14 THENEWYORKER, APRIL 13, 2020was not much different than docking
any tanker, although it’s easier to pull
up parallel to a dock than to make a
ninety-degree turn. The Hudson River
had a little current, fed by freshets from
upstream with local rains, and melting
snow farther up, in the Adirondacks. I
talked our tug captains through it—I’ve
known all of them for many years. Ev-
erything went well. I saw there was a
crowd waiting on the pier, with politi-
cians and publicity, and I wanted as lit-
tle contact as possible, so I boarded a
tug near the stern and it took me back
to our dock in Staten Island.”
Captain Ferrie: “It was an honor to
cede the conn to Captain Ellis, one of
the best docking pilots ever. I’ve been
piloting for forty years, and I’ve brought
thousands of ships in and out of the
harbor, including Navy ships. One year
during Fleet Week I piloted the John F.
Kennedy, a thousand-foot-long aircraft
carrier that has since been decommis-
sioned. But piloting the Comfort, and
being part of her work here, has been
the proudest day of my life.”
—Ian Frazier
1
A SON’SSTORY
LIFELINE“
I
need help,” my father texted me
from the hospital. Papá was not
someone who liked asking for help. Vic-
tor Alejandro Zapana, Sr., was a war
veteran and worked as a night-shift su-
pervisor for the Metropolitan Transpor-
tation Authority. In mid-March, he
started having flu-like symptoms—and
then his fever spiked. He began to have
trouble breathing. He was tested for
COVID-19 at the Brooklyn Veterans Hos-
pital, and, three days later, the results
came back positive.
On March 19th, an ambulance brought
him to Elmhurst Hospital Center, in
Queens. (Less than a week later, thir-
teen patients there died in a single day;
a refrigerated truck was parked outside
to handle the bodies.) My father texted
me. He was sixty-one. Until he caught
the virus, he was healthy.
In the nineteen-eighties, Dad immi-you and mom are in charge,” he wrote.
I finally reached a doctor. She told
me that several attempts to help his
breathing—with antibiotics, hydroxy-
chloroquine, and water pills—had not
worked. His oxygen levels were drop-
ping, and it was getting to the point
where he might need to be intubated
and put on a ventilator. The doctors were
moving him to a specialized floor for
the more serious COVID-19 cases.
A text wasn’t the right way to give
Dad this news. I called him. At first,
all I could hear was him coughing and
wheezing. I told him about his declin-
ing oxygen levels and the possibility of
a ventilator. All I could say at the end
was “I love you, we love you, I love
you.” All he could muster was “I love
you” back.
For the next thirty-two hours, Dad
was silent. His lungs were a battlefield.
He was too busy fighting to respond to
my texts. I called the hospital repeat-
edly, but I got no updates. Once, I was
put on hold for twenty-five minutes,
and then was disconnected.
At 10:16 P.M. on March 26th, Dad
wrote, “I’m to put to sleep. I love you
and mom.” He continued, “I’m sorry I
wasn’t the father. Will always love u re-
member that.”
Then the texts stopped. I called the
hospital, asking for information. I called
several times the next day. A nurse or
a clerk working in Dad’s unit sounded
testy: “They have thirty-five critical pa-
tients, and they just can’t talk to every-
one. They will call if there is a change
in your dad’s care. It is a significant
change to put someone on ventilation.
They would need to call the family.” I
asked whether he was confirming that,
since no doctor had called, Dad was
not on a ventilator. He said, “I can’t
confirm that.”
I called several more times. I got noth-
ing until 3:26 A.M. on Sunday, March
29th. A doctor called and told me that
Dad had passed away at 3:18. In a re-
strained yet exhausted voice, he explained
that the doctors had “tried everything
they possibly could.” He said that Dad
had been put on a ventilator a few days
before, and that we had been briefed on
the risks of putting him on it. When I
told him that no doctor had called, he
said it was a “very difficult time” at the
hospital. The doctors were doing theirgrated to the United States from Peru.
To hasten the citizenship process, he
enlisted in the Army Reserves. He even-
tually served in South Korea, Bosnia,
Kuwait, and, for four tours, Iraq. At a
club in Seoul, he met my mother, an as-
piring accountant, and they moved to
New York. I am their only child. Dad
started at the M.T.A. as a token clerk,
doing back-to-back shifts at the West
Fourth Street station so that Mom could
stay home and raise me. Later, he worked
overtime as a supervisor cleaning sub-
way stations.
After getting my father’s text, I took
a car to Elmhurst to bring him a char-
ger for his phone. Families were shut
out of the hospital, to prevent further
infection; we could communicate only
via his cell phone. I persuaded a medi-
cal worker to bring the charger to him
in the E.R. My father responded: I want
some mango juice.
Dad refused to talk on the phone or
try videoconferencing calls. It was too
hard for him to speak. My mother, quar-
antined at home in Astoria, was recov-
ering from relatively mild symptoms and
living on the groceries that she and Dad
had bought before either of them fell
ill. Texting was our lifeline.
On March 20th, the medical team
admitted Dad to a regular floor of the
hospital. “I’m staying overnight looking
for a room,” he texted.
“No room service?” I replied. “Lame.”
He LOL’ed. Later, he wrote, “I need
some ceviche diablo.” Ceviche is his fa-
vorite dish; he always made it for my
birthday.
The texts from Elmhurst were fre-
quent, but increasingly strained and,
sometimes, garbled:
“I just wanna get better and spend
whatever I ha left with u guys not here.”
“I cann’t sleep.”
“I will wall out here.” (I will walk out
of here.)
“Scared working as hard as a I can
to get rid of this nightmare.”
On March 24th, he texted to say
that he’d been given a diagnosis of
pneumonia. Except for short calls ask-
ing for my father’s cell-phone number,
the hospital staff had not communi-
cated with us. The next day, Dad tex-
ted that he’d elected to participate in
a randomized experimental trial for the
drug sarilumab. “Anything goes wrong