Love in the Days of Covid-20

By Todd Daley

A virulent form of the corona virus has swept through the world – killing billions of people in 2026. Basic governmental services, such as police, fire, sanitation, and mail, no longer exist, There’s no electricity or telephone service, and no internet. Basically, the world had regressed to 19th century technology. To deal with the prevailing anarchy, the two protagonists, Hal and Nancy, buy a 22-caliper pistol. With practice, Nancy becomes an accurate shooter. Her skill saves their lives during a melee at a St. George market. However, Hal realizes they’ve made deadly enemies.
There are pleasant diversions in Elm Park. A red-haired dwarf and his dancing black bear, Bubba, entertain the folks. The old technology of the telegraph has been revived and Hal gets a job delivering telegrams by bicycle. An avid notebook keeper, Hal has recorded science, history, and philosophy in his marble note-books. Anxious to inculcate basic knowledge, and democratic values to the youngsters of the neighborhood, Hal launches his “Unstructured School.” The book is filled with colorful characters – Freddy, the wide smiler, Hank, the terse talker, Billy and his invisible friend, Blanche the femme fatale, Jake, the turtle man, Thor Thorpson, the ex-boxer, and Stan Staller, the soapbox preacher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665551687

Todd Daley

The author grew up on Staten Island – attending CCNY, Johns Hopkins University, and NYU earning BS, MAT, and PhD degrees respectively. He taught physics and mathematics many years in the high school and junior college levels. As a teacher, he tried to make abstract principles concrete by connecting them to everyday life. Ideally, the student should come away with essential information and the ability to solve problems, think rationally, and act ethically. The author has written the following nonfiction books: Apples and Oranges, Mathematical Concepts , and A Brief Guide to Philosophy. His novels include: 1950s-1960s Fable, 1960s-1970s Fable, The Mariners Harbor Messiah, Blue Collar Folks, The Pulaski Prowler, Love in the Days of Covid-20, The Maiden Maverick, and The Elm Park Time Travelers.

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© 2022 Todd Daley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/30/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5169-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5167-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5168-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022902868

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The Earth has music for those who listen.

