Love Is the Higher Law Read Free Page B

even more, the idea of me being left alone, and I assured her I still had a lot of friends who hadn’t headed back to college yet, and if I needed somewhere to go, there were plenty of places I could crash. When that wasn’t enough, I even said I’d take my cell phone with me so she could reach me whenever. This made her quiet down a little, and my father said that it was probably time for them to go, and that I shouldn’t hesitate to call them if anything went wrong. For one stupefying moment he was quiet, and I actually thought he was going to say he loved me or something out of control like that. But as usual, he left that to Mom, who—also as usual—overcompensated, although in a situation like this, when your only son is almost seven thousand miles away from you and his city’s under terrorist attack, I guess there’s no such thing as over doing it.
    After I hung up, I sat on the couch in my boxers and watched more of the news, and all I could keep thinking was Holy shit, holy shit .
    Once I’d gotten a grasp on what was going on and I wasreassured that terrorists wouldn’t be storming over the Brooklyn Bridge anytime soon (or ramming a plane into it, for that matter), I decided to check my email. Lo and behold, it seemed that every single person I’d met in college, as well as a few I’d met before college, had emailed to see if I was okay. I guess they didn’t know anyone else in New York City, or they didn’t know that I lived in Brooklyn, or they were worried that I had gotten up early to check out the Observation Deck. (Thinking about the Observation Deck suddenly made me really sad. We always had relatives visiting from Korea, so we’d go and do the touristy things that most Brooklynites never do. I loved being up that high—in the clouds, sometimes—and I would always run to the east side of the building, even when I was older, to try to look out the window and see our house. I never saw it, but I swore I’d come close a couple of times.)
    Some of the people who emailed me said I was in their prayers, and while that was a nice thing for them to say, I wanted to tell them their prayers could probably be redirected to more deserving people. But then I realized they had no idea whether I was dead or alive, so I basically responded to each and every one of them, saying I was fine, and that the city would be fine, and that I appreciated their concern. I didn’t mention that I’d slept through the whole thing, and I definitely didn’t mention that I was alone, because from the sound of some of the messages, I would’ve had a prayer circle on my doorstep in ten seconds flat, just to take care of me.
    Even some of my high school friends, who were alreadyback at college, emailed me to say how weird it was to be away, hoping things weren’t too crazy back home. I sent them back the same email saying I was okay, but I couldn’t give them any real details, since all I knew was from TV, and it was probably the same thing they were watching in Chicago or Colorado or California.
    There was one email from a guy named Peter, subject: RE: TONIGHT, and I blanked at first until I realized it was the guy I’d met at Mitchell’s party Saturday night, who I was supposed to meet to go see Hedwig and the Angry Inch later in the day. He was a high school senior, which at first I wasn’t sure about. But hell, I was only two years older and he was cute, so I’d said a date would be cool. Now he was saying:
jasper—
this is peter. from the party. with everything that’s happening, i hope you’re alright. i just got home from school—it was crazy. since it’s looking like all the subways are out, i’m guessing our movie plans are off. i guess we can see how the week goes. i was really excited to see you (i know i’m not supposed to say that), but i promise i’ll still be excited whenever we reschedule. if i have to walk across the bridge to get to your borough, so be it.
again, i hope you and your family are