The Watchman of Ephraim (Book Club Edition) Read Free Page A

past him, De Niro wanted to help her but he knew he couldn’t catch up to her in his physical state. Besides, all he could think about now was getting to Lisa.
    Realizing that the fireball came from the elevator shafts, De Niro entered the stairwell. He gazed up and took a deep breath.
    Please Father, let her be alive!
    Starting up the stairs in a panic, De Niro overruled the objections of pain that his brain was shouting to him, but after the first few flights it was slow going. As he made it to the 20 th floor, he began to see a regular stream of people heading down the stairs. Some were injured while others looked unharmed. He stepped in front of one man who appeared okay.
    “ Hey, what floor are you coming from?”
    The man was repulsed by the sight of De Niro, bloody and burned. He tried to push past him without answering, but even in his weakened state, De Niro’s resolve to get to Lisa gave him enough strength to block his way.
    “ I asked you what floor you came from!”
    “ The eightieth,” the man replied breaking down the stairs the moment De Niro let him pass.
    De Niro bent over resting his hands on his thighs and took a few deep breaths. He was exhausted, his head was bleeding and he was shivering from his burns, but he felt new energy course through him.
    If he was able to make it down the stairs from the 80 th floor, maybe Lisa and the others made their way out of that room and I’ll see her coming down the stairs soon, too!
    By the time he made it to the 30 th floor, De Niro was climbing at a snail’s pace clinging to the staircase railings, leaving a trail of blood on them. It took him almost an hour just to reach floor thirty and he was already drenched in cold sweat that stung the burns on his face and back. People continued filing passed, heading down the stairwell, some warning him to turn around.
    He heard one lady say, “Its hell up there!”
    It was all becoming surreal to him. The people descending the stairs were so diverse; some were women, some men; some old, some young; and some injured while others didn’t have a scratch on them. It also occurred to him that everyone was relatively quiet. The fear and shock on their faces was obvious, but no one was panicking.
    Resuming his ascent, De Niro felt a hand on his shoulder. Fireman Keith Tompkins, a tall dark-skinned African American man, wearing full gear with an oxygen tank strapped to his back was, like him, also drenched in sweat. The fireman was carrying a coiled fire hose and he looked as out-of-breath as De Niro was. Tompkins scanned De Niro and saw that he was badly injured.
    “ Hey buddy, you can’t go up there. You need to get out of the building with the rest of these people.”
    De Niro shook his head in defiance, pointing up the stairs.
    “ My wife is up there!”
    “ What floor is she on?” Tompkins asked.
    De Niro hesitated, “She’s … she’s on the 104 th floor at Cantor Fitzgerald!”
    For a moment, the two locked eyes, the fireman’s were filled with regret.
    De Niro pulled from Tompkins’ grasp and took a few steps up when he heard a voice break through the static coming from the fireman’s walkie-talkie.
    “ Command post in Tower One to all units, evacuate the building!”
    The two men locked eyes again. Both men knew the evacuation order sealed the fates of everyone trapped upstairs. De Niro’s eyebrows clenched in anger and defiance. The fireman knew this husband would die trying to save his wife. Before he could turn away, Tompkins tried a different approach.
    “ Do you have kids?!”
    The question caught De Niro by surprise. Up until then, he was only thinking about Lisa. He felt his eyes swell with tears. People pushed past both of them as Tompkins stepped up close to him and repeated the question, “Do you have kids?”
    De Niro’s throat tightened up so much he couldn’t speak. Tears fell from his eyes as the point of the fireman’s question pierced his heart; all he could do was nod.
    “