William Shakespeare

CONTENTS

Chapter 1     An Enchanted Evening

Chapter 2     A New Virus

Chapter 3     Vitamins, Minerals, and Basketball

Chapter 4     Baseball Stars of the Past

Chapter 5     Swamps and Snakes

Chapter 6     Saints and Villains

Chapter 7     A Face from the Past

Chapter 8     Cosmic Ray Burst

Chapter 9     Past and Present

Chapter 10   A Game of Horse

Chapter 11   Rites of Spring

Chapter 12   Moving In

Chapter 13   Race in America

Chapter 14   Buying a Gun

Chapter 15   Practice Session

Chapter 16   The Little Red Hen

Chapter 17   A Day at the Beach

Chapter 18   A State of Anarchy

Chapter 19   Charming Billy

Chapter 20   Brimstone Stan

Chapter 21   Bubba the Bear

Chapter 22   Escape from Church

Chapter 23   A Stickball Game

Chapter 24   Peasants and Hunters

Chapter 25   A History Lesson

Chapter 26   An Angry Dwarf

Chapter 27   Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff

Chapter 28   Some Target Practice

Chapter 29   Melee in St. George

Chapter 30   The Derelict House

Chapter 31   Shootout on the Street

Chapter 32   The Dwarf and the Deer

Chapter 33   An Algebra Lesson

Chapter 34   Algebra Redux

Chapter 35   A Walk on Morningstar Road

Chapter 36   A Consummation to be Wished

Chapter 37   Goodbye to the Turtle Man

Chapter 38   The Tennessee Waltz

Chapter 39   A Long Lost Cousin

Chapter 40   A Boxer Laid to Rest

Chapter 41   A Job Offer

Chapter 42   Delivering Good News

Chapter 43   Kill Van Kull Fisherman

Chapter 44   Bagging a Gator

Chapter 45   Counting Darkness as Light

Chapter 46   A Wooden Carving

Chapter 47   A Visit to the Power Plant

Chapter 48   A Day at School

Chapter 49   An Eerie Dream

Chapter 50   Vitamins and Minerals Redux

Chapter 51   A Lesson on Democracy

Chapter 52   Bullets Flying Everywhere

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

AN ENCHANTED EVENING

At a time before the threat of covid virus, Hal Haley was near the end of his senior year at Port Richmond High School. His mom insisted that he go to the Spring Dance, the last of the school year. Don’t miss out on a wonderful time – like I did because of I dropped out of high school.

Dad didn’t go to dances either, Hal protested.

Your father had two left feet. And he was a nerd, but he had other redeeming qualities, Marcie replied.

Mom, I’m no Fred Astaire.

I’m well aware of that, but you should have some fun while you’re young. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Feeling a deep regret that high school would soon be over, Hal, the obedient son, put on chinos, a collared shirt, and a sports jacket. Refusing to let Marcie drive him, Hal walked to the dance – taking his time so he got there fairly late. It was a clear night. He had read in the newspapers that day that certain planets would be aligned. Looking at the sky, sure enough, he saw that the planets – Uranus, Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus were all lined up. The dance was held in the gymnasium. He bumped into Coach Leddy, one of the chaperones, who talked to Hal about his college plans.

I’m going to CCNY like my dad. No basketball – It’s a long commute, Hal replied, eying a pretty, tawny-skinned classmate, Nancy Perez, talking with her friends. She had some yellow and white flowers in her hair.

He tried summon the nerve to ask her for a dance. Just then, it was announced over the loudspeaker that this would be the last dance. It was going to be a slow song. Nancy glanced at Hal for an instant then looked away. Taking a deep breath, Hal went over Nancy and asked her to dance. She nodded with a fleeting smile and they walked to the dance floor hand-in-hand.

After an awkward silence, Hal ventured to say, What kind of flowers are they?

They’re daisies. It was my mom’s idea.

Very pretty. Reminds me of that song, Flower Girl. My dad used to do fixup jobs with your mom Rosa.

She talked about it. They had worked as Bradford guards at the Con Ed plant in Travis. Your dad helped another guard capture a snapping turtle. A guy Harry the Horse recruited them to paint Karisi’s deli and that bakery on Morningstar Road, she replied with a smile.

This common history seemed to draw them together. Then, they began to slow dance to a song which matched their mood.

"Some enchanted evening you may see a stranger,

You may see a stranger across a crowded room.

And somehow you know, you know even then,

That somehow you’ll see her again and again.

Some enchanted evening, someone may be laughing

You hear her laughing across a crowded room,

And night after night as strange as it may seem,

The sound of her laughter will sing in your dreams."

As the music ended, Hal kissed her gently on the cheek before she returned to her friends and Hal left the gym. Indeed, it was the last dance of the night and their high school years. Mr. Mongo, the history teacher supervising the dance, signaled that the phonograph be shut off and the lights turned up. With his widow’s peak and black goatee, Mr. Mongo reminded Hal of the Flash Gordon villain, Ming. With unsettling abruptness, the school’s final dance was history. Despite being neighbors on Pulaski Avenue, Hal and Nancy would not cross paths again for many years. The memory of their brief romantic encounter on that enchanted evening faded into oblivion. Their lives went in different directions – Hal to CCNY and Nancy to Northshore Bank.

Stepping onto the front porch of the flat-roofed white stucco house, Hal Haley was unnerved by the eerie silence of the neighborhood. Carefully he put on his well-worn cotton mask and then tore it off. During the spring, Pulaski Avenue had always been a noisy bustling street – people strolling around, cars passing, and kids riding bikes, and the mailman delivering letters and packages. Covid-20 had swept through the country and the entire planet killing billions of people between 2025 and 2026. The U S population went from350 million to barely 88 million in less than two years. Entire cities and the surrounding suburbs had been decimated. Those who survived possessed an unusual resistance to the Covid-20 virus. Like many things in life, a random genetic factor was the difference between life and death. The major concern now was the fate of the survivors. How were they to proceed in a world that had regressed to preindustrial levels?

