by Almost Dead Anyway

South Miami Beach

April 2020 CE

I knew the brash, foxy young woman with shapely, tattooed legs and miniature Pinscher in tow was a New Yorker at first sight and hearing. She was yelling into her phone so loudly one could probably hear her clean across Biscayne Bay.

"Please send an officer to the building! They are not supposed to be here! They are from New York.... Yes, New York.... I heard them talking, four or five of them.... No not a family, young people, three guys and two girls. They arrived yesterday and kept me up last night shouting. They probably are spreading disease...."

"Good Afternoon, Miss," I said and gave her a big smile as she stopped to let her dog urinate on the wall beside me, having put her phone away. "Don't you think your dog should be wearing a mask to protect it from the new killer virus?"

"No," she smiled back, dogs don't get the virus."

"What about cats? A tiger at the zoo got it, was coughing, and they isolated it."

"The virus is not spread from cats to humans,"  She said ever so authoritatively.

"Why not? Virus is virus."

"I read an expert's paper and he said it can't be spread."

"Maybe it can, maybe it cannot. Who knows when authorities change their mind every day? Maybe cats and dogs will be required to wear a mask any day now."

"How ridiculous!"

"Indeed, the story gets more absurd everyday. Speaking of The Absurd, have you read Camus?"

"About the Plague?  I read about the Stranger too."

"You must be from New York."

"East 79th."

"Well, la-di-da, East Side. I lived West 79th."

"The coronavirus is scary everywhere," she said.

"Not so much for me. I am Almost Dead Already,  also known as Two Legs Good because I stand up a lot. If I survive the killer virus, I shall have to go back to worrying about what else will kill me."

"No, you shouldn't say that. You don't look it. You're a handsome man."

"Thank you. How long have you been here?"

She did not answer as she and her toy dog hurried away. I resolved to keep my eye out for her in the future as I walked a few yards up Baywalk, where I am countered a lovely young woman and her Schnauzer. She wore a long dress from neck to ankles that accentuated her slender figure rather nicely.

"Schnauzers are smart dogs," I said in passing.

"They are in the top five for intelligence," she responded.

"All this yellow police tape blocking us from sitting along the bay wall is absurd, don't you think?"

"Oh, no, yesterday people were sitting too close together and some were even jumping from the wall into the water."

"It's filthy."

"I read that it's cleaner now that the public docks are closed."

"Still there is lots of human waste in there. Three blocks down from here the smell is so disgusting that I do not know how people can stand it, and they even eat lunch sitting there where all the dogs urinate."

She wrinkled up her nose, but did not comment.

"I have not seen you around here before.

"I'm from New York."

"I never would have guessed it. You know Taliban Dan has a police squad out hunting down refugees from New York."

"Taliban Dan?'

"He is our mayor. He is a bit of a pious prude, not really a taliban or student of a mistranslated Quran, but the word is used in a catechrestical sense."

"A what?"

"A word used wrongly for its rhetorical effect because of his pious attitude and prudishness. His friends are of course outraged by the term. Still it is better than calling him a Nazi for not objecting to the governor's unconstitutional ban on New York refugees from the killer virus, and sicing cops on them to make sure they lock themselves up after residents rat them out."

"I've been here since February so I don't have to worry about that."

"Well, I heard they are hassling visitors from Louisiana, New Jersey and Connecticut too. That is contrary to a prime Jewish instruction."

"What is that?"

"To welcome strangers. And it is ironic because the founders of Miami Beach were anti-semitic, and it took years for New York Jews to take over the beach down here, and then the Cubans came up and shared power with them, yet now they employ the prejudicial practices of their former persecutors."

"It is not prejudice, mister, it is just to protect people from disease."

"Think of it this way. You are from New York. Maybe you took part in Spring Break or the Annual Winter Party, sources of some of the disease, and maybe you have the killer virus but don't show it. Instead of closing the hotels, they should have kept them open to shelter strangers we call tourists who test negative for the killer virus. They might charge premium room and rates and provide special bonuses to the staff. After all, the city has contracted with the Army to convert the new Convention Center in to a hospital. Locals are calling it The Plague Center as if it were the legendary plague ship visiting their small town.

"I have not thought about that," she said, as her dog looked up curiously at the me.

"I love your dress," I said, switching to a subject she would find agreeable.

"I designed it myself. I am a designer. My business is...."

A middle-aged, sloppily-dressed, pot-bellied man stopped and butted into our conversation with, "What is your dog's name?"

"She is named after me. I am Chez."

"An African name," he said, referencing the young woman's color.

"French."

I work at home over there," he began to talk about himself.

"Telecommuting," I said, trying to get back in the conversation, "may finally become as big as expected now that people are ordered to stay at home, but I would not want to work like that in Miami Beach. Maybe if I were on the side of the mountain in Wyoming  in one of those wooden lodges...."

He ignored my attempt and continue to hustle her as if she were a prostitute, mentioning he was formerly from New York.

But of course, I thought, New Yorkers love to intrude into other people's conversations.

She abruptly bid us goodbye and went on her way, and I don't blame her. I tried to speak with him, but he would only say, "I'm Steve," as if I were interested in his name, and then jogged on his way.

I continued on down the baywalk, and paused to say hello to an elderly couple. They were in their 80s, and said they had come down from New York. I asked if the police had interrogated them yet. No, they had come down before the governor issued his order, I was assured, and they will be staying here on South Beach until it is safe to go home.

"Enjoy your stay in South Beach."

 I love New York. I know people who are flying into there from safety to help with the terrible pandemic.  I would too if someone sent for me to help with the crisis. After all, given my age and underlying conditions, I am Almost Dead Anyway, and people holed up with their toilet paper to complain about New Yorkers and everybody else have no use for me here.