Warday

New York was immensely wealthy, and so it was detailed. It is the ruin of this detail that impresses—the thousands of cars, the sheer weight of salvage, the numberless little things that together once defined the place: ballpoint pens, mag wheels, plastic raincoats, videotapes, canned goods, masonry and glass and asphalt, an endless list of objects destroyed.

It is a fine morning, though, and the light spreading down has the familiar sinister sharpness peculiar to New York skies. We begin moving along the center of Bleecker, between Washington Square Village and Silver Towers. The trees are much taller than one would expect after five years, and the grass has extended on a bed of creepers right to the middle of the street. Bleecker seems like a country lane set amid exotic, crumbling colossi.

To the right, the Grand Union grocery where we used to shop is completely destroyed, burned to a few stacks of seared brick, and covered by vines and grasses.

Then I see 515. I am absurdly grateful. I could kiss this taciturn girl for bringing me here. The building does not look well. The slate facade has fallen off almost completely and lies shattered on the sidewalk. I can see broken windows with rotting curtains blowing out of them. Up close, the quiet of desolation is hard to bear. I took Andrew in and out of this building in a stroller. He learned to ride a bike on this sidewalk. Behind those walls my love for Anne matured and became permanent.

It is not until Jenny Bell puts an arm around my shoulder that I realize I’ve begun to cry.

“I want to go in.”

“These old buildings are dangerous.”

“Still—”

She sighs. “You’re crazy. But I suppose you know that. I’m crazy too. I work in New York, for God’s sake.”

“The doors are busted. We could go right in.”

“A place like this never got cleaned. There might be particles.”

“I want to see my apartment. If you’ll let me, I’d like to go. Alone, if you prefer.”

“You aren’t going anywhere alone. What floor is it on?”

“Six.”

“Of course. Naturally. You wouldn’t live on one or two, not you. A seven-story building and you live on six. So come on.”

As we enter the building I see a couple of dogs asleep on the sidewalk about half a block away. Two dogs, not very big.

The lobby is badly deteriorated. The walls were carpeted, and the carpet now hangs to the floor. When I push some of it aside to open the door into the stairwell, at least two hundred roaches scuttie away. “They like the glue,” Jenny says.

The place has a sweet, rancid odor, something like stagnant water. I suppose the basement must be permanently flooded. “If the water table’s risen, why couldn’t people simply dig wells? We’d be able to repopulate Manhattan.”

“Toxins. The water’s poisonous. Godawful. When dogs drink out of the basements, their lips get eaten away.”

“How do they live?”

“Rainwater, rats, and squirrels. And people.”

“You’re not serious.”

“All the damn time. We find new kills every few days. Drifters figure that with so many buildings the city must be a squatter’s paradise. Wrong. Those who don’t get dogged die of waste poisoning from coming across Jersey. You can’t walk from Newark to the Hudson and live. It just ain’t possible.”

I think of the sins of the past. Then, it was so easy. Now I realize that I, like everybody else, was directly and personally responsible. The land was not despoiled by chemical companies, nor the war caused by countries. It was us, each one. We are all accountable for our era.

A sharp tang enters my mouth, something I wish I could spit out.

The stairs are dark in a way that the subway was not. This is absolute blackness, not the presence of dark but something more profound, the absence of light. I remember that these stairs were like this during the great blackout of ’85. We set candles along the banisters then, and shared the hot night and songs, and survival stories. We were New Yorkers. We were getting through.

I am a little sick to be passing Joseph and Sally Boyce’s bikes, the two beautiful Raleighs they got in June of ’87. There is a bag beside them. Jenny’s flashlight reveals a sweatshirt wadded up in it, so rotten that it turns to dust at a touch. I know that shirt; we gave it to Joseph for his birthday in ’87. If it could have been opened out, it would have read WHIPPETS on the front and LAKE WOBEGON, MINN. on the back.

At the sixth floor I hesitate before the fire door. We peer through the glass. Jenny’s flashlight reveals that the foyer on the other side is in perfect condition. It looks as if it has been preserved in a museum. The door creaks as Jenny opens it. Even the picture we and our next door neighbors put on the wall of the foyer is still there. “Deux,” it’s called. Photographs of two old men, one bright and smiling, the other in shadow. My neighbor was the bright one. The other represents me. There are just two apartments per floor in our building, and both doors seem securely locked. I put my hand on my old doorknob and rattle it. I wonder if we can even get in.