The Power of Clean Hands

O ye who believe! When ye rise up for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands.

—The Quran.

Thomas Balzac is not a religious man, his music compositions — as of late, jazz funeral dirges for pandemic victims of New Orleans, where Second Lines are themselves super-spreaders — are not meant to be, anyway….

“The Power of Clean Hands“

His laptop beeps and the elderly music composer Thomas Balzac checks the screen of the new HP laptop his computer-scientist son recently gifted him. Hijo has messaged. But he’s supposed to be on a jet home from Israel now, the father is thinking as he abruptly stops playing the classical guitar fugue he is transposing into a blues rhythm, and leans closer to read the text:

“Dad! Holy shit the air masks just dropped!”

Balzac: “What?? What do u mean?

Hijo: yeah air mask

Balzac: “Huh?? why?” Angel, his wife, who is reading this Google chat box text message over his shoulder now — after sensing something was different and coming into Thomas’ music studio to investigate her intuition — screams. “Don’t say that if joking, son!”

Hijo: “Dunno, those things are really filled with carbon dioxide so you die peacefully before the crash….shit ya –not joking, mom.

Balzac: “Damn, what’s happening there?!”

Hijo: “Lot of turbulence people may be having panic attacks – oxygen calms the nerves…I use valium – fuck the carbon dioxide lol”

Balzac: “Well they never dropped the masks when i’ve had turbulence…”

Hijo: me neither, first time i’ve ever seen it

Balzac: what airline

Hijo: and no they dont look like they are inflated

Balzac: if there’s a drop in cabin pressure it happens automatically, Angel just told me…

I love u, Hijo!  Don’t crash on us now…

Sent at 9:45 AM on Thursday

Thomas Balzac: u here?

Sent at 9:47 AM on Thursday

Thomas Balzac: put on your mask

Sent at 9:51 AM on Thursday

Thomas Balzac: get your butt back online pls

“Hijo may not have received your message.”

Sent at 9:58 AM on Thursday

 “Hijo Balzac is offline and cannot receive Thomas Balzac’s messages right now.”

Balzac washes his hands and prays.  “Always wash your hands before praying!” his mother, a devout Catholic, has often instructed. 

He remembers his mother clinching his own, clean, hand – their fingers intertwined, as she confides: “I’m afraid, son!” …

And now he, too, prays, because his older son has text-messaged him to say “they dropped the air masks” and that apparently the cabin has decompressed “because we’ve been having turbulence.”

“The masks help passengers relax through it but I have Valium for that — don’t worry, Dad!” the young man had jested to his father.

But Balzac IS worried and does not laugh; he is worried and becomes even more worried when the connection goes dead.

He hates that he can do nothing but pray to the Fates, to God, to Allah, Zoroaster, YHWH –to all, or whichever/whomever, Spirit can hear him: 

“Oh, Spirit!  Please do not fail us in Life — Keep All Beautiful!” the father prays, as he remembers clenching his mother’s hand and assuring her:

“Everything will be beautiful as ever for you again soon I promise, dear mother!  Please do not worry!”

But all did not end well…

His mind wanders back to the Google chat-box conversation.  The father’s last words to his son: “I love you, Hijo — don’t crash on us…. Put on your mask!” 

Then silence, no reply (“The user is not online”) was the reply to the father’s “u here??” 

He has never imagined a world without this older son – or without his younger son.  He will never imagine again if any of those two nightmares enter his Life…. 

Another hour passes — or was it only a minute? — and the father breathes a sigh of relief when Hijo calls to announce they have safely landed at Louis Armstrong International. Balzac silently thanks the Fates, God, Allah, Buddha, Yahweh, Zoroaster, and all the other protective Spirits in his and his family’s Life.  Hallelujah!

He washes his hands, then prays.  Hijo will be home soon…. Hallelujah, indeed! The power of clean hands, indeed, is Great…. The power will again prove-out itself, for months, perhaps years have passed and Thomas Balzac and his family find themselves at ground-zero of The Great Pandemic of 2019.

The pouring rain outside his music studio in the French Quarter, and the incessant wind, make sounds so loud that Tarzan, his black cat is curled-up close beside Balzac insisting on a comforting petting.

=to be continued=