I wait for word that I have been returned to the rolls of the insured, and I wait, and I begin to doubt it is ever going to happen.

When we first learned about this SNAFU and phoned them, we were told it would take one week, maybe three to get me covered again. It has now been a month. I no longer believe anyone is doing anything at all.

Which is, I tell myself, untrue. I’ve worked in a bureaucracy and handled paperwork. I know the wheels can turn slowly, silently and out of sight. But I can’t make myself believe anyone is even looking at the mass of documents we sent them.

We’ll call them again today.

It’s a brilliantly sunny day. I’ll walk on the roof, but no more brisk turns about it. When I went up yesterday, our neighbor across the hall , Nina, had left a cheerful and politely worded note on the roof access door that began with “Tread lightly!” I hadn’t been stomping, but apparently even a quick tread makes her fear for her ceiling. From here on my exercise must be on my stationary bike. The roof will be for air, sun, a look at the view, and perhaps a gentle saunter.

Speaking of roofs, at the moment a slight mystery has been enacted three roofs down. For the past couple of mornings, I’ve seen a fellow in a t-shirt and sweats take a walk there, pacing and talking on a cellphone. This morning he appeared in his usual dark tee and a pair of bright red pants. Instead of talking on the phone, he set something small, dark and rectangular near the side facing the street and bent over it, presumably to turn it on.

Looks like a portable radio. I expected him to settle down to listen to music, or perhaps do some calisthenics, but instead he walked away and is no longer in sight. He could be hidden behind some of the vents. I’ve toyed idly with the thought it might be a bomb, but the fact that I’m still sitting here indicates just how seriously I take that.

Update: As of May 1st, I will be covered again. An email arrived today announcing this. Michael spent forty-five minutes on the phone with someone working out the details. Greater love hath no man.

On May 1st, I’m going to paint this town red. I am going to walk around the block! I am going to visit Le Beau and buy things. I’m going to go downstairs to the laundromat and wash clothes!

The little black rectangle is still out there on the roof. Red Pants is nowhere in sight. Michael thinks he might be recording something — maybe bird song?

We had a zoom conversation with an old friend last night. David lives alone, one of two tenants in a building with about twelve units, most of which have been unoccupied for years. Why this prime piece of San Francisco property has been kept empty for over a decade is a mystery to me. David has said it’s because the building’s two owners are in a long-running dispute. All I know is, when we have visited, it’s been creepy to walk down the upstairs halls to his place, past the numbered doors of rooms that have been dark and uninhabited for almost two decades. It must feel especially hollow and lonely to be quarantined there.

David, who’s in his late fifties, looked well enough on zoom, backed by the crammed book-cases of his tiny apartment. “I think I might have it,” he said. “I’ve had a dry cough I can’t shake for two weeks now.”

“Do you have a fever?”

“No, just the cough.”

We asked if he needed anything, if Michael could, on his next grocery run, pick up some things and leave them at his door, but he waved that off, said he was fully stocked.

David survived the era when skeletal young men walked slowly through the Castro with canes. He volunteered to care for AIDS patients at a time when many people would not even be in the same room with them. Like most gay men of his generation, he’s a tough guy. But I worry about him being so alone in that place. We’re going to need to keep in touch with him, call him every other day, to make sure he’s all right.

Has he already contracted COVID and passed the danger period of eight days? Who knows?

There’s a rumor that the virus arrived here, not two months ago, but in the autumn. That occurred to me as far back as January, when the library’s building manager had to beg off an event because of “this bug I just can’t shake. I’ll think I’m over it and then the damned thing comes back.” She’s fine now, fully recovered.

This is likely wishful thinking. We all want to imagine whatever last sickness we contracted was CV-19 and therefore conferred immunity.