45.
WASHINGTON, DC, gleamed before him. How had Anthony never been here? His dad talked so much about politics and the president and everything else that it felt familiar to him, but he’d never actually visited. People never see the important sites they feel close to. And even if he’d been here in his imagination dozens, hundreds of times listening to his dad’s stories, or watching The West Wing together, it wouldn’t have felt like this.
It wasn’t that it looked all that different from what he imagined—everything big, clean, and white—it was that he felt different than he thought he would.
He’d been in Europe only weeks ago, but the speed with which everything had happened since then made him feel connected to Europe as if it had been yesterday. That was the last quiet moment, the last normal moment he’d had, and he’d been in cities with history rising up all around him. Europe had done that to him, hit him the moment he’d landed in Italy. Maybe because he was going to see Spencer and Alek, and history was the one subject they first bonded over. Whatever it was, between all the partying and the devastating hangovers and talking to pretty girls with foreign accents, what had struck him most about Europe was how many important, somber things had happened, everywhere he went. He’d felt it all around. He’d seen it, the giant arches commemorating this leader, that war, and he’d taken enough photos to crash a computer or two. It was all around, from the ancient cobblestones in Venice that ate up his suitcase wheels, to the stones in the Berlin Holocaust memorial, to standing next to Spencer in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate, commissioned by a king in the 1700s. Things in Europe were measured not in years but in centuries.
And yet from here, the Lincoln Memorial looked like the Brandenburg Gate back in Berlin. The residue was still with him, because as he looked up at Lincoln, a giant on a throne looking down at the Mall, Anthony thought, We have history too. It had taken stepping out of his own country to feel so close to it.
Now he felt not just close to it, but a part of it. By now it had become a refrain so common it sometimes felt nearly meaningless: “American heroes.” But here he stood, thinking, This is where we come from, and we just did something to make this country proud. Anthony felt proud. In a real way—a powerful, substantive way, not just a country music song or bumper sticker kind of a way. He felt honor, he felt fulfilled. He was proud to be American, because he’d done something small that made him a part of something big. His role in history had been fleeting, but enough that he felt connected to everything that stood before him.
As he walked through the Mall, it was the World War II memorial that pulled him in the hardest. It was coming full circle, back to the war with the stories that brought him and Spencer and Alek together, and to the president Anthony idolized, whose words were inscribed on the walls. Anthony stopped in front of FDR’s quote about Pearl Harbor, an inscription bigger than him, and read:
DECEMBER 7, 1941, A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY . . . NO MATTER HOW LONG IT MAY TAKE US TO OVERCOME THIS PREMEDITATED INVASION, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, IN THEIR RIGHTEOUS MIGHT, WILL WIN THROUGH TO ABSOLUTE VICTORY.
And for the second time, it was a memorial that forced him to reflect. The effect was unexpected, even though it was exactly the effect memorials were supposed to have. He stood, taking it in, thinking, reflecting, remembering, feeling the whole size of what he was a part of.
HE TAKES OUT HIS PHONE and begins recording the scene.
Did all of that just happen?
No. No way. That was a terrorist. We just stopped a terrorist. My friends won’t believe this. Dad won’t believe this.
He pans right.
Spencer on the ground, a gun; he doesn’t know exactly what he should capture, he feels maybe it’s important to capture everything.
“Where’s that gun?” Alek is back, but his question doesn’t make sense. He’s holding the gun.
“What do you mean?” Anthony says. “You’re holding it.”
“I mean the other gun. The pistol.”
“Huh?” There is no pistol. Anthony has seen no pistol.
Alek’s jaw is set; there’s no doubt in his face. Anthony feels unsteady.
Alek says, “The one he tried to shoot Spencer with.” Alek ends the sentence rising in tone, as if to say, obviously.
Anthony feels his hand going to his forehead. Is Alek fucking with him? They were both right there for the whole fight with the terrorist; Alek saw the whole thing too, laid hands on the man, why does Alek think there was a pistol? Alek is imagining things.
“Well, then where is it?”
“It has to be in here.” Alek begins looking around. Anthony helps because he’s feeling the need to help; he gets on his hands and knees too, at least to humor Alek. He looks down the aisle, he looks under the seats. He looks back to where the legs of a table are bolted to the floor, right under where Spencer tried to choke the terrorist all by himself. Anthony rotates his head both ways, and sees something glint. It is dark but shiny, like an old penny, but it is small and cylindrical. He reaches for it and holds it closer. There is no mistaking it. It is a shell casing. And he knows it’s too small for an AK-47 round. This is a spent shell casing from a pistol. Someone did have a pistol. Someone fired a pistol.
So where is the pistol?
He stands up and puts the shell casing on the table, with a clink. Alek looks at it and gives a nod. Anthony nods back. They look for the pistol.
Soon Anthony feels useless, going up and down looking for something that clearly isn’t here, because if it was here they would have found it; it’s one single, small train car. There just aren’t many places it could go, and they’ve already looked everywhere.
He begins piling the weapons and ammo on a seat, arranging it all in one place. It feels productive, like helping a friend pack for a trip. It will save someone time, later.
