Opinion

DEATH OF SENTIMENT

Like many New Yorkers, I’ve grown accustomed to tight spaces and bootlegged Internet access. When my only neighbor with an unprotected wireless network moved, however, I found myself, a reporter with a serious Internet addiction, disconnected. I caved and ordered my own service.

My installation kit was sent to the wrong apartment, twice. A third kit arrived empty. When the fourth kit came, I victoriously plugged in the modem. Nothing happened. So I called the tech department.

After convincing the Verizon rep that I wasn’t faking, he sent a technician to help. Elan arrived and asked to see the “Verizon box” in the courtyard behind my Upper West Side building. We called Carl, the super, who explained the only route to this courtyard was through Bill’s apartment on the ground floor.

But Carl couldn’t get in touch with Bill. Both of his numbers were disconnected. Carl also realized that Bill’s rent was uncharacteristically late. Annoyed, he hung up.

Elan suggested we try Bill ourselves. We knocked. No one came. Elan pounded harder, and the door gently creaked open.

“Who leaves their door open in New York?” I mumbled, stepping inside.

Bill was home, but he wasn’t put off by my intrusion. He was dead.

It appeared he had been so for a while. His plump, 60ish body was draped across the couch. A pair of track pants, unzipped at the calves, exposed snowmen-flocked Christmas socks. His bare torso, gently creased and flecked with moles, morphed from gray to navy as it neared the cushion — the result (I later learned) of blood pooling under gravity’s pull.

A woman on the TV moaned. I looked up just as her doctor placed his stethoscope in an unconventional spot. Elan entered.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“It looks like a capital Q.”

Then I saw it, too, on Bill’s face: eyes glazed over and mouth agape, dried tongue hanging from the lower right corner. I considered how long he had been dead. I wondered who we should contact, what we should do.

Elan, unfazed, told me to call the super while he looked for the box. The doctor flipped his buxom patient onto all fours on his exam table.

“I’ve seen this before. These buildings have garden apartments connected to the courtyards. Lots are rent-controlled. People have been living in them for a long time. They’re old. They die. The landlords aren’t as on top of collecting those rents. Then boom! One day someone needs Internet and you find a dead person.”

Carl said he’d be right over, after confirming that yes, I had taken the liberty of letting myself into my neighbor’s apartment, and no, I hadn’t touched anything once inside.

Bill had padlocked the back door. Elan asked me if I wanted to hunt for the key so we could get outside. Looking around the cluttered apartment and at the frozen, Q-shaped mouth, I decided that no, I didn’t really want to go rummaging through this man’s things for the key.

Elan shrugged, “Suit yourself.” On his way out he turned off the TV. “Heart attack watching porn — not a bad way to go.”

I sank into a New Jersey Nets beanbag. Carl arrived, and assured me he’d be around Friday to let the technician out back. “It’ll be easier now since you don’t need his permission.”

He tossed a towel over Bill’s upper half. Bill’s arm, sticking out at ninety-degrees, didn’t budge. “Guess that’s why they call them stiffs!” he said. “How about you and me grab a drink? Bet you could use one.”

I declined, and headed outside, mulling whether the city makes us more callous, or if that’s simply a conceit. The phone guy has to come back later. My super is hitting on me. Bill is dead. I needed a place to log on.

At the library, I e-mailed my friends about what had happened.

One replied immediately. “Do you know how much for the dead guy’s apartment?”

I did. On the walk over, I had decided to rent it.