Corona, Corona

There's a Taj Mahal moon out tonight... I mean the musician, not the palace, although you can take her anywhere and she'll never fail you.  A photographer friend tipped me off to the moonrise... he described it as orange and liquid... but here in the city I went block to block without a view until she had risen to the height of an average 10-story building and had become more like a bowl of raw milk.

The first time I ever heard Taj was a hot full-moon August night... I had no idea what to expect-- just the strange name-- and there he was, this simple hypnotic 2-beat weaving a Calypso-ish spell in the steamy club.  'Without my Corinna... sure don't mean a natural thing, ' he sang and it went straight through me like summer wind.

Years later my young husband showed up one day with none other than Mr. Henry St. Clair Fredericks, Taj's born-name... apparently they'd worked together and were friends.  I had many surprises in the early years of my marriage;  he spoke little but his past followed him like empty cans tied to a rear car-fender.  All colors-- all flavors... ('I learned to love you...' the song goes... accent on the 'you'...).  His rockstar friends, as well as the motley entourage that surrounded him, provided two kinds of education-- one biographical, and the other-- well, those were different times.  How many years has it been since I've seen anyone put out a bowl of milk for their pet cat?

When Wall Street has a bad day-- a really bad day, that is, there's a kind of pall over the city.  This virus scare has spread a film of slime and mistrust that no one needed at this moment.  In Harlem, little has changed.  Not so many investors up there... and life goes on-- illness or no illness.  People in their wheelchairs and leaning on walkers, asking for food and money-- no gloves, no masks.  But downtown-- midtown-- trains are less crowded, people seem subdued,  the way they were post-9/11.  Asians cover their mouths.  It's certainly taken us down a notch or two.

My man Salih who sells fruit from a stand across from Metropolitan Hospital says business is way off.  In February he refused to sell ginger, assuring me the Chinese were spreading illness; last night he was practically begging me to take any of his wares before they went bad.  Here, have a bag-- he packed it with a honeydew melon, some red peppers-- give me $2 he said, knowing I won't resist a bargain.  What will become of him who works 14 hours, 6 days... commutes 2 hours to a 2-room share in Staten Island, but is happy to be so close to the Mosque where he gratefully prays sometimes three times a day?

Last winter he was mugged and beaten badly for the $72 he had in his purse.  They dumped his fruit and stomped the bananas.  He is friendly with hospital staff, and they treated him on the sidewalk, but Allah-willing, he is terrified to visit the ER where he might be deemed undesirable and only partly legal.  Salih means virtuous...his son is named Aytagin which he tells me means 'Moon Prince'.

Tonight they have drawn a map-line around several neighborhoods.  When I was small there was a brief quarantine during the final polio outbreak; I thought the word meant something bad-smelling that came in a can-- like turpentine.   It made my mother scowl and keep us close to the small yard.   I keep thinking of that Wallflowers song 'the same black line that was drawn on you was drawn on me..'  We don't need this kind of thing now.  What is the meaning of it?  Threat?  Warning?  Punishment?  Things seemed so much happier at Christmas.  St. Marks Square in Venice is deserted now; the Gondoliers are sitting idly by the water, making smalltalk, telling jokes... but they fool no one.  Here we are trying to smile in our striped shirts, but we are anxious and defeated.

I saw a photo of Jakob Dylan recently; he looks tired and drawn, the way his father often did.  I am old enough to be his mother.  Henry St. Clair Fredericks is fat now.  He can still play, but he is not the same.  Just this week... festivals are being cancelled; music is receding into phones and online venues.  We are like closely-planted islands in this city-- isolated and selfish; few of us know our neighbors or notice when they fail to come home.  Even fewer are sitting quietly on a stoop tonight smoking-- listening to the music in their heart, watching the sky change.

My moon ages little; she hides, she circles, she shifts-- and then there she is, clean and untouched by what ails us here... same as she was the night I heard 'got a rainbow round my shoulder... looks like silver, shines like Klondike gold...'   Shine on, little Aytagin... may you grow strong and healthy as Salih, whose blessing today, in his broken Turkish-English, sounded like 'may you sell a million grapes in one hour.'