Princip steps forward, pulls out his gun, and fires two shots. One hits the prince, who by now I hope you’ve figured out is Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in the neck. The other hits his wife, Sophie, in the belly, killing her quickly.
An aide, trying to hold closed the hole in the neck of his prince, asks him if he’s in pain. The archduke says, “It is nothing.” He repeats this—“It is nothing . . . It is nothing . . .”—over and over until he falls unconscious and then dies.
It was not nothing. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand touched off a cascade of terrible decisions and reckless diplomacy that ended in the deaths of more than sixteen million people.
Keep that in mind if it seems like the following events are improbable. Sometimes, weird things happen that change the course of history . . . and apparently they happen to me.
* * *
—
Andy looked like he’d slept a good thirteen minutes. He was untidy and quiet, and I could definitely smell him as he adjusted my lapel mic.
“You OK, dude?”
He looked at me like he was just realizing I was there before moving his eyes back to his work. “Yeah, fine. I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you’re fine.”
He snapped out of it a bit then. “Fuck, April, of course I’m not fine. What the hell are we doing?” He didn’t sound agitated. He sounded tired.
“We’re going to go out there and try to make this a little better for everyone. I need to believe something myself.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re going to say?”
“I have a couple ideas.” I’m not sure I did, but I felt pretty sure that something good would come to me. “Is there anything you think I should say?”
“Aside from that the world is awful and how the hell did we come to this?” He sank down into the sofa. I hadn’t told Andy about the shot, I hadn’t told him about Carl Jr., and I hadn’t seen any sign that it was still in my apartment. If it hadn’t left, it was in one of the rooms I wasn’t going into.
I looked down at Andy, understanding for the first time that his eyes weren’t just puffy with lack of sleep. I realized I hadn’t cried yet. That was messed up. I thought about just crying right then—it would have been easy, just relaxing a mental muscle and I would have been gushing. But then I thought (for real), Nah, April, save it for the camera.
Gross.
Out loud, I said, “All those people out there, they’re defying the police and the terrorists to stand with Carl. To stand with us. To simply say, ‘The world is not awful,’ that’s what we need to go down there and do.”
“April, on the news, they’re saying there might be more attacks. Look at all those people down there! No one’s checking backpacks! I almost had a panic attack just getting into your building!”
“I spend all my time on the news, it’s their job to scare you. I watch it firsthand all day long.” I will say this for myself: I wasn’t giving Andy a pep talk because I needed him. I could’ve gotten someone else to hold the camera. Hell, I could’ve gone down there with a selfie stick and it would have been great footage. I wanted him to do it because we were in this together and I wanted him to feel that way. I felt as if I was telling him the truth. I was just giving him a dose of reality because I thought it would make him feel better to do something great on a terrible day. I was kinda right, I guess.
I guess.
“Remember when I called you in the middle of the night to go look at a weird sculpture? I did that because I thought you wanted something and I could help give it to you. But, Andy, you are so much more than I thought you were then, and I’m so much less. I don’t need you to help make me famous, I need you to help keep me sane. There’s nothing more dangerous outside that door than a Halsey concert.” He had his eyes closed, but I could see the concentration in his face. I don’t know if he was concentrating on keeping his mind in the present, on facing his fear, on not crying, or on not saying things that he wanted to say to me but knew he shouldn’t. In any case, it was clear that he was working hard. “Let’s go down there and make the world a little better, OK?”
* * *
—
Andy was shooting on a DSLR, about the size of a teakettle, with a big, heavy wide-angle lens on it to help him get good shots even in close quarters. With the mic receiver and preamp assembly, it was about a three-pound rig. Ten years ago, a setup to get similar-quality video and audio would have weighed at least thirty pounds.
Another nice thing about wide-angle lenses: They don’t show shaking as much. That’s good when you’re getting jostled around by a crowd . . . or just shaking in terror.
Jerry the doorman was worried as well. “April! I have to advise you not to go out there right now.”
What fantastic advice.
“We’ll be fine, Jerry, it’s more of a party than a protest.” I was nervous, but Andy was green and sweating.
“April, I’m responsible for your safety when you’re in this building, but once you’re out there there’s nothing I can do.” His paternalism was cute up to a point.
“This is what I do, Jerry. You are awesome. We’ll be back in five or ten minutes, I promise.”
We pushed through the revolving doors, me ready to start talking, Andy with the camera already rolling.
I turned around immediately and started walking backward into the crowd of people, speaking just above normal volume. You’ve probably seen this video, but it feels like part of the story, so I’m telling it:
“April May here on 23rd outside Gramercy Theatre, the residence of New York Carl, where the impromptu response to what will undoubtedly come to be known as the July 13 attacks is one of solidarity, hope, and friendship. Only a few stragglers of the Defenders movement have showed up to continue their outrageous protest of a clearly benign presence in our cities.” People are starting to take notice, they almost all recognize me, and they’re giving us a bit more room to move. I’m moving toward Carl, I want to see if I can get him in the shot, but you never really notice how wide streets are until they’re filled with people.
I think for a second now, walking forward instead of backward, using my “April May” clout to clear a bit of a passage.
“Hey, April!” I hear called from the crowd. It’s a young guy with a sign that reads “If This Is Humanity, Bring on the Invasion.”
“Hey, handsome!” I respond. He’ll have a story for his friends, I think.
I turn back to the camera and continue walking backward toward Carl.
“On this truly terrible day the world mourns. In our mourning we have to remember that this was not done by an evil world or an evil species, it was done by a few individuals. Yes, the level of sophistication and organization is terrifying. Their goal is to be terrifying, and they have succeeded. I’m scared. Of course I am. But a few fools who killed themselves and others for some unfounded ideal that took hold in their broken hearts—I’m not afraid of them, I’m afraid of their fear.” That was one of the lines I had prepped. I look around, people are staring now, they’ve formed a circle around us and it’s getting quiet. “These people.” I look around as Andy pans the camera. “This demonstration!” I shout, and everyone shouts, and it’s beautiful and we’re all doing it together and it feels so good. People have their cell phones out, recording me as I record them—the scene is covered from every angle. “This is what humanity is, solidarity in the face of fear. Hope in the face of destruction. If the Carls are here for any reason”—and amazingly Carl comes into view right when I say this, towering above the crowd just a few yards away—“then maybe they’re here not to learn about us but to teach us about ourselves. I am learning more every day and I am learning now that even . . .”