Unrecognizable

“I just want to buy some FUCKING MILK!” pleads the red-sweatered man, his black metal pushcart rolling slowly away from the entrance of the supermarket. “I just want to buy some milk.”  

No entrance without a face cover or mask, the supermarket employee explains. No exceptions! 

The employee and the man had been going back and forth for several minutes on the street corner in front of the Fine Fare, causing heads to turn on the long lines of people waiting to enter the store. Six feet in front of me is a Hispanic family, a mother and her aunt from what I can make out of their hurried Spanish. Six feet behind me is a man with a thick Jamaican accent on the phone. And for as far as my tired eyes can see, a near-infinite number of eyes peek out from their face-covers, getting smaller and smaller the further back I look. 

*       *      * 

It’s been an hour and a half from the moment I felt my stepmother’s hand gently shake me awake from my sleep. My eyes had immediately glanced at the red digits on my old-school alarm clock sitting on the wooden night table. It was five in the morning, and I couldn’t help but show a slight bit of annoyance when looking up at Lupe’s face, searching for any possible reason she could’ve woken me up so early. I could hear the TV in the living room, two voices discussing the yesterday’s death toll in NYC from COVID-19.  

778.  

“Micolito, wake up, vamos,” Lupe said, bringing down the blue mask from her face. “Put some clothes on and let’s go, tenemos que ir a comprar.” We have to go shopping for food.  

The chance to go outside squeezed every ounce of fatigue out of my soul. It had been weeks since the last time I had left my house, to the point where I was jokingly starting to feel like the outside world was some sort of complex myth I had created in my head. Social distancing and stay-at-home orders had restricted millions of people to remain inside as COVID-19 wreaked havoc within the city’s medical centers, as government officials rushed to limit the spread of a global pandemic threatened lives everywhere.  

*       *      * 

Now, an hour and a half later, I can say any level of excitement that came from leaving my house was gone. The supermarket was a familiar short walk that I’ve made countless times down the city street, to the point where I could probably do it with my eyes closed. But the world I was in now was completely different than the one I left behind when I entered my apartment following my return St. Lawrence.  

There was my barbershop, usually lively with bachata music and customers waiting eagerly to get their hair cut. Shuttered up with a thick metal gate.  

There was Casa Adela, the Spanish restaurant where my early morning walks on my way to elementary, middle, and high school would be filled with frying salami and vinegary red onions, rushing to feed dozens of hungry students and adults preparing to start their days. Now it was empty, two employees sitting on the stoop outside, scrolling on their phones.  

The streets, usually filled with honking cars and the constant hum of different conversations, of different arguments, of different laughs and songs, was now completely silent. Businesses shuttered. Corner bodegas, which a NYC staple, were now empty with the exception of the occasional deli cat, strolling up and down the store’s empty shelves and aisles.  

We were all on one of two lines to get into the Fine Fare, bright and early, prepared to wait hours for the chance to get our groceries and supplies. The first line is for the elderly or the disabled, defined as anyone over the age of 60 or who clearly displayed difficulty standing on any line for a prolonged period of time. The second line is for everyone else, which Lupe and I are now at the front of. As six people left the store, an employee would take four people off of the “elderly and disabled” line, and two people off of the “everyone else” line.  

From the outside, I understood it to be an attempt to control how many people were inside the supermarket at once, while ensuring that those who were most at risk of the virus had a fair opportunity to take care of their needs.  

*       *      * 

The moment that Lupe and I are waved in by the supermarket employee outside, we are thrown into what resembles a scene out of an end-of-days science-fiction movie.  

My memory told me my neighborhood supermarket had approximately 12 aisles going left-to-right, and 10 cashier stations towards the front of the store.  

At this moment in time, I could barely see in front of me.  

It was as if we were placed squarely in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Day. People are everywhere, squishing and squeezing past each other with bags of fruit and vegetables hanging over their heads. Anyone with a cart is stuck in a standstill, unable to navigate anywhere near the tight aisles. I see the Hispanic mother and aunt from earlier, arguing with a store employee, who tells them that there is a strict limit on the amount of toilet paper a person can purchase.  

For the first time in two hours, Lupe looks up at me and clears her throat to speak.  

“Micolito, stay close.”  

We made our way up the produce aisle. Back home, Lupe had created two identical lists with things we needed to get, in the likely event that we got separated within the craziness of the store. She’s done this a couple times now, being the designated person who has been going out for essentials since the COVID-19 crisis began. Today, she brought me along to help carry home some bulkier items – rice and toilet paper and laundry detergent, amongst other things.  

Lupe waved me to go off into the other aisles, so I slid my way by an argument between two women by the tomatoes and continued towards the cleaning products. I overheard an employee announcing to a large group by the baby products to only grab items with an orange sticker if they were WIC participants, as those under the WIC government program were restricted with what products they could buy for their kids.  

*       *      * 

I had heard from conversations with friends and loved ones about the process of food shopping during this time. Even Lupe herself explained it whenever she returned back home. But I don’t think anything really could’ve prepared me for what I was seeing. I had walked down that same street, visited that same barbershop, stopped by this Fine Fare so many times throughout my life. But this world was different. Emptier. Sadder. Quieter.  

Unrecognizable.