Our Social Distancing & Sheltering Club

On March 20, when New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell told citizens to shelter in their homes, I cheered — internally. As our death and infection rates skyrocketed, both Cantrell and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards seemed to grasp the gravity of the pandemic with admirable foresight. I felt civic pride when my hometown spearheaded drive-through coronavirus testing, and a part of my soul was lifted when our mayor dressed down people who thought the best response to the worst public health crisis in living memory was to have a street party with jello shots.

With all that said, I also had a very New Orleans reaction to this New Orleans nightmare: I ran out and grabbed some food. Not just any food, either. Good bagels, from a nice bakery, because when will we get good stuff again?

Local restaurants have stayed open for takeout and delivery, and we’re only supposed to head out for essentials. But I wanted, after days of cereal for breakfast, something more than essential. I’m not the only one. I’ve never seen Popeye’s on a nutrition chart, but the lines at the drive through by my house stretch around the parking lot every night. I hear Californians, in the wake of their own shelter in place order, demanded assurances they could still jog and do yoga outdoors. Down here, it’s give us an eight-piece bucket with red beans and rice or give us death. (I have to be fair, I am also heartened by how many of my fellow citizens are taking advantage of this situation to hit up local parks and run along the reduced service streetcar lines, all while keeping a safe social distance.)

When I got to the bakery, yellow, duct-tape lines on the floor indicated where customers should stand to minimize interpersonal exposure. It was a smart precaution, but it was eerie, out of place, a sort of privately enforced physical pointillism. It reminded me more of living in Seattle than New Orleans. Citizens of both cities value their personal boundaries, but in Seattle such space is sacrosanct. In New Orleans, you take it when you can get it.

The major difference being, of course, that now the need for space isn’t about personal comfort. It’s about saving lives. And the importance of adhering to those measures hit home for me when I went back to my house and passed a dozen young men boozing it up on the sidewalk, taking advantage of our open container laws while flaunting the guideline of not gathering in groups of 10 or more.

To get through shelter-in-place, I have been binging “Star Trek: Deep Space 9.” I am at the episode where the peaceful democracy of the United Federation of Planets is shattered by martial law, demonstrated by Federation soldiers patrolling, phaser rifles in hand, the streets of — of all places — the French Quarter of New Orleans. In the show, the moment is played as an ominous harbinger of worse things to come. But here I sit, with my bagels in hand, hypocritically. Yes, I got said bagels as unobtrusively and quickly as possible, but they are a luxury. I hope New Orleans never needs phaser rifles to ensure we do not go out for something as delicious, or as frivolous, as a bag of everything bagels or a spicy chicken sandwich, because while we may not value personal space, we sure as hell want the food we like.

On a much deeper, civic, soulful level, New Orleanians now face a crisis that keeps us from doing what we do naturally: hang out.

More than good food or drinks, we treasure the ability to partake of such pleasures with our friends. And that’s been robbed of us. The Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs that conduct our second lines, neighborhood parades that kick off every weekend outside of summer, are now practicing social distancing. It is getting into crawfish season, and it feels wholly unnatural to eat these crustaceans outside of a well-attended boil. I’ll eat a bottom dwelling river insect anytime, but it really helps the experience when there’s newspaper on the table, friends and family milling about, a keg on ice, and music blasting out of a speaker.

Having a communal good time is the particular New Orleans response to an emergency. You know how we get through hurricanes? Not the ones we have to evacuate for, but the run of the mill Cat 3s that aren’t worth booking a Ramada in Jackson? We have hurricane parties. We buy bottles of whiskey and rum and cases of High Life, grab the kids, head to a friend’s house, and have a sleepover. When Entergy gets the power back on, it’s back to living life as distinct family units, but for those hours of lashing rain and elemental uncertainty, we find strength in the village.

