New York must be the recluse capital of the world. Where else can a person behave precisely like an adult toddler, holed up in the "crib" with deliverymen as the attending nannies? Reading the piece entitled "Soundtrack," involving Bill's mysterious ex-neighbor, inspired me to reflect on...
CHARLYN. I rented a room in Charlyn's small University Place apartment for a brief period in 1998. She was ostensibly a freelance photographer -- a curious achievement for someone who never laid one digit on a camera during my stay there, even to take pictures of the one room that she rarely left. I was renting the bedroom, and Charlyn slept in a loft over the small living room area. Every day when I left for work, she was at her computer with the TV on. Every day when I came home, she was still there -- unless she had gone out for one of the two reasons she ever left: To swim at the YMCA or to get more supplies for her shut-in lifestyle. She was somehow able to support herself on her extant photo stock (and, of course, by overcharging me for my room). When I left the house for New Year's Eve, she was there. Thanksgiving, Christmas: there. She was unmemorable, but not unsalvageable, in the looks department: She was probably close to 40 and had long dark hair, which she always wore in a ponytail. She was short and neither thin nor fat. She wore glasses, which camouflaged the eyes that I imagined had shriveled away from constantly staring at her computer and TV. I wondered what had happened to her to push her indoors. I rarely heard her talk on the phone, and the only evidence of a previous personal life existed in the form of a black-and-white photo of a serious-looking man who looked not unlike an Israeli Brando. Was he an ex? A relative who had died? I never got a handle on it. After all, the beauty in being a hermit is never having to explain yourself. I certainly wasn't going to ask her what made her such a nightmare. She hated having me there (among my crimes: leaving too much water on the bathroom sink counter, leaving my mail on the living room table for more than a day, and breathing), and I hated being there. Now sometimes I walk by the apartment, and I can see that my old room is empty. But she is still there, a ponytail and two blue monitor reflections. Just, there.
JOHN. What's curious to me is how they keep going. Like Charlyn, John was pale and fortyish and nondescript. He was thinner than Charlyn, but they both had that same papery, uninsistent presence. It was as if either of them might have been a sketch that wasn't colored in, or a film projection instead of the real thing. They would fade away were they not so determined to plod forth in their dismal routines. John lived upstairs from me in my last New York apartment. He is a writer. I know this because he told me so when he chose to answer my complaint about his incessant footsteps, nearly one month after I had left him an overly cheerful and pleading note reminding him that his every uncarpeted step was an assault on my ceiling. I could not understand the amount of walking he did. We both had the same tiny apartment: Where was he going? Whither the strolling? He informed me that as a writer, he paces. I did not see how, given the amount of pacing he did, he was able to get a moment to jot anything down. It wouldn't have been so bad except that he was there, day in and day out, active and stomping from 6 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. On the rare occasions that his phone would ring, a machine would pick it up. I imagine that for him, hell will be to live underneath himself.
MY FRIEND'S COUSIN. Okay. In truth I do not know that my friend's cousin is a recluse, since my knowledge of him is limited to a 20-minute conversation that occurred at No Malice Palace in July 2002. But certain indicators were present. Although employed at an outside day job as an analyst, Bob could produce no examples of places where he liked to go out. When pressed, he mentioned a couple of bars in his neighborhood that he liked to go to -- by himself. According to him, the furniture in his apartment was all from college, futon and all (he is in his thirties). The first thing he said when I asked him about himself was, "I'm boring, basically." I responded, "But at least you know how to sell yourself." The thing is, like the others, he seemed like he could have been alright. It's just, something happened along the way. What happened?
MYSELF. Of course, the reason I recognize at least two of the above as recluses is because I have been enough of a shut-in to be annoyed at other shut-ins who were raining on my parade by existing, relentlessly, proximate to me. My personal warning sign: Talking back to NPR.
Of course, none of the above is a real-live recluse, because each has been known to venture outside at least once a day. And in my case, there have been periods of regression and recovery. I don't know what this makes us, other than simply misfits. Have you ever known an authentic shut-in? Feel free to share. Maybe we can make it a sort of research project.
October 11, 2002