Nonfiction by Ginny Bartolone
March. Manhattan tumbles into silence. I hover by the window, inhale a wave of city air, and listen to the door of the 1 train close. Descending major third. Helicopters, sirens, stand clear of the closing doors, DING-dong, and then nothing.
I loop the Natural History Museum. Frigid humidity slips through my coat. It’s colder than it should be. St. Patrick’s Day decorations slip off their windows as condensation separates the tape from the glass. I cross Columbus without looking both ways. No one’s coming.
White poster board taped to a window on the corner reads “Stay the f* home.” A singer warms up his voice. For what? Juilliard-perfected arpeggios now reserved for his neighbors.
I seek hints of progress—stores reopening, bodegas with toilet paper, someone sitting in the park. I spot a family of raccoons. One hangs on a branch with its paws flopping over the icy bark.
The pub on the corner—the one where John the bartender welcomed us the night we moved to the neighborhood—sits dark. A sign on the door reads, “We are sad to announce the passing of…” A picture of a line cook in his apron.
I head home. Cuomo talks at 11:30.
Ben barges in with a sighting. There was a man sitting at the bar of the pub. Inside. Drinking a beer. But the restaurants aren’t open. It’s only May. He was alone, Ben explained. No bartender. Just a man sitting alone drinking a beer.
“I yelled through the open window,” he goes on, “I asked ‘Are you reopening?’ And he answered, ‘I hope so!’” The man raised his glass in celebration.
“He must be the owner,” I add.
“I thought John was the owner, but maybe not? They’re still closed. So how else would he be inside?”
I sit on the roof for most of May. Nails, puddles, pigeons. Almost warm enough for the cockroaches. At 7 p.m., we cheer and bang on pots and pans. Cheering, helicopters, sirens, stand clear of the closing doors, silence.
The pub reopens in September, and we hurry through the hot autumn air toward to outdoor seating area still under construction. John appears.
“You’re here!”
“We are. Somehow,” he answers. I can’t think of what else to say.
“May we never go through something like this again,” comes out of my mouth. John pats me on the back while looking across the street toward nothing in particular.
Ben asks about the man sitting at the bar in May.
“Oh, I’m the owner,” John confirms, “That’s Mark. He’s usually here. When they locked down the city, he stopped leaving his apartment. Lost all muscle mass in his legs. Bunch of us started carrying him down the steps every few days for fresh air and a pint.”
They’re closing the restaurants again. One more night before the silence. Ben and I march up Amsterdam but an early blast of icy air has the city more on edge than usual.
A bundled man shuffles in jagged patterns behind us, and then next to us, and then in front of us. He turns his head—once, twice, again.
Ben whispers, “Let’s go into the pub, just to get off the street a minute.”
John stands behind the bar. Caution tape wraps up the stools.
“Still open for a drink?” We ask, “And food of course.” It’s illegal to get a drink without food.
“Or you know,” John says out of the side of his mouth, “You get a drink or two, you look at the menu, and oops, you can’t decide, and then you pay your bill and storm out without eating.” He shrugs with a laugh and a wink and we take a spot in the loft above the main floor.
It’s the first night of Hanukkah. The only other group sits in the far corner and sings songs and exchanges gifts. We order Manhattans.
“Cheers,” we toast with a clink.
We order another. We toast.
John carries a platter of shots around the room. We toast in the air and all drink.
We climb—stumble—down from the balcony, and line up at the cordoned-off caution-taped bar with shot glasses beside strangers. When was the last I talked to a stranger? Toast. Drink. My memory blurs.
“They just announced vaccines for under 40. Tomorrow,” I yell to Ben across the apartment. It’s March again.
We’ve been training for this. Open the NYC vaccine website. Hit refresh, hit back, hit refresh again. Don’t wait for the circle to stop spinning, just keep clicking. Grab any appointment that isn’t at the Aqueduct Racetrack. That’s too far. Two hours on a train full of a virus. We justify other neighborhoods an hour away. Are we taking slots from other people?
I holler, “I got one! Police station off the F at 7a.m.” Ben gets one for 2p.m. at the same police station.
My alarm chimes at 4:30. We’re told to get there an hour before our appointment. I leave at 5; the sun hasn’t risen. Clouds of roasting bread fill Broadway. My 1 train doors ding open—DING-dong. Descending major third. Sleeping essential workers rest with their heads against the metal poles. They lived a different pandemic. I change at Columbus Circle.
The sun rises as I crest the steps. The line around the station reaches an overgrown parking lot. It inches forward. A handwritten sign on the door comes into sight. “J&J.” I show my ID to a couple of cops at a folding table and wait. Sing a song in your head when you get a shot, that’s what I always learned. I sing “Start spreading the news,” and the shot is done.
The volume knob twists. Someone laughs. A car honks. The bass of a song thumps. As I leave the station, even the sun melting the soot-covered snowbanks makes a sound. I listen with my eyes closed and breathe in the city air.
Ginny Bartolone is a writer who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She’s been writing about travel and the creative process on her blog since 2011. Her fiction and nonfiction are published in literary journals such as The Closed Eye Open and Flumes.
