The Bed That Was Never Mine

The first night I slept in New York, I slept on the floor.

Not because there was nowhere to live, but because the basement apartment had everything except a bed. The landlord said it casually, as if it were a rule of nature.

“Just make do for a few days. All new immigrants do.”

It was nearly three in the morning when we dragged our suitcases inside. The basement light gave off a tired yellow glow. A dehumidifier hummed in the corner, filling the room with the smell of damp wood and old detergent. I pushed our luggage against the wall and spread the thin blanket we had brought from China. My wife lay down with our child.

I stayed sitting on the floor, my back against the wall.

That was when it occurred to me that I no longer had a way back.

The next morning, we went to Manhattan’s Chinatown to meet a distant relative. On the phone, she had sounded efficient and distant.

“Let’s meet first. Some things are better explained in person.”

We waited for her in Roosevelt Park for more than an hour. Our child ran back and forth near the playground. My wife sat quietly on a bench, saying nothing. I watched pigeons peck at crumbs on the ground and wondered how long we were supposed to wait for a life to begin.

When she finally arrived, I felt an unreasonable sense of relief, as if hope itself had been late.

“How was last night?” she asked casually.

“Fine,” I said, smiling.

She looked at me for a second—long enough to understand, short enough not to acknowledge it.

“You’ll have to buy a bed eventually,” she said. “Beds are expensive here. A decent one costs over a thousand dollars. I’ve been in New York for two years and I still sleep on the floor.”

She said it the way people share survival tips, not complaints.

Before leaving, she pulled out a few receipts and handed them to me. Her tone shifted—professional, efficient.

“I covered your security deposit. Five hundred. And the airport pickup last night was sixty. You can pay me back now.”

I took out the money and handed it to her. At that moment, I understood something important: in New York, help and accounting often arrive together.

She rushed off quickly, walking like someone already late for the next obligation. I watched her disappear into the crowd and realized that immigrant life wasn’t dramatic—it was rushed.

“Old Xu?”

I turned around.

Standing behind me was a familiar face I hadn’t expected to see anywhere, let alone here. Liang. We had known each other years ago back in China—writing workshops, late-night drinks, conversations about literature that went nowhere. Then life happened, and we lost contact.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“Early this morning.”

“Where are you staying?”

I hesitated, then handed him the address card the landlord had given me. He glanced at it and smiled.

“That’s funny. I live nearby.”

That afternoon, Liang drove us to a supermarket, then to a discount store, then to a secondhand shop. He didn’t talk much. He moved with the efficiency of someone who had done this before—many times.

When he dropped us off at the basement apartment, he looked around the empty rooms.

“You don’t have a bed?”

I shook my head.

“My upstairs tenants moved out a few days ago,” he said. “Their bed is still there. Want it?”

My first instinct was to refuse. Pride, even when it’s useless, is stubborn.

“They’re clean,” he added, as if reading my mind. “And the bed’s still good. When I first came to New York, my first bed came from the street.”

That sentence unlocked something in me.

An hour later, the bed was carried into our basement. The mattress was thick, the springs still firm. The sheets were old but clean.

My wife touched the mattress lightly. “Is it borrowed?” she asked quietly.

Before I could answer, Liang spoke.

“If you want it, just give me three hundred.”

The room went silent.

“Three hundred?” I repeated.

“The bed’s worth at least two hundred,” he said. “Plus gas, time, delivery. That’s cheap.”

He said it calmly, almost kindly, as if doing the math for my benefit.

I paused for a moment, then took out my wallet and handed him the money. I did it quickly, before my hesitation could turn into something else.

Liang accepted the money without ceremony. No embarrassment. No reassurance.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll head out.”

After he left, the basement felt quieter than before.

My wife sat on the edge of the bed and pressed down on the mattress.

“It’s actually nice,” she said.

I nodded, but said nothing.

That night, I lay on the bed for the first time—and slept badly. The bed was solid, comfortable even, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t mine. It felt like a borrowed identity, a temporary permission to rest.

A few days later, I found a job at a hardware store. The pay was low. Lunch breaks were unpaid. Every day, the boss politely escorted us out of the store for an hour, explaining that it was required by labor law.

I bought three-dollar barbecue rice boxes and ate them on benches in Roosevelt Park. On rainy days, I stood under staircases like a drifter. That bed became the only place in my day where time didn’t matter.

One evening, I overheard Liang on the phone.

“That bed?” he said. “It stopped being mine a long time ago. It’s changed hands a few times.”

I froze.

Later, I learned the full story. Someone had given the bed to Liang. He sold it to his upstairs tenants. When they moved out, he sold it to me. Before that—who knew how many owners it had already had?

That night, lying on the bed, I finally understood:

The bed had never belonged to anyone.

It was simply passing through different lives, pausing briefly before moving on.

Months later, we saved enough money to buy a new bed. When the delivery workers came to take the old one away, I stood by the door and watched as it was loaded into the truck.

I felt an unexpected emptiness.

That night, lying on a bed that truly belonged to me, I couldn’t fall asleep.

Only then did I understand:

in New York, what’s truly expensive is not the bed, but the illusion of ownership.