Page 85 - A Little Life: A Novel

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SATURDAYS WERE FOR work, but Sundays were for walking. The walks had
begun out of necessity five years ago, when he had moved to the city and
knew little about it: each week, he would choose a different neighborhood
and walk from Lispenard Street to it, and then around it, covering its
perimeter precisely, and then home again. He never skipped a Sunday,
unless the weather made it near impossible, and even now, even though he
had walked every neighborhood in Manhattan, and many in Brooklyn and

Queens as well, he still left every Sunday morning at ten, and returned only
when his route was complete. The walks had long ceased to be something
he enjoyed, although he didn’t not enjoy them, either—it was simply
something he did. For a period, he had also hopefully considered them
something more than exercise, something perhaps restorative, like an

amateur physical therapy session, despite the fact that Andy didn’t agree
with him, and indeed disapproved of his walks. “I’m fine with your wanting
to exercise your legs,” he’d said. “But in that case, you should really be
swimming, not dragging yourself up and down pavement.” He wouldn’t
have minded swimming, actually, but there was nowhere private enough for
him to swim, and so he didn’t.
Willem had occasionally joined him on these walks, and now, if his route

took him past the theater, he would time it so they could meet at the juice
stand down the block after the matinee performance. They would have their
drinks, and Willem would tell him how the show had gone and would buy a
salad to eat before the evening performance, and he would continue south,
toward home.
They still lived at Lispenard Street, although both of them could have

moved into their own apartments: he, certainly; Willem, probably. But
neither of them had ever mentioned leaving to the other, and so neither of
them had. They had, however, annexed the left half of the living room to
make a second bedroom, the group of them building a lumpy Sheetrocked
wall one weekend, so now when you walked in, there was only the gray
light from two windows, not four, to greet you. Willem had taken the new
bedroom, and he had stayed in their old one.