Am I Dead?

Something for Everyone in the App Store

I’ve not written much in the last months, certainly not here. Apologies for that persistent dull ache you’ve been feeling in your chest. Maybe see a doctor.

The daily mental decathlon of trying to stay positive—or at bare minimum conscious and upright—under the weight of underemployment and literally everything. The feeling that maybe no one was listening (or in your case, reading) —made tangible in the ongoing impersonal spanking machine that is applying for work. Pursuing a master’s degree in middle age that feels nothing like Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School. For one thing, I can’t dive.

When you sit at your wheezing, overheated MacBook (2019 isn’t old, is it?) to tap out something entertaining for people to read, it’s open season on overthinking until something happens to bring a little focus.

Last month, I got my advanced degree in New Yorker-hood.

I got a text from my next-door neighbor, telling me that one of our neighbors had died. We’ll call him Apt. 44, 44 for short.

He was an older gentleman who rarely seemed to leave the building aside from one of the (I assume, many) medical appointments that come standard in the autumn and winter years. For his internal building travels -- picking up mail or dropping off recycling -- one could expect to see 44 in an oversized undershirt, often lightly stained or with a time-earned deep V-neck (more like a wide U), gym shorts and Crocs. Often out of breath, face perpetually flushed and his thin, longish red and grey curls in disarray. In his defense he wasn’t going “out.”

The fact is: 44 was a gentle sweet soul.

We shared the elevator countless times and made the usual New York small talk –the weather, with a side order of local or national politics or updates on the building. All just variations of complaints and commiserations…as neighbors do.

Always friendly, he’d often say something kind about my son’s manners or marvel at his relentless growth, which is de rigueur since we’ve been here since The Boy was a toddler.

We’ve lived in this building for over a decade. It’s not big by New York standards – a scant seven floors with six apartments each. Not nothing, but certainly not a massive skyscraper filled with hundreds of anonymous cookie cutter units or a skyline-marring billionaire’s steel middle finger to the world. No, this is a hundred year old, pre-war building with an old timey name – “Fife Arms” - carved into the stone façade above our stoop.

Old world charm (with all-too modern rent) doesn’t always offset the double digit layers of paint, uneven and creaky floors and doorknobs that detach at will. We’ve stayed here this long because of its subtle sense of community. There’s a strong contingency of longtime residents, many of them senior managers at the legendary Upper West Side market Zabar’s, whose family owns the property.

The building manager is a kindly den mother who’s lived here since the 80s. She’s married to the super, and her son lives a floor below us and helps out around the building too – it’s a real family feel.

Everyone kind of knows - or at least recognizes - each other, mostly identified by the dog or kids in tow. I am quite sure that very few people in the building have any idea what my name is – but they know me as Thelma’s dog walker and The Boy’s dad.

I had learned and forgotten 44’s floor as many times as I’d pressed the elevator button for him. And even though it was right there in that text — I never learned his name. It took a series of follow-ups to figure out who had died.

I checked in with the building manager about 44’s passing. She told me he’d been here since the 70s and not only lived alone but had no family to speak of. He had a tendency to fall. She knew because she and her husband lived directly below him. He’d rap on the floor to ask them to help him up. Old school Life Alert.

He was “found” the day before when one of his neighbors (another face-not-name I knew) called in a wellness check. The classic New York nightmare – dying alone in your apartment only to be found when the smell was undeniable. Thankfully it was only the former. Still – it felt like a swift cricket bat to the gut.

He died quietly in his chair. Had his neighbor not called it in – who knows how long he’d have been there? Alone.

We all live in such close proximity here, but 44 was just another extra in whatever movie was playing out in my head. A line item on the bill for living in this town. It’s sad, bordering on shameful.

But now he’s gone and I know his name. It was Paul, by the way.

There’s An App for That

Around the same time, I had clicked on an article on CNN.com about a new app going viral in China called “Are You Dead?” It’s intended for the growing number of people who live alone there. This depressing bit of code has a simple function; you check in on the app every day. If you miss too many days in a row, it will automatically notify your emergency contact.

The article quoted China’s (state-run) Global Times projecting that by 2030, there could be as many as 200 million single-person households in the country out of their 1.4 billion citizens.

It quoted social media praise for the app from young people: “For the first time, someone is concerned about whether I’m dead or alive.” Another posted: “This 8-yuan [around $1.15] app is somehow the last bit of dignity for so many young people living alone. The scariest thing isn’t loneliness – it’s disappearing.”

Loneliness and despair. At scale.

I could rage at our increasingly divided, digitized world. But what would that change?

Instead, I’m writing this. Telling you about Paul.

If for nothing else to ask myself the question – Am I Dead? Spoiler alert: I’m not.

**Note: Since finishing this essay, our building lost our longtime super Pedro, who along with his wife Barbara and son Michael made the Fife Arms feel like home for decades. My heart goes out to the family.