Prior to COVID, Isaiah was a professional boxer who supplemented his income as a bouncer at a gentlemen's club. Standing 6’4” and weighing 240 pounds, he wasn’t just an imposing man, he was also a father who was supporting his family with his two incomes. Both of Isaiah’s careers had to be put on hold through the pandemic—he couldn’t do title fights when people couldn’t congregate anywhere, and the gentlemen's club he worked at was shut down. “This is not so much about politics, but economics, and how the pandemic acutely affected black people in the city,” Conteh says. A fighter, a boxer, a protector rendered defenseless—Isaiah recontextualizes the meaning of essential worker. “I found it ironic that this man, this big man, who is a prize fighter and protector of not just women at this club, but also of his children, was rendered helpless to protect either one of them, in a physical sense in the club and an economic sense at home. I was lucky to meet him in regard to him being able to communicate what he was going through in this work.”