Pandemic Ride

 

There I was, standing in my closet, picking out a clean shirt and digging into a tote bag to find swim goggles for my first ride on public transportation since March. It was New Year’s Eve, 2020. My beloved in-laws—my angels throughout this pandemic—were grilling up steaks and chicken wings to mark the passing of this dreadful calendar year. Instead of staying home and waiting for my wife, Maria, and our son to return with leftovers, I thought it would be a righteous note to end the year by dining with them. No one else was coming to their house, and we were in each other’s COVID-19 bubble.

While I got dressed and ready, I had to pee twice. I also started to involuntarily cough. It had been a while since my nervous cough surfaced: the first weeks of the pandemic back in late March whenever I got ready for a weekly solo supermarket shopping trip.

Out on the suburban streets of Hayward, I forged down the sidewalk with the level of determination I had when I stomped to the hospital for my chemotherapy treatments when I was thirty. It was my attempt to overcome the anxiousness I felt in boarding a BART train for the first time in over nine months. Since mid-March, Maria and I and our three-year-old son drove every weekday to Fremont from Hayward to work remotely from her parents’ house. On a number of occasions, we had driven past the Fremont BART station we used to commute to. Each time, the vast parking lots were barren. It was startling to witness. A vision straight out of a dystopian film. I have ridden on BART to and from the Fremont station since 1999 and we had never seen that parking lot so desolate.

As I neared Hayward City Hall, I heard a train arrive at the station. Given how barren their parking lots and garages have been throughout the pandemic, a surprising number of people strode out of the Hayward station. Just about all of them wore masks, which comforted me. I slipped on my cloth mask.

Past the tollgate, I turned to the stairwell on my right without hesitation. I stomped up the familiar steps. Once on the platform, I stared at one of the overhead monitors. A train for Berryessa was arriving in four minutes. My eyebrows furrowed. I slowed and glanced at the opposite platform. Was I on the wrong one? Then I exhaled once I realized that Berryessa referred to the new stop in San José that opened during the pandemic.

Out of nostalgia, I stepped past the elevator to the bench where Maria and our son and I used to wait for our morning train. A young couple sat on it. I stood nearby and pulled a book out from my tote bag, rehashing my typical BART-riding routine from pre-pandemic times. I glanced again across the platform and saw about five people waiting for a train. A couple with disheveled hair and an unkempt appearance sat on a bench. They appeared to be homeless. In early December, on one of my afternoons off, I drove through the Hayward parking garage to see just how empty it would be. I passed about a total of seven cars. While I stood on the platform, I realized a small band of people were still riding BART because they lacked reliable transportation.

Before long, my train approached. I slipped off my cloth mask and put on an N95 respirator mask. Another man stood nearby on the platform. As the train rolled into the station, we moved further along the platform to avoid the cars in the middle of the train, which were typically the most crowded. Once the train stopped, the man stepped into a car and I scurried into the next one to avoid riding the same one. The doors closed behind me. Suddenly, I felt as though I had just downed a potent shot of coffee. I could feel my breathing pick up within my mask. Two people sat in the long train car. They wore masks and sat on the last rows at the opposite ends of the train car. As the train left the station, I stood in the middle in the car, a few feet from the sliding doors. My objective was simple: don’t sit and don’t grab anything inside the train. It was a fourteen-minute ride, and Maria and I both felt a ride of such short duration would be fairly safe.

As the train rolled along, I tried to nonchalantly read my book like it was any other ride. I could feel my breath ease. After all this time not riding a BART train, I wasn’t sure how I would react once I was inside one. That’s why I packed swim goggles—in case I freaked out about my safety and felt I needed to further protect myself from possible infection. I had recently seen an educational video from a renowned aerosol scientist who succinctly explained that the virus could infect you through your eyes, nose, or mouth.

At first, I had difficulty concentrating on my book. For so long, I had been curious to see what the trains were like during the pandemic, but I couldn’t allow myself to board one because it was an unnecessary risk to my family and in-laws. Riding the train felt peculiar since it felt eerily new yet wholly familiar. I peeked above my book at the digital monitor near the entry doors. I was curious to see if any of their new public messaging acknowledged the pandemic, or offered guidance on how to lessen viral transmission. Other than the dearth of riders, and the masks we wore, the only outward sign of the pandemic was a poster that noted face coverings are required on BART.

Soon after, we approached the South Hayward station. To my relief, no one boarded our train car. Then came the Union City stop. After we left the station, the passing verdant landscape from Quarry Lakes caught my eye. I looked up. A veil of golden sunlight streamed through the windows. I closed my book and stared out in awe. The water from the lakes glistened beneath the late afternoon sun. Here and there, a few ducks and geese waded in the still water. A great egret stood on the bank of one lake. I had forgotten just how beautiful it was to see the lakes pass by aboard the train.

The Fremont station approached. Steadying my feet as the train jostled along the tracks, I turned to look out over the vast parking lot along Mowry Avenue. It was a gray sea of pavement barren of cars. Although I anticipated this, it was still an astonishing sight, like when I saw toilet paper, water, and diapers wiped off the shelves at our local grocery stores during the pandemic. Back in 2003, I rode out of the Fremont station to downtown Oakland every weekday for work and that entire parking lot—which was about the size of five football fields put next together—would be completely full by 8 a.m. Instead of that profusion of vehicles, I saw two Indian children casually riding their bicycles through the empty parking lot with their parents in tow.

Once I stepped off the train, I felt a wave of relief to be outdoors again. I stood alone on the platform, staring out over the empty parking lots. I took out my smartphone and snapped two pictures to document this moment. 

As I wandered toward the escalator, a recorded message blared from the station’s loudspeakers to remind riders that they must wear facial coverings at all times on the BART system. The words seemed to echo into the wind.

On my way past the tollgate, I noticed the familiar station attendant safely enclosed within their glass booth. It was like seeing an old classmate. I then strode out to the pick-up curb where Maria had parked our COVID car.

“Daddy!” I heard as I opened the passenger door. I peered in and saw our son, Miguel, sitting in his car seat in the back.

“Miguelito!” I said, pulling off my N95 less delicately than I should have before I doused hand sanitizer on my hands.

“Daddy, I want to go on the train with you.”

Though I was turned away from him, my face morphed into a pained smirk that had become more commonplace during the pandemic. On our old train rides, I used to read to him while he sat in his stroller. Sometimes Maria and I sat him on our laps so he could stare at the train cars in their service yard as we whooshed past. And when our train car was empty, I would oftentimes duck behind a row of seats so he could laugh while we played peekaboo.

“Oh, Miguelito,” I said, “I do too.”