The origins of Covid-19 and its younger Covid-20 cousin remained a mystery. Whether the virus was man-made or natural was an academic issue. The bottom line was the vaccines that prevented Covid-19 did not seem to work for Covid-20. Human nature tends to seek a nation or ethnic group to blame for the virus’s creation and propagation. A popular theory attributed the virus’s origin to a laboratory in China. A less popular theory placed the virus’s origin in an American research laboratory. It was an open secret that research on germ warfare – specifically the anthrax bacteria – had been going on domestically for decades.

Most likely, we were all to blame for the coronavirus. Greed, pride, materialism, and self-indulgence are intrinsic to all humankind. International travel and trade quickly dispersed the virus to the world’s seven continents. With increasing urbanization and industrial development, man has been intruding on the habitat of wild animals for decades. Another theory asserted the virus originated with bats. Although rodent-like in appearance, bats are not members of the rodent family. Bats have an unusual ability to survive viral infections fatal to other species. There were an estimated 1,200 existing species of bats. Worldwide, the bat population was believed to exceed one billion. Neither cute nor cuddly, bats can survive the coronavirus and pass it on to other animals – including human beings.

With the demise of the internet Hal had a stack of notebooks which were organized according to subject matter. Never enthralled with computers, he seldom used them when teaching. He was convinced that books, not computers, were the means by which the greatest ideas of civilization are preserved. One of his students called him a Luddite, which Hal took as a complement. The Luddites were 19th century workers in England, who destroyed the cotton and wood mills that threatened their jobs. The very existence of the current pandemic could be attributed to industrialization on a worldwide level – labeled as globalization.

The incalculable number of deaths caused by Covid-20, motivated him to examine other events when many Americans died within a short time period. On September 11, 2001, more than 3,000 died when hijacked airplanes struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City. In the Battle of Gettysburg, a total of 51,000 Americans died between July 1 - 3, 1863. In another Civil War battle – Chicamauga – 34,600 Americans died between September 19 - 20, 1863. During World War I, 26,280 Americans died in the Battle of Meuse-Argon between September 26 and November 11 in 1918. And in World War II, 42,000 Americans were killed or missing in the Battle of the Bulge between December 16, 1944 and January 25, 1945.

Hal had a thick notebook devoted to philosophy, which is divided into five categories: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and aesthetics. Metaphysics explains ultimate reality beyond the laws of physics. Epistemology examines how knowledge is verified. Ethics deals with right or wrong in human behavior. Logic examines deductive and inductive reasoning. And aesthetics deals with standards of beauty in art and nature. There are two types of propositions in philosophy – empirical and analytic. Empirical propositions are statements about the world: The notebook has a red cover. Analytic propositions are necessarily true state-ments: A baseball is round.

Western civilization, with its stress on reason and virtue, went back to ancient Greece. Basically, philosophy began with Plato. His metaphysics postulated a dual theory of reality – objects and ideas – with the latter representing ultimate reality. Plato’s ethics were influenced by Socrates who linked virtue to knowledge. Socrates famously said the unexamined life is not worth living. The four aims of philosophy are to understand the world, to determine the purpose of life, to grasp the meaning of reality, and to understand God.

In an effort to augment his background in the sciences, Hal also compiled a science notebook. He recorded the speed of light: 186,000 mi/sec, which is the same for all electromagnetic waves – radio waves, visible light and ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Whereas, the speed of sound is only 1,100 ft/sec or740 mi/hr. Fundamental to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is the constancy of speed of light in a vacuum. Any observer of a baseball game from a distance, can see the batter hitting the baseball, and followed by the loud crack a second or so later. The same lag is perceived during a thunderstorm – seeing lightning flash followed by the clap of thunder. The distance of the lightning strike can be estimated by counting the number of seconds between the flash and the sound. A 3-second time lag between the lightning flash and thunder clap means the strike occurred: 3 X 1,100 ft or 3,300 feet away.

