“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

By no means am I trying to insinuate that what you are about to read will come even close to what Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez accomplished with his book, “Love in the Time of Cholera”. Nor am I implying that my journey holds a candle to that of the character Dr. Juvenal Urbino, who committed tirelessly to eradicating cholera. I am, however, tirelessly committed to not climbing the walls of my West Hollywood apartment while the world goes koo-koo for cocoa puffs over the corona pandemic. Inspired by the title that book, this was as good a time as any to dust off my unfinished roman-a-clef, “Last Five Minutes of Fame” in an effort to exercise my mind since my body was restricted from spin classes and the gym.  To be clear, “Love in the Time of Cholera” and “Last Five Minutes of Fame” should not reside in the same sentence for literary purposes, but then again, Donald Trump shouldn’t be President of the United States, so fuck it, here goes.

Unlike Gabriel García Márquez who wrote about love in a fictional, remote island struck with cholera, I can wax poetic–brutally honestly–about love in the time of corona in Los Angeles. I am a newlywed, there I said it, and this coronavirus quarantine business is NO WAY to kick-off anyone’s first year of marital bliss. Backstory: Shalom and I were introduced by a mutual friend—as opposed to the standard gay meet-up through a sex app, swiping right, sharing dick pics before finally hooking up. We fell madly in love at a chance meeting sixteen months ago. To my surprise, having committed to being single until I died, dating my first Jew was an unexpected, joyous surprise. Did I mention that he loves to clean? On our third date, he rearranged my closets and right there and then I knew he was a keeper. After a fun-filled, romantic year together, we got hitched at the Beverly Hills Municipal Court shortly after New Year’s Day. A five-foot, septuagenarian justice of the peace pronounced us husband and husband, surrounded by a handful of close friends next door to where you pay for your traffic tickets. For Shalom—a hair colorist specializing in blonds—a devout workaholic and me, a recluse freelancer working from home was an ideal set up. We’d see each other for an hour or so in the morning and again much later in the evening till lights out. (Details not necessary for this purpose.) Then—like the twister that took Dorothy to Oz or that tidal wave in Phuket a few years ago that destroyed everything in its path—came the coronavirus roaring over our heads, challenging our marital bliss. We are now a couple of weeks into this new reality and I have to stay focused on living life one day at a time…from my ceiling. I’m desperately trying to stay positive and being grateful that I’m not a healthcare worker nor a waiter, in luxury retail, have a desk at one of those We-Works or any of the many jobs that may never come back when the global economy recovers. Rather than go mad or becoming a murderer, it’s probably healthiest to sink into my creative self rather than a depression. So here we go, back to where I left off in my novel-novel, “Last Five Minutes of Fame”. It’s a novel idea to think that my life is worth writing a novel about.

Stay tuned…chapter one will be posted tomorrow.