March 13, 2002, Wednesday, 8:14am
Subway station, 59th Street and Columbus Circle
Pete walked briskly on the platform away from the C train. He willed himself to walk slightly slower, but, not too much slower. His internal sense of time told him it would be 8:15 in just a few seconds... it was eerily reliable on things like that. He glanced down at his watch: And it just turned 8:15, there we go.
Oh to hell with this, Pete thought, and started walking more briskly again. As he mounted the stairs, he thought to himself, three minutes remaining.
8:16am
Subway station, 34th Street and Herald Square
Abs shuffled away from the train with his hands in the pockets of his voluminous coat. Abs, a nickname he got from fellow weight-lifting aficionados at the gym he went to, slowly turned his head to look back at the train.
He knew better, but, he looked back at the train, at the subway car he had just exited, and at the still-open door.
No one was coming after him, no one was looking around urgently for someone, no one was holding up a bulky-looking shopping bag and shouting "Hey!" or anything like that.
Abs refused to let himself think. He knew how to clear his head and keep it clear, especially when it counted. He rolled his head side to side, cricking his neck, and continued walking.
And four of their friends were doing similar things at subway stations in the busiest locations during the peak morning traffic, when over one hundred passengers would crowd each subway car, when hundreds of thousands of people rode shoulder-to-shoulder on their way to work, or home from night-shifts, or to home or work from a night spent well at another person's home, this was New York City, interactions like that happened. Even barely half a year after the city had been shaken deeply by catastrophic skyline-altering life-ending events, you carried on. The city would recover, that was a fact.
The six package-droppers would have been twelve except they could only put together six of the packages. They didn't want to skimp on quality or quantity in terms of putting together the packages. These things couldn't be done half-assed.
Pete, the soft-spoken first of equals in this dozen-men group --committed, concerned people, Pete thought of them, not anything more charged or flashy than that-- had been a newb-ish boxing fan. He knew that NYC was like a heavy-weight boxer, getting up groggily from a heavy hit, slowly getting its strength back and back onto its feet.
Pete knew and made sure that everyone understood that it was vital to close in and hit again before that could happen. Another hard hit had to be dealt, another punch, to the body, to the limbs, to the head, to injure and hurt and inflict uncertainty and yes dammit fear.
Subway station, 59th Street and Columbus Circle
Pete walked briskly on the platform away from the C train. He willed himself to walk slightly slower, but, not too much slower. His internal sense of time told him it would be 8:15 in just a few seconds... it was eerily reliable on things like that. He glanced down at his watch: And it just turned 8:15, there we go.
Oh to hell with this, Pete thought, and started walking more briskly again. As he mounted the stairs, he thought to himself, three minutes remaining.
8:16am
Subway station, 34th Street and Herald Square
Abs shuffled away from the train with his hands in the pockets of his voluminous coat. Abs, a nickname he got from fellow weight-lifting aficionados at the gym he went to, slowly turned his head to look back at the train.
He knew better, but, he looked back at the train, at the subway car he had just exited, and at the still-open door.
No one was coming after him, no one was looking around urgently for someone, no one was holding up a bulky-looking shopping bag and shouting "Hey!" or anything like that.
Abs refused to let himself think. He knew how to clear his head and keep it clear, especially when it counted. He rolled his head side to side, cricking his neck, and continued walking.
And four of their friends were doing similar things at subway stations in the busiest locations during the peak morning traffic, when over one hundred passengers would crowd each subway car, when hundreds of thousands of people rode shoulder-to-shoulder on their way to work, or home from night-shifts, or to home or work from a night spent well at another person's home, this was New York City, interactions like that happened. Even barely half a year after the city had been shaken deeply by catastrophic skyline-altering life-ending events, you carried on. The city would recover, that was a fact.
The six package-droppers would have been twelve except they could only put together six of the packages. They didn't want to skimp on quality or quantity in terms of putting together the packages. These things couldn't be done half-assed.
Pete, the soft-spoken first of equals in this dozen-men group --committed, concerned people, Pete thought of them, not anything more charged or flashy than that-- had been a newb-ish boxing fan. He knew that NYC was like a heavy-weight boxer, getting up groggily from a heavy hit, slowly getting its strength back and back onto its feet.
Pete knew and made sure that everyone understood that it was vital to close in and hit again before that could happen. Another hard hit had to be dealt, another punch, to the body, to the limbs, to the head, to injure and hurt and inflict uncertainty and yes dammit fear.