In terms of hearing and seeing, human perception was quite limited. Human hearing range is from 20 vibs/sec to 20,000 vibs/sec. Sound travels 4.3 times faster in water than in air – 4,700 ft/sec. Whales use ultrasonic sounds (echo-location) to navigate, as do bats, whose hearing extends to 200,000 vps. Man invented sonar, used by ships and submarines, to detect underwater objects, As with whales, sonar utilizes ultrasonic sound waves. As for visible light; it’s only a tiny part of the vast electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from long radio waves to short wavelength X-rays and gamma rays. With libraries and universities closed, Hal meticulously recorded this information. Civilization was not just buildings, bridges, highways, and dams – it was literature, philosophy, math, and science.

For the first time, Hal realized something his dad had often said: There was an intrinsic beauty to science. In fact, all knowledge was valuable. Putting his notebook away, Hal walked over to Jimmy Caprino, long-time resident of Elm Park. Jimmy’s father, Joey, had been a buddy of Hal’s dad. Way back in the 1950s Joey used to throw a Spalding against the steps and catch the carom for hours and hours. He claimed it improved his reflexes. Since Joey played semipro base-ball as a knuckle ball pitcher, it must have helped his development as a baseball player. Like his dad, Jimmy threw a knuckle ball – putting in a few years in amateur baseball before a knee injury ended his ball-playing career.

Besides the knuckler, I also threw a cutter.

What’s a cutter? Hal asked.

It’s a late-breaking fastball. You hold it off-center. Then my arm went, so I just threw the knuckle ball – which you can throw forever, Jimmy replied.

In one of his notebooks, Hal had recorded the impressive statistics of two brothers, Phil and Joe Niekro, who threw the elusive knuckleball. Phil played 24 years in the majors – winning 318 games, while Joe played 22 years in the bigs – winning 221 games. The knuckleball works as a result of Bernoulli’s Principle for moving fluids. Air current interact with the seams of a non-spinning baseball to move it erratically – making the knuckleball hard to hit.

Hal also compiled statistics on three great pitchers of the 1950s and 1960s –Robin Roberts, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax. Roberts had a 286 – 245 win – loss record, Drysdale was 209 – 166, and Koufax was 165 – 87. Roberts had six twenty-game seasons, Drysdale had two twenty-game seasons, plus seasons of 19, 18, and 17 wins, while Koufax had three twenty-game seasons, plus seasons of 19 and 18 wins. Hal also tabulated homeruns hit by pitchers over their careers:

Wes Ferrell -- 38

Bob Gibson -- 37

Warren Spahn -- 35

Red Ruffing -- 34

Earl Wilson -- 33

Don Drysdale -- 29

Bob Gibson -- 24

Walter Johnson -- 23

Hal’s dad, Tom Haley, said that the neighborhood kids played punchball and stickball on the street back in the day. He made up with enthusiasm for what he lacked in talent. According to his dad, Joey Caprino smashed the longest shots in punchball – traveling nearly 200 feet. There was a fast-pitch version of stickball played in schoolyards in which a strike box was chalked against a concrete wall. Tom Haley claimed he was pretty good at fast-pitch stickball – playing Joey Caprino in close low-scoring games. With so many gone from the neighborhood, it was hard to imagine the street games of kids in Elm Park so many years ago.

Like his dad back in the day, Jimmy was burly and had a mustache which gave him a sinister appearance. Through his mask, Jimmy paused to say a few words to Hal. It sucks. All the supermarkets in this area are closed. We’re running out of food. I don’t want to waste gas driving to a supermarket in the South Shore. If it’s even open.

