Today felt especially bleak. Yet again, the reported number of New Yorkers who are very sick or have died is staggering. I listen to Gov. Cuomo’s daily briefings faithfully. I also check daily data for NYC, NYS. I check other states too, like my home state Bama. I want to understand the facts. Almost 11,000 NYC families have been grieving a loved one in NYC alone because COVID took them away. It’s awful, this virus, an infectious, lethal whackamole. Experts seem to be saying that we’re at an apex, statistics have flat-lined and perhaps, the numbers will start to go down soon. Nonetheless, the governor issued an executive order that all New Yorkers must wear a protective face mask (or fashionable bandana) when it’s not possible to stay six feet apart. That’s a good thing.
There’s simply no way to know if we’ll ever see the daily routines we lived in the years prior March 202O — ever again. The drinks together, the talks we had on walks, the nights out in crowded clubs doing all kinda nasty — everything has changed. There’s even talk NYC beaches will be closed all summer. That sad nugget made me cry.
Ambulance sirens cast a constant collective wail over the airwaves of Brooklyn now. While NYPD invested in aggressive, penetrating rumbler sirens a few years ago — the ones that penetrate and vibrate, NYC ambulance sirens weep or shriek loudly. They beg or hysterically scream for automobiles and pedestrians to please clear the way as they haul some unfortunate soul who is sick or hurt enough to be rushed to a hospital.
Tonight at around 6:30, I’d planned to ride my bike across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan and cross back over to Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge. After I climbed up the ascending side of the bike path from Brooklyn to the bridge’s apex, where the structure flattens out, my back wheel started to wobble. I thought maybe it had somehow detached from the frame — despite the Kryptonite bolts. Against the backdrop of a crystal clear Manhattan skyline, I checked, and the wheel wasn’t the problem. Instead, a tiny section of my TREK FX 2 frame, right near the back wheel, had literally snapped apart. It’s like the steel or aluminum or whatever it’s made of, just broke apart. I’m trying to find the purchase receipt because Trek apparently has a lifetime warranty.
I walked the bike back down the bridge and made my way to a Citibike station near the Brooklyn Supreme court house — thinking I’d hold my bike and essentially pedal/ roll/pull it home to Carroll Gardens, although that takes skill. As I was checking out my citibike, a guy wearing a face mask, pulled up. We said hey, and I showed him what had happened to my frame. He said “wow, it really just snapped.” He suggested a couple of bike shops in the area. We chat for a few more minutes and later I thought to myself, it really sucks that I couldn’t even see that guy’s face. What an awful ughly moment we’re living through.