sanity (in the age of covid-19)

This past weekend I used my birthday as an excuse to bust out of the apartment and back into the outside world. It helps to have a motorcycle.. it’s the perfect social distancing machine, in that so long as it moves, no one can touch you, save the bugs that sacrifice themselves to your helmet visor… rest in peace, little guys, and I’m sorry..

I waited weeks to do this.. the last time I went for a ride was at the beginning of Houston’s “stay at home” order in early April, and I was so unnerved that I returned home after only 20 miles. It just felt wrong. No vehicles occupied the streets except worker pickups and trucks branded with the city government crest. The wind was intense and hot, and I could taste refinery chemicals in the air (the Coronavirus crisis had not yet slowed oil production to a near-grinding halt, as it is at the time of this writing). I couldn’t tell if the odd hesitation I felt in my newly-installed, 20-year-old replacement motor was a real issue of concern, headwind resistance, or a byproduct of my own paranoia. If anything happened, I would become a regretful statistic, adding my avoidable mishap to an already-overburdened hospital system, with scared, over-tired healthcare workers and a looming shortage of beds and ventilators for incoming Covid-19 victims. I pulled over to check my oil, thankful that my full tank kept me from having to touch the gas pumps. There was plenty.. relieved, I headed home.

What’s changed this time?

It’s a great question. Houston’s Covid numbers are still climbing. Though our hospitals aren’t as full as many thought they would be by now, the fear in this town is still palpable, and rightfully so. As our governor moves to reopen businesses state-wide, some scramble to resume what was once considered “normal” life.. others feel the need to hunker down even more, till we can at least begin to see some glimmer of light at the end of what feels like one hell of a long, dark, invisible bug-infested tunnel.

The answer was decided by a coin-toss.

On the one hand, venturing out means not only coming into contact with virus on gas pumps (as this time I’d need gas), in restaurants desperate for business (‘cause I’m a sucker and I get hungry), on the breath of others I’d encounter for any reason.. it also meant the potential to GIVE virus to someone on the off chance it’s lurking in my own mucus membranes, waiting for the right moment to fuck me up, along with any number of people I get close to.

On the other hand, what I have to offer as an artist comes from the absorption and re-interpretation of what I feel out in the world. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes… impressions collected when moving through the landscape, and ideas that come from encounters with other people, close up or from a distance. I have my memories, certainly. But memories can spin into distortions when they’re not exposed to the light brought by new experiences…

…and there’s the sanity problem. We can all relate to this one, without doubt. There are only so many ways one can re-imagine the imperfections on a stretch of badly painted drywall before its patterns start to assume the shape of your own inner demons from childhood (or whenever).

So, what can I say. I lined up my rationalizations, distancing strategies, masks, gloves and sani-wipes. Figured out my route, got on my bike and took off. I-45 South opened up wide, its tangled ramps dumping into 5 lanes from all directions, with traffic sparse enough to let me hit full speed in seconds. Vibrations from the engine and my knobby tires passed through my legs, back, into my lungs and out the tips of my fingers as I gripped the bars with knuckles white from exhilaration - from reconnecting to the outer world. Suddenly I was plugged back in. Negotiating with the road, with other drivers, the wind, my machine, with myself - countless decisions being made simultaneously and continuously as the freeway flattened and stretched south toward empty strip malls, schools, and gas stations; toward slowing refineries and more homes containing bored and frightened citizens; toward seafood restaurants trying to survive on to-go orders and Galveston beach-goers acting in denial of disease and social distance orders. Out here I could again be part of all of it, metaphorically, if not literally. As long as I didn’t touch or breath on anybody.

I got off I-45 and rode toward Texas City, in a diagonal southeasterly straight line broken by stoplights at intersections filled with empty banks and fast food chain restaurants. Signs scotch-taped to windows promised quick re-openings and food or booze to-go in hastily-scrawled red sharpie ink. A shuttered elementary school drifted by to my right, school speed zone signs still blinking, despite a lack of students to protect from reckless drivers. To my left sat an enormous lot and a would-be department store encased in a skeleton of scaffolding, its sign forcibly scraped away, leaving behind shadows where plastic neon-backed letters spelled something indecipherable. I thought about pulling over to take pictures.. but there was somewhere else I wanted to get to first.

