A/N: In history, there are events that can be classified simply as "IT," with people speaking of life before "IT" happened and after "IT" happened. "IT," of course, being something so huge, so awful, so sudden and so unexpected, that though it affects only a small area it leaves a nation and even the world reeling. Pearl Harbor was "IT" back in the day, and a more recent "IT" were the terrorist attacks seven years ago today on September 11th, 2001.
I have had the idea for this story for nearly two years, but I could not even begin to write until around April of '08. I had been having emotional problems and thought that if I had myself a good long cry, I would feel better. So I put on some slow, sad songs and read volumes one and two of "Artists Respond," which collected art and stories from some of the comic book world's most impressive talents. The stories concerned "IT,' whether they were the artist's reactions or how Superman would have dealt with his failure to protect America. I listened, I read, I cried so bad I actually lost weight from the stress. And then…then I wrote notes and a few non-sequential paragraphs for this. And now, I have finally completed A Dusty Manhattan Morning. It took me all summer, but I had to get "IT" off my chest.
Markie lay in his bed, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling, unable to drown out the sounds of the argument downstairs. They were at it again.For years, it seemed at times, Henry and Lucille Wylde were constantly at odds with one another.
Markie sat up, the sound of a crash rousing him from his thoughts; he froze, tense, anxious of what new level the squabble may have escalated to. Was someone hurt? Who had dared to draw first blood? Even the strays in the gutter outside his window were silent. Markie stared at the door.
"That was a wedding present, you big goon!!" his mother shouted. "My mother gave it to us!"
"Well, if it meant so damn much to ya, than why was it on the edge of the table?!"
Markie sighed, relaxing only slightly; his father was a burly Scotch-Irishman, and could be fairly clumsy. But then, working in a construction crew did not require much grace. It was a characteristic Henry was continually nagged by his wife for. The shouting continued, and Markie picked his jacket off of the messy bedroom floor.
Kurt Wylde leaned up against the side of his friend Dan's car, watching the drivers take off. They were on an abandoned back road near the aqueducts in Jersey City. It was late. Or early, depending on who you asked; after all, it was past midnight, and therefore, no longer the day before but the beginning of the next one. Kurt longed for a time when he could race during the day, free of the fear of being arrested for breaking the speed limit—or, in Kurt's case, shattering it into a thousand tiny pieces. But right now, the Grand Prix wasn't a possibility. Right now, he was twenty one, and a street racer out of NYC. And no one was going to take him seriously.
Kurt was not particularly paying attention to what Dan Dresden was saying to him, but rather watching the cars; the way they hugged the turns, the subtle adjustments of the drivers. Someday, he vowed, huge crowds of NASCAR fans would come from all over the world just to watch him. Maybe Dan, too, but that was a BIG maybe in Kurt's book. He did not have much confidence in the young man, but Dan was a good guy, someone you could count on, and that was what mattered.
A tinny, electronic, and rather annoying version of some nameless trance-techno song issued from Kurt's coat pocket, and he reached in without looking at the caller ID.
"Talk to me," he said, nonchalant, and almost jumped out of his own skin at the voice on the other line. Kurt quickly held the cell phone as far away from his ear as humanly possible, until the screaming stopped. "Jeez, Mom, what? What do you want?"
"Don't you talk to me like that!! I carried you for nine months—"
Kurt sighed, rolling his eyes at Dan's smirk. "Mom, calm down. I'm sorry; you just surprised me with the screaming." This of course, was a lie, as screaming and anger were Lucille Wylde's natural states. She screamed at everyone, all the time. She was just histrionic and shrill. But now, she was starting to sniffle.
"Kurt, that little brat I gave birth to when you were five—"
"Big mistake, by the way, Mom."
"Shut up! He ran off earlier this evening, and he's still not home. It's three in the morning. He won't answer his cell, none of his friends have seen him, and I'm starting to worry."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, Mom," he said. "Markie's growing up now. I know it's hard for you to accept, but he's going to drift away from you. Especially if you and Dad are fighting all the time like you were before I left."
The line was quiet for a little bit. "I think she hung up on me," he said, and Dan shrugged, but Kurt thought he heard something. "What? What was that, Mom?"
