It was midnight when I reached Times Square again. The last bus to the airport had left at eleven thirty; the next would come at five in the morning. I had planned to pass the night badly on an airport chair. Now, dragging a large suitcase through the center of the city, it seemed I could only walk gently into that good night.

The night was long, though length did not belong to New York. When I left a late film, it was already three, and Times Square remained ablaze. Enormous screens carried advertisements for Xinhua News Agency, Samsung, and Coca-Cola. Xinhua sat highest, the majesty of the nation spilling over the heart of capitalism.

Most tourists had dispersed. The bare-breasted women, SpongeBob, and Iron Man had gone off duty. In the morning, they would again put on—or take off—their clothes, force smiles for every passerby, demand a photograph, then ask for a tip.

Without the flattery and novelty, Times Square after midnight was still bizarre and variegated, every flavor at once.

It belonged to vehicles exhausted by the bustle, artificial light like ecstasy, and drunken giggles arriving from time to time. It belonged to the meticulous cleaner in red, unnoticed most of the night, who always launched into a rap song while emptying the rubbish. It belonged to the man grilling kebabs on the corner, forever staring in one direction as though he longed for the passing cars, or avoided the gaze of the police cruiser nearby, or thought of nothing.

For a moment, I sat on a chair with only scattered figures around me, every coming and going unrelated to me, and suddenly wanted to know them. If I could speak with even three people before five, I thought, the wait would have been worthwhile.

And I did speak with three.

The first person I approached was the kebab vendor who stared into space. He wore a cap, and his stubble had not been shaved in a long time. Afraid I lacked grounds to begin talking from nothing, I bought a bottle of water. Two dollars.

As he handed it over, I asked casually, "Have you been working here all day?"

"No. Only nights."

"I have nothing to do, so I wanted to talk to someone. I have to catch the five-o'clock bus to the airport. All I can do is walk around here."

"Don't worry. It's nearly five. What time is it now? Three thirty."

"How long have you been here?" I meant how long he had kept a stall in Times Square.

"Eighteen years. Eighteen years," he said. He had come from Egypt eighteen years ago.

"Egypt is wonderful. What do you think of New York?"

He smiled and said nothing.

I leaned against his cart, the smoke from the kebabs blowing into my face. Before long, a customer arrived, a drunken man the Egyptian vendor seemed to know.

"Hey, bro. Where's your friend tonight?" he said, lifting a fist for a bump.

The drunk said nothing. He merely handed over the money.

The vendor had to open his fist to take the bills. Quietly, he grilled the man's kebab. The customer took it and staggered away.

Then the Egyptian vendor turned his back to me and resumed staring in the same direction.

Tentatively, I asked, "Do you ever feel lonely here?"

He neither turned nor answered.

I was cold, so I entered Starbucks. Inside, a homeless man was shouting curses to himself.

"Fuck. Fucking world. Fuck!"

Hysteria like this was not unusual in New York. In fact, being a quiet homeless person here would make you exceptional.

I bought a bottled vanilla latte. As I took it, the man stopped me. All his aggression vanished. He spoke heavily.

"Could you buy me a coffee? I'm so thirsty."

The employee behind the counter shouted, "You need to leave. Stop causing trouble in here."

I had encountered many similar situations and always gone around them. Today I said, "All right. If a cup of coffee will make you happy."

While I ordered, he hid far away.

"You buy it for me. They won't let me buy it myself."

At the counter, the employee said, "I'm so sorry. You know, we get people like this every day."

"It's fine. Does he come every day?"

"Not him. But people like him. You know."

When I gave him the coffee, I asked his name. Donaldson, he said, and reached to shake my hand. I hesitated before taking it.

Only the two of us remained in the whole Starbucks, along with two employees and a Black woman in the corner. She had many belongings with her and said nothing, only looking through the window.

As Donaldson drank, I asked where he was from.

"The Bronx. But I live in New Jersey now."

"Tell me. What made you so upset?"

He was pouring packet after packet of sugar into his coffee. At the question, the temper already stirring inside him broke free.

"The smuggler. It's all that smuggler's fault. He cheated me out of eight thousand dollars. Eight thousand! That smuggler—my fifteen thousand dollars, all gone! That's why I'm homeless now. Everything's gone. I'm not a homeless man. I don't look like that kind of person, do I?"

I nodded.

"You have no home now?"

"No. Oh, I do have a home. In New Jersey. There's a woman there too. We live under the same roof. Like me, she's going through a hard time."

I asked his age and what he planned to do after finishing the coffee.

"Twenty-five. Plans for the future? The future..." He paused. "I'm a boxer. You can tell, right? A very good boxer. The future. Mm. A gym in the Bronx already has work for me. I'm a fitness coach. One of the best."

"That's wonderful."

