AntivirusGy 15: Social distancing, sex work and community a year after...

 

Social distancing

"Hey you.. we is nah frenz no more... " I hear the woman shouting and I keep walking as I don't know the woman. "Ow man, like you forget me or what.. "...

I turn back. Covid time when death and sickness are high and I hardly talk to people now in 'real life'.

Bright eyes and big smile, arms open like she wants to hug me. One hand has unlit cigarette, the other hand two plastic bags.

Mask on her chin, not on her nose. Nice to see the big smile from the distance away. 

"Why you passing me?" she speaks above the mask and through the big smile.. "Don't you remember me?".. 

Mask can't hide my 'nah. .I don't know you' look.

"Covid.. " I say.. "No man.. Covid make you forget me" she say and people passing and hearing us shout at each other fondly from seven feet apart. 

I do not know the woman, I cannot remember her but my memory has been going recently anyway. If it was not for Covid,  I give any woman who want to hug me up the benefit of the doubt.

A year ago I had hugged a woman in the same area, black woman who had come up to me with arms open just after elections and Covid came in because I thought it was better to embrace the black woman in the nasty racial context of democracy and voting than avoid Covid. 

But a year later.. Covid is worse and even with the Russian and Chinese and Indian fluids in the veins, I mumble loving words from the distance

Sex work

"I miss you " she says .. directly.." 

My veins circulating the Russian fluid which the World Health Organisation is still waiting on data to approve but which the Guyana Government get data to approve. Fluids on my mind and the virus and thinking of my body being this battlefield for the global medical warfare..'science', money, more money..,  the virus and other conditions which also take their toll or which might not be conditions at all..

Sun is hot!

I wonder if she is a sex worker and she mistake me for one of her clients from before Covid and that with the mask and so , and is sunlight and maybe she met the client when it was dark and I look like what the client might look like in the hot sunlight and wearing a mask. 

I don't ask though. Is a nice hustle unlike so many of the other hustles . 

I pass back. Cigarette is lit. I mumble something about 'stay safe'. I don't ask anything about the fluids. She asks "where you going.. you want me come with you..? When I say nah ..

She offers "Do you want my number.. ?" and I say no, no but trying to be loving and so while walking away keeping distance to get the minibus to the place  where she wanted to come with me.

Community 

Minibus comes up and there is no social distancing. Back seat and woman moves down to the corner window. I sit between her and a girl child. Woman has mask on her chin. I don't say anything.. something about the woman as she is looking out the window. She mumbles something and I mumble back. An older man, wearing glasses, tie, long sleeve shirt is listening to a video on his phone. I watch to see is what he listening to and see is one of the American actors talking about Black Lives Matter.

Woman mumbles to me something about hair. I don't want her to talk because she is not wearing the mask. I smell alcohol and smoke. 

"Aye girl, don't touch that lady hair, I aint want get beat up.. " she says across me to the child.

The girl is playing with the hair of the woman sitting in front of her. 

"The hair is nice " the child says..

"I telling this girl not to play with you hair" woman says to the woman with the nice hair and the woman turns back and smiles.

Woman bends head closer to me and says something "I want tell you something..".

 Mask on chin. Is a nice colourful mask of green leaf pattern on black background.

I make a sign to say 'push up the mask'. I saw a picture of some journalists cozying up to the President .. everybody wearing masks so I assume that I can't dead or get sick if the woman has something to tell me. I think about the other woman I stayed far from.

Woman says quietly through the mask with the green leaf pattern.. "I need a help, i don't have anything to cook"

Child is still touching the hair of the woman in front of her.. her fingers kind of touching the tips.

We talk some more, chitchat. The blue mask on my face not hiding the smoke and alcohol smell and I wonder if it would stop me from Covid. But is a minibus, we close up tight and so and maybe the woman wants to talk to a stranger and the stranger don't mind talking and so and hoping that the Russian fluids might stop the talking leading to death.

"I have four children... the big boy.. in a home.. "..  we talk about how the back seat of the bus is hot and so with the sun coming in from the window. We don't talk about Covid.

She reaches her stop. I encourage her to stay well and look after herself. I don't talk about the fluids. i tell her 'don't worry wid no man now' and she say' Uncle you right, I is 43 years old , i aint got time for that.. "

As she leaves.. she says.. bending mouth close to my ear.. 'my problem is I have no rice for the pot" 

Community comes as it comes in these times. One regular person who communes is the woman who comes weekly to help me deal with the guilt at the sins I have committed and hope that I could pay off for some of them. Each week is nice lil chat.. 'eh eh.. this flower tree does bear two kind flower'.. and 'tomorrow is a holiday.. gimme a lil more top up nah?"

Mortuary..

In the place where the Russian fluid is being dispensed, there is a sign which says that the fluids from India and China are available in the building "opposite the mortuary" and part of me wonders if that makes it easier then, quicker in case anybody dies that is not far to move the body..

Woman who asks me to sit down to wait on the fluids from Russia is surprised when I say I prefer to stand because I sit down home whole day. "Well when you finish , you gotta sit down because if you fall down, I aint able pick you up.. "

I comply and sit down after the fluids.. maybe the fluids are turning me into a zombie more and I am complying with authority.. and in the 15 minutes talk with the other people waiting as we talk about fluids, whether they work, what they will do and what is the risk of taking them or not taking them.

But with life though, the only certainty is that most of us would end up in a mortuary somewhere.

(AntivirusGy is a collection of ramblings on things which have changed since Covid 19 entered our vocabulary)