"Kurtis Marion Wylde, please listen to me," she said. "Your brother is being an idiot. We don't know where he is half the time. You know from your own mistakes the kinds of trouble he could get into, and he's more hotheaded than you ever were. Please, Kurt; please try to look for Markie. I'm going to keep calling his friends, but, please, you know my son better than I do. Please help find your brother."
She was crying. He had made his mother cry. "D-don't worry, Mom. He'll turn up."
"Thank you, Kurt."
"I love you. Bye."
Dan raised an eyebrow, smirking at his friend. "Marion?"
"Shut up, Dan." He quickly gave Dresden the run down, and they tried Markie's favorite spots: the cafés in Alphabet City, the heavy metal clubs, even a tree in Central Park West they had once found him in at the age of nine when he 'ran away.' But so far, Markie was nowhere to be found. By half past four, Dan was ready to call it quits. The blonde yawned.
"Look, it hasn't even been twenty four hours, right?" he asked, stretching. "He's probably staying with a friend your folks don't know. Maybe sleeping off a hangover. Markie's smarter than you guys give him credit for, Kurt. He'll call in the morning."
Kurt looked to the East, an orangey-pink glow teasing the horizon. "It is morning."
"I meant at a decent hour. It's too early. Can we please just give it up? I'm dying on my feet here."
Kurt rubbed his temples. "Twenty minutes, okay? Just lemme try his cell phone again."
In a dark, cluttered apartment in Greenwich Village, a chirping signaled that Markie's phone was now finished charging and ready for use. This stirred not its owner. But a few minutes later, a tinny, electronic, and rather annoying version of a Norwegian Black Metal song very few people knew issuing from its little speaker woke up the entire fifth floor of the tenement. Markie dove for the phone, answering it without reading the caller ID first. He yawned before he spoke.
"Hello?" he murmured weakly, swaying in his position on the floor. He noticed his clothes were off and that there was a naked red-haired girl passed out next to him. Markie shook his head; always the redheads. "Ooooh, what time is it?"
"Hey, Markie, it's almost five," the far-too-pleasant voice chirped. "Mom's worried sick about you and she made me look for you for the past few hours. So you need to get home, like, now, before she kicks your ass. Where are you? I'm coming to get you."
Markie spoke quietly and urgently into the phone, giving his brother the address. "Look, don't come in, okay? Just circle the block. I gotta get dressed quick before this chick wakes up and wants to cuddle."
"Chick? Wait, Markie, who's—"
"See ya downstairs. Bye." Markie pulled his clothes on and snuck out the door. He took the steps two at a time, hoping the redhead would not tell Veggie about the evening she and Markie shared. As soon as he got to the main door, he really started to book it. The high school sophomore practically dove into the back seat of Dan's car, slamming and locking the door behind him. A redhead wrapped in a bed sheet emerged from the building. She ran towards the car.
"Wait, don't go! I love you!"
"Dude!" Dan complained. "What have I told you about slamming my doors?!"
"I love you, Markie!!" she called, getting closer to the car. Markie grabbed Dan by his shirt collar and hissed in his ear.
"Please, in the name of all that is holy, put the Goddamned pedal to the metal!!"
Dan slammed his foot on the accelerator, peeling out towards Hell's Kitchen. After a few blocks, when Markiehad caught his breath, Kurt turned towards the backseat to smirk at his brother.
"So," he said, "another redhead?"
"Shut up."
"Did you at least get her name this time?"
Markie sighed, and blew a stray lock of hair from his eyes. "Aah, she called herself Treeflower or something like that. Nice girl, but she smokes way to much pot."
Kurt scowled and turned away, shaking his head. "You need to try a better quality of girl."
"At least I actually likegirls," he muttered. Markie stretched in the backseat and yawned. He sat up straight and smiled. "So, what's for breakfast?"
"First thing's first: we call Mom and let her know you're all right."
"Aw, c'mon!!"
Kurt and Markie started arguing. He was sixteen, and as long as he lived with his parents, he need to do as he was told. But he insisted he did not want to go to school that day. Plus, his parents were fighting constantly, and he did not think it fair he had to deal with it; he did not WANT them to know where he was. Let them worry a little.
"I don't wanna go to school! Cut me some slack here, Kurt, I've had a rough night."
