by Gae Polisner
“Yeah, I’m here,” I say, “you okay?”
There’s so much noise in the background, it’s hard to hear what he says, something that ends with, “And, you?” I clear my throat.
“We’re fine, Dad. I tried to reach you. I left messages … I was just on the phone with Mom. She’s really worried about you…”
“I know, Kyle. I got your message this morning, knew you made it home safe and were with Matty. Listen, there’s no service down here. Nothing…” When he speaks again, his voice breaks completely, which is hard to take. “Can you call her for me? Tell her I love her. And let her know I’m all right.”
“Yeah, of course I will,” I say, trying not to lose it now myself. “She’s calling me back any minute. They’re staying with Kerri’s acting teacher from the camp. And Uncle Matt is good. I’m taking care of everything here.”
“I know you are, son. I’m not likely getting calls down here any time soon. It’s total chaos. I can barely…” His voice breaks again, then disappears. When it returns, it’s more measured. “Our guys are down here, too, Kyle, under everything … I have to—you understand? I have to stay and get them out. The whole unit will stay down here … I don’t know how long. I’m going to need you to manage without me for a while more.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s fine. We’re fine … I’ll tell Mom.”
A fresh round of banging and machinery starts up in the background. “Okay, I’ve got to go, kid. Give Matty a kiss for me. I’m proud of you.” He stops. No, not stops. My badass dad is crying. I wait for his regular voice to return again, normal, safer sounding. But instead he says, “And stay inside, you hear me? Don’t go anywhere. Not until we know for sure what’s going on.”
“Okay. I promise,” I say. And, though I know I shouldn’t, I ask, “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“I hope so, kid. I think so. The military is all over it now. But I don’t know when I’ll be home. Not tonight. So hold down the fort.”
“Okay, we will.” My eyes dart down the hall. Me, Uncle Matt, and the bird girl. “Do what you need to do,” I say. “I’ll let Mom know now.”
He hangs up. I let out a shaky breath and wait for my mother to call back.
WAR ZONES
At midnight I call Marcus. He’s probably sound asleep, but our apartment is too quiet, and calls finally seem to be going through.
I shouldn’t be awake, either. I’m tired, and the girl has been asleep for hours. And it took a whole lot of effort to get Uncle Matt ready for bed.
Still, I’m restless and figure I might as well bother him, do something that feels normal for a minute.
His phone rings four times before he picks up. “Shit, mon, what the fock?”
“Hey, sorry, dude. Didn’t mean to wake you, just thought I’d check in.”
“Is after midnight, no?”
Marcus is from Uganda, and if you catch him off guard before he checks himself, his otherwise faded accent is especially strong. Sharp on the T’s and hard consonants, soft on R’s, drawn out on some vowels, long on others. Bangor and the other guys joke that he’s Rastafarian or Jamaican, and Bangor calls him Sanka Coffie after the guy from the movie Cool Runnings, which is moronic since we repeatedly tell him that Uganda has nothing to do with Jamaica. Obviously, geography isn’t Bangor’s strong suit, and Marcus thinks it’s funny.
Marcus has a good sense of humor, which is amazing, since his early life was horrible in a way he doesn’t like to talk about. We give him shit sometimes about how weird he is, forgetting how bad it really was. I think his real parents were murdered in a refugee camp, but I don’t know the whole story. All I know is that he was adopted from there when he was five or six. “Adopted, possibly,” he likes to joke, “into the whitest family in all of America.” His dad is Scandinavian—pale skin, white-blond hair and eyebrows. His mom is pale, too—Irish, with bright red hair that makes mine look blond and even my sister’s look washed out.
He calls his parents here Mom and Dad, and never talks about what happened to his real family in Uganda. “This is my real family,” he once said when I asked. “The others, bock there, they but a dream. Like the song about the rowboat, you know?”
I never really pushed him again.
His parents here are awesome, rich but super laid back. Since he had such a hard life before, I think all they want for him now is to be happy. They spoil him ridiculously, and support everything he does. The way my dad always does with Kerri. But not me.
