The Guys

When I was a little girl in Oklahoma,

I would wait every week for Newsweek and Life Magazine

to plop into the mailbox.

What were they doing this week in New York City?

Going to plays written by Europeans?

Listening to jazz and string quartets.

A prewar apartment on the Upper West Side--

rent-stabilized-- filled with music and books.

A husband who liked opera as much as football.

Two charming children in a good public school.

An interesting job.

Oh, yes, my career.

I was a brave, foolish 25-year-old girl.

Yes, girl, though I would have fought that word at the time.

I saw bodies, talked to refugees, dodged bombs.

The only time I was ever really afraid

was on nights before I got on the plane to go back down.

I'd cut my deal with God.

If I got killed this time, someone would have to feed my cat.

Hey, Mom. What's going on?

-Julian, are you awake too? -Yeah.

Okay? Snuggle.

The week after the attack,

I visit my sister in Park Slope.

She lives in Park Slope because she's 10 years younger than me,

and over the 10 years between us,

the Upper West Side was priced out of the market.

I like Park Slope.

It's like my neighborhood used to be.

They just had their third kid.

Six months old, and I needed to hold that baby.

It was primal.

That week after the 11th,

you could've scored big in the rent-a-baby trade.

Phone rang. My sister answered.

It was her friend, the masseuse.

Um, hang on a second. Let me have my sister talk to you.

She was giving emergency massages to rescue workers.

-Hello? - "Look," she said,

"I've been working on this guy. Bad shape."

"He's got to give the eulogies.

He says he can't write them. He needs a writer."

I thought, well, when was the last time I heard anyone say they needed a writer?

He lived down the block.

"Come now," I said. "I have a few hours."

My sister took the baby out for the day.

Joan?

Hi. Uh...

Hi. Nick.

Right.

Um...

I'm really sorry about...

uh, what happened.

Yeah. Right.

Listen, it's a, uh...

it's a beautiful day. It's the weekend. You got your kids.

You don't need to be doing this. So...

Oh.

My kids have play dates. I'm useless.

It's fine. Um, want some coffee?

Sure, if you've got some going.

Milk? Sugar?

Just black.

Thank you.

The thing is, I don't really know what to do.

The call came and the... the guys went out, and...

they haven't found them yet.

But some of the families, they want to have a--

a service now so that they can move on,

and so I got to get up and I gotta talk in church. But...

I've been sitting in front of a piece of paper all day,

and I haven't been able to... write a word. Not a...

not a sentence. I just...

keep going into a clutch.

I'm no writer under normal circumstances, but...

what am I going to tell those families?

Hey, it's okay. Maybe I can help.

I've never written a eulogy before, but I've written some speeches.

Um, now, how many did you say there were?

Eight.

Eight?

Eight men.

I lost eight men.

So, eight eulogies.

We'll just take it a step at a time and, um, do what we can.

Uh, you say one of the services is scheduled for this week?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, Thursday. Yeah.

So we'll do that one first. Okay?

See, there's 350 men unaccounted for in the department,

and, um, they've been missing for the last 10 days.

Some of the families, they're still waiting, you know.

They think they're gonna find them alive in an air pocket or something, but...

the other families say no, they're gone.

And... they want to have a service to try and move on,

but they don't have any bodies.

Right.

So... we're gonna put a photograph where the...

coffin is supposed to go,

and we'll just say the eulogies next to the picture.

But we're talking about...

350 men.

You gotta understand that in a bad year, we might lose...

six.

This happened in one day, in one-- one hour.

So, anyway, that's 350 services,

and if they keep digging and they find bodies,

some of the families, they might want to have a funeral.

And if every man had a funeral and a service, that would be 700,

and we'd be doing this for a year.

I just-- I just hope they don't all want funerals, too.

Yeah.

So, which services are scheduled so far?

I have it here in the folder.

I have a list.

Okay, where did I put that? Here we go.

Um... okay. Uh, Bill Dougherty. He's first.

That's Thursday.

Then, um, Jimmy Hughes. He's next.

And after that is...

Patrick O'Neill.

That's a hard one. He was my best friend.

He was a fine man.

His wife wants to do his on his birthday.

And then, um, the next day is Barney Keppel.

It's gonna be tough on the guys. They--

Everybody loved Barney.

Well, that makes four we have to do today.

So, we'll just take it a step at a time and do what we can.

You know, human beings have been giving eulogies for thousands of years.

You're doing this for the families. You'll comfort them. It's for them.

It won't be about what happened that day.

I mean, we'll talk about who they were and make it about them.

And that's what you can give the families.

I keep hearing, you know, these speeches from politicians on TV.

Hero this, hero that.

And I don't even-- I don't even recognize them.

Well, so that's why it's good you're doing this.

I mean, you can give their friends and families something they can recognize.

You can do that. Okay?

So, tell me about Bill.

Yeah, well, Bill, you know--

That's the problem. There's really not that much to say.

You know? Uh...

All this hero stuff, it was like they were some guys in a movie,

but, you know, Bill wasn't like that.

-Mm-hmm. -He was a ordinary guy. He was a schmo.

If Bill walked into a room, nobody would even notice.

But you can't...

you can't say that in a eulogy.

Back up a little bit. Just tell me about him.

Um, what did he look like?

Uh, when you think about him, what comes to mind?

-What did he look like? -Yeah.

He looked like a plumber.

Okay.

You know, he was not too tall. Uh, reddish hair.

Mid-40s.

But he was a senior guy, you know,

and all the junior men, they looked to him.

Hmm.

They had their eyes on him to know what to do.

"My men," he called them.

When you close your eyes, where do you see him? What's he doing?

-Uh... -Just try it.

Please.

In the kitchen.

In the kitchen?

In the kitchen. In the kitchen.

You know, the guys spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

There's a lot of downtime between runs, and I see Bill,

he's sitting there, and he's talkin', and he's sayin',

"My men need this, my men need that."

Yeah.

Bill spent a lot of time talking in the kitchen.

Uh-huh. Yeah?

And he was...

He was real good with the younger men.

You know, he was always taking them and pointing things out to them.

Mm-hmm.

He was real... senior.

-Right. -Right.