How We Live Now Read online

  Here’s the situation: We are stuck in heavy traffic on the way to JFK. I’m getting out of town for a few days. Running late—more bored than stressed—I lean forward and ask the driver what his plans are for the night.

  “Sleep. Get some sleep,” he says. “Haven’t slept three nights—”

  “Three nights is rough—what’s going on?”

  He looks at me in the rearview mirror, black circles under his eyes: “I’m in love.”

  “You’re in love?”

  He nods.

  “What a good reason for insomnia.”

  He half-smiles. “Yeah, but … I got such a bad headache—my whole head.”

  Love’ll do that, I say to myself.

  “So, is she here?” I ask. “Is this why you’re not sleeping—like, she’s in your bed and you’re not used to that, or—?”

  “—No, no, we just met, or re-met—two weeks maybe, back home; just got back a couple days ago. Crazy, man. Didn’t expect it. I’ve known her family so long. I’m thirty-five …” His voice trailed off.

  Funny: He’d listed three excellent conditions for falling in love, it seemed to me, not for it to be unexpected.

  “Where’s home?” I ask.

  “Pakistan.”

  Traffic begins to move. He shifts out of Park. We ride for a while in silence.

  “People there—they’re more reserved than here,” he says, picking up his story. “Stuff like this, love at first sight—it’s crazy, man, it doesn’t happen …”

  “Not crazy, trust me—I’m a veteran.” The driver glances back at me, and I ask, “So, what’s next? You go back there, or …?”

  “No, I bring her here, to New York—on a fiancée visa.”

  I have never heard of this but I’m glad such a thing exists. I wonder if two men can do that, or two women? A fiancée visa; I should look into that.

  “Congratulations,” I say, “I’m Billy, by the way, what’s your name?”

  “Abdul.”

  I give Abdul my card and say I’d love to come to the wedding if there is room.

  “I’ll take photos,” I say.

  Couple in Love

  August 8, 2019

  Girl in a White Dress

  Gay Pride Day, June 30, 2019

  Woman Alone on a Park Bench

  March 21, 2020

  9

  I can see already how photography can document the rapidity with which things are changing, and equally, how street photography as I’ve practiced it may never be the same. I first started taking pictures seriously just after moving here. I bought a good camera and taught myself how to use it; I’d always wanted to take pictures. But that didn’t make me a photographer. New York—that is, New Yorkers who were open to allowing a complete stranger to take quick portraits of them on the spot—made me a photographer. I’ve taken tens of thousands of pictures—the kinds of pictures I may never be able to capture again: happy, sweaty throngs at street fairs and parades; sunbathers, frisbee-players, stoop-sitters; unlikely lineups of characters crowded onto park benches in every pocket of the city.

  New York at night is a whole different landscape too. A photo I took in December of a traffic-clogged Eighth Avenue on a typical evening around six: that sea of red lights—what I once described as a “fiery red Milky Way on the streets of Manhattan”—is simply not there to be shot anymore. When I look out my window at night now, Eighth Avenue looks like a sky snuffed of its stars.

  On the other hand, with the absence of traffic comes other things, things I had not noticed before. In place of the brilliant red stoplights and traffic lights that lit up at the same time at certain times from here till Central Park, now it’s the green lights—one, two, three, four, and on—I look for. Often nowadays there are only two or three drivers down there. I stand at my window and watch them hit all the green lights without ever having to stop, from here to what seems like infinity. That must be such a good feeling. I almost want to clap or cheer. Or weep. I’m not sure why I find this so moving, until another thought comes to mind, a far scarier one, like something out of sci-fi: What if I looked out and saw no cars at all? Not one. As if every last person in Manhattan were taken by this pandemic except for me, standing alone up here.

  10

  Life after life after death: that’s how I’ve come to think of this post-Oliver period. Oddly enough, it was easier in the beginning—the first couple of years. I had a lot to do, that was key: memorials and tributes to help plan; his book-filled apartment to clean out and organize; new collections of Oliver’s work to co-edit and help see through publication posthumously; and, not least, two books of my own to write and photograph. But as things finally quieted down, at the beginning of 2018, depression descended.

  When you’re really depressed, the last thing you want to talk about is your depression. And yet at the same time you’re dying to be asked about it. I felt embarrassed that I had not bounced back—in fact, had fallen back many steps—that I still struggled with paralyzing loneliness and sadness. People close to me probably did not know this. I’m sure friends and family assumed I was doing okay. I rarely said otherwise or, if I did, I sometimes felt shut down, dismissed.

  I remember catching up with a friend I had not seen in three years. He asked how I was doing and I said, “I think my heart is permanently broken, or at least irreparably cracked.” Maybe I even said it with a smile, self-consciously, but I was trying to give him a sense of how damaged I felt.

  “Come on, you’ll be fine! I think your heart’s just exhausted.”

  How could he, a happily married man who’d never lost a partner or spouse, be so sure? I certainly wasn’t. I just looked at him and nodded.

  Maybe it was an accumulation of losses: Not only my partner, but both my parents as well as my literary agent, who was a mentor and a one-of-a-kind New York character, all in the last several years.

