When I was a little kid, 7-Eleven started putting baseball coins on the bottom of Slurpee cups. The front of each coin had a textured picture of a ballplayer's face. Tilt the coin and you got an action shot; flip it and you got the stats. I had two Rod Carews, a Billy Russell and a Bill Buckner. I studied their batting averages with the true fan's faith that you could know a person from the raw data. I was the sort of kid who had treasures: I kept the coins in a red, vinyl-coated "safe" my grandfather had given me. I moved away and the safe disappeared.
One day I dreamed of coins. There's a story about that day. Everyone's got a story about that day. The story of the day has almost eclipsed the memory of it. The pieces of my story fit too neatly together; the dream, for instance, is too convenient. But I'm certain this is the way it all happened; in any case, it stubbornly becomes more real with time. It's like backing up from a painting: Distance brings coherence, images turn to icons, discrete events become narrative. Meanings emerge. I try to remind myself that perspective is a trick ...
It is early, too early, in the morning. My supremely wakeful 10-month-old is uncharacteristically asleep, and so am I. I am on a vast, grassy field, and Slurpee coins are falling from the sky. I run about the field, gathering them from the grass. I don't recognize the people in the pictures. They're not ballplayers. Ballplayers, I would recognize. But, sure enough, on the back of the coins I see statistics, hometowns, nicknames.
We wake up and do not turn on the news. We never turn on the news, most of all because our little boy does not let us. He'll walk right up to the television and turn it off. Mornings are for Sesame Street, and this morning is no different. An elephant chases the monsters in the clubhouse. The monsters sing the goodbye song. The phone rings.
My father says Hi in a minor note from way too low on the keyboard. I ask him what's wrong. Don't you know? he says.
We turn on the television and see two great buildings fall from the sky. We see it 33 times. We turn off the television. I go to work.
Two hours into the workday, the boss sends out word that everyone can go home. I've just read the first New York Times story on the attacks: Thirteen sources, 2,000 words. A journalist in New York is exhausting himself while tragedy sits grim on his doorstep. A continent away, I decide I should stay at work. I don't blame those who decide differently. People are leaving.
People are staying. There is numb talk of large numbers. I will wait to go to the bank.
The rebate had arrived in the September 10 mail. On the check it said "Tax Relief for America's Workers." I was less excited about the money than to have been called one of America's Workers. You free-lance long enough, you forget you're a part of anything. But the year has made me a father, a magazine staffer and, apparently, an American Worker. I have joined these clubs.
Now, as my office empties out, the clubs seem connected. I work for my family, my colleagues, my country.
My closest friend in the office is from New York City. He stops by my desk on his way out. He's going to the blood bank, then he's going to the hospital, where his New York-native mom, fighting for her life, now grieves for the lives of others. I give him a hug. I can't figure out what else I can give today but my work. I'm editing a cop's memoir. I will edit the cop's memoir, and then I'll go home. In the soft evening, I'll watch my son run on the backyard lawn. I'll wish that together we could catch coins from the sky.