If you look on a map, the Texas City Dike extends way out into Galveston Bay, ending in a tiny point surrounded almost entirely by water. In two dimensions it seemed like an ideal place to be, given social isolation is so necessary - to be in the middle of a big body of water with only one narrow road leading in and out, alone with the sun and clouds reflecting their patterned brilliance on the Bay’s glassy, endless surface. In theory, yes… but not if lots of other folks have the same idea.

When I reached the dike entrance, a sign indicated it was closed to the public on weekends in an effort to help stem the tide of Covid infections. I looked around and noticed a bait shop on one side of the entrance; a snack stand and seafood joint on the other, situated on a lot overflowing with parked cars and trucks, apparently running a brisk takeout operation. I parked myself, stowed my helmet and put on my mask. Pickup trucks with families and fishing gear poking from windows pulled up to that same sign, one by one, turning around and driving off in slow disappointment. A few of them had masks on; most didn’t.

I decided to stay for a few minutes - to walk around, away from the other people, up a walkway leading to a levy on the ship channel, where you could still see the occasional tanker hauling currently worthless crude oil toward one of the refineries lining the edge of the bay here. I stepped around a cluster of burning candles with big, bubbly hearts and flowers drawn onto the concrete in fresh brightly-colored chalk. A memorial to a stranger - I guessed it was someone young, based on the feel of the letters, colors and shapes. No mention of how the person had died.

Further up sat a relic from Texas City’s past - a propeller from the SS High Flyer, one of three ships destroyed in the most devastating industrial disaster in U.S. history. A mile away, in the local port, a small fire broke out aboard a ship docked there in 1947, some guess from a cigarette dropped and left to smolder. Scheduled to depart for France to help with WWII rebuild efforts, the ship was loaded with ammonium nitrate.. enough to blow so sky high that it ignited the High Flyer and another nearby ship, along with several chemical plants and storage tanks along the adjacent shore. One of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record, it killed nearly 600 people and left thousands of others injured and/or homeless. The propeller - all 2?..3?.. tons of it - landed here after cruising in midair for a mile. Its edges are sawed like oversized shark teeth; a large chunk is missing from one corner.

Up on the levy’s edge I saw no ships, but the water there was choppy.. a bit strange for a bay shore off the coast of a part of the Gulf not known for its fabulous surf. Green-grey clouds were consuming the northeastern horizon… I’d have to dodge them if I wanted to make it home dry.

Instead of heading north I found a two lane road that cut into the backside of Texas City, through refineries that still haunt my teenage memories, with their flares and thousands of lights casting an orange gloom that can be seen from all directions in the Southeast Texas night sky. I knew a kid who lived near them. He’d describe what it was like to drive through them at night, tripping on acid, the drug of choice amongst my friends back in those days. His head turned tangles of crude-stained, half-rusted conduits, stacks and pipes into fire-breathing dragons that grew wings and long, snaky necks, spewing jets of red-hot flame into air that had already been toxic for many years. I hope he found a better life, somewhere far away from there.

I slipped past the clouds and over a bridge into Galveston, looking for gas and a place to hide from the storm. I found an Exxon station off the main boulevard - Broadway - its median lined with dozens of old palm trees who’ve seen too many hurricanes. Buying gas these days is a dicey proposition. To be safe about it you either have to wear latex gloves or be ready with a sanitary wipe in hand, something loaded with Covid-killing alcohol or bleach. I choose the latter, as gloves carry too much risk for cross contamination. I pull a wipe out of my pocket from its ziplock bag, all dripping wet with chemicals, and grasp the pump handle while rubbing it down in one swift action. Then I use the wipe to protect my fingers against any members of the “invisible enemy” lurking on the ATM keypad, cleaning my hands thoroughly after gassing up and replacing the pump. This is all done while wearing a mask, risking looks from Galvestonites who either haven’t caught on or don’t care that non-symptomatic people are carrying this disease, potentially risking the lives of those with less fortunate immune systems.

Riding south, I pass shuttered liquor stores and bored-seeming people wandering the silent streets. Some look at me sideways, wondering what I’m doing there. I ride till I hit the Seawall, where the beaches are closed, and the wind blowing out to sea is still really strong.

I came for this. For green choppy waves caressing a slate-blue stormy sky with scrappy seagulls who will always seem far freer than we humans will ever be. They don’t care about the Coronavirus. They can still see the sun that casts its warm rays onto the tops of the clouds, that will keep setting every night no matter what foolish crazy bullshit we inflict upon ourselves. In chasing it, I claim for myself a small taste of that freedom.