How We Live Now Read online

  Doctors from NYU

  April 2, 2020

  38

  Because I’ve worked at home for years now, the mandate to stay home and work from home is, I imagine, a little easier for someone like me. I’m also a loner and an introvert (except when it comes to strangers), which helps too.

  Even so, there are times when I feel spooked—not scared but spooked. I wish Jesse were here to get under the covers with.

  Making things worse, the wind has been howling all day and night like an overdone sound effect in a horror movie—one that goes on for ten or twelve hours, not two. I turn on WQXR to drown it out—all three Bose radios tuned to the same station but in different rooms: one in the kitchen, one in my office, one in the bedroom. My entire apartment is filled with beautiful noise. Oliver used to love to do this at night—turn on all the radios at once; hearing Bach was his favorite—and just soak up the music, as if in a bath at the perfect temperature, 110 degrees.

  Tonight, as I pace and worry, I am stopped in my tracks by a Clara Schumann composition: Three Romances, opus 11, it’s called, I later find out. I hadn’t known it. I stand somewhere in the middle among all the radios, eyes closed. The stark piano music acts like a ghostbuster, ridding my apartment of all howling spooks.

  I look out the window: there’s just emptiness—nothingness. I almost expect to see tumbleweeds blowing down Eighth Avenue.

  Clara Schumann’s music swells.

  39

  It is a spring evening in the Village about four years ago:

  I stop by the smoke shop down the block. It’s six o’clock. Ali has arrived for work just as Bobby is finishing his shift. I’ve hardly ever seen them here together; it’s either one or the other behind the counter. They are talking about something with great vigor and animation—at least, that’s how it appears to me. I can’t understand a word they’re saying.

  “Gentlemen. Gentlemen?” I can hardly get their attention, they’re so enthralled. Finally, I have to interrupt: “Hey, what are you two arguing about? And, which language are you speaking?”

  “Panjabi,” says Ali, ignoring my first question. Bobby has walked away, into the back somewhere. Ali calls after him, as if getting in a final jab. He can’t disguise his delight. He is a cat waiting for the mouse to return to play.

  Moments pass. Bobby is back at the counter, as if nothing had happened between them, and I have to smile: Here they are, side by side, these two from whom I’ve been buying Sunday papers and rolling papers, bottles of water and Kit Kat bars and poppers for the past seven years: one Muslim man, one Hindu, matching mischievous grins on their light-brown faces.

  “Yes?” says Ali.

  “Mr. Billy, what can we do for you?” says Bobby, feigning seriousness.

  Now I can’t even remember what I came in here for, so I change course.

  “Teach me a word in Panjabi,” I say. “Just one word.”

  “Okay,” says Ali.

  “All right,” says Bobby.

  They stare back at me, waiting for a prompt.

  “Hold on, let me think. What is—um, what is the Panjabi word for beauty?”

  They look at one another.

  “Sohni,” says Bobby.

  Ali nods, “Yes, sohni,” then adds, “but it’s sohna if you’re talking about a man—sohna, not sohni.”

  Ali: he knows me all too well.

  “That is very helpful—thank you, Ali,” I say.

  “You’re welcome, my friend.”

  Anzar

  April 2, 2020

  40

  On the day Oliver died, Ali was the first person to whom I told the news. He had gotten to know “The Doctor” well over the years, and they shared a mutual affection and respect. I remember how Ali came out from behind the counter to comfort me: “I will pray for the Doctor,” he said tenderly, “and for you.”

  He’s been a constant in my life since, almost like a family member, despite the obvious differences between us, as he is a devout Muslim, Pakistani American, not to mention a husband, a father, and a vegetarian teetotaler—and I am, well, I am none of those things. I can’t walk past the smoke shop without at least waving or saying hello to Ali, if not stopping in to chat. And if I don’t, Ali spots me on his sidewalk surveillance cameras—and gives me shit about it the next time I come in.

