Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me
Bill Hayes
“I don’t so much fear death as I do wasting life.”
Oliver Sacks
Cross Streets with Snow
PART I
INSOMNIAC CITY
INSOMNIAC CITY
I moved to New York eight years ago and felt at once at home. In the haggard buildings and bloodshot skies, in trains that never stopped running like my racing mind at night, I recognized my insomniac self. If New York were a patient, it would be diagnosed with agrypnia excitata, a rare genetic condition characterized by insomnia, nervous energy, constant twitching, and dream enactment—an apt description of a city that never sleeps, a place where one comes to reinvent himself.
I had brought very little with me from San Francisco, my home for twenty-five years, in part because I wished to leave behind any reminders of the life I’d had there, but also for more practical reasons. My new apartment was a virtual tree house, a tiny top-floor walk-up at eye level with the ailanthus boughs. There was not room for more than a desk, a chair, a mattress. Nor a need: You see, the place came furnished with spectacular views of Manhattan.
What I didn’t know when I rented the place was that the French restaurant located straight below my apartment had outdoor seating till two A.M. Lying awake in bed, I could literally hear glasses clinking and toasts being made, six stories down. This was irritating at first. But it wasn’t long before I discovered a phenomenon heretofore unknown to me: Laughter rises. Hearing happy, laughing people is no cure for insomnia but has an ameliorative effect on brokenheartedness.
Sometimes I’d sit in the kitchen in the dark and gaze out at the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Such a beautiful pair, so impeccably dressed, he in his boxy suit, every night a different hue, and she, an arm’s length away, in her filigreed skirt the color of the moon. I regarded them as an old married couple, calmly, unblinkingly keeping watch over one of their newest sons. And I returned the favor; I would be there the moment the Empire State turned off its lights for the night as if to get a little shut-eye before sunrise.
Here’s another wonder I discovered about life here: In the summertime, late into the night, some leave behind their sweat-dampened sheets to read in the coolness of a park under streetlights. Not Kindles, mind you, or iPhones. But books. Newspapers. Novels. Poetry. Completely absorbed, as if in their own worlds. As indeed, they are. I had never seen anything like this until I took a shortcut through Abingdon Square Park one night while walking off my own mild agrypnia.
First I saw an old man reading a newspaper from which someone (his wife?) had snipped numerous articles; it looked like a badly botched doily. I tiptoed past, as if wearing slippers, and he, as if at home in his La-Z-Boy, did not glance up.
Next I spotted a young man reading a paperback with a distinctive brick-red cover. I was pretty certain I knew what classic he had in hand but had to make sure. I fake-dropped my keys nearby and crouched down for a better look. Just then, the young man shifted in his seat, denying me absolute proof. That’s okay. I was left to imagine him imagining himself as Holden Caulfield.
At the far end of the park, I found a middle-aged woman bathed in a light Vermeer would have loved, reading what looked like a textbook. Was she a teacher preparing for tomorrow’s class, a student cramming last-minute, or neither of these? Perhaps she was simply teaching herself.
Of course, not everyone awake at this hour is an insomniac. The city is alive with doormen, delivery boys on bikes, street sweepers, homeless people, hustlers, prep cooks popping up out of trap doors in the sidewalk. I make a point of waving or nodding hello when I can. I have come to believe that kindness is repaid in unexpected ways and that if you are lonely or bone-tired or blue, you need only come down from your perch and step outside. New York—which is to say, New Yorkers—will take care of you.
One night I was walking down Hudson Street, on my way home from a friend’s, when I spotted a dollar bill on the sidewalk. Even at my age, such a find seemed magical. Free money! I leaned down to pick it up just as a woman opposite me was doing the same thing: “A dollar,” I heard her murmur, and our heads practically bumped. We both laughed. I happened to reach it first, but it seemed ungentlemanly to take it. “Here, it’s yours,” I said, offering it to the woman.
“No! No, it’s yours, you got it first.”
“No, I insist, you take it,” I said, but by this point she was walking away, arm in arm with a handsome man; she already had her prize. Suddenly, inspiration struck: “I’m going to leave it for someone else!” I called back to her.