Bob Bell's Letter From America - A Brendon Hills Boy Looks Out Across Oakland

For those of you who don’t know about Bob Bell, he once lived in my home village of Roadwater in the Brendon Hills where he worked on local farms and even had his own flock of sheep. I have good and grateful reason for remembering his lovely old sheepdog, Glen. Anyway, Bob now lives in Oakland, California - and he and I were talking on the phone yesterday. Naturally, the conversation was dominated by the present lockdown and I was pretty aghast by a few things Bob told me. I know where I’d prefer to be in lockdown, put it that way. Bob’s descriptions of vast shanty-towns full of homeless people were shocking to hear.

All one can say is that hopefully there will eventually be a silver-lining coming out of this pandemic and that will be the realisation that when many millions of people have to live together, they need proper government. Not some crazy notion that things will be okay because everything is built on greed and competition.

Anyway, I suggested that Bob might like to post his own Lockdown Diary - and here it is… (Martin Hesp, 29 March, 2020)

The virus.

The virus, the virus, the virus. It is everywhere, lurking, lying in wait, biding its time, then suddenly pouncing, infecting some, passing by others, moving, travelling, in the air, on countertops, on bottles and cans, on the handles of shopping carts, it is on the tip of the tongue, it is the half-remembered urge to stay away from others, it is social distancing, it is paranoia, it is fear, it is unconcern, it is writ in worry across the faces of old ladies, it is absent from callow youth. The virus, the virus, the virus. It is everywhere.

It is the topic of conversation everywhere. It is on the radio, on the television, in the newspapers, on the internet, on Facebook, in podcasts. It is spoken of in hushed and despairing tones, declaimed by pastors from remote locations as spawn from the devil, confronted by nurses and doctors in real-time and in real contact in the very here and very now, it is evidenced by the piling of bodies in makeshift morgues, by the empty streets, by pales faces peering from behind closed curtains. The virus, the virus, the virus, it is everywhere.

It is the subject matter in sweet and love-torn conversations between young mothers and their young children, and so sorry Amy, but you can’t go and play with Joey next door. It’s that nasty virus, you know, that nasty virus. It’s the premise of a million times a million emails between concerned small company owners and their disappearing staff, now working if they can from their apartments and houses, makeshift offices in the spare room or dining room table, trying to figure out if they can benefit from the big rescue package just passed by congress. And over them all hovers the ultimate question of who can be rescued from the virus, the virus, the virus, because it is everywhere.

Outside the supermarkets are lines of bemused shoppers, patiently standing six feet behind the person in front, wearing rubber gloves, clutching wipes and bottles of sanitiser, smiling faint smiles of “oh what else can we do?” to each other, and jumping back startled should anyone inadvertently venture too close, because it’s the virus you know, it’s the virus - it is everywhere. And they enter the market, one by one, trying to keep the distance, but the aisles are really too narrow, and so they slide past other shoppers, holding their breath, trying by psychic force to be immune to whatever is floating out there in the air, on the doors to the frozen foods, on the leaves of the spinach they pick up, on those long orange carrots, and indeed, who can avoid the virus under these circumstances? And finally exiting, rushing to the safety of the car, loading the bags of groceries in the back, and fleeing the parking lot, and the socially distanced crowds, who of course are harbouring the virus, the virus, the virus.

And so back home, to safety, to the surroundings we hope, oh how we hope, are virus-free. And we go past the tumbledown and wretched homeless camps, tents, blue tarps, sheds made out of broken wooden pallets, old bicycles lying on the dirt, bags and bags of sad tattered belongings, piles of garbage, one Porta Potty for scores of raggedy verminous sad street dwellers, and the thought is unavoidable. The virus is gonna hit here, and the virus is gonna hit here very hard indeed. 

How can this situation even exist in America, the land of the free and the almighty dollar? The utter venality of American society is on full view, and it is not beautiful, it is not inspiring, it is not great. It is beyond dreadful, beyond appalling - it is beyond belief. A crazy man, shirtless in the 50-degree weather, holds a long two by four. Is he practicing a batting stance, or is he practicing a murder to come? Who knows? He swings it back and forth, holding a pose for a few seconds, and then changes his grip, and tries another swing.  A woman staggers past him, oblivious to his bat, her hair uncombed, her face streaked with dirt. There is a blank look in her eyes as if she is as oblivious to her surroundings as she is to the half-naked man’s bat. And amongst those rotting piles of clothes, broken shopping carts, busted bicycles, old tires, bits of wood slinks the virus, lying in wait. Does it have consciousness? Does it intentionally tarry, biding its time? Probably not, because its malevolence operates beyond time and intention, purpose and meaning. And why? 

Because it is the virus, the virus. It is everywhere.