I got some extra cans of Campbell’s soup plus some canned veggies. I’ll get them, Hal replied, running inside.

Returning in a few minutes, he gave Jimmy some cans of food. In the summer, I can give you some pears and strawberries, plus fresh veggies from the garden.

Jimmy thanked him profusely. Rosalie is driving me crazy. In fact, the whole world is driving me nuts. And I’m sick of wearing these friggin’ masks, he yelled, tearing off his mask.

The research on the efficacy of masks for Covid-20 is fairly consistent. But, I’ve become a fatalist. I’ll be happy to put it on, Hal replied – taking out his well-worn mask.

Jimmy signaled him not to bother. Forget about it.

There was an ancient pear tree in his backyard that still bore pears – spotted and hard, but edible. Besides his vegetable garden, there was a small strawberry patch – next to the veggies by the fence, where the sun was strongest. The strawberries had been planted by his dad years ago. Despite the pandemic, plants still came back in the spring.

Thanking Hal, Jimmy offered him a five-dollar bill, which Hal refused. We’re neighbors. We’ve got to look out for each other. I have your back and you have mine.

Yeah, we’re all in deep shit together. By the way, I saw that Luco kid prowling around the other day. Told him to keep moving.

It seems he’s always snooping around – out of boredom or thievery – who knows. I assume people have good intentions until proven otherwise, Hal replied, nodding goodbye to his neighbor and heading up the stairs of his front porch.

Winnie Luco, son of the late Ron Luco, had his father’s penchant for idleness and larceny. Hal sensed the kid had a good side – unlike his dad. Luco senior had been a nemesis of Hal’s parents for many years. Attempting to heist a Brinks truck, he was fatally shot by an armed guard. A high school football star, Ron Luco had dated Hal’s mom before she met his dad. As it often happens, a woman breaking off from a certain type of man leads to a lifetime of trouble. With patience and commonsense, Hal’s dad persevered while Ron Luco stumbled. At last, Luco’s meandering career within and outside the law was brought to an abrupt end as a result of his deadly encounter with an armed Brinks guard. Perhaps, the intervention of a teacher or a coach, or just good luck, might have prevented the freefall that led to Luco’s demise.

Hal thought about gassing up his battered blue Dodge and heading for Canada where infections from the Covid-20 virus had not reached the levels of the States. But he’d never been fond of cold weather, especially of the Canadian variety. Reportedly, there were scattered areas in the southern hemisphere in which the virus had not reached – Chile, New Zealand, Antarctica, parts of Africa and Asia, and isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. However, it was only a matter of time before the virus had spread to every region of the globe.

One of the simplest life-forms, along with bacteria, algae, and protozoans, viruses can mutate when subjected to ultraviolet and gamma rays. Whether the virus’s origin was from a laboratory or a wild animal wandering into a city was immaterial. Human beings like to point fingers at everyone but themselves. Basically, we were all to blame for the world’s sorry state in our mad pursuit of material possessions and our relentless globetrotting. It was remindful of a quote by the German philosopher Goethe: Why look for a conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much.

Listening to a public radio station, Hal learned that the Navajo Nation had been relatively unscathed by the Covid-20 virus. This had not been true of the virus’s predecessor, Covid 19, which had afflicted large numbers of native Americans. The Navajo Nation encompasses 27,000 square miles – occupying parts of the states of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. The Navajos are plagued by poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment and substandard schools. Navajo code talkers had helped the Marines fight the Japanese in the Pacific during the Second World War. Fortunately, the Navajos exhibited an unusual resistance to the Covid-20 virus. An idealist, Hal attributed the Navajos’ wellbeing to universal justice which balanced a people’s suffering with good fortune. Perhaps, it was God intervening in behalf of people deprived of their land by an intrusive civilization.

