Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me

by Bill Hayes

agrypnia excitata, a rare genetic condition characterized by insomnia, nervous energy, constant twitching, and dream enactment—an apt description of a city that never sleeps, a place where one comes to reinvent himself.

Here’s another wonder I discovered about life here: In the summertime, late into the night, some leave behind their sweat-dampened sheets to read in the coolness of a park under streetlights. Not Kindles, mind you, or iPhones. But books. Newspapers. Novels. Poetry. Completely absorbed, as if in their own worlds.

New York—which is to say, New Yorkers—will take care of you.

“Suffering a devastating loss is like suffering a brain injury,”

“You’re going to be fine,” Emmanuel said right away. “Something bad always leads to something good.”

By the time I reached London Bridge, where I scattered the last of his cremated ashes, the only significant thing remaining of Steve’s that I had not thrown in was myself. Not that I didn’t consider it.

To be a New Yorker is to be away from the city and feel like you are missing something,

In New York, there is always something amazing happening somewhere that one ends up hearing about only later.

“Sometimes, Billy, you have to go down to go up.”

“You can’t go out there for just an hour and expect to catch. They feel you out. I went today just to be out there—”