world's borough

It could take a while for them to identify me 

my body

to connect it with a name, 

a New York resident. 

To die

with no one you know

with you

Is a pretty awful thought.

A nurse would be nice.

Nurses are nice

But there a not a lot of nurses to go around

It might be a nurse who speaks your language

But it might not

This is Queens, after all, home to roughly eight hundred languages. 

“The World’s Borough.”

If I could choose

If anyone could hear me through the respirator

I think I would request

Not my language

Any other language will do

Because in English it will all sound so cliche

Whatever end-of-life words are uttered

Speak to me in a Romance language

Speak to me in Czech

I bet in Arabic "it will be okay" sounds elegant.

Even lying in a hospital bed

Knowing it's coming

Or, worse, not knowing

But fearing.

no breath to make the sounds

to form the words

to connect your last thoughts

to the nice nurse

who will close your eyelids for you

So just looping thoughts of

who will tell them

who will take care of them

who will defrost the chicken

That's just torture.

No one should have to die like that

I think my death is preferable:

a don't-know-what-hit-me kind of

she-never-saw-it-coming type of

ignorance-is-bliss sort of death.

I prefer that kind; appealing by comparison.

No anticipation...

No looping worries.

Lucky me.

Always, when I biked the streets of Queens,

I tucked my New York ID in a pocket in the backpack I always wore.

---

My driver's license says Ohio and bears my parents’ address.

(auto insurance…

voting …

you understand)

It’s confusing, I know. 

But that's why, with biking, always the New York ID. 

The phone, too, I suppose

Could be helpful

They should be able to trace that.

I rarely have a job that would notice me missing,

dig up my employee contact sheet, and make some calls.

I'm a freelancer

When I am working, I am present.

If an actor doesn't show up to rehearsal,

no "emergency contact" is necessary, really,

the assumption is that she is dead.

When I am not working, no one notices what I do at all.

In this way, lockdown life is oddly familiar to me.

I don't have to force myself to take a shower

Or set some goals

I just do.

Structuring a day, without a boss over me

is kinda my thing.

Unemployment is not glamorous

The term "gig worker,"

so popular in the media,

is kind of gross.

The world loves its artists

But our country is not set up to value

The freelance worker.

You've likely seen the headlines stating

Gig-Workers Last to Receive Unemployment Benefits.

A quick Google Search brought up 7 such headlines

from within the last two days.

I am unsurprised.

It's easy for me to feel,

-global pandemic or not-

Much less than essential.

Still, I think there is something skillful and creative and satisfying

About structuring one's own productive day

One's own little life.

And after life, I just want to be identified

That feels like the tiniest effort I can make

To ease the inconvenience of my untimely death.

(I don't think it's conceited to assume it will be inconvenient.

Do you?

I didn't say devastating

I didn't suggest tragic

But inconvenient?

Yeah, lots of shit will not get done that day.)

So, as all overly prepared midlife women do,

I, of course, took the 90 seconds required to type in an I. C. E. contact.

In Case of Emergency  

At the time of my death,

Someone shouts “call 911.”  

It is probably not in English.  

It could be Spanish.  

Bengali.   

Japanese.

The World’s Borough.

Nueve Uno Uno 

Somehow it will be depressed or tapped on a phone, perhaps my own

And my accident will be the source of 1,000 curse words in almost as many languages all up and down 21st Street as sirens blare and an ambulance blocks traffic.

My husband will sleep through it all.   

At the instant of impact, 

the car hitting my bike, 

my body hitting the road, 

he will wake with a start,  sit up:  

“somethings off” 

“something’s wrong”

but as I’m usually gone in the early hours, he will flip his pillow over to the cool side, snuggle in, and go back to sleep. 

As for my daughter -five-  the disturbance will enter her dreams, but she will not remember it.  A chill will come over her, and she’ll roll over, sigh, forget to pull the blanket with her -a wrong  I usually right after my morning bike ride- and sleep right through my death. 

But the chill will be hard to shake all day.

I will be taken in an ambulance, unconscious, against my will.

Consciously, I'd have asked “is this covered by insurance?” 

As blood leaks out of my nose and ears.

“Let's get a quote on this first.” 

But wordlessly, I lie there, helpless,

Knowing that a painfully high bill is going to land on my husband's lap.

That, and our shared credit card bill.  Yipes.