Hal had just read a book by Tommy Orange, called There There, about a native American pow wow occurring in Oakland, California. The meeting was disrupted by an attempted armed robbery. A native American computer geek intervened to save the organizers of the pow wow from being robbed and killed. The book examines the plight faced by America’s indigenous people – poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, stolen land, and lost traditions. Driven to reservations in remote areas and marginalized from the mainstream society, their tragic history is largely untold in history books. The title refers to a putdown of the city of Oakland – There’s no there there. Before the Covid-20 pandemic, Hal’s dad used the same phrase in referring to the South Shore of Staten Island.

CHAPTER 2

A NEW VIRUS

In his reading, Hal had learned about John Graunt, a 17th century British haber-dasher who recorded mortalities in a small notebook. He was one of the first to notice the high infant mortality rates of that era. His Life Tables showed the number of deaths and survivors for each age group. Graunt founded the science of epidemiology, while showing that bubonic plague deaths were under-reported in London. He measured the extent to which London had been depopulated by the plague and then repopulated, as people from the countryside poured into the city. John Graunt suffered discrimination after converting to Catholicism. Near the end of his life, the Father of Epidemiology was bankrupted by the Great Fire of London.

Hal remembered a lecture on infectious diseases by a colleague at Hamilton Junior College who said that of the 25,000 known diseases -- only 5,000 have cures. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic, during the Second World War. It prevented infections from battle wounds. Penicillin was also used to treat tetanus, scarlet fever, infections of the skin, and venereal disease. The problem with antibiotics is that bacteria and viruses soon develop resistant strains to these drugs – forcing biochemists to continually come up with new drugs. Until the covid pandemic, life expectancy had increased as a result of the development of vaccines for smallpox, polio, tuberculosis, diphtheria, measles, chickenpox, pneumonia, whooping cough, and the mumps. Basic infrastructure and services such as toilets, sewers, insecticides, and garbage collection had also contributed to improved public health.

Viruses, microscopic bits of nucleic acid in a protein coat, are one of the simplest and earliest forms of life. Changes in the RNA of viruses, bacteria, and all life forms – called mutations – are the mechanism of evolution. Mutations are caused by ultraviolet rays, gamma rays, and certain chemicals. Since they are random events, most mutations are harmful. But the series of mutations leading to the development of homo sapiens from the ape was remarkable. More than a century and a half ago, Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. Incredibly, there were still places in the country which did not accept evolution as valid – especially among certain fundamentalist sects residing in remote rural areas.

Man-made pollutants had sullied the environment for hundreds of years – polluting the oceans, contaminating the soil, and permeating the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels and the emission of aerosols had thinned the ozone layer so that it no longer filtered ultraviolet rays. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, a byproduct of the burning of these fuels, had increased from 410 ppm to 425 ppm in the past 25 years. Hence, skin cancer was increasing along with mutations of bacteria and viruses. In peak years, it was estimated that power plants, factories, and homes added roughly 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. Industrialization had triggered irreversible changes in the world’s environment. In the warmer parts of the country, air conditioning consumed 27% of household electricity used. Repeatedly, Hal had heard his dad utter the trite phrase: Don’t mess with Mother Nature.

For many years, billions of tons of plastics had dumped in landfills and oceans worldwide. The recycling of plastics, glass, and metals has not been sufficient to put a dent in these numbers. The estimated weight of plastics dumped into the environment amounted to eight million metric tons per year. Plastics do not decompose on land or in ocean water. Advanced countries like America, China, and those of Europe sent their plastic wastes to undeveloped countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand where plastic wound up in the countryside. In those faraway places, scattered plastics would remain for hundreds of years to come – despoiling soil and water for succeeding generations.

Unlike his dad – a lifelong teacher of math and physics – Hal was not fond of the sciences. He attributed the world’s woes to technology. Although greed and materialism were right up there as culprits. Like his dad, Hal had gone into teaching. Unlike his math-and-science oriented dad, Hal had majored in English and philosophy. But his dad pressured him to take some math courses in college – namely statistics and college algebra – asserting the demand for math teachers