We All Fall Down (14 page)

I felt like saying the same thing to them.

We stood off to the side to allow them to get by us. They probably had as much weight on their backs as we did when we were carrying Ting, and we were heading
down
the stairs and alternating having her on our backs. I watched until the last man turned the corner and was gone.

My father helped Ting first to her feet and then up onto my back. We started down again. I felt so much better than I had just a few minutes ago. It
wasn’t just being told that the way was clear all the way down, it was knowing that there was a whole group of firefighters who were now positioned between the danger and us. Not only weren’t we alone, but we had them there to take care of the situation.

“You know, when I was in my teens I wanted to be a fireman,” my father said.

“You did?”

“You sound surprised. I think every little boy wants to be a firefighter at some point. Didn’t you?”

“Yeah … when I was about six.”

He laughed. “I even talked to my guidance counselor about what I’d have to study after high school. She told me, but really she spent most of the time trying to talk me out of it.”

“Looks like it worked.”

“It did, and I guess I’m grateful.”

“You certainly can’t earn the money you earn being a firefighter,” I said.

“Money isn’t everything.”

I wanted to say something but I kept my mouth shut. Money meant a big house and fancy cars and skiing holidays and all those other things that somebody on a firefighter’s salary couldn’t afford—things I knew James’s family didn’t have. Sometimes I even felt bad about that, sort of guilty for having more than he did. I couldn’t help but think how different our lives would have
been if my father
had
been a fireman. We certainly wouldn’t have had as much … at least not as many possessions.

“There are lots of rewards that have nothing to do with money when you do a job like that,” my father said. “I can only imagine the way it would feel to save somebody’s life.”

I thought about Ting on my back. Maybe he didn’t have to imagine that hard.

“Nobody ever has a bad thing to say about firefighters,” my father continued. “They’re like knights in shining armor riding to the rescue. Instead of a white stallion they have red—”

My father stopped talking. He’d heard the same voices I had. Somebody else was coming up the stairs. We turned the corner and bumped into another group of firefighters climbing up. Dressed in their special suits, tanks on their backs, axes in their belts, they did look like they were wearing suits of armor.

“How are you doing?” the fireman in the lead asked.

“We’re good,” my father said. “We just passed ten of your—”

“John! Will!”

It was Mr. Bennett, James’s father!

“I’m so happy to see you two!” he exclaimed. He stopped, but the rest of the firefighters with him kept climbing. I pressed as close to the side of the stairs as I could to allow them to pass by.

“I knew you worked in one of these buildings but I didn’t know which one or what floor. I just knew you were here today, and Will was with you.”

“We’re okay,” I said. “We’re just moving slowly because we have to take turns carrying Ting.”

He nodded his head. “I should have figured that you two would have been helping instead of needing help. Can you do me a favor?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve carrying anybody else,” my father joked.

“Not carrying, but bringing. James is back at the station and I’m gonna be here all night. All emergency personnel in the whole city are on twenty-four-hour call. I can’t be going off duty until at least sometime tomorrow. I didn’t want James to go home alone, and it’s going to be almost impossible for his mother to get into the city because roads and bridges are closed to incoming traffic. Do you think you could pass by the station—it’s only two blocks down—and bring him home with you?”

“Of course we can. It’s the least we can do for one of New York’s bravest. We’ll take care of James and you take care of this building.”

He smiled. “Thanks. He’ll be happy to know that you’re safe, and it’ll take a weight off my mind. I’d better get going.” He shook my father’s hand again and then came up to my level. “Tell my kid not to worry … okay?”

“I’ll tell him.” I knew I would try to say the words, but I wasn’t sure how honest it was to reassure James when his father was heading deliberately toward the danger we were trying so hard to escape. I had to wonder then if this was the sort of worry that James lived with every day.

“Good.” He started up the stairs at double-time, trying to catch up with his company. He turned the corner and was gone, although I could still hear his boots pounding against the stairs.

“You okay to keep carrying Ting or do you want me take over for a while?” my father asked.

“Let me go one more, to the thirtieth floor, and then you can take over,” I said. I wanted to do my twelve floors.

“I’m not quite keeping the same pace as you,” my father said

“Not quite, but not bad … for an old man.”

He chuckled. “I guess I’m old compared to you. How is Ting doing?” he asked.

She hadn’t said a word for a long time. I looked up. Her eyes were closed. Was she sleeping? Was she unconscious? I reached up and gently shook her shoulder.

“Ting?” I asked.

Her eyes slowly opened. She smiled.

“Are you okay?” I remembered that was one of the words she knew.

“Okay … tired.”

Tired? She was the one being carried, not the one doing the carrying.

“That’s a symptom of concussion,” my father explained. “We have to keep her awake. It’s not good for a concussion victim to go to sleep. Ting!” My father’s voice was loud and she jumped a little in response. “You have to stay awake!”

She looked more awake, but more confused than anything else.

“We’d better hurry,” I said, and we started down the stairs again.

“I have to tell you, in a funny way, I’m grateful you’re here,” my father said.

“You are?” I questioned. “I thought you wanted me to be somewhere else, anywhere else except here.”

“I did, I
do
, but I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been with me.”

That seemed like a weird thing to say, all things considered. But there was one obvious reason why he was glad.

“It sure would have been hard to carry Ting all that way by yourself,” I agreed.

“I may not have even found her without you.”

“But you heard her calling too,” I said.

“I only heard her because we went down the stairs. If you hadn’t been with me, I might have gone up, instead.”

“But
I
was the one who wanted to go up. It was
your
idea,
your
decision, to head down.” I didn’t add that I’d thought it was a bad idea at the time.