  Maybe it was New York City—a place I fell in love with when I moved here, but one whose far tougher side I’d gotten to know recently. It can be a lonely place, New York, a hard place to make friends, especially in middle age.

  Or maybe it was me—a distinct possibility. Maybe my friend did get it right: maybe I was exhausted—metaphorically and literally.

  I’ve never been a good sleeper, but around that time my insomnia became so intractable I went for a consultation at a sleep disorders clinic in Manhattan, hoping for some silver bullet. Dr. Lamb was as kindly and gentle as his surname implies. After doing a physical exam, hearing my whole story and medical history, carefully typing it all into his computer, he looked at me with grave concern and said, “All of the medications you’re taking—the antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, sleeping pills—if you ever mix them with alcohol, well, that can be very dangerous. Deadly. That’s how people like Marilyn Monroe died.”

  I just stared back at him, my entire body filling with shame like a glass left under a running faucet.

  “Those drugs were all prescribed by doctors,” I said defensively, “it’s not as if I bought them on the street.”

  He nodded sympathetically, then added, “Here’s my concern: This is where you’re at at fifty-seven. But where will you be in ten years? Where will you be at sixty-seven?”

  Sitting in his cozy consultation office, I could not imagine why my presence on this planet at age sixty-seven would matter at all. I did not care if I lived or died.

  Even so, I took his words seriously—primarily because he, this stranger, this sleep doctor whom I would never see again, seemed so concerned about me. With guidance from my own physician, I eliminated most of the medications I’d been on and cut way back on alcohol. I got into therapy, too—weekly talk therapy, which has probably helped more than anything else. I’ve been seeing the same therapist for the past two and a half years (now via Zoom).

  The most important thing I’ve learned about depression is not to think about it as “a depression,” as if it were a single monolithic thing. There are many parts to it, built up o
ver time, perhaps a lifetime—grief, trauma, abuse, isolation, rejection, resentment, financial stress, professional setbacks, etc. But if you can zero in on and break off even just one distinct part—to tell your truth, every word of it—your load lightens considerably.

  Women in White

  July 17, 2019

  11

  I bought lightweight leather gloves to wear for extra protection on the subway (I got workout gloves for the gym, too). I carried a small bottle of hand sanitizer with me. I’d never been a germophobe by any means, but, even when there were fewer than fifty Covid-related deaths reported in New York in early March, I had a feeling that subway cars, packed with straphangers and ideal vectors for viral transmission, were going to be places I’d want to avoid. (My first job in New York was working for a global nonprofit that was working on developing an AIDS vaccine; I’d learned a great deal about how viruses work and about human immunology and vaccinology.)

  The last time I took a subway was on March 13. I was on my way to pick up some of my photographs, which I’d had printed and framed at a small business in Long Island City. I suppose I could have taken an Uber or cab, but why? The subway was cheap and fast, and stopped just two blocks from my destination. The rides back and forth to the frame shop were uneventful, but the mood inside the subway cars was tense. People were not yet wearing masks and only a few wore gloves like me, but everyone was doing their best to keep as far away from everyone else as possible. More people stood than sat, bunched together, for example—a rarity; you could practically get tackled for a spare seat in earlier times. This is not how New York, the New York I knew, operated.

  I remembered being on an uptown 4/5 train one evening at the height of rush hour. If you have never been on an uptown 4/5 train at the height of rush hour, you can’t imagine just how jampacked it can get. The air you are breathing, the warmth you are feeling, the scent you are smelling, is not your own but a mix of everybody’s. Sometimes it is so crowded you can’t even grab a pole to hang on to; you remain wedged tightly among other riders, shoulder to shoulder, ass to ass. There’s no chance you’d fall over even if you wanted to.

  On this particular evening, I am stuck in my least favorite spot: standing in the middle of a row, nowhere near either door, so getting myself out of here is going to be a polite-as-possible, but not too polite, push-and-shove maneuver. At least I am able to hang on to an overhead pole. The car is pretty quiet, which is typical—people generally keep to themselves on the subway—at least at first.

  Suddenly, a young woman starts singing—she has headphones on—really singing, loudly. I can see her through the crowd. She faces the door, watches her reflection in the glass, and sings her heart out. She isn’t busking. I wonder if she is on her way to an audition, practicing her big number for a new Broadway show?

  Suddenly, she stops. “I’m sorry for the noise!” she yells loudly enough for everyone in the entire car to hear.

  All the passengers around her shake their heads, shrug: No, not noise.

  “I’ve heard way worse,” the man next to me says.

  An L Train at Rush Hour, 5:05 P.M.

  April 22, 2020

  Fourteenth Street Station, 4:45 P.M.

  April 16, 2020

  12

  I’ve done some dating the past few years, not much but some. I gave it a concerted effort with two guys in particular before Jesse, good guys, both around my age, but neither relationship lasted more than two months. Maybe I never wanted to date in the first place, it strikes me now. What I wanted was romance. Electricity. The kind of electricity I felt when I moved to New York. Or when I first met Oliver. Or any time Jesse walked through the door.

