Milk Cartons

"-caught in the collapse of the North Tower-"

Matt slipped around the counter, stepping carefully in the remains of the smoothie lest he fall or cut his foot. He stepped onto the carpet and approached the TV in silence, still holding his hands aloft as if he were carrying an invisible blender.

"-rescued after three days buried under rubble. Apparently the same girder that caused his injuries also prevented him from being crushed by yet more debris-"

A photo came on the screen. Matt stared at the same picture he'd seen in the MISSING poster, the formal portrait in police dress uniform. He stared Reichert in the eyes as if Reichert were staring back. What swirled through him now was just as indescribable as the vast hollowness that had appeared when he'd first seen the photograph a few days ago-a few days ago?-it had been only that long?-it felt like he'd looked at it months ago, like he'd been sitting here in his apartment without a view for months. Had it been only a few days?

"-remains in critical condition at an undisclosed hospital. Our hearts go out to the family with hope for a full recovery. His rescue opens hope for other families that there may be more survivors, though officials are urging caution as rescue missions are increasingly turning toward recovery of remains. John? Back to you..."

The phone started ringing even as Matt still stared numbly at the screen. The answering machine-he hadn't even bothered to change the message he'd recorded on the twelfth-picked it up as he was too dazed to. He only dimly heard Ross's excited voice; it was funny, what close friends they'd become in just the past few days.

"Matt! Matt! Turn on the TV! Did you see it? I'm gonna call around and see if I can figure out what hospital it is. Did you see the news? Call me when you get this!"

Matt didn't call-not because he didn't want to, or didn't care, but because none of it would sink in. He was water, and the news was a slick of oil, floating on the surface but not breaking through. When the phone finally rang again, he looked at the clock, and couldn't believe he must have been standing there for an hour, though the ache in his legs said otherwise. What he'd thought he'd just seen was a dream, or more wishful thinking. He slowly came out of it and retrieved the phone just as the answering machine picked up, so Ross's voice came out as if on a speakerphone.

"Matt! Jesus, I thought I'd never reach you. Where've you been? Have you seen the news?" Matt opened his mouth, made a small sound, and must have taken so long to reply that Ross didn't give him the chance. "Listen, Jennie and I did some looking around and we think we found the hospital he's at. Christ, you would not believe how easy it all is, go figure. When you get there make sure to tell them you're a relative, a cousin or something, 'cause they know he has only a stepbrother, all right? Make up a sob story or whatever and you'll get right through because everybody's got a sob story right now and they can't tell what's what yet. It's crazy, I know. I wouldn't believe it either if Jennie hadn't tried..."

Matt took down the name and street of the hospital-it was within several blocks of his building-several blocks, Justin had been there, several blocks away, all along?-and almost hung up on Ross before Ross warned him, "Jennie says she saw him, he wasn't in good shape and they...I guess they say they're not sure he'll make it. So get over there while you can. If they won't let you through, here's his room number, so maybe you can sneak in..."

Get over there while you can. Any slight fluttering that had started to rise in Matt's breast quickly changed into a floundering panic. The numb haze that had been over him the past day or so shattered and he gasped, having to set the receiver down before his clenching fingers could break it. His arms shook so badly he wrapped them around himself to try to still them, and his legs felt like water. Reichert had described a standoff situation to him once, how calm and easy it all seemed at the time, how afterwards when he got back to his apartment he nearly collapsed; adrenaline, he'd said. Apparently it would keep someone going while they needed it, then when it was over came the crash. He'd also described how once after a rather rough foot chase and arrest, over a half hour had passed before he'd realized that he'd fractured his ankle-he'd been running on it all along, but once it was over... Matt finally understood what he'd meant.

He had to fight to get on his jacket and shoes, just to leave the building; he almost lost his balance on the stairs. His breath came out in a sharp wheeze and he shook like a leaf as he walked, attracting a few odd looks which he didn't notice. When the hospital came into view, he found he couldn't approach the doors. He literally had to force himself to walk across the street and enter, and even that took several moments and a vast amount of will. As he neared the reception desk he decided he didn't want to see him after all. He'd be better off not seeing him. He didn't want to. The more rational part of his mind was bewildered by this reaction-how could he possibly not want to see him? He didn't know, he just didn't.Get over there while you can. The implied finality of the words was what finally propelled his feet forward.

He did just as Ross had advised. Asked if he could see Justin Reichert, said he was a cousin who'd just gotten to the city; when the nurse informed him it wasn't time for visiting hours for non-immediate family, he vowed to just peek in and see him, he wouldn't enter the room or bother him or anything, just wanted to know he was okay. Did she have any information herself? She professed ignorance, which he knew was just confidentiality; he was waved through anyway, warned not to disturb his cousin, he needed all the rest he could get. Matt murmured a thank you and slipped past the desk into the hallway and toward intensive care.

