OPENING THE DOOR TO CORONAMANIA

In late February, 2020, shortly before the Scamdemic began, my wife and I were traveling through the Deep South. Late in the afternoon on our way from New Orleans to Tuscaloosa, where one of our adult kids was living, we were 50 miles from Laurel, Mississippi. We’d read in some magazine that, despite Steve Forbert having sung 40 years ago that it was “a dirty, stinking town,” Laurel—especially its downtown—had historically charming architecture and was being tastefully revitalized.

As I drove east in our rental car, my wife pulled out her smart phone and searched for a room in Laurel. There were several elegant antebellum Bed & Breakfasts with commensurate prices. The most appealing, but also pricey, option was an apartment above a bakery; who wouldn’t like to wake up to the smell of sweet, cinnamon-laced baked goods? There was also a $48 AirBnB owned by a young, nattily-attired entrepeneur known only as “Ricky.” We agreed to economize and stay there.

We arrived in Laurel near dark on that overcast evening. We walked around the downtown, which was gracefully retro, as touted. Then we shared a tasty meal at a lively bistro. After dinner, we strolled some more and it began to drizzle. Using GPS, we headed for our AirBnB. As we wove across town, the rain intensified.

Near the end of our search, we crossed a set of railroad tracks. As we did, we saw, through the darkness and soaking rain, that the houses became distinctly humbler and less well maintained. Some of the houses on our lodging’s street— including the ones on all sides of the address we sought—were boarded up. The phone told us we had reached our destination.

OK, then.

Our Air BnB was an austere, single-story cinderblock, two-unit structure oriented 90 degrees to the eerily quiet street. Maybe we shoulda sprung for the bakery or the antebellum place. We thought briefly about re-booking, but having already sunk the money into Ricky’s, the aggregate cost of Plans A and B seemed too high. Plus, we didn’t want to resume our search at that hour and in that stormy weather.

So we parked the car in the downpour and scrambled to, and unlocked, the windowless front door to our spartan lodging. The interior walls were the other surface of the same, outward facing cinderblock, the floor was tiled, the decor was, uh, eclectic and the bed was mushy. But Ricky, the absentee AirBnB-lord, had hospitably left a couple of beers in the fridge.

Ellen and I decided to read for a little while and then go to sleep.

Five minutes later, someone delivered several hard, startling knocks to the front door. Given the busted-up nature of the hood, the heavy rain and the late hour, I wondered what this could be about.

I’ve spent a lot of time in rough neighborhoods. As a youth counselor in NYC in the late 1970s-early 80s, I went to the roughest-looking locales during a very rough period. I could tell a bunch of stories about home visits in those places. I also lived on MLK, Jr. Blvd. in Newark in the mid-1980s. On various nights, I had three teens pull a knife on me and had two athletic adults chase me for blocks. I gave up nothing in either incident, but both were close calls. Other stuff also happened. I don’t avoid urban settings. But I keep my eyes open.

I wasn’t enthusiastic about receiving a late night, wrong-side-of-the-tracks visitor. Still, the knock was too loud to ignore. My shiny, new rental car was right outside. Whoever was knocking knew I was inside.

I approached the door but didn’t open it. Trying to sound casual, I called out, “Yeah, what’s up?”

Yes, I always expect visitors after 10 PM during heavy rain in towns where I don’t know anyone and many of the nearby houses are abandoned.

“It’s Jamekah. I just got back from work. Your car is blocking my parking space.”

Though I couldn’t see Jamekah, she sounded nice enough. Yet, I wondered if she was accompanied by someone who might be carrying a knife, a 9 mm, or worse. As there was no way to see who was outside in the darkness, I put my ear on the door to try to hear if Jamekah had someone with her.

I remembered that the overall parking space was small and that, given the rain and the darkness, I may not have parked carefully. I decided to trust Jamekah. I opened the door, slightly, and peered quickly and peripherally into the dark, rainy night. I saw Jamekah’s friendly face and no one else visibly nearby.

You know, because you’re reading this, that I survived. But if I’d been held up, or worse, at gunpoint and you learned that I had opened the door for a stranger in a strange, rough-looking setting at 10 PM, you would have asked, “Why did you/he open the door?”

I know you would have asked that, because I know someone who was badly beaten by a group of five teens in a Bronx subway station at 3 AM on a Saturday night in 2010. When I told people about this incident, instead of expressing anger at the attackers or sympathy for the victim, they asked me, “What was he (the victim) doing out in The Bronx at 3 AM?”

He was coming home from playing live music. In my book, this is no reason to repeatedly punch and kick someone in the body and head.

But that’s not the point. The point is that once a door is opened, it can be hard to close. Some doors, like Pandora’s Box, shouldn’t be opened in the first place. And we expect other people to exercise good judgment to avoid bad outcomes. We criticize them—either aloud or silently—if they don’t.

A few weeks later, when the Corona fearmongering blitz began and lockdowns were proposed, most people strongly, obediently and foolishly supported locking down. I didn’t. Instead, I had the same questions and feeling I had in Laurel a few weeks prior: What’s on the other side of that Lockdown/Door Number 1 option? Once a door is opened, even a crack, to see who’s there, will someone stick their foot in the gap and, with someone else’s help, jolt the door wide open? And if so, then what?

From Day 1, I hated the idea of “Shelter in Place Orders.” I didn’t believe the bureaucrats and politicians who said, “Don’t worry, it’s only for two weeks…to flatten the curve.”

I expressed my lockdown opposition to everyone I knew, and some whom I didn’t know. Nearly all dismissed my view. What did I know? I was no MD.

Jamekah seemed, to me, much more trustworthy than Fauci, Birx, Cuomo, et al. At least Jamekah’s story made sense. But the bureaucrats, and Trump himself, put us on the road to social and economic destruction by opening the door to Coronamania via an Emergency Declaration. The contrived, panic-driven momentum built on itself.

Two weeks of disruption weren't nearly enough to swing the election. So the bait-and- switch lockdown and school closure theater continued. On top of that, Governors and mayors unilaterally decreed a wide range of other arbitrary measures that people should have laughed at. Instead, most people treated these as legitimate laws and enlightened public health safeguards.

Three weeks after I’d opened Ricky’s door, passive, gullible Americans opened the door to Coronamania. The rest is nightmarish, flashback-inducing history, with many historical echoes to follow, indefinitely. Those who supported the initial lockdowns greased the skids for all this damage.

We gave Ricky’s place five stars. He, in turn, and despite having never met us, labeled us “Awesome people.” Maybe because we left no mess and drank none of his beers.