We All Fall Down (3 page)

“Here we are,” my father said as the car came to a stop.

I opened my eyes and climbed out. The sun was fully above the horizon now and I could see that the parking lot of the train station was almost completely filled. Apparently my father wasn’t the only one who headed to a New York City office this early.

We climbed up the stairs and onto the platform. I followed my father as he wove his way through
the crowd. He was easy to pick out because he was half a head taller than almost everybody else. He kept walking until we were at the far end of the platform. Strangely, it was almost deserted there.

“No crowd,” I said.

“People all cluster around the entrance and then fight to get seats. Back here is the best place. I never have a problem.”

“Then why don’t other people come back here?” I asked.

“Humans are herd animals. We all like huddling together. It makes us feel safe and secure. In fact, one of the best ways to get ahead is to try to move in one direction while everybody else is moving in the other.”

I looked at my father. “Aren’t we moving in the same direction as everybody else … into the city?”

“We are, but
we
are going to be
sitting
. Here comes the train now.”

I looked up the tracks. I could see the engine of the train, trailing behind a bright, bright headlight. It got bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter. I had to avert my eyes. The big engine surged down the tracks, a wave of sound and wind preceding it into the station.

“Step back a little,” my father said as he put a hand across my chest.

That was stupid. I wasn’t five years old any more and—a blast of wind blew my hair back as the train
squealed into the station, slowed down and came to a stop. The big doors opened up right in front of us and we climbed up and into the train car.

“This way,” my father said.

I followed behind him. He passed a number of open sets of seats and then gestured for me to sit down.

“No, no … take that one,” my father said, pointing to the seat by the window. I shuffled over.

“This is where I always sit.”

“Every day?”

“Every day I’ve gone to work for the past ten years.”

Talk about being in a rut. I looked around the car. It was less than a quarter full. Some of the people were reading newspapers or books. Others were already working on their laptops, or had headphones clipped to their heads, lost in their music. A couple of people were dozing off. A few stared out the windows. What exactly did they find so fascinating? It certainly wasn’t what I would call a scenic view—nothing but old cement embankments, backyards of houses and factories that had seen better and busier days.

The train slowed down as it came into the next station. As it came to a stop my father got to his feet.

“We don’t get off here … do we?” I asked as I started to get to my feet as well.

“Not here. End of the line at Grand Central. We’re not getting off but other people
are
getting on.”

Of course people were getting on … but what did that have to do with him getting up? Was he giving up his seat? The doors opened and people came up the stairs.

“Good morning, John!” a man called out to my father as he walked up the aisle. They shook hands and the man plopped down into the window seat directly across from me. Then another man sat down beside me—taking my father’s seat! At the same time a woman sat down opposite him, leaving my father no place to sit.

“Here you go,” the woman said as she offered me a steaming cup.

I drew slightly back.

“It’s coffee. Two creams and three sugars,” she said.

My mouth dropped open. How could she possibly have known that was how I took my coffee?

“Isn’t that the way you like it?” she asked. She looked up at my father. “You did tell me that was how he drank his coffee, right, John?”

I felt relieved. Obviously she knew my dad. I took the cup from her hand. She handed a second cup to my father.

“The important thing is that you got mine right,” my father said.

“Black, plain, no nothing. Pretty boring.”

That was how my father took his coffee. That was also how he was. He wore the same suit to work every day—actually, one of about a half-dozen black suits he had in the closet. When we’d bought our new car last year we’d simply got the newer version of our old Volvo station wagon. I had a pretty good idea what our
next
new car would be, too.

My dad wasn’t much for change or trying new things. He liked the same foods. He was a real meat-and-potatoes sort of guy. We went to the same resort in Maine every year for holidays. There were hardly any surprises with my father.

“I’m tempted to get you something different one morning,” the woman said. “I’m thinking a double espresso latte with a frosting of cinnamon. So, John, are you going to introduce us to your son?”

“Of course. Will, this wonderful woman is Vanessa, and these two fine gentlemen are Steve and Elliott.”

I shook hands with all three.

“The four of us ride in together every morning,” my father explained.

“Every morning?”

“Unless one of us is sick or on holiday,” my father said.

“We share coffee and conversation,” Steve added.

“And we take turns bringing the coffee,” Vanessa said. “It isn’t always me. I wouldn’t want
these three
males
to get the idea that it’s a woman’s job to bring the coffee.”

“I’d never say anything like that,” Elliott said, “especially not if my wife could hear … she’d kill me!”

Everybody laughed.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

“That’s all right. For a split second I almost forgot to order it. Habit. But your father would have been upset with me. He’s been talking about you joining us for the last week or so.”

“That’s practically
all
he talked about on the ride in yesterday,” Steve said.

I suddenly felt a pang of guilt. I’d almost blown off the whole day by saying that I was feeling sick and just staying in bed. After he’d left for work, and there was no way I could get into the city and join him, I would have made a miraculous recovery and found something else to do. Maybe my father was looking forward to this, but I sure wasn’t.

“Actually, I think Vanessa was even more excited than your father,” Elliott said.

“And why shouldn’t I be?” she demanded, pretending to be angry. “We’ve been hearing his dad tell us all about him for years and showing us all those pictures. I wanted to see if the real thing was as wonderful as his father always claimed he was.”

She seemed pretty friendly. I wondered if Mom knew about Vanessa.

“And?” my father asked.

“He’s even better looking than his pictures.”

I felt myself start to blush.

“Forget being better looking than the pictures. He’s much better looking than his
father,”
Steve joked.

“Kid must get his looks from his mother,” Elliott added.