  Now, though, I haven’t seen Ali at the shop in about three weeks, and I’m beginning to seriously worry. The only times I’ve known him to be away for so long (besides his one day off a week) were when he’d gone back to Pakistan to see family—visits he made once every couple of years.

  I’ve popped my head into the shop several times and asked whomever was behind the counter—men I did not recognize—about Ali: “Is he okay?”

  Yes, they always said, he’s okay, but nothing more. Maybe they didn’t know? Maybe they didn’t want to say?

  The other night, I saw the owner of the smoke shop standing out front, wearing an N95 mask. We’d met a few times before. I approached and said hello, while keeping a proper distance.

  “How’s Ali? I haven’t seen him in so long. He’s not sick, is he?”

  “Yes, Ali’s sick, unfortunately,” the owner said.

  No. Fuck.

  I called Ali’s number the minute I got home but it went to voicemail. My heart sank. But he called me back a short time later. I was relieved and happy to hear his voice and told him that. “I hear you’ve been sick. Tell me—where are you, how are you doing?”

  “I’m home. Yes, ill,” he said, “very, very bad.” It had started two weeks ago—high fever, coughing, weak, impossible to eat. “I felt like I’m done,” Ali said. “Done.”

  Beyond the words he spoke, I could hear the fear in his voice. Without having to ask, I knew that his fear was more for his wife and two children—both now college students—than for himself.

  “The fever would not go away,” he continued, “it was not easy, not easy, very painful, but then, the doctor gave me some pills—antibiotics.” He said he’d been able to talk to the doctor via “telemedicine,” a term that, at an earlier time, I would never have expected to hear from Ali. Or from me, for that matter.

  “And the pills worked?”

  At this, Ali sounded happy for the first time. “Oh yes, the fever went away. The cough, too. Thank God. Everything’s good now, thank God—”

  “Yes, thank God, and your family—your wife, your kids?”

  “Everyone’s okay, everyone’s safe, healthy. Thank God, thank God.” He sounded tired. Very tired.

  I told him I’d keep him in my thoughts and check back in.

  We wished each other a good night.

  41

  It’s a little like losing your life while still being alive, this experience. Everything I knew in New York—everything we knew—is gone: stores, restaurants, concerts, subway rides, church services, movie theaters, museums, nail salons. When a memory comes, you almost wonder if it is true—it seems so impossible to imagine again—if it happened at all:

  A very tall man, six-four or more—my age at least; handsome face—stands on a subway platform with a very small girl (four, maybe five years old). She is immaculately dressed, all in bright greens and pinks, and her hair is a garden of blooms, each fixed with a light pink ribbon.

  His skin is the color and sheen of coffee beans; hers is caramel with lots of cream. She holds his hand; it must be her grandfather, I think to myself. The subway is delayed. He distracts her by dancing, taking both her hands in his and dancing; music in his head. She giggles. When he lets go of her hands, she keeps dancing on her own and now he laughs; a little girl dancing freely on the subway platform, so sweet but also fascinating: You can see how rhythm is built into the body.

  A subway arrives, and he ushers her on, holding her cat’s-sized hand in his giant paw. They sit across from me; the tiny girl is pinioned safely between the big man’s knees.

  “She is adorable,” I can’t help saying, “and her hair—did you do that for h
er?”

  He nods, like it’s no big deal. “Had to learn how. I have six daughters. Viv’s my youngest.”

  The man smiles, a touch rueful. The little girl looks up at her dad. He opens a small bottle of water and holds it to her mouth. She takes a sip.

  42

  Nighttime: I hear salsa music on a car radio across the street. And nothing else. Just the salsa music.

  We could be in Spokane on a summer night.

  That’s how quiet it is in Manhattan.

  In the silence, the first place my mind goes is back in time a few years.

  It’s late, a Friday night, eleven or so:

  Exiting the elevator in my building, I see my next-door neighbor pacing the lobby, radiating, as he often does, the nervous energy of someone dying for a smoke (Alex is perpetually trying to quit). But he isn’t the only jumpy one. Our unflappable doorman, Vinnie, seems on edge too.

