast. My soul was on strike.
Music saved me from Hell; Graham Parsons, Sly Stone, Tupac, and YG’s FDT.
The mainstream media predicted a blue wave for Joe Biden.
I saw Handsome Dave Henderson once a week.
We ate at Acqua Sante.
Wine and pasta on a Saturday afternoon speaking about the vortex of art.
California was burning.
Thailand was okay, but Middle USA refused to believe in Covid’s deadliness.
They believe in God.
I believed in ssex more than any God.
I was also faithful to Fenway’s mom.
That felt good.
A man alone.
My grandson Frost swam in the Gulf of Siam.
Fenway celebrated Loi Krathong.
Sunsun had thin hair.
Autumn peaked in the Catskills.
I ate autumn apples.
I drank wine and gin.
Neither was good for an old man, but I had the music.
Arthur Lee and Love.
Sometimes I drank too much.
I hit the ground without a bounce.
happy to abandon a world without freedom, especially once FDTrump lost the election.
Nothing lasts forever.
And then Trump was not gone, but was going to be gone.
Like on Kilimanjaro I still knew nothing other that one day we will dance again and of this I am sure.
Even with the second wave coming our way.
Live for today and that’s coming for someone born with the Caul.
