CHAPTER 8

I get it. Coronavirus is such a health risk that we are willing to concede our liberties. Plenty of life-long atheists have requested the last rites on their death beds. Stark realities work a cruel magic. I am as much a coward as the next guy. Paranoia is part of our DNA. It keeps us alive. Generally, it prevents us from making stupid decisions.

Since I don't know anyone nor do I know anyone who has known anyone who has contracted Coronavirus, we have doubts about its lethalness. In Cameron County we have had more or less 50 confirmed positives and no deaths. This is among a population of approximately 600,000. New York City, on the other hand, has had 85,000 cases with 2,000 deaths.

Texas has 4,700 confirmed cases with 70 deaths, the country has 240,000 confirmed cases with 6,000 deaths and the world has eclipsed one million confirmed cases with more than 50,000 deaths. The Spanish flu, which gripped the world from 2018 to 2020, claimed anywhere from 20 to 100 million deaths, nobody knows for sure.

Our bumbling and blathering president finally accepted on April Fools' Day that at least 100,000 Americans could die and under a worst case scenario more than two million could lose their lives. He boasted during his campaign that the United States would recover its greatness again--whenever that was--and he was right. We will have the greatest number of confirmed cases and deaths on the planet if projections prove true.

We live across the Rio Grande from Matamoros with its estimated population of one million in a country of 130 million. Mexico's president, Andres Miguel Lopez-Obrador, implemented a policy against the cartels called "abrazos, no balazos" (hugs, no slugs). Violence has increased dramatically as if treating a rattlesnake with love would give it second thoughts about poisoning you.

Confronting Coronavirus, he held up a prayer book, a two-dollar bill and a four-leaf clover as his protection at a press conference. If Trump is a fool, then this snake-oil salesman is a complete idiot. Should this pandemic explode across the border, we will be overwhelmed by a crisis that will make the overflow of illegal immigrants seem like a trickle.

I am adhering to the mandates of the government at all levels. I keep my distance when I have to run an errand such as shopping, I stay at home otherwise and I wash my hands frequently. Olivia, my son and step-son abide by the same rules although Lorca delivers food and attends a trade school that holds classes twice a week. I hope he isn't the one breach in the dike, but he needs the money. It is impossible to control everything because there are realities that transcend our circumstances.

To compensate for the factors that are beyond our management, we have sacrificed basic freedoms. We have a midnight to five curfew. We cannot leave our homes unless it's an absolute necessity. When we do, it is only one person in a car unless there's an emergency.

We have accepted the police state. Law enforcement can stop us without probable cause. Though there is reduced traffic in the streets, a policeman can randomly pull us over and demand an explanation for our presence on the road.

"I'm going to my buddy's house for a bag" or "I'm heading to the liquor store for a bottle of tequila" or "I'm getting a massage for my bad back" or "I'm stopping at the convenience store for some condoms" aren't cutting it with the cops. Depending on their moods since they are presently as powerful as St. Peter deciding who's spending eternity in heaven or who's burning forever in hell, he or she can write a ticket that will cost you $500 or he or she can arrest you. Many of these victims may be fighting to make ends meet because they are unemployed. Nasty!

I have never known these draconian measures in my lifetime. I imagine myself in a South American country where the military has overthrown the democratically elected government and dissidents are being corralled and steered to stadiums where they are tortured and executed in locker rooms.

When you are afraid, fear fills your mind and engenders the most frightening of settings. But we are living in the lesser-of-two evil times. We aren't thinking twice about surrendering our rights because losing our lives would be a much more dreadful outcome.