Just two months ago, and one month before Covid-19 grimly reaped Queens and much of greater New York, my family's health insurance was in question.  (I could write a whole other post on that infuriating experience.  In fact, I have, but it is stranger than fiction and I don't think anyone will believe it.)  In short, I left a "stable" teaching job in May, and returned to a freelance life.  (I'm trying to avoid the "g-word.")  The health insurance that came with the teaching job ended on September first.  Which meant I -and my family- were technically covered for part of September:  That.  One.  Day.  (I'm already heating up as I revisit in my mind this enormous crock of horse shit.  I'm not kidding.  I'm hot like I just ate eight chili peppers.) So, because of That.  One.  Day. of coverage, we were ineligible for new coverage for the rest of the month.  That was September 2019.  I sent my daughter off to kindergarten.  I held my breath every day.  I didn't ride a bike.  The coverage eventually came through.  We have to reapply every couple of months, however, and when we reapplied in December we entered a maddening loop of submission, rejection, submission, rejection --because we are freelancers and no one at The NY Department of Health can wrap their minds around income that doesn't come from a single source--  which went on and on and on (see future blog post for the tedious details.  Except this one, I have to share this one detail:)   At one point, and I do not fictionalize, the DOH requested proof of income from our daughter.  "And how does Katherine contribute to the household income?"  When we coughed-laughed-gagged: "she's a kid, she's five."  The rep actually suggested that we write a letter stating that Katherine L. Chastain does not contribute to the household income because she is five.            . . .  I mean, I'll write that letter.  I can't wait to write that letter.  Straight-faced sarcasm is perhaps my favorite device.  But you think the DOH might wanna simply open the application and READ HER DATE OF BIRTH?  The upshot was that after four application submissions, we finally got coverage.  Except my daughter.  Who is five.  (This was a moment when I'd like to think my prayers have some effect.  That they carry the slightest weight on their way to the ears of my God.)  Who.  Who.  Who does not break their fucking back to make sure that the five year old is insured?  Can she have mine?  No.  Can we get some temporary coverage while you work through the paperwork?  No.  What if something happens?  No.  December: no  January:  no.  Mid-January: no.  February, I call lawyers:  still no.  She is granted health coverage on March first.  March 1, 2020.   We live in Queens.  Are you reading the news?  Schools closed on March 16.  Two week incubation period.  "Gig workers."  I gag on the word gig.  If I hear "gig" one more time during this crisis, I will punch a window.

So.

Here I am.  A dead gig worker in an ambulance.

A dead gig worker in an ambulance with questionable health insurance.

A thrifty dead gig worker in an ambulance with questionable insurance.

“I'm dead!” I want to holler. “We can skip expensive ambulance trip!”

But off we go.

Not thrifty anymore.

Just dead. 

I'm watching it all from an aerial point of view and I can see...

everything.

Past, present, future.

It's my past “flashing” as they say,

and intersecting with the paths of other people,

some I know and some I don't.

This guy who saw what happened...

this poor soul...

this witness. 

I see his dinner from the night before.

If he had cooked instead of eaten carry-out, he'd have gone to bed later. He'd have set his alarm for a little later, he'd have missed the sight of my death that he can now never forget. He thinks of his daughter and his son.

He prays that they are safe.

He prays they never learn to ride a bike.

Nueve Uno Uno 

Past, present, and future.

A future without me

is what I see

And it's okay. 

It's hers, mostly, my little girl’s,

sole carrier of my genes. 

Her future. 

My eyes and my cheeks.

Her motherless life. 

A knowledge of me based more on my Facebook posts then on reality:

Photos of the autumn trees in Central Park

Production shots of me in period costumes, mouth always torqued in mid-delivery

Flattering photos I posted of myself in which the forehead creases have been carefully and amateurly erased.

Phrases like “ha ha”

and

“i know, right?” 

I didn’t even bother to capitalize the “i” in “I know.” 

And now, this is how she’ll know me. 

She will spend years writing a lowercase “i”

as her first-person subject-pronoun. 

And, knowing omnisciently that it was my thoughtless influence, 

I,

Her writer mother

Will die.  

All. 

Over. 

Again.

I see her awkward high school days

Her first kiss.

College. 

A family.

And she's all right. 

(I mean, she’s smoking a lot of weed, but she’s all right.)

As an adult at parties, friends of mine tell her stories about me:

"Your mom was great!  We did a play together once." 

Or acquaintances:  "I knew your mom.  Gig-worker, right?"

But she has grown up

In The World's Borough

And she knows now

That income from several different sources

Is still income

That royalty checks

Built her college fund

And residuals

Bought pizza on Fridays

And "1099" vs. W-2

In any other language

Sounds kind of  pretty

Even elegant

as elegant

as the little life

it afforded

*A Note Regarding Last Post

Guys, thanks for reading my last post, a fine lie.  First of all, I have been misusing the term "quarantine," and I hate to misuse as much as I hate to misrepresent. We are not actually in quarantine; no one in my family was diagnosed with Covid-19. I'm sorry to have perpetuated the misuse. (But, c'mon, the rhyme in the title was too good to pass up.)

Also, here's what happened: the first line of a fine lie is "I don't want to talk about it," and what I got in response was five separate offers to talk about it.  And one observation that I turn to Jesus. I did turn to Jesus, but I still don't want to talk on the phone. Guys, I'm okay. I promise. That I am writing is your signal that I am okay.  And, game-changer: we got a clothes-rack (photo above.) The pandemic is bad. Am I anxious? Yes. Occasionally depressed? Yes. Do I sit here contemplating my death and my daughter's motherless life? Sure, but I was doing that anyway! (See today's post.)