Kerri’s a girl. What are you going to do with all that music? The Donohue men share a tradition …
“You there, mon?” Marcus asks, bringing me back. “You call me, remember?”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s been crazy here, dude. My dad is still down there, you know?”
“Oh, fock, Kyle, I didn’t think about that.”
“It’s okay. I couldn’t reach him all day, but he called a few hours ago … I swear, Marcus, I was sure…” I don’t finish the thought. “Anyway, he’s all right now, but he’s Task Force, you know? So I don’t know when he’ll be home.”
“Whoa, that’s crazy.”
“I know, right?” It’s quiet, then I add, “By the way, it wasn’t after midnight when I called. It was exactly midnight. I looked at a clock.”
Marcus laughs. It’s so good to hear him laugh. To hear anyone laugh.
“Whatever, mon,” he says, “Is not like we have school in the morning.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” This fact settles over us. It could be days—weeks—before we go back again. “Any idea when?” I ask.
“No, you?”
“No.” There’s another pause, and you can tell we’re both thinking about this morning, watching the first tower go down, the chaos that followed in the hallways when they announced they were evacuating all of Lower Manhattan. “So, is the city weird?”
“Understatement. You’re lucky you in Brooklyn. No one outside here and, of course, my parents be flippin’. No subways running. No restaurants open. It’s like the focking zombie apocalypse.”
“I hear you,” I say, smiling a little because Marcus’s cursing sounds nice, like music or something. He can get away with it, even in front of my dad. But when he speaks again, his voice is so quiet I can barely hear it.
“Like a focking war zone,” he says.
And then I get choked up because I can tell it’s all making him think about home—about Uganda and whatever fucked-up shit happened there, about losing his parents—and today, for once, I understand that better than I ever really understood it before.
It’s not like I know much about his country’s history, only the stuff we’ve learned in social studies about Idi Amin and the guys who came after him whose names I can’t remember. How, for decades, there was a constant state of genocide. Maybe there still is. Jesus, I should know more about it. I’m going to make a point to learn more.
“I know,” I say, “Here, too, but probably not as bad as in the city. But—get this, dude—not only is my dad down there, but my mom and Kerri were supposed to be flying home today…”
I hear Marcus sit up in his bed. When he talks again, he sounds clearer, more sharp.
“Holy shit, Kyle. They still in California?”
“Yeah. Remember I told you Kerri got that callback thing? Well, they had that yesterday and were supposed to fly back this morning. They could have been on one of those planes.”
“Shit,” he says, again. “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize.”
“Yeah, I know. But so far everyone’s okay.” For the first time all day, I feel better about things, talking to Marcus about all of this crap. Like there’s a good reason I’ve been so freaked out all day, like I’m not some big wuss, because it’s actually a big deal that I’ve been alone in this mess, waiting to hear from everyone. “It’s been surreal, dude,” I say. “And I have to take care of Uncle Matt…”
I trail off when I hear the bathroom door open and close down the
hall. The girl must be up. I still haven’t told Marcus about her. I don’t want to. I think maybe I’m worried he’ll think I’m crazy for bringing her here, or maybe he won’t believe me. Maybe I don’t completely believe it myself.
“Anyway, I should let you get back to sleep.”
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “But now that I’m up, I should tell you…” His voice trails off, and when he speaks again, it’s different, more serious, making my stomach lurch. “You hear about Bangor? And Jenny’s dad?”
Bangor’s real name is Alex Barton. We call him Bangor because he’s from a small town in Maine called that, which you’ve got to admit is a pretty dumb name for a town. And Jenny Lynch is Kristen Coletti’s best friend. Jenny’s not exactly one of my favorite people, but Kristen is. She’s one of my best friends. She and I dated for a while at the beginning of freshman year, just kid stuff, holding hands and going to movies. We all hang out a lot—Bangor, me, Marcus, Kristen, and Jenny.
