Monday, October 5th, 2020

My family can’t get at some things downtown. The House of a Hundred Grandmothers is back under an even stricter lockdown than the rest of the country. They ask me to run some errands for them. I leave work early. Other people leave early, too, a little before me, so I’m not all that inspired to stick around. The buses stop running now at around 8 PM. I want to be sure to catch those that I need. The bus from work to downtown winds past the college, as usual, before I get off at the Heart of the City. I run my errands then hop another bus at the same stop. It’s the line that used to run past my house. I’m told that it will do so again, if they ever finish fixing the road. At least I’m not surprised now when it takes the long way around. I get off at a large intersection about three blocks from where I’m going. I call my family to say that I’m almost there. I think of cutting across a lot on the way, but it’s dark. There’s no danger from people, but I might trip over something. The street that I walk down is quiet. Its sidewalk took so long to be renovated last year that, long afterward, I instinctively duck around where the barriers had been. In the small park just outside the House, a tall woman in black workout clothes jumps rope. I cross the street. By the time that I get to where she was, she is gone. Pairs of people sit on benches in the park and talk. Streetlights in the distance outline them as silhouettes. Just outside the House, two women in wheelchairs laugh and talk loudly in what might be Romanian. I stand on the sidewalk near the lobby. Inside, the guard at the desk appears not to see me. An exhausted woman rolls a large basket on wheels up to him. She reaches in, puts a meal in a clear plastic box on his desk, then heads down the hall. A relative appears on the other side of the window. I hand him what I’ve picked up for them. He hands me a bag with a book that they had set aside for me. We talk briefly. Neither of us has much going on. He returns to their apartment. I put my headphones back on, start up a podcast, and walk across the dimly lit park toward my house.