Dan snickered. "From the way Treeflower ran after you, it sure sounds like you had a good time." He laughed some more as Markie's face changed colors.
"You know I can't say 'no' to a ginger," he answered quietly. He sighed. "I really screwed up this time, Kurt."
"What? What happened? You forgot to use protection, didn't you?! Oh, God, I'm gonna be an uncle…"
Markie shook his head despondently. "She's Veggie's wife, Kurt. Treeflower's a married woman."
"Oooooooh…"
Markie felt terribly guilty about the whole thing. Kurt and Dan shared a look, silently debating a course of action. Finally, it was decided.
"Okay," Kurt sighed. "There's no way Mom would let you skip after all this, so you'll just have to stay with me today. But you're paying for coffee!"
"Yes! Thank you!"
Dan rolled his eyes and Kurt sighed, rubbing his temples. It was going to be a long day.
As the trio stopped into the diner, a small number of basic thoughts dominated their minds: coffee, donuts, and bagels with delicious cream cheese. There was a bit of a wait, but once they received their orders, they made quick work of it. Dan, Kurt and Markie had spent quite a while in the early morning Manhattan traffic, and were absolutely starved by the time the waitress brought their breakfast. As per the conditions, Markie paid the bill, and it was already past eight when they finally left.
The sun was bright, and right off, they could tell it was going to be a beautiful day. Dan, Kurt and Markie stretched, leaning against Dan's car.
"So," Markie said, "What should we do now?"
"I'm going to bed," Dan said flatly. "I've been up for almost thirty six hours now and I'm exhausted."
"You're the only person I know who could drink that much coffee and still want to sleep." Kurt playfully punched his best friend in the arm. "You'll give me and Markie a ride, right?"
"No problem."
Dan was about to say something else, but a loud roaring noise came from nowhere just then. A great shadow passed over them and a harsh wind whipped by. Startled, Dan, Kurt and Markie looked up, the youngest instinctively covering his head. A commercial airliner was flying in the sky, well below the normal altitude.
"Jeez," Markie said in a high voice. His gaze was following the path of the plane, trying to figure out where it was headed.
Dan shook his head, still shaky. "That was way too low. They're going to crash if they don't pull up and quick."
"They're not going to crash," Kurt said dismissively. "This is fucking Time Square."
"Looks like he's trying to squeeze between the towers," Markie said, almost to himself. He squinted, watching the plane. There was no way it could crash in the middle of New York City. That sort of thing just didn't happen.
But his eyes widened with shock and fear. The 747 crashed into one of the towers, shattering glass and buckling steel. The fireball that consumed the tower for but a split second as the airliner plowed through several floors of 2 World Trade Center diminished slightly into a smaller blaze, a gaping, smoking hole on the face of the building, hanging like an open wound. How could something like this happen?
"Holy shit, they crashed," Kurt said, disbelieving. "Holy shit."
"Jesus, help us," Dan murmured. He ran a hand through his short hair and slumped to a sitting position on the hood of his car. Markie and Kurt sat next to him so that the younger Wylde was in the center. They sat there; just sat and watched the world burn. A crowd gathered outside of the diner, staring with their mouths hanging open. New York was only supposed to be dangerous out here, in the thick of all the psychos and drug addicts. Those within the city's sterile skyscrapers were supposed to be safe until they stepped back out onto the street. And now, one of the Twins—for they were everyone's Twins—was burning. Frightened and frantic, the fearful spectators could only stand and wonder: What the fuck?
Someone mentioned the bombing in 1993; vans loaded down with explosives were parked in the underground garage and detonated, but the damage was minor. That idea got a lot of jeers. Who would be crazy enough to do this on purpose? A kamikaze attack on a national landmark? Get real.
"Oh my God," Kurt said. He watched in utter horror as another airliner buzzed the neighborhood. Any notion of 'pilot error' was put to rest as a second plane barreled down on 1 World Trade Center. More glass and steel entered the air as a second explosion rocked Manhattan to its very core.
"No way!!" Markie shrieked. Tears were running down his face. "No way was that an accident! Two planes fifteen minutes apart, no FUCKING way!!"
Dan was already fumbling with his ignition. "We've got to get out of here. This is insane!"
