Page 233 - A Little Life: A Novel

what he knew to be just. And for what? So he could insure he wouldn’t
become that old man, lonely and sick? It seemed the worst kind of
selfishness, the worst kind of self-indulgence, to disavow what he knew was

right simply because he was frightened, because he was scared of being
uncomfortable and miserable.
Then, two weeks after his meeting with Voigt, he had come home one
Friday night very late. He was exhausted; he’d had to use his wheelchair
that day because the wound on his right leg hurt so much, and he was so
relieved to get home, back to Lispenard Street, that he had felt himself go
weak—in just a few minutes, he would be inside, and he would wrap a

damp washcloth, hot and steamed from the microwave, around his calf and
sit in the warmth. But when he tried the elevator button, he heard nothing
but a grinding of gears, the faint winching noise the machine made when it
was broken.
“No!” he shouted. “No!” His voice echoed in the lobby, and he smacked
his palm against the elevator door again and again: “No, no, no!” He picked

up his briefcase and threw it against the ground, and papers spun up from it.
Around him, the building remained silent and unhelpful.
Finally he stopped, ashamed and angry, and gathered his papers back into
his bag. He checked his watch: it was eleven. Willem was in a play, Cloud
9, but he knew he’d be off stage by then. But when he called him, Willem
didn’t pick up. And then he began to panic. Malcolm was on vacation in
Greece. JB was at an artists’ colony. Andy’s daughter, Beatrice, had just

been born the previous week: he couldn’t call him. There were only so
many people he would let help him, whom he felt at least semi-comfortable
clinging to like a sloth, whom he would allow to drag him up the many
flights.
But in that moment, he was irrationally, intensely desperate to get into
the apartment. And so he stood, tucking his briefcase under his left arm and

collapsing his wheelchair, which was too expensive to leave in the lobby,
with his right. He began to work his way up the stairs, cleaving his left side
to the wall, gripping the chair by one of its spokes. He moved slowly—he
had to hop on his left leg, while trying to avoid putting any weight on his
right, or letting the wheelchair bang against the wound. Up he went,
pausing to rest every third step. There were a hundred and ten steps from
the lobby to the fifth floor, and by the fiftieth, he was shaking so badly he

had to stop and sit for half an hour. He called and texted Willem again and