  “What’s going on?” I say.

  “There’s a naked man with a cape standing outside,” Alex booms.

  He has a voice that booms.

  Surely, I’d misheard, like Oliver, whose mishearings throughout the day, every day, could make life surreal.

  “Yep,” confirms Vinnie, standing watch at the door.

  I peek outside, but what I see isn’t at all what you might expect on hearing there’s a naked man with a cape—a Halloween costume, say, or lack thereof. No, he is a tall man on the opposite corner, entirely naked but for something raggedy around his neck. Alex and I step outside. The streets are jammed with cars and cabs.

  “He must be super high—”

  I nod, adding it all up.

  “I’m getting shorts,” Alex adds.

  This doesn’t compute; Alex is already wearing shorts. Now he is talking on his phone: “Yeah, anything—those old Gap shorts—and a T-shirt!” he booms; he is talking to his wife, up in their apartment.

  Just then, the naked man begins crossing the street against the traffic, coming toward us, as if magnetized.

  Alex lights a cigarette, the picture of unfazed. He must have seen such things on numerous occasions, it strikes me—he’s a restaurant owner and lives his life at night, mostly on the East Side. But, on the contrary: “This is something I have never seen in all my years in New York,” he volunteers.

  “Me either,” murmurs Vinnie.

  As we watch, Alex mentions that he’ll be selling his apartment and moving soon—probably out of Manhattan. “This is the kind of shit I’ll miss, though.”

  He takes a long drag.

  The naked man has almost reached us when Alex’s wife appears, but then the guy turns and begins walking the other way. Alex grabs the clothes, and the two of us catch up with him.

  “Hey man, put these on,” Alex says, as emphatically as a bouncer throwing someone out of a club, “you don’t want trouble with cops, you don’t want to get arrested.”

  He takes them but his eyes are uncomprehending. It is only then I notice the cape is a hospital gown. He must have walked out of an ER or a psychiatric ward. We watch him stumble up Eighth Avenue, holding the shorts but not stopping to put them on.

  “You tried, dude,” I say to Alex, “that was very cool of you.”

  He shrugs: “I don’t give a shit if he’s naked, or high, but the guy’s out of his mind. Anyway, I already called 911—he needs to be back in a hospital before he gets hit by a car or put in jail.”

  He takes his wife’s hand, they walk off in the other direction, and, as sirens begin to blare, I think to myself: That’s what neighborliness is: You care enough to make sure there’s no trouble, but not so much that you get completely embroiled in others’ lives and problems. This city is so dense, so intense, so compressed, so stressed, so dirty, so diverse, so tough on the outside, so transparent in how it wears its heart on its sleeve, that you cannot survive here without occasional help from strangers.

  UPS Deliverymen

  April 14, 2020

  43

  A story from my friend Kate:

  “Yesterday I was riding my bike home to Williamsburg from my job in Long Island City when I was stopped at a red light next to a car, and the man driving must have seen me wipe my nose on my sleeve (simply from the cold weather) so he stuck out a handful of tissues and said ‘Do you need a tissue? They’re clean!’

  “Pre-Covid I would’ve taken it but now I’m so paranoid to touch anything! I smiled and said no thanks, but then he stuck his other arm holding the tissue box out the window:

  “ ‘You sure?’

  “I laughed and said ‘Yes, I’m ok, but thank you so much.’

  “ ‘All right, stay safe, baby,’ he said, and he drove off.

  “Such a New York moment; makes me miss these unexpected interactions and kind gestures. I think we’re all going to suffer from a sort of PTSD, I guess I’m kind of feeling it already. In the end we’re all connected through this, and I must say I’m pretty proud of the awareness and caution (most) everyone in NYC is displaying.”

  44

  I got a call on Sunday at 1:20 P.M. from a number I did not recognize, so I didn’t answer. It was a 215 number with no caller ID.