“Shit, no,” I say, wracking my brain in a panic to think whether I saw Bangor this morning.
“Bangor’s uncle and Jenny’s dad were both up there. In the towers. You talk to Kristen?”
“No,” I say, reeling. “The news said not to call … I haven’t tried anyone. Only my parents and you. I couldn’t really reach anyone before…” I feel sick, awful, though relieved that Bangor is okay. “When did you talk to her?”
“I didn’t. Bangor, he called me. Do you remember how he wasn’t in homeroom? Turns out he was coming in late, not surprising, you know? Anyway, he was walking up Chambers when … He saw the whole focking thing, Kyle. The plane hitting, the explosion, people falling from the windows … He said he couldn’t look. He turned and ran. Said paper and metal and things were falling through the sky like at a focking ticker-tape parade.”
“Jesus.” I think of the girl when I found her, bits of shiny things in her hair. I don’t know what to say.
“Anyway, Bangor says his uncle was up there. And they haven’t heard from him. And he told me Jenny’s dad was up there, too. They work for the same big company, up on the hundred and fifth floor. He doesn’t know if … Well, clearly, they aren’t going to be … I mean, not likely, mon. Not at all.”
“Jesus,” I repeat, everything whirling. I try to steady my thoughts, double check in my brain that I talked to my dad. That I didn’t imagine it. There are so many people dead. Everything feels uncertain now.
“You talk to her, Marcus?”
“To Jenny, no. But I’ll call her tomorrow. You should, too.”
“Yeah.” I say. “Yeah.”
I listen for the girl’s footsteps in the hall. I think for a second that, if I can’t hear her, maybe I can chalk this all up to a dream. More like a nightmare. A nightmare within a nightmare within a nightmare. “Yeah, I will,” I say, anxious to hang up. I want to get up and go look for her. Make sure she’s real. “Marcus?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to say to her when you call?”
“No clue, Kyle. No focking clue.”
I sit in the glare of the bathroom fixture
shaking off
ghosts.
When I feel better, I stand and
look in the mirror,
then shut the lights
Leave her in the dark again.
I finally hang up with Marcus, but I don’t hear the girl come back out.
There are probably still razor blades in there …
I pad quickly down the hall. Kerri’s door is half open, but I can’t see in from this angle. Down the hall, the bathroom door is open, lights off. So that’s a good sign, at least.
I stop at Uncle Matt’s door, the stuff Marcus told me about Bangor and Jenny circulating in my head. He’s sleeping soundly, his atrophied self barely more than a slight, blanketed hump in the dark. Three months ago, Uncle Matt was living the life up on 103rd Street. Skiing, and running, and riding his motorcycle. Three months ago, he was a lieutenant dating beautiful women, having sex like a rock star, and on his way to being the memory champion of the U.S. Now, he could die in his sleep. Now, he sits in a wheelchair all day and drools. His life changed forever in one stupid second.
And Bangor’s uncle is probably dead. Jenny’s dad, too. Thousands of people, the reporter had said. How can that be true? How can a person get up and go to school on a Tuesday morning, their life all normal and fine and, then, a few minutes later, someone they love is dead? How can people be here, then, boom, gone? Life should be more permanent than that.
I pull Uncle Matt’s door closed so I don’t wake him, and head back to my room, slowing past Kerri’s half open door to glance in.
My sister’s bed is empty.
The girl isn’t there.
Late Tuesday Night Into Early Wednesday Morning, 9.12.01
BITS AND PIECES
99 … 98 … 97
I count backward and
think about leaving.
As soon as the sun starts to rise.
But where will I go?
(… who will take care of me…?)
Across the inky river,
a sea of haloed lights twinkle through
the dark, smoky haze.
A door opens.
I hear Kyle in the hall.
The girl stands with her back to me, face pressed to the living room window.
It’s odd to see her there like that, some stranger in my clothes, in my apartment, in the middle of the night. But it’s comforting, too. I’m happy she’s here. Happy she’s safe. It’s something to keep my mind off those who aren’t, off Bangor’s uncle, off Jenny Lynch’s dad.