Then there’s Mardi Gras, our most iconic holiday. Christmas and Thanksgiving are generally celebrated by individual families, or maybe several families at once, but I cannot comprehend experiencing Mardi Gras and Carnival as anything less than a citywide celebration. I think back on the 2020 party, when I ran around with a bag of wine literally pouring it down willing people’s throats, and then read about experts saying Mardi Gras celebrations hastened COVID-19’s spread throughout Orleans parish. Well, yeah. Our way of life was as ill prepared for this pandemic as our physical infrastructure is for snow days. The COVID-19 response demands self-denial and isolation, and this is a city built on personal enjoyment and sociability.

Look, I get it: We need to hold off on socializing for our souls if we’re going to protect our bodies. Bagels aside, I’ve been good at sheltering in place, exacerbated by the fact I have a big work deadline, and to help, my wife took our kids to her mom’s place near Destin, Florida. After a few days, I started getting anxious and lonely. A buddy (out of work, because he, like so many folks down here, is a bartender with a now uncertain financial future) offered to get together to smoke some grass.

I was happy for the idea of some company, but the more we talked on the phone, the more unsure we were about who we’d been in touch with over the past two weeks, and in any case, it seemed a bad idea for either of us – he is brown-skinned Latino, I am brown-skinned mixed(Asian and white) – to get caught driving with drugs during a shelter in place mandate. So we did what did not come naturally to either of us, and neither of us left our homes. Was that a smart move? Yes. It just runs counter to who we are as New Orleanians. Counter to the values I was raised with, that made me an eventual New Orleanian.

See, I wasn’t born here. Like a lot of folks, this city felt like home the more time I spent in it, and I think that’s because I was raised by a mother who would have taken to New Orleans like the cat’s claw overrunning my front yard. She died at the end of February, from heart disease complications that arose, at least partly, from eating without apology and sleeping when she felt like it. She may have been a 5-feet-5 Burmese woman, but she embodied the Rebirth Brass Band anthem, “Do Whatcha Wanna.”

But she wasn’t selfish. She deeply enjoyed her food, but she lived for feeding others. Her life was measured by how much enjoyment she provided, be it through her cooking or her company. Mom had a rare balance of big personality and sincere capacity for interpersonal connection; this made her a great counselor in her work at a home for troubled girls, and a force of nature in her social life. She was physically small, but her soul was huge, an unending flood of generosity punctuated by a loud, long laugh that shook the room like a thunderstorm.

When she passed, there was no funeral - not because we were social distancing (this was just before that practice became widespread), but because it wasn’t the sort of thing she would have wanted. Instead, my dad hosted a get together at my parents’ house, out in the country, far from everything. And still, almost 50 people made the long drive, because she touched folks. There were lots of stories and choked up speeches, but I think there was more laughter than tears, and more food than anything. If I did one thing right at that funeral, it was making sure we had a tray of Filipino lechon kawali, a roast pork dish my mom ate like Garfield on a lasagna binge. 

“Your mom,” said a family friend, laughing, “lived for that stuff.”

She might have died from it too, but COVID-19 would have killed her just as assuredly. Yes, because she was immunocompromised, but on a deeper level: by robbing her of indulgence and sharing it, of people and food and stories and laughter around a table. Those things were precious to her. Maybe they helped kill her, but they were also fundamental to the messy, complicated, joy-bringing life she led.

A few days ago, my wife called. Asked if she should come back. She mentioned her mom was willing to watch my son for another week. Asked me if I was OK with that.

My daughter is 5, my son is 1. He is a ceaselessly moving agent of discord. My kids were both born here. My daughter can belt the Saints ‘Who Dat’ chant like a champion, and she loves the Neville Brothers. And my son? I have a picture of him from before he could crawl. We’re at a picnic, and somehow, he has dragged himself to a Popeye’s box a few feet away, and he is eating that chicken. When I tried to take it away he screamed like a banshee, and when I gave it back he laughed. Like a little thunderstorm.

If he came home, I thought, my life would become disordered, louder, less private, less focused. There would be less time to get work done, more anarchy, more screams, more random music and messy meals and noise, more hilarious, difficult, joyful chaos exploding into every scintilla of our lives.

“Bring him home,” I said.