He kept emptying sugar into the cup one packet at a time. Looking into my eyes, he said:

"You know, I have a master's degree. A master's in nutrition."

He had put in more than ten packets by then.

"Is that much sugar really all right?"

"Sugar gives me energy. Energy. Coffee has to be mixed with the right amount of milk and sugar to go smoothly down the throat. Mm. Nutrition. You know, I can cook too. But I don't make rice."

He swallowed the entire coffee at once, then spat into the rubbish bag.

As he turned away, I called, "I hope you have a happy day!"

He did not look back.

"Thank you!"

Then he strode grandly out the door, like the Monkey King turning away in A Chinese Odyssey.

The Black woman and I looked at each other and smiled.

She appeared to be around sixty. While Donaldson and I spoke, she had watched quietly, sometimes smiling at me.

"Do people like him come here often?" I asked.

"Yes. Homeless people like that come in and cause trouble every day. But this is New York City. Nothing that happens in New York is surprising. We've seen it all."

Buying him coffee was good, she said, but avoiding him would have been better. A person like that could erupt at any moment. She did not want to see me hurt.

"You see, the employees won't engage with him. They have no way to protect themselves except calling the police. I suppose you aren't local. In New York City, you have to protect yourself. I stay here until five every day before going to the subway, because the subway is too dangerous at this hour."

"That's very sad."

"Yes. Sad. But there is nothing to do."

"Why New York, though? Why do so many unfortunate people here become hysterical and bitter at the world?"

"Because it is New York City. The center of the world, the most magical place on earth. Because of the wealth it promises, because of the prosperity it once brought. In the end, because the fantasy of the American Dream still exists. These young people have far more passion than others. They come from every part of the country and discover the wealth here does not belong to them. The fantasy breaks, and passion turns to anger.

"Young man, you have to understand. This is New York City—a New York City that is rotting. How many people graduate from university with degrees and end up selling sausages? Since the crisis, every day has been worse than the last. Never mind all the lights outside. Everyone is afraid for themselves now."

Her words were not quick or incisive, but they were poetic and kind. They made me want to talk with her.

I told her I attended school on the West Coast, had come from China, and was only visiting New York.

Her name was Diana, she said. She came from Jamaica as a child and had forgotten what home looked like. She did not know whether she would ever return. She worked on Eighth Street, not far away, and still labored to secure each day's food.

"The world always has good times and bad. But now the problem is no longer an alternation between good and bad. The building itself has begun to collapse. The system can no longer sustain itself. Banks fail, industries go bankrupt. This is a century of chaos.

"You know, it is also the inevitable result. People focus on 'things,' but things always disappear. What can a person leave behind in a lifetime? How can anyone know what they will face?

"Your Getty on the West Coast went bankrupt seven times. Did he know every time that he would rise again? As for me, my mother died three weeks ago. I only went to the store. When I returned, I found she had left peacefully, gone to the next world. What can a person know before fate?"

I could see her life was straitened, but she possessed a quiet, transcendent air, the opposite of Donaldson.

"Are you a Christian?"

She was.

I told her she had a Christian grace, the kind only the most devout possessed.

"Then if we give up our obsession with 'things,' what do we live for?"

"We human beings were not created to control things. We were created to serve God. Life is only an instant. Every thing passes in a flash. Only God is eternal, the source of all things and all life. We human beings are forever insufficient. Before death, we cannot leave behind any wealth."

She did not mean that people should abandon every pursuit and wait to die. She meant we should stop looking at things and strive instead to love, strive to live.

"Yes. I bought him coffee just now only to make him a little happier, and to talk. I never did that before."

"Inside, I believe what you did deserves a reward. You didn't despise him because he was dangerous. You didn't let who he was stop your compassion. God will remember your act.

"You know, life is uncertain. It rises and falls. Sometimes you truly must give before you receive. One day after my mother died, I gave a cousin who was struggling twenty dollars. When I returned and sorted through my mother's papers, I found two hundred dollars long forgotten. Was that not God's will?"

"But," she said, "kindness is real, while choosing is more difficult than anything. Look outside. The streets are full of people living inside illusions, and we are unarmed. What more can I do except seek God's protection?

"Young man, amid all the dazzling colors of New York, decay has begun in silence. Judgment Day will come. But the good will receive grace. May God bless you. May you travel safely."

At the end, Diana and I took a photograph together. It was five in the morning when I stepped outside.

The sun had not risen, but Times Square was gradually returning to its usual crowds. Young men and women who had drunk until nothing remained shouted "Love" beneath the cameras. Wearing a cheap sweater, Beckham played pool again and again across an enormous H&M billboard. High-rises stood solemn and tightly ranked.

The sky was white through the night, without stars—the whole world's spotlights shone here, so bright that no one could see.

But being swallowed did not matter. Times Square promised people happiness, so long as they never tired of the game.