Something to keep me from worrying about my dad.
I clear my throat, and she turns. From the back, with her short-cropped hair, she had looked almost boyish, but from the front she looks so sweet. Small and lost in my oversized T-shirt and pajama pants.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I shift uncomfortably, then walk into the room to find the remote and switch on the TV, changing channels fast past the networks, the buildings and smoke and planes crashing down. With any luck, some regular programming will be back on cable. Maybe something good on Cartoon Network or Comedy Central. I could use something funny.
“No, I guess not.”
“You okay?”
“I think so,” she says. “Thanks.”
“You sure?” I flip through channels. “Did you need something?”
Yes, Kyle, she should answer. Obviously, I need something. I need many things. I need to go home. But first I need to know where home is. And it would be good to know my name, and not be here, in some dork guy’s apartment, being asked stupid questions I can’t answer. But she doesn’t say any of that, just turns and looks out the window again.
On Cartoon Network, the end of an infomercial is on. I switch on the reading lamp behind the couch to its dimmest setting. The infomercial is for some high-tech vacuum. “Dust and mites,” it says, “rubbed-in dirt and ash will disappear!” My mind flashes to yesterday morning, to the girl covered in ash, in those wings. To her black-ringed eyes, and her chopped hair. To her standing there at Kerri’s open window.
Here, she looks so normal.
Pretty.
Beautiful.
A breaking-news flash comes on, interrupting the vacuum infomercial. A reporter interviewing a fireman in the dark. The floodlights around him bathe a scene of total destruction, as if it were a movie set. It’s impossible to believe it’s taking place right now across the river in Manhattan, or to imagine my dad is there.
I scan for him as the camera pans and the news crawl says rescue workers have been operating through the night, and that they’ve pulled two live bodies from the rubble. A video plays of a man walking with a German shepherd over piles of concrete and steel. I search for any sign of Dad in the dust-coated faces and uniforms, but I don’t spot him. At any rate, I’m glad the girl isn’t watching the screen.
Thankfully, the image changes back to the logo for Cartoon N
etwork and titles start up for Cow and Chicken.
Cow and Chicken! Manna from heaven. I could seriously kiss the screen.
I sit on the couch and turn the volume up. It’s the episode where Cow and Chicken mess with a copy machine and accidentally make an evil version of Chicken, who proceeds to wreak havoc on everything.
“It’s weird, Kyle,” the girl says, turning at the sound and taking a few steps closer to me. I lower the volume. Seeing her bathed in the blue glow of the television, I could convince myself all over again she’s merely a figment of my overtired imagination.
“I keep remembering little things. Bits and pieces. Like those things that flash at the end of a movie reel when the film runs out. You know what I’m talking about? What do they call those again?”
“No idea,” I say, “but I get what you’re saying.”
“Thanks.” She raises her eyebrows, as if to ask if I’m humoring her. But I’m not. I do get it, at least sort of. “Anyway, it’s like that. Like, I get an image or a voice in my head, but it’s a blur, like I’m watching scenery rush past out a train window.”
“Which pieces?” I ask, but maybe I’m missing the point. It’s just that there’s a lot I want to ask her—about today, about this morning, about now. About before all of that, and what she remembers and doesn’t. About what she was doing down there at the towers, and about what she was trying to do on the bridge.
“I don’t know, exactly,” she says. “Voices. Faces. I keep having nightmares, so it’s hard to tell if any of it is real.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head, then points her toes and slides her foot in a small arc across the carpet. “And music and dance steps,” she says, making the motion again.
The pink ribbon with the enamel toe shoe charm flashes in my head. I should tell her. But she seems fragile, so maybe I should wait. She continues so softly that I’m mesmerized by her and forget the key chain, and Cow and Chicken, and everything except the way she moves and the sound of her voice, lost in the way her head tilts when she’s trying to think of something, in the way her jagged hair frames her sad, wide-eyed face.
