You can’t go down there.”“Look! Look what they did!” Jerry points with a trembling hand to where flames still burn in the night, down at the far end of a dust-coated thoroughfare lined with shattered storefronts and burned-out cars, the ground littered with paper and debris. “Look at that.”The cop says nothing, just stands there, a sentry at the fiery gates of Hades.“I was already down there,” Jerry tells him, “earlier today. There were a lot of firemen. But I’m not a fireman.”“Oh, no?”“No. I always wanted to be one, but a lot of firemen died so I’m glad I’m not one, because I don’t want to die.”“No one does, kid.”The cop’s eyes look red and swollen, Jerry notices.Maybe it’s the smoke in the air, or maybe he’s been crying.On television, they said that it wasn’t just the firemen who died when the towers fell. A lot of policemen did, too. And all those people on the planes, and the people who worked in the World Trade Center . . .“Listen, kid, you can’t go down there, so—”“But why not?”“Restricted zone.