"What the fuck, Kurt?! What's going on?!"
"Just get in the car, Markie!" he commanded. Dan peeled out and headed for the Jersey Turnpike, but traffic was a force to be reckoned withthat day. It seemed like half the borough was making a break for it. It was a complete and total mob scene and in less than five minutes they were completely stopped. A familiar chorus of horns started up.
"C'mon, c'mon," Dan silently plead, trying to will the cars forward.
Kurt's eyes widened at the sight in the rear view mirror. The top floors were falling almost gracefully down; rather than toppling, the South Tower was imploding upon itself, one floor on top of the other. An ominous cloud of dust and debris was moving down the tower to the ground. The rumbling scared him so much that he actually squeaked.
Dan looked back at the collapsing monolith in mourning but his sentimentality was wasted on the frightened citizens who immediately abandoned their vehicles and took off on foot.
Kurt rolled up his window and braced for the shock-wave; he figured they would be all right in the car. But Markie had already sprung from the backseat and run.
"Markie!!"
"Kurt, wait!!" Dan called in desperation. He chased after his friend.
"Markie, wait for us! We can't get separated! Not now!!" Kurt ran in a panic, hysterical to be sure of his brother's safety. People were running through the streets, screaming, begging for divine intervention. "Markie!"
Kurt reached out for his brother just as Markie turned to face him, but the cloud overtook him and he fell. In all the smoke and noise, Kurt could not see and could barely hear his own screams and choking sounds as his mouth filled with ash.
Markie staggered through the streets, gasping and choking. He was senseless, much as the violence was senseless. There was only smoke and screams and sirens. And through the haze, he could see only the blazing heat of the North Tower, still on fire. Markie did not know what street he was on; he only knew to walk away from the Tower. He could not have been more than three blocks from the World Trade Center, and that was very bad.
Markie stopped, leaning against a lamppost for support. A coughing fit seized his lungs. The air was thick; he could not breathe, he could not see.
In the back of his mind, Markie wondered about the thousands of people—janitors, office workers and tourists—who entered the towers every day. He knew most of them must have been dead, but he could not bring himself to feel bad about it. His mother, Lucille, was a divorce attorney with a law firm on the sixty-seventh floor, and he did not know if she had gone into work that morning. He thought for sure she must be dead, but he was completely numb. He was vaguely aware, as he tried to catch his breath, that his life was in serious danger and that he might never see anyone he ever cared about again, but he was so completely exhausted and in such a state of shock that he felt absolutely nothing but an indistinct fear.
Markie shook his head, trying to regain his senses. He stood straight, though his body was shaking, and began to walk swiftly and steadily. In what direction, he knew not, but he was leaving the mess as far behind him as possible. He would escape. He would survive. He swore it.
A rumbling grew behind him, and the quakes under his feet were enough to tell Markie that the North tower was coming down. He broke into a run, but he barely made it to the end of the block. The dust cloud had not reached him, but Markie could not stop himself from looking back. A huge chunk of steel, the outer wall that framed at least fifteen windows from two floors, was heading right towards him. Screaming, he covered his head, stopped dead in his tracks.
This was it; this was the end….So why was he not squished? Markie cautiously opened one eye, and then both opened widely. Even in the shadow, he could see the uniform of red, white and blue.
The blue-eyed man before him held the debris at bay with his circular shield, cradling Markie with his arm and protecting him with his body.
"Are you all right, son?" he asked, and Markie could only nod dumbly and stare at the star on his chest and capitol 'A' on his forehead. "This is getting really heavy…"
Markie ran out the way, and Captain America let the piece of wall fall so that he was standing in a window.
"Get out of here, kid, it's dangerous," he told Markie. He was about to run off.
"Wait!" Markie said. The Captain stopped and looked at him. "I-I can't find my brother. We got separated."
Cap sort of half-smiled with a hint of sorrow. "I've got a lot of cleaning up to do, uh—"
"Mark. Mark Wylde."
"Right. He look a lot like you?"
"Kurt has blue eyes. And he was with a blonde guy named Dan Dresden. They're best friends."
"I'll let them know you're okay if I run into them. The best thing you can do is get yourself to safety." He quickly pointed out the general direction of the harbor, where Markie could catch the ferry out of Manhattan. He put his hands on Markie's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "It's going to be alright, Mark. I have to go now, but you promise me you'll get out of here. Well? Go! HURRY!!"