“Actually, most people think he looks like me,” my dad said.

“You?” Steve said. “I guess if you were looking at some sort of strange, funhouse, distorted-mirror version, then you’d look identical.”

My grandparents said that I did look like my father when he was my age. From the pictures I’d seen I had to agree.

My father was tall and had broad shoulders. He looked like the ex-football player that he was, standing over six-four and weighing close to two hundred and forty pounds. I figured that some day I’d fill out too, because I was already pretty big for my age.

The four of them continued to banter and joke and kid each other. It was obvious from their quips and comments that they really did know, and like, each other.

“Hey, Will, are you a sports fan?” Elliott asked.

“I love sports.”

“You follow the right teams? Or are you a loser like your old man?”

“Who are you calling a loser?” my father shot back.

“What else would you call somebody who cheers for the Jets, the Mets
and
the Rangers?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my father protested. “The Jets are going to have a great season this year.”

“They certainly didn’t have a great
start
to their season,” Elliott said. “What was the final score in that game … Colts 25, Jets 24?”

“They
almost
won,” my father argued.

“‘Almost won’ is the way losers describe losing, and that’s the whole story of the Jets.”

“The Jets are going to be winners by the end. This is the year they’re going all the way.”

“The only way that’s going to happen is if Broadway Joe Namath comes out of retirement … after he invents a time machine,” Steve said and began laughing.

“And didn’t the Mets lose again last game, too?” Elliott asked.

“To the Florida Marlins,” my father admitted.

“While our beloved New York Yankees pummeled the Red Sox 7 to 2. Now, the Yankees, that’s a team that’s going all the way.”

“You figure they’re going to win the Super Bowl?” my father joked.

“They have about as much chance as the Jets do,” Steve said. “Isn’t it about time you started cheering for a real team … like the Yankees?”

“I do cheer for the Yankees,” my father said. “I cheer for them to lose. Cheering for the Yankees to
win is like getting up at six in the morning in the dark and cheering for the sun to rise. What’s the challenge?”

“So you admit that the Yankees are going to take the World Series?” Steve said, pouncing on his words.

“I admit that they probably will win, with all the money they spend, but I’m hoping they don’t.”

“So, Will, who do you cheer for?” Steve asked.

“Rangers, Jets and Mets,” I said, and my father laughed and gave me a little punch on the shoulder.

“Okay, now I
am
seeing the resemblance between you two,” Steve said.

The train started to slow down again.

“We’ll have to finish this discussion later,” my father said.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Vanessa said as she, and then Steve and Elliott, shook my hand, stood up and started toward the door.

I started to follow after them when my father grabbed my arm. “They’re heading in a different direction for a different subway.”

My father walked the length of the car and into the next one. He eased his way through the crowd that was gathering at each door. We went through a second car, then a third and fourth and finally joined a line waiting to exit. Almost on cue the train stopped and the door popped open. We
shuffled down and directly into an exit that was right outside the door.

“After doing this for years you figure out which doors open where and all the little shortcuts to make the day faster and easier,” he said as we hurried down the steps that led from the platform.

I felt a little anxious being caught in the push and shove of the crowd. Everybody seemed to be in some sort of race—a race where everybody was wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase or a bag. It was hard not to be drawn into the rush, into the excitement. And why not? This wasn’t just any place. We were in New York City. In the heart of New York City, the center of the country … heck, the center of the universe. And here we were just a short subway ride away from the very heart of the heart … where my father’s office was … the World Trade Center.

We came up from the subway and onto the street. I was going to ask how far we had to walk when I looked up and saw the World Trade Center towers looming above my head. They dominated the sky—the two most impressive buildings in the most impressive skyline in the entire world.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” my father said as we walked along.

“Yeah, no question.”

We were part of a crowd of people moving along the sidewalk, a river of humanity, flowing
around street vendors and fire hydrants and signs that were like rocks in the stream. On the crowded streets the cars—every second one a yellow cab—bumped along. We were actually moving a little faster than they were. I didn’t know why people didn’t just get out of their cabs and walk. It was a beautiful day, already warm and probably on the way to being hot. The sky was so blue, without a trace of a single cloud, that it looked like something from a postcard. It felt more like a summer day than a September day. It was a nice day not to be in school. Then again, being in my father’s office wouldn’t be that much different or better. Maybe I should have gone with my first plan and told him I was sick. Then I could have just hung out and had the day to myself.

We walked across the plaza and stopped right in front of the twin buildings. I let my eyes follow up, up, up, until I was practically leaning over backwards to capture the very tops of the towers. They stretched up to the sky in a series of thin, parallel lines—two glowing, golden towers reflecting the morning light. The Twin Towers. They looked so impressive against the brilliant blue sky.

“I’ve been working here for almost twelve years and I still sometimes just stand here and stare,” my father said.

“I can understand why.”

“When they were first built, some people complained about how ugly they were. They had
interviews with architects saying that they were unimaginative, boring, that they proved the bankruptcy of American design. I think they actually show the imagination that this country is built on. They are big, impressive, and represent the boundless energy that makes this country great. They are beautiful. They symbolize New York, the same way the Eiffel Tower
is
Paris, or the pyramids
are
Egypt, or Big Ben
is
London. These towers
are
New York. Big, bold, clean lines stretching up into a limitless sky. If New York is the center of the universe—and really, who could dispute that?—then these two towers are the center of the
center.”

“You won’t get any argument from me.”

“You know, there are actually
seven
buildings in the Trade Center complex. The two towers, of course, are the ones everybody knows. The North Tower was completed in 1971 and the South Tower was finished in 1974.”