Mr. Hildy's face was as chalky as the board he made his living writing on. He looked out over his students crammed into his classroom and wished he'd never turned on the TV. They didn't need to see this. Young, untried, innocent. His mouth opened to reassure them, but his intolerance for bullshit robbed him of speech. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't be a bald-faced lie or that wouldn’t frighten them more. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. It was an illusion, a magic trick, just smoke and mirrors. But the tower was gone. The second tower to be hit, the first to go down. It took only 56 minutes from impact to collapse.
Fern clung to Bailey's hand. The billowing cloud of smoke and dust looked like the batting from Fern's old stuffed bear. It was a carnival prize, filled with cheap, fuzzy, synthetic cotton. She'd conked Bailey in the head with it and the right arm had torn free, spewing fuzzy white fluff in all directions. But this wasn't a carnival. It was a spook alley, complete with maze-like city streets filled with people covered in ash. Like zombies. But these zombies wept and called out for help.
When they heard the news that a plane had gone down outside Shanksville--only 65 miles from Hannah Lake--students began leaving the classroom, unable to bear more. They ran out of the school in droves, needing reassurance that the world hadn't ended in Hannah Lake, needing their families. Ambrose Young stayed in Mr. Hildy's room and saw the North Tower go down an hour after the South Tower collapsed. His mother still wasn't answering. How could she when he couldn't get anything but an odd buzzing in his ear whenever he tried to call? He went to the wrestling room. There in the corner, in the place where he felt safest, sitting on the loosely rolled mat, he offered an awkward prayer. He was uncomfortable with asking God for anything when He so obviously had His hands full. With a choked “amen” he tried to reach his mother once more.
July, 1994
High up in the rickety brown bleachers, Fern and Bailey sat slurping the purple popsicles they'd pilfered from the freezer in the teacher's lounge, looking down at the bodies writhing and grappling on the mat with the fascination of the excluded. Bailey's dad, the high-school wrestling coach, was holding his annual youth wrestling camp, and neither of them were participating; girls weren't encouraged to wrestle, and Bailey's disease had started to weaken his limbs significantly.
Basically, Bailey was born with all the muscle he was ever going to have, so his parents had to carefully consider how much activity he should participate in. Too much, and his muscles would tear down. In a normal person, muscles that are torn down repair themselves and rebuild stronger than before, which is what creates bigger muscles. Bailey's muscles couldn't rebuild. But if he didn't get enough activity, the muscle he did have would weaken more quickly. Since the age of four, when he was diagnosed with Dushenne muscular dystrophy, Bailey's mother had monitored Bailey's activity like a drill sergeant, making him swim with a life jacket even though Bailey could navigate the water like a fish, mandating nap time, quiet time, and sedate walks in her busy little boy's life so he maintained his ability to avoid a wheel chair for as long as possible. And they were beating the odds so far. At ten years old, most kids with Dushenne MD were already wheelchair-bound, but Bailey was still walking.
“I may not be as strong as Ambrose, but I still think I could beat him,” Bailey said, his eyes narrowed on the match below them. Ambrose Young stood out like a sore thumb. He was in the same class as Bailey and Fern, but he was already eleven, old for his grade, and he stood several inches taller than all the other kids his age. He was tussling with some of the boys from the high school wrestling team who were assisting with the camp, and he was holding his own. Coach Sheen was watching him from the sidelines, shouting out instructions and stopping the action every so often to demonstrate a hold or a move.
Fern snorted and licked her purple popsicle, wishing she had a book to read. If not for the popsicle, she would have left a long time ago. Sweaty boys did not interest her very much.
“You couldn't beat Ambrose, Bailey. But don't feel bad. I couldn't beat him either.”
Bailey looked at Fern in outrage, spinning so fast that his dripping popsicle slid from his hand and bounced off his skinny knee. “I may not have big muscles, but I'm super smart and I know all the techniques. My dad has shown me all the moves, and he says I have a great wrestling mind!” Bailey parroted, his mouth turned down in an angry frown, his popsicle forgotten.
Fern patted his knee and kept licking. “Your dad says that 'cause he loves you. Just like my mom tells me I'm pretty 'cause she loves me. I'm not pretty . . . and you can't beat Ambrose, buddy.”
Bailey stood up suddenly and he wobbled a little, making Fern's stomach flop in fear as she imagined him falling from the bleachers.
“You aren't pretty!” Bailey shouted, making Fern instantly seethe. “But my dad would never lie to me like your mom does. You just wait! When I'm a grown-up, I will be the strongest, best wrestler in the Universe!”
“My mom says you are going to die before you are a grown-up!” Fern shouted back, repeating the words she had heard her parents say when they didn't think she was listening.
Bailey's face crumpled, and he began to climb down the bleachers, hanging onto the railing as he teetered and tottered to the bottom. Fern felt the tears rise up in her eyes and her face crumple just as Bailey's had. She followed after him even though he refused to look at her again. They both cried all the way home, Bailey pedaling his bike as fast as he could, never looking over at Fern, never acknowledging her presence. Fern rode alongside him and kept wiping her nose with her sticky hands.
Her face was a mess with snot and purple popsicle when she brokenly confessed to her mother what she had said. Fern's mother silently took her by the hand and they walked next door to Bailey's house.