Mark ran the entire way to the harbor. There was only one thing he could think the whole time:
'It's going to be alright. Captain America doesn't lie. If Captain America says it's going to be alright, then it'll be alright. If Captain America says it'll be alright, then it'll be just fine. If Captain America says…'
Markie waited in line to get on the ferry, despondent and tired. He had no idea what the point of anything he was doing was at all. The only reason he even went for the ferry was because Captain America had told him to, and it was the only thing he could think of. The shortest line was for the ferry to New Jersey, so that was where he was headed, but after that, he knew he would just have to improvise.
As he got to the front of the line, he reached for his pocket, but the ferryman refused payment. He put a hand on Markie's shoulder and gave him a sympathetic smile. Markie nodded and sniffled appropriately, as if he were having a very bad day. He was, of course, but he just could not bring himself to care at the moment. This whole…thing with the towers, it wasn't like it was happening to him. Sure, there was a good chance his mother was in one of the buildings, and that would be reason enough to panic, but Markie was calm. Nothing would get to him. All he had to do was get somewhere safe, and he would be just fine.
It was nearly ten now, and a group of twelve year old boys from an evacuated middle school were talking about how fake the explosions looked, even that it had to be some sort of publicity stunt, but one look at Markie was enough to shut them up. He sighed and rummaged through his pockets; his wallet was there, but he left his cell phone in Dan's car. He was cut off. Thankfully, a few other refugees from Manhattan mentioned an emergency shelter going up at a YMCA in Jersey City. If he could just make it through the night there, he knew he would be fine.
Twenty minutes in the shelter, and Markie was ready to take his chances in the burning wreckage. This wasn't going to work. He needed to get back to Manhattan and fast. The North side was not evacuated, and he thought if he could get up there, at least he had a fighting chance. Lower Manhattan was completely off limits, except for search and rescue efforts, but it still sounded better than Jersey.
All Markie had to his name was what he was wearing during the incident. That was how he thought of it: the incident. And everyone in the shelter had been affected by the incident. Dusty, coughing, and afraid, none of them were from Markie's neighborhood, and he knew no one from school or any other place. He did not know their faces, but he could read the pain in their eyes. They had no idea where friends or loved ones were, they didn't even know if they would make it through the next day, but they stuck together.
Guilt flickered across his eyes. Looking at all of them, watching the small children cling tight to their mother's bodies, Markie felt completely and utterly alone. He had no one there in Jersey City. Some extended family resided in Queens, but his parents' arguing had estranged most of them, and even now, he wanted nothing to do with them. All Markie wanted, all he truly yearned for…
Markie sighed as he allowed himself to acknowledge the truth: all Markie wanted was his mother. His mother, his father, his brother. He just wanted them to all be safe.
Markie grabbed a shower and lunch; he had no choice but to go back.
Markie snuck in through the back door of St. Patrick's Cathedral, knowing that if the clergy and caretakers were there, they would happily have offered him sanctuary. Why else had the doors been left unlocked in the worst neighborhood in Manhattan? He deserved the rest a night there would bring him anyhow.
A whole day of searching had brought him nothing. His house was abandoned, the windows blown to shards from the shock-wave of the collapse, and every room was covered in a thick layer of dirt, pulverized glass and asbestos. The carpets and furniture were ruined—Mom would not be happy about that—and several small knick knacks were in pieces. The van was gone, which meant his parents were, thankfully, somewhere else, and, hopefully, safe. Nonetheless he canvassed the neighborhood.
His mother's favorite café and his father's bar of choice were in similar states of disarray, but they looked as if they might have been occupied at the time of the collapse. There was a single bloody hand print on the door frame where an exiting patron had cut themselves on the broken glass. Just looking at it gave Markie the creeps. The café had a BMW in front of it that still had a parking ticket stuck under the windshield, but from the condition the car itself was in, Markie doubted anyone would claim it.
That same layer of grime covered everything in the streets, every window was broken, fires burned in the distance and ashes continued to drift through the air like filthy snow. It felt like the end of the world.