  We saw each other throughout January and February, and into March. It hadn’t evolved into a full-fledged relationship, in part because we were both busy, I with my work and Jesse not only with two different jobs but also with school—he was pursuing a degree full-time at a Manhattan college. There were other reasons too, the dominant one being that there was—there is—a huge age difference between us: I’m fifty-nine. He’s twenty-six (soon to be twenty-seven, a birthday I won’t be able to celebrate with him in person for obvious reasons).

  I know something about age gaps, about so-called intergenerational relationships: After all, Oliver was twenty-eight years older than me. But this felt different: it wasn’t just that Jesse was much younger than me; I felt I was too old for him—too used to my routines, to doing my own thing. To being alone. The truth is, though, we rarely talked about our age difference. We’d see each other about once a week, maybe more if it worked out. We always had a good time, getting stoned, making dinner (and breakfast the next morning), having sex, taking baths together in my big tub, watching TV, hanging out, laughing. He made me laugh, and I him, which I loved and appreciated. I hadn’t laughed so much with someone in five years.

  And then the pandemic hit.

  In New York, the mandate to practice social distancing of at least six feet came in mid-March, so that made continuing a casual relationship such as ours challenging, if not risky. His college, where a few Covid cases had been identified in students, was shut down. Large gatherings of any kind were discouraged. Businesses had to close by eight P.M. Some were already closing for good. On the same day, Jesse lost both his jobs—one at a downtown gym, where he worked at the front desk, and one as a bouncer at an East Village bar, where he had to be in contact with hundreds of people. And for my own work, I’d often been out on the streets photographing complete strangers all over the place. We couldn’t know whether we’d been exposed somehow, could we?

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to see each other, to be near each other,” I had to say to Jesse when he said he was heading over to my place that night.

  “Nah, come on, we’re fine.”

  “No, I don’t think we know if we’re fine, I don’t think we should, not yet.”

  But gradually, with each text exchanged, my resistance weakened: “Okay, come over, but we can’t have sex.”

  He agreed. But after doing our best to keep away from each other at either end of the couch, our willpower broke and we started making out.

  I don’t regret it; on the contrary, I treasure it—that memory. Already, that seems like a different life, just over one month ago. We didn’t know exactly what was going on, whom to believe, everything was happening very fast. Everyone was talking about handwashing (how many demonstrations of the proper handwashing method by celebrities did I watch on social media?). No one was saying anything about sex.

  And then there was that big beautiful tattooed Trinidadian man with the sexy smile for me to consider. What can I say? Desire is a powerful force to tamp down.

  We had a blast that night, and the next day, but there was something bittersweet about it too, and something missing: a certain carefreeness. I knew this would most likely be the last time in a while I’d see Jesse, touch him, be with him. Be with him, in the deepest sense of that phrase—our lives as intertwined as our bodies at this odd moment in time. Be with anyone.

  The Last Time I Kissed a Man

  March 14, 2020, 1:44 P.M.

  13

  A disruption in the universe, I jotted in my journal on Thursday, March 17. I couldn’t think of any other way to put it. Words had begun to seem insufficient.

  I took a walk and took a photo of waves crashing violently in the Hudson: that seemed to capture things more accurately.

  I made a to-do list:

  Clean toilet

  Clean desk

  Clean file drawers

  Clean closets

  Clean oven

  Clean whole apartment

  Inventory O’s books

  Refill prescriptions

  Call Kathy

  Call Yolanda

  Call Jane

  Go to therapy

  Take a walk

  Read during the day

  Create home exercise routine

  Buy groceries

  Buy weed />
  Buy wine

  Buy disinfectant

  Buy masks

  Stop taking your temperature

  14

  I was just about to take my daily pills when it hit me for the first time today that I might as well put one of the tablets back into the bottle: the light-blue one, Truvada, a medication that prevents HIV infection in people who are HIV-negative and sexually active; it’s commonly known as PreP (Pre-exposure Prophylaxis).

  “I’m not gonna be needing you for now,” I murmured, plucking it from my palm. As a single person without a partner or spouse, I’m not going to be having sex with anyone anytime soon as long as coronavirus remains a threat and widespread testing is nonexistent.

  Am I sad about that? You bet. Am I looking for sympathy? No. But it did serve as a reckoning quite distinct from handwashing, working from home, disinfecting surfaces, and other measures recommended by public health officials. Talk about social distancing: For millions like me—male, female, and nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, trans, and queer—staying healthy during this pandemic also includes being celibate. We don’t know how long we’ll have to live like this—like Catholic priests or nuns who actually keep their vows.

  Before my light-blue pill and I parted ways, I took a moment to reflect. I’m grateful to it—to the scientists who developed it; to the clinical trial volunteers who helped to test it—for keeping me healthy. Not only physically but mentally healthy. Since I started on PreP a few years ago, I’ve been able to enjoy a sex life freer from fear of HIV infection than any I’d known since I was in my early twenties.

  I appreciate down to my blood and bones and balls what it took, the time it took, the expense it took, the toll it took—everything and everyone it took—to develop antiviral drugs like this one and, even more, the medications that can now keep people with HIV or AIDS alive and healthy, their virus “undetectable.”