Page 653 - A Little Life: A Novel
P. 653

hears Harold walk away from him.
                   After  Harold  leaves,  he  takes  the  elevator  to  the  roof.  Here  there  is  a
                stone wall, chest-high, that lines the perimeter of the building, and he leans

                against it, swallowing the cool air, placing his palms flat against the top of
                the wall to try to stop them from shaking. He thinks of Willem, of how he
                and Willem used to stand on this roof at night, not saying anything, just
                looking down into other people’s apartments. From the southern end of the
                roof,  they  could  almost  see  the  roof  of  their  old  building  on  Lispenard
                Street, and sometimes they would pretend that they could see not just the
                building,  but  them  within  it,  their  former  selves  performing  a  theater  of

                their daily lives.
                   “There must be a fold in the space-time continuum,” Willem would say
                in his action-hero voice. “You’re here beside me, and yet—I can see you
                moving  around  in  that  shithole  apartment.  My  god,  St.  Francis:  Do  you
                realize  what’s  going  on  here?!”  Back  then,  he  would  always  laugh,  but
                remembering this now, he cannot. These days, his only pleasure is thoughts

                of  Willem,  and  yet  those  same  thoughts  are  also  his  greatest  source  of
                sorrow. He wishes he could forget as completely as Lucien has: that Willem
                ever existed, his life with him.
                   As he stands on the roof, he considers what he has done: He has been
                irrational. He has gotten angry at someone who has, once again, offered to
                help him, someone he is grateful for, someone he owes, someone he loves.
                Why am I acting like this, he thinks. But there’s no answer.

                   Let me get better, he asks. Let me get better or let me end it. He feels that
                he is in a cold cement room, from which prong several exits, and one by
                one, he is shutting the doors, closing himself in the room, eliminating his
                chances for escape. But why is he doing this? Why is he trapping himself in
                this place he hates and fears when there are other places he could go? This,
                he thinks, is his punishment for depending on others: one by one, they will

                leave him, and he will be alone again, and this time it will be worse because
                he will remember it had once been better. He has the sense, once again, that
                his life is moving backward, that it is becoming smaller and smaller, the
                cement box shrinking around him until he is left with a space so cramped
                that he must fold himself into a crouch, because if he lies down, the ceiling
                will lower itself upon him and he will be smothered.
                   Before  he  goes  to  bed  he  writes  Harold  a  note  apologizing  for  his

                behavior. He works through Saturday; he sleeps through Sunday. And a new
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