The neighbor who died outside my apartment door

Through the peephole, I saw two paramedics crouching over a lifeless body

Part of Central Park has become a field hospital (AP)

At the beginning of February, I moved to the Upper West Side from Hell’s Kitchen. I’d hated it there, next to the Lincoln Tunnel — always so loud, horns honking, sirens blaring. My new place was the opposite: pin-drop quiet, despite the busy birds chirping outside my window.

The people are different too. My old place was full of yuppies. Young bourgeois types trying to one-up each other by way of materialism. And my new place — it’s old, like the threshold of a retirement center. Most everyone is of senior age, gray-haired; there are lots of walkers. It’s a slower pace here, and I like that — it reminds me of home back in Cincinnati.

Right now, I wish I was home. Just in case. Because in January, my dad was diagnosed with emphysema. I’m scared as hell he’s not going to make it. Especially when the Respiratory Health Association says, “People with underlying health conditions, including COPD, are more likely to experience serious complications if they become infected with Covid-19.”

What if something happens and I’m not there to say goodbye? Not that it matters, because as far as I understand once you get the virus you don’t get hospital visitors. You die alone like a barbarian in war.

And I’m in the thick of it. The thickest most part of world, hunkering down and trying to dodge this damn thing, just like you. But there is something magical about being in the most infected place on earth and that is: 7pm.

Not because that’s when Wheel of Fortune is on, either. But because, for three minutes out of the entire 1,440 of the day, we live! Me and my fellow New Yorkers un-quarantine ourselves from our tiny apartments, stand on our balconies, and cheer for the heroes who put themselves and their best interests second. For them it’s just another day, another cataclysm. For the rest of us, it’s an all-out apocalypse.

I couldn’t tell you the exact day we all came together and cheered. The first few days laid dead silent. And then, one day, everyone started clapping and yelling, hooting and hollering. Hell, it must have taken me a week to realize that we weren’t cussing out coronavirus; that those three minutes weren’t reserved to go all Howard Beale about our newfound livelihood: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it any more!”

I felt like a fool when I found out that those three minutes weren’t about me and my woes; that those cheers went to people like my brother, a nurse in Chicago, my best friend and the best guy I know. From that moment on, at 7pm, I made sure to be there every single night—loud enough to be heard all the way in Chi-town. For the first few weeks, I clapped with a lump in my throat, sometimes not even making it the full three minutes. That’s how heroic I am.

It’s not all bad, really. Still plenty moments of normalcy. Normal, meaning the way things used to be before the world stopped completely. I’m still able to walk all around Central Park, minus the small plot of land across the street from Mount Sinai where 14 tents stand for Covid-19 patients.

But normal doesn’t last too long. The other day, I was watching the final episode of Ozark (my favorite show.) About halfway through, a beeping sound from down the hall interrupted my jollies — probably someone’s smoke alarm acting up. Mine had the night before. I was laying down and counting sheep, then —“Beep…Beep.” Damn it! I got up, scaring off all my sheep, then ripping the smoke alarm off the wall. I couldn’t get the batteries out, so I stuffed it in the hamper to kill the noise. It worked.

But this alarm sounded different — louder, with an urgent echo. After a minute of incessant beeping, I grew irritated and paused my show.

“You’re gonna be okay, ma’am. You’re in good hands,” someone muffled from the hall.

I hurried to the door, alarmed at the sound of dire gasps, lungs pleading for air. I held my breath, hoping to save whatever fresh air was left for her. I had no way of knowing, but all I can think was: corona. Through the peephole, I saw two paramedics crouching over a lifeless body. I thought of opening the door, asking if they needed help. But I don’t have gloves or a mask, and of course no ventilator. Not that it would help much anyway, since news reports recently informed us that 80 per cent of those placed in ventilators in New York had died.

Stuck, not sure what to do, I stood frozen by the door. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The breathing sounded worse and worse.

Again, I thought of opening the door so that she didn’t have to die in the arms of strangers. Not that I knew her either, but what if that was my dad? Wouldn’t he like a familiar face? But what if she doesn’t want me there? She probably didn’t want any of us there. She'd want her family by her side. She'd want to say goodbye.

The breathing stopped, the beeping too. I heard them enter the elevator. Watched from the window as they loaded her into the ambulance. And cried when they drove away.

6:58 PM: I haven’t blinked in hours.

6:59 PM: Outside, the cheers start earlier than usual. I can’t. I’m almost sick to my stomach.

7:00 PM: I stand up. Go to my balcony and join the others. The first minute, I cheer for the lady from the hallway. The second minute, for the heroes working tirelessly. And the third, for you.

With each passing day, my concern grows and grows. This person, my neighbor — is she okay? Is she in Central Park? Or in the back of a refrigerator truck? Another statistic, one of the 154,000 pandemic deaths?

I ask every employee I see: Chris at the front desk, Kelvin the porter, and Mike from the mailroom. No one knows a thing. Then, more than a week later, I see a neighbor in the hall, through her N95 mask she tells me, “She passed. She was 73 and died of respiratory failure.”

That same night at 7:04, after the clapping commenced, those outside break into song, singing Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” For the first time since I heard that beeping outside my door, everything felt right. It felt proper, almost like a normal funeral should.