The Lockdown

1

Twenty-nine-year-old Andrew James Carmichael was slumped on the couch in his living room feeling the aftereffects of the previous evening. He stared at the apartment door forlorn as a prisoner would ogle his cell door incarcerating him behind bars without hope and mercy. Dreary early morning wintery illumination seeping into the apartment accentuated the gloom he felt, spring was supposed to be around the corner but nature apparently decided to provide the appropriate atmosphere to start his lonely confinement. He felt helpless and cranky, the world closing in around him and there was nothing he could do to change anything. He brushed his hair off his face ruing his procrastination that meant he would have to let it grow out even more as none of the salons were open like almost everything else.

Andy worked in a bar and last night they closed early with barely any patrons left. He said his goodbyes to the employees furloughed until further notice, and he drank heavily alone in the bar he had helped his uncle manage for the last few years trying to ignore the depressing concept of shutting it down for the next two weeks at a minimum, probably much longer. The pandemic already emaciated the normally bustling business of the bar as their college town started to feel like a ghost village with most of the students having moved out for remote learning. Now the city mandated a curfew of 8 pm and ordered all indoor dining and drinking establishments to suspend their person-to-person operations for at least the next two weeks until the infection rate went down to a manageable level.

Andy could not truly blame them, he lived just a block from the hospital walking past it on his way to the bar and he could not fail to notice the increasing stream of ambulances going in the front and hearses coming out in the back. The college town was hit particularly hard after the students returned for the spring semester bringing in the deadly virus from all over the country. Some of the regulars at the bar were doctors and nurses from the hospital and their haggard appearances and despondent demeanor after another grueling shift at the hospital foreshadowed the necessity of the lockdown. He understood the inevitability, supported the restrictions and the mask requirements and even bought the occasional drinks for the hospital workers but could not help worrying about the future both for himself and the bar. Although his uncle was a relatively well to do man, Andy knew that the basic upkeep of the bar might eventually force him to close it down for good. His uncle asked him to look after the bar during the lockdown and promised two hundred bucks a week for that hapless and rather futile task, which had more to do with Andy being his nephew and less with the actual work to be done in the bar when it was closed.

The opening of the door to the smaller bedroom startled Andy and the sudden noise induced a sharp blinding pain just above his left eye. Twenty-two-year-old Cameron Garcia Reyes, his roommate of the past six months came out of his room cheerily. Factually, Andy was not completely alone, but he shared his apartment with a near stranger. He liked the youngster and living with him had been relatively easy so far but his current mood negated anything that could have meliorated the distressing circumstances.

Cam noticed Andy's involuntary grimace. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Long night," Andy grumbled. "Keep it down, will you?" Cam did not reply, just went into the kitchen and returned a minute later with a large glass of water and an aspirin. "This usually helps." The morose misanthrope swallowed the pill with a little bit of water. "Drink up.... The whole glass," Cam commanded. Andy scowled but the idea that there was someone who cared even a little about him lifted his spirit marginally and he managed to down it all.

Norah, his longtime girlfriend broke up with Andy seven months ago. It was an amicable parting, somewhat of a mutual decision, long time in the making. Although they had been seeing each other for four years and lived in this apartment together for two, neither of them thought it was going to last much longer and when she was offered her dream job in the neighboring state, she did not even ask Andy if he wanted to go with her. Not that he would have, he was way too comfortable with the life he had and not particularly attached to mind her leaving. Andy did not brood long but he realized that he would rather not jump into another relationship for a while; he started dating occasionally and found it liberating.