the last book I ever read (Everything is an Afterthought, excerpt three)

from Kevin Avery's Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson:

Leonard Cohen had offered Paul some advice: "When you're dealing with disorder in your own mind, it's agreeable to have at least your surroundings well-ordered." Paul agreed, but he could barely keep a place of his own--and the city he'd once loved had turned "truly terrifying" and "horrible." He was in Manhattan late one wintry night when, on his way home to Long Island City, Queens, he descended into the subway. "I got halfway down the steps and just saw bodies. I was so stunned. I would guess 250 to 300 people sleeping in this one subway station. You could barely get to the tollbooth--you had to step over and around them--and you could barely get down the steps to the train. I felt like this must be what Calcutta was like--and this was just one stop.

"You don't stay sane on the street," Paul said, "you don't. You walk around that city and there are people lying on the sidewalk. You cannot avoid it unless you don't leave your apartment. You're going to be touched by it. It's so pervasive. It's just taken for granted that there are going to be six people lying on the sidewalk when you walk out that night or forty people are going to ask you for money. You just become immune to it and you become inhuman."