Heartbroken and alone, Markie had finally come to the old church for a place to stay that night, despite the fact that interior was littered with debris. He kept telling himself that at least he wasn't in New Jersey. The dull light of the fires at Ground Zero caught and reflected in the shards of stained glass that still clung to their frames, casting the cathedral in a calming array of blues and greens.
Since he had stumbled out through the dust and debris, Markie had been in too deep a state of shock to be more than a little worried for his loved ones. But now, in the shelter of St. Patrick's Cathedral on the far north edge of Hell's Kitchen, he had time to think, and the gravity of the day's events hit him full force. Thousands were dead, God only knew how many more missing or wounded, and sitting in a pew in the back row, Markie cried. He cried for his mother, father and brother, and for Dan Dresden; he cried for the blind lawyer and the patrons of Battling Jack's Gym, and for the creepy old lady with thirty seven cats. Markie wept for all the souls of those lost and for his own, but most of all for his friends and family.
Because they made up his life and without them there to ground him, Markie felt he would just float away. He had no idea where any of them were, or even if they were still alive. Markie screamed, and a fresh burst of sobs escaped him. Tears streaming down his face, Markie pounded his fist on the back of the pew in front of him.
"Please," he begged the empty house of God, praying that someone or something heard him. "Please, let them be okay."
He gasped, shuddered, whined, moaned and sobbed against the encroaching darkness of the church, and wondered if his life would ever be the same.
Autumn gave way to winter, winter to spring, and for awhile, things almost seemed…normal. In the aftermath, they worried that things would never be the same, but Kurt and Markie had found each other, found their parents, and found Dan.
Dan's father retired, having seen more than his share of action as a New York City fireman. Though he had lost Dan's older brother Andrew in the collapse of the North tower, his oldest, Tom, still fought the good fight. Dan's sister Jessica, likewise, still drove her ambulance. Dan himself put up a tough front, but the things he had seen that day haunted him.
So, too, did everything Kurt and Markie had been through, but like Dan, they kept telling themselves that people less fortunate than they had been through far worse and they should be thankful. They refused to deal with any of it because they thought it wasn't that bad.
And so, Kurt, Markie, and Dan pretended that everything was all right, and after a while, things finally felt normal again. With normality came the usual day-to-day grind of work and school, and eventually, the Super Bowl. This year, the New England Patriots were battling with the St. Louis Rams at the Louisiana Superdome.
The first half came and went, and while Dan focused on a silly commercial, Kurt and Markie argued and laid bets on the outcome of the game.
"I'm telling you, Markie, the Rams have this clinched."
"Kurt, stick to racing; it's what you're good at," Markie said flatly. "There's just no way they can defeat the strategic mind of Bill Belichick. The guy's a genius."
"The Patriots are the underdog by fourteen points, you numbskull!"
The argument was getting pretty heated, and Dan ignored them, turning up the volume. The hilarious, over-the-top commercials the yearly event was known for came to an end, and even over the Wylde brother's squawking, he could hear almost what sounded like a church organ.
"What's going on?"
"Shoosh, Markie." Dan knew U2 was playing the halftime show that year. Sure enough, they were doing one of the best live versions of Where The Streets Have No Name he had ever heard. Behind Adam, Larry, Bono and the Edge was a huge sheet of fabric, and building up from the stage floor were three columns of names. At first, they were confused, but Dan's father recognized the names of two men from his fire company; the three huge columns growing infinitely upward, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, were the names of those who had lost their lives months before, in the shadow of no towers.
Towards the end of the song, the lines suspending the sheet let loose, each name, each victim, pancaking down onto another. The room was silent with shock, and finally, it hit them again.
Big and burly, New York City-tough as they were, the Wyldes and the Dresdens found themselves bawling like lost children in each other's arms. They were right the first time around; things would never be the same.
"I can't take this anymore," Dan wailed, his body shaking from the sorrow. "First chance I get, I'm moving to California. There are too many memories here."
A/N: I know this is really long, but like I said, I needed to get "IT" off my chest. I sincerely hope that this is okay, because I know there are parts that suck, and I'm sorry for the long introduction. I had to add Captain America, and I had to put in at least a mention of music. there was going to be a whole other section about the brothers meeting again at a candlelight vigil, but I decided to eschew it for length. I love you.