How do you sleep at night?
LeVar “Var” Lawrence is a resident of Coler Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center, a public nursing home on Roosevelt Island in New York City. On March 13, 2020, as coronavirus spread through the city, Coler closed its doors and locked in residents, who were confined to the nursing home and its grounds against their will. Later in March, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all New York nursing homes must accept COVID-19 patients, and NYC Health + Hospitals established a shadow hospital within Coler’s walls. As the NYC mayoral primaries approach, Var and other residents are warning New Yorkers not to rank Cuomo.
How do you sleep at night?
by LeVar “Var” Lawrence
No one was even warning us that there was somebody sick in our unit. They had a motherfucker over here in the isolation room and got his door wide open. It started off with just two people sick. The next thing you know it's five people. The next thing you know it's seven people. And it's on both sides of the unit. It was so bad that the nurses in here posted a video asking for help. And my friend Roy, who lived in Coler with me, got Covid and died. He was a good dude.
My roommate got a fever and was coughing nonstop. My immune system is not that good. And this guy's bed was located right behind me. And I'm watching him cough, not cover his mouth, trying my best not to curse nobody out.
I got Covid in May 2020, but I’d been locked down so long I didn’t even know the date anymore. I was moved to the fifth floor for quarantine. One day I started ringing the bell at 9am to get my treatment done. By 12pm, no nurse came and I hadn’t even been washed yet. 2pm and I was still waiting for the nurse.
After I tested negative, the CEO of Coler, Robert Hughes, held a town hall meeting in our courtyard where they gave us cornbread and collard greens. I was tired of this shit. I asked him, “How do you sleep at night, knowing that you’re responsible for so many people dying here?” He wouldn’t answer so I kept asking. “Ain’t this a town hall meeting? How do you sleep at night? Say it right.”
To me, they're all fucking to blame. Whoever's in charge of something or anything, need to be fucking blamed. These motherfuckers got to live their life. And then the shit that I hate, when they always told us, "You know it's bad out there. Y’all are better off being locked down in here?" Fuck you. Because you got to leave here and when you go home, you don't stay in your fucking house. So don't give me that fucking bullshit. Fuck the government. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Mr. Hughes. Fuck Coler. And fuck Andrew Cuomo.
I wish more people knew that Cuomo’s a fucking asshole. He let them stick people that had Covid in here side by side with us. It led to a lot of people dying. When people liked Cuomo’s press conferences, it felt fucked up for them not to know the truth. There were bodies being carried out of here left and right while people were complimenting this man on doing a good job. He actually did a fucked up job. He could’ve prevented a lot of things from happening the way it did. I want to tell the next mayor not to do the same dumb shit Cuomo did to us and to realize that people in nursing homes matter.
Var and other Coler residents are featured in the documentary Fire Through Dry Grass, co-directed by Alexis Neophytides and Coler resident Andres “Jay” Molina, which reveals what life was actually like inside a nursing home that accepted Covid patients. It is streaming on PBS. If you’re voting in the primary, watch it before you vote.
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