He organizes it neatly.
He films it with his cell phone. The man had so much ammo.
He looks up. He looks down the train car. He experiences another stream of clarity: he is evaluating everything in front of him like he’s part of a CSI team, observing each detail by itself, squinting and focusing on one thing at a time in order to unlock its meaning. He is able to disassociate things from other things, spread them out and observe each detail by itself. Everything is a stationary piece of furniture on a stage. Blood spatter on the window. Blood puddled on the floor. Spencer’s head: dark red. The dying man lying down. The shell casing that he found. That he picked up—touched. It will have his fingerprints on it. What can he do about that? There is nothing he can do about that. There is not much he can do about anything. He is a small piece on this set. Maybe he can help Spencer. He goes and stands by his friend for a minute, five minutes. Spencer seems to be losing the man. Anthony can hear clearly when Spencer says, “Do you want me to say a prayer?” The man doesn’t seem to respond. Anthony feels moved by something. He leans close and whispers to Spencer, “Just say one anyway.”
He doesn’t know if Spencer hears. Spencer doesn’t reply. But he seems to bow his head.
Ten seconds go by, or maybe a minute or ten minutes, it’s hard to tell, and Anthony gets up. Alek is back again. They stand together, silently. And then Anthony feels himself smiling. Alek begins to smile too. And then they are both laughing, because what else is there to do? It is a ridiculous scene in front of them, a ridiculous thing they just took part in. Spencer is on his hands and knees, bleeding out of his head and calm as can be, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. The guy on the ground was gushing blood like a fire hydrant and is now talking normally. They’ve found themselves in the middle of the most farcical movie scene, where people gush blood out of wounds and talk quietly like they’ve just finished a reading at the local library.
That is what Anthony can’t shake: the tranquility. It is quiet. Nobody is panicked. Everything is still. It is amazingly still. It’s too still.
He walks toward the back of the car, just observing. He feels it is important to keep observing details. With his phone, with his eyes. These details will be important. Just keep observing and recording.
He moves through the train car one more time, because maybe on a second pass he will find the pistol. He can’t find it but he keeps looking in the same places, because he knows it’s there, it has to be, he found the bullet. Only instead of the pistol he sees something else. There is a foot sticking out from under a seat. He wills himself toward it. It is attached to a body that is trembling. He bends down and sees a human being. A girl, still hiding. How had he not seen her?
It amazes him. It is such a small space, but it keeps revealing secrets. He keeps seeing there is more in this train car than he thought.
She must have been there the whole time, under the four of them as they fought. It was all happening right over her. She lay there, in a fetal position, her body juddering, sobbing without making noise. Her face would have been inches from their feet as they fought. The man who collapsed gushing blood would have crumpled to the ground nearly on top of her. Anthony has a strange feeling; this girl was so close to where the gunman came into the train car, she would have been the first person killed if the man hadn’t been stopped. Anthony is looking at a person who is alive because of him.
He has an urge to say something to her, but doesn’t. He can’t think of anything that would make any sense.
He is thinking about what to do when they get to a station, whenever that is. They will have to find some security guard, and try to explain what happened. That will be awkward, or dangerous. He imagines police raids in Sacramento, SWAT teams breaking down doors, he sees a scene in his mind, a battering ram and machine guns, “Everybody get the fuck down until we question everybody!” and he is anxious about being caught up in the crossfire, but as the train makes the long gentle left bank into the station, he can see out the window: they know. Men and equipment prepared for urban warfare. SWAT-style trucks, national police, dozens of people waiting, some in full combat gear. Anthony thinks, Should I get down on the ground?
But as they come in in a swarm of motion, they seem to somehow understand exactly who’s who. A team of paramedics goes straight to Spencer and takes over for him. Five policemen in heavy gear move directly to the gunman, they do not even ask where he is, they do not have any ambiguity about what car he is in. It feels strange; how do they know? Someone or some agency or some entity knows much more than he does, and he feels for a moment very small, a pawn in something larger. Like someone has been watching the whole time.
The policemen do not untie the terrorist or cuff him, they simply pick him up like he is and carry him, one policeman on each limb, right off the train.
Anthony follows his face as they carry him out. He’s awake now. Anthony can see his eyes open, but the terrorist doesn’t say anything. He has a stunned look, like he is thinking, Did I really just mess that up?
Someone is yelling in Anthony’s ear. “Hey, hey! You two come with us.” The authorities somehow know who he and Alek are.
Outside on the platform they begin asking him questions. “What did you guys see?” The policeman is trying to write it down, but he can’t get it all straight and finally gives up. “Okay. Just come with me.”
“Can we get our bags real quick?”
“Fine. Go ahead, go.”
Where is Alek? Alek is gone again. Then Anthony sees him, and it’s the strangest thing: Alek is just sitting by himself on a bench.
All the commotion happening around him, police on one side, paramedics on the other, and Alek just sitting there. He doesn’t seem to care about any of this. He doesn’t seem bothered by anything at all. Just an old man alone on a park bench. By himself, thinking.