“It
was
my idea, but the only reason I made that decision was because of you. If it had been just me, I might have gone with everybody else up to the roof and waited it out,” my father said. “But because I had you with me I couldn’t risk that. I had to take the chance to try to get down.”

“I don’t get it.”

“And you probably won’t until you have kids of your own,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“You’d risk your life for your kids, give up your life for your kids without even having to think about it. I had to take that risk in going down. Do you understand now?”

“I guess. But you had me go with you—wasn’t that putting
my
life at risk?”

“A calculated risk, but that’s why I went down first. If something happened to me, I hoped you’d still be able to go back up the stairs. Nothing in this entire world, nothing, is as important as you.”

I felt embarrassed hearing him say that. Would I be willing to give up my life for him? I thought I might … but I’d definitely have to think about it before I made that decision. I was uncomfortable and wanted to change the subject.

“Who do you think did it?” I asked.

“What?” my father asked, sounding confused.

“Who do you think it was that did this … that crashed the planes?”

“Oh … oh. My guess would be Muslim extremists. At least, those were the people responsible for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.”

“That’s right, I’d sort of forgotten about that.”

“You were pretty young at the time, but believe me,
I’ll
never forget it.”

“Were you in here when it happened?” I asked.

“It was in the underground parking garage, closer to the North Tower, but I was here, in this building, just heading out for lunch. It was around twenty minutes after twelve, Friday, February twenty-sixth.”

“You remember the date?”

“I told you, I’ll never forget.”

“What exactly happened?” I asked.

“A truck was parked in the underground garage. It contained fifteen hundred pounds of explosive. The explosion created a crater five stories deep and twenty-two feet wide.”

“Wow, that’s unbelievable. How many people were hurt?”

“Six deaths and over a thousand people injured. I’m afraid that’s going to pale compared to today. I don’t even want to think about how many people have died … or are going to die.”

“It’s awful … even more awful that it had to happen here twice. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Not fair, but deliberate. This is an attack on one of the most important, most visible symbols of the United States. This isn’t just a building, the World Trade Center represents the United States of America.”

“But why would anybody want to do this to us? What did we do that could cause somebody to hate our country that much?” I asked.

“Different people have different theories. Some people—simple people—say things like, ‘Those people hate freedom’ or ‘They’re jealous because we have so much.’”

“But you don’t agree?”

“I agree we have a lot, a lot more than almost everybody in the whole world, but that isn’t it. There are other countries that have the same standard of living as us—countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Germany … or Canada, but nobody hates Canada. And it certainly isn’t just about freedom, because all of those countries are as free and democratic as us.”

“Then what is it?”

“I think it isn’t what we
are
but what we
represent
. We’re the only true world power left. The United States is the dominant economic, cultural and military power on the planet. So every time something goes wrong, or doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to go, then we’re the ones who take the blame.”

“What do you mean?”

“If two countries in Africa are at war, then half the world is angry because we haven’t sent troops in to police, patrol and settle the dispute.”

“Do people really expect us to do that?” I asked.

“A whole lot of countries. Unfortunately, if we
do
send in our soldiers, then the other half of the world is mad at us for interfering.”

“So you think no matter what we do we’re going to be blamed, that it isn’t our fault.”

“I’m saying that, but I’m also
not
saying that.”

I didn’t understand.

“Sometimes we aren’t as sensitive as we could be to other cultures, and let’s be honest, sometimes we do act to protect our interests in ways that might not necessarily be in the best interests of other countries. But still, we don’t deserve this … nobody deserves this.”

“Why do these Muslims act that way? Why are they so filled with hate?” I asked.

“First off, it might not even be Muslims,” he said. “Look at the Oklahoma City bombing, that was home-grown American citizens. And second, I didn’t say Muslims, I said Muslim
extremists.”
He stopped talking to catch his breath. I knew how hard it was to walk, carry Ting and talk. “Most Muslims—heck most Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists—are peaceful people.”

“But I keep hearing on the news about Muslims in the Middle East blowing themselves up and killing innocent people,” I said.

“Extremists. People who don’t really understand what their own religion is about. Can you imagine any person, any normal, any religious person, saying they want to kill innocent people?”

“Not really but—” I stopped. I heard more voices coming up the stairs toward us.

“I think it’s more emergency personnel,” my father said. “I can hear their radios.”

I could hear those static-filled voices too. I was hoping it was firefighters and not paramedics. We’d worked too hard and taken Ting too far to stop now—unless she needed us to stop. Did she need to have a paramedic examine her right now?

I looked up at her. Her eyes were open and she smiled at me. That was reassuring, but if these were paramedics we’d stop and have her seen.

The voices, the radios, were getting louder and louder. I turned the corner. It was firefighters, but they weren’t climbing, they were sitting at the bottom of the next landing. What were they doing? One of them was practically lying down and his shirt was off and the others were giving him oxygen!

I slowed down and we came to a stop a few steps above them. The man’s face was as white as snow, there were beads of sweat pouring down his forehead and his eyes were closed … was he … was he … No, I could see his chest moving up and down.

One of the firefighters looked up. “Just slip on by,” he said.

I wanted to ask if he was okay, to say something, but there was nothing I could say. Slowly, cautiously, I stepped onto the landing, trying not to look at him, but being careful not to step on anything or anybody.

One of the firemen was practically yelling into his radio, trying to let them know what was happening, trying to get a paramedic up to assist.

I started down to the next landing. I turned back around to make sure my father was able to get by safely. He slipped by. He nodded to me reassuringly, to let me know he was fine, to let me know that everything was fine … even though I knew it wasn’t.

Floor eighteen. We were getting closer. Each step, each turn, each floor, we were getting closer. We’d been passed by dozens and dozens of police and firefighters now, and two paramedics. They’d done a quick check of Ting and then rushed off to help that poor fireman.