Covid and The Wages of Fear
Now everybody has to wear masks. In a pinch, the Prezz says, you can use a scarf or a bandana.
I have plenty of old-school bandanas, left over from the days I taught in Compton, and whip a couple out to demonstrate.
You look like a bank-robber,” Ironwood Girl tells me.
“That’s because I didn’t tuck it in under my chin.”
I wander to Ironwood Girl’s Versailles, her Hallway of Mirrors, and she’s right. So I give up the idea and pull it down over my neck. I look in the mirror again.
My hair is a mess because I haven’t showered for a couple of days. Haven’t shaved either. There’s a Band-Aid over part of my nose and cheek, due to the Mohs operation that’s still healing. I’m as dashing as ever, but in a scruffy-beat-up-needs-a-haircut-a-shave-and-shower sort of way. And I’m wearing a red 99 Cent Store gangster bandana around my neck.
Holy *hit. I look like Yves Montand in Wages of Fear!
He was in a suspenseful situation and I am too! We’re both surrounded by danger! He and his amigos have to haul a load of old dynamite on a dangerous road. They could die any minute!
But there’s the rub. There’s the difference. They knew they were carrying it and knew what to do to be cautious. They understood its dangerous nature. They could see the nitroglycerine leaking out.
Mr. Covid 19 is a professional virus is too small to see. Some of us carry the danger but don’t know we have it. So, until we do, daily life becomes a detective story about who coughed on what and when and is the invisible enemy still alive on a surface I haven’t wiped off yet.
Another difference is in Wages of Fear, the men are only responsible for themselves. If they choose to blow themselves to hell and back for the money, that’s fine, it’s only them.
Not so now. Even the innocent can carry the dynamite. We all need a test to see if we’re hauling the deadly virus. Until then, I’m stuck with uncertainty, and because of that I’m worried, about myself, my family, the whole United States, the entire globe as we know it.
It makes a guy want to write, just to get in out of his system. Until I do, I’m going to find something more relaxing, something that will calm my a** down.
Guess I’ll go watch the rest of The Wages of Fear. At least I know how that one turns out.
©StevenHunley2020
https://youtu.be/XyrKDIRSpuM The Wages of Fear