  I suppose I was feeling lonely here in my place by myself because then I thought, Maybe it’s a friend—someone with a new number?

  I decided to text it: “Who’s this? No name comes up,” I wrote.

  “Mrs. M.” came the answer right away. That’s all the text said.

  Mrs. M … I don’t know any Mrs. Ms, do I? I couldn’t think of one, so I paid it no mind.

  But then the same number, a Philadelphia number, called again and left a voicemail on Tuesday.

  I hate listening to voicemails for some reason. Preoccupied by work, I waited until today to read the iPhone transcription (as bad as they often are).

  It read:

  “Hello this is Susan M_____ calling I just calling to check in with you um got a text message for me earlier and I’m just wanting to know how things are going for you during this time feel free to give me a call or text me back all right talk to you soon I hope you’re doing well thank you so much bye-bye”

  Well, I thought to myself, I do not know who this “Susan” is, but that is a very nice message. So I called the number back. The person picked up after one ring.

  “Hi, my name is Bill. You called me? And, uh, are you sure you have the right number? I saw your text. ‘Mrs. M’?”

  “Oh. You’re not ____,” she said, “the parent of __________ ?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. Definitely no children here.”

  Pause.

  “I live in New York,” I added. “Who are you trying to reach?”

  Mrs. M. went silent again, then said: “I’m a special ed teacher at ____, and I’m trying to make sure all the students are set up before we start, before we start remote learning—technology and stuff—”

  “Well you sound very nice, and like you’re a great teacher, but, um, you have the wrong number—”

  We compared numbers—she did have mine, but must have missed a number, or taken it down incorrectly. “Oh …” She sounded concerned, unsure what to do.

  We chatted awhile. I asked how she was doing (fine). She asked how I was doing (fine). I told her I’m a writer and a photographer.

  “Well, now that you have my number, call me if you ever need a resource to talk about teachers. Trying to teach special ed remotely—it’s, it’s—

  “It must be really hard,” I said.

  She put it differently: “It’s a challenge …”

  I told her it was a pleasure to meet her, to connect with a kind stranger even in such a random way, and I wished her well. She wished me well too.

  I said goodbye to Mrs. M.

  Chelsea Boys

  April 19, 2020

  Security Patrol Officers, Chelsea Housing Complex

  April 19, 2020

  45

  I came upon a couple of firemen today who were taking a bre
ak outside their truck. I asked if I could take their picture, but they said no. We talked for a while. “So are things slower since the city’s so quiet?” I asked.

  One of the two shook his head. “There are still fires and heart attacks,” he said.

  46

  I have a few friends, some of whom I’ve photographed, who are escorts: hookers, rent men, go-go boys, or masseurs who make out-calls on the side. Two or three are able to charge $300 an hour and $2,000 plus expenses for a weekend-long “Boyfriend Experience” (minimum two orgasms a day), making as much as $100K a year on their bodies and smiles and personalities alone. But now? The pandemic has put them out to pasture. Perhaps permanently.

  But the johns still call.

  “My clients have sent me messages begging me to come over, pay me double, triple, whatever I want!” my friend Scott, aka Chloe, texts me. Sure, they could do Zoom sex or old-fashioned phone sex, he adds, but not at the same rates and it’s just not the same anyway: “Everyone is dying for touch and human contact.”

  Tell me about it.

  “You can’t kiss a computer screen,” I text back.

  47

  We’ve had eight hundred people die each day for several days in a row in New York, most of them here in the city, and most of these among communities of color in the Bronx and Queens. Eight hundred. It’s hard for me—for any of us—to fully comprehend those numbers. Some of the unclaimed dead are being buried in mass graves on Hart Island, just off the coast of the Bronx, which sounds beyond ghastly, though I do understand the necessity. Even so, I can’t help wondering why they don’t cremate these bodies—that would seem far more dignified than tossing them into burial pits.