New York Story

The building we live in is a wonderful mix of young families, older single people, middle-aged couples and almost every other configuration you could imagine. I love this about our building, that it is impossible to stereotype who lives here, that the people we encounter each day range from newborn to 90s and all ages in between. But it is true that I have occasionally worried about a few of the single older people, really only two of them, I guess, the true loners, and it turns out my worries were not unfounded.

Last night I received an email from the president of our coop board asking if I had seen one of these single older men around in recent days. I responded no, that in fact I had not seen him in weeks, come to think of it, and the reason I was able to say this with some assurance was that this man in particular was so clearly alone--wore his isolation like a heavy, impermeable cloak--that he was quite frightening, especially to small children, whom he ignored completely, although he didn't really acknowledge other adults, it must be said. Later, I learned why she had been asking: the police had been called when the neighbor noticed an increasingly foul odor, and the man had been found dead inside his unkempt, dirty apartment. No contact information for anybody could be found in the apartment, not a letter, an address, a phone number, a name. I was told by another neighbor this morning they think he may have been dead in there for a couple of weeks.

I can't quite get my head around this, how a person manages to reach this level of pathological aloneness.  A friend of mine has been researching legacy, and the sociological ramifications of a death when there is nobody to leave things--memories, stories, possessions--to, and I have marveled that he has been able to find such people. But now I know. Sometimes they live just up the stairs. 

I often find myself feeling oppressed by people, closed in on, desperate for just a moment alone. What a luxury it is to feel that way.