To Paradise

One day last month, Nathaniel and I took over some of baby’s old clothes and toys to donate, standing for a few minutes in a separate, much shorter queue, and though I’m not shocked by much anymore in this shit-ass city, I was shocked by that center: There were probably a hundred adults and fifty kids in a space meant for maybe sixty people, and the stench—of vomit, of feces, of unwashed hair and skin—was so overpowering that you could almost see it, coloring the room a dull mustard. But the thing that really struck us was how quiet it was: Except for one baby, who cried and cried in a thin, helpless way, there was no sound. Everyone was standing mutely in lines for one of the seven air showers, and when one person exited, the next would silently enter the shower space and draw the curtain closed.

We navigated through the crowds, which parted, wordlessly, to let us pass, and headed toward the back, where there was a plastic table, behind which stood a middle-aged woman. On the table was an enormous metal cauldron, and in front of the table was another queue of people, all holding ceramic mugs. When they reached the front of the line, they held out their cups, and the woman dipped a ladle into the pot and poured them a drink of cold water. Next to her were two more pots, their sides perspiring, and behind those pots was a guard, his arms crossed, a holster with a gun at his hip. We told the woman we’d brought some clothes for donation, and she told us we could put them in one of the bins beneath the windows, which we did. As we were leaving, she thanked us, and asked if we might have any liquid antibiotics at home, or diaper cream, or nutritional drinks. We had to say we didn’t, that our son had long outgrown all of these things, and she nodded again, wearily. “Thanks anyway,” she said.

We walked back across the street—the heat so thick and stunning it felt as if the air had been knitted from wool—and up to our apartment in silence, and once we were inside, Nathaniel turned to me and we put our arms around each other. It had been a long, long time since we’d held each other like that, and even though I knew he was clinging to me out of sorrow and fear more than affection, I was glad for it.

“Those poor people,” he said into my shoulder, and I sighed back. Then he pulled away from me, angry. “This is New York,” he said. “It’s 2049! Jesus Christ!” Yes, I wanted to say, it’s New York. It’s 2049. That’s exactly the problem. But I didn’t.

We took a long shower then, which was a grotesque thing to do, given what we’d just seen, but there was something delicious about it, and defiant, too—a way of telling ourselves that we could get clean whenever we wanted, that we weren’t those people, that we never would be. Or at least that’s what I said as we lay there in bed, after. “Tell me that won’t happen to us,” Nathaniel said. “That will never happen to us,” I said. “Promise me,” he said. “I promise you,” I told him. Though I couldn’t promise. But what else was I going to say? Then we lay there for a while, listening to the purr of the air conditioner, and then he left to pick the baby up from swimming lessons.