The room number the nurse had given him was the same as the one Ross had. He saw to his relief that there was a large window overlooking the room, as he'd hoped there would be, since he was largely unfamiliar with hospitals; he slowed his step and could see that the curtain was only partly drawn so anyone passing by could look within. He hadn't passed the door yet, so he couldn't see who was inside. He halted again as if his feet were suddenly sinking into the floor.

...wasn't in good shape...

...not sure he'll make it...

...while you can...

Reichert had once told him of a nightmare he'd had. In the dream, he'd found a body. But there had been a blanket covering its face. The figure was indistinct so it could have been anybody-his stepbrother, his stepfather, his biological father, his sometime police partner, any one of various friends or acquaintances, even Reichert himself-he couldn't know unless he lifted the blanket. In the dream, he'd picked up the edge of the blanket, but had hesitated in raising it. On the one hand, he had to know who it was. On the other, he didn't want to know. The not knowing, and not wanting to know, had been the most frightening part of the dream, which Matt fully believed, recalling what had gone through his head while searching the thousands of pictures. Reichert had finally pulled the blanket aside...but that was the end of the dream. He never did find out who it was. As he'd described this dream to Matt, sitting hunched over in the bed with elbows on knees and a sour look on his face, Matt lying beside him and stroking his leg, he'd made clear how silly he'd found it, to be rattled by a mere dream. But even after awakening, it bothered him, the needing to know and the not knowing. He hadn't known which was worse, and he'd been in a foul mood the rest of the day because of it.

As soon as this memory finished flitting through Matt's head, he realized he had to see, or it would hang over him forever, like the smoke and ash still hanging over the city, like the mood which had hung over Reichert the rest of that day. He paused to steel himself, as he imagined Reichert had done in his dream, then stepped slowly forward, peering aside, willing the scene within to come into view as gradually as possible. He wasn't as brave as Reichert. He wouldn't have been able to just yank that blanket aside.

He could hear the beeping of the heart-rate monitor and the racket of an artificial respirator before he could see anything. This made his already slow step descend to a crawl, and he felt as if he had to drag his feet just to move them. He saw the edge of another curtain, the kind that surrounded hospital beds, but could tell that it hadn't been drawn shut. He halted to steady himself again and had to take the next step without thinking about it else he wouldn't have taken it at all. He told himself Reichert deserved at least the kind of courage he'd shown in his dream, and with that thought he turned his head to look in the window.

"The really stupid thing," Reichert had said, scowling at the bedsheets,"is I just knowit would've both scared the shit out of me, and been totally anticlimactic. That's how it always is. Say for example it was me under the blanket. Bam-shit scared out of me-holy Christ, how am I under that blanket if I'm the one looking under it? Bam-what a stupid fucking dream, whyam I under a blanket if I'm the one looking under it? So the next time I have a dream like that, I'm going to just pull the damn blanket off, laugh at whatever it is, and wake the hell up. This is completely not worth stewing over. I just know the ending would have been stupid, and that's why I'm so pissed off right now."

Matt again understood.

He almost didn't even see Reichert at first, there was so much equipment and so many dressings. It took him a moment to realize that all of that was him. He tried to make sense of it, appraise the situation. Reichert's left arm and leg were in traction; his right arm and leg lay upon the bed, but were bandaged. Further bandages wrapped around his ribs, the same ribs Matt had once run his fingers over, smiling at the way his partner had flinched; the tubes in the detective's nose and mouth, combined with these wrappings and the artificial respirator, told Matt all he needed to know about that. The dressings were thickest on his hands-Matt could hardly bear to wonder why, why those hands that had fiddled with his jacket zipper, that had touched his face, that had dug into the bedclothes, that had run along his body, were now so lost in sterile wrappings. It was likewise with his head; the bandages wrapped around his skull and over his left eye. His right eye, nearest Matt's vantage point, was still visible, one small thing he could find relief in, but it was swollen and dark with bruising, and it was shut.

Someone was huddled on a seat beside the bed, their back to Matt so they didn't see him. Judging by their hair and build, Matt knew it was the other person in the second photo on Reichert's MISSING poster, and could only assume it was his stepbrother. As he thought this, he saw him raise his hand to his face-wiping his eyes-and then lower it again, this time lightly placing it on Reichert's heavily bandaged right hand. He turned his head to glance at the clock on the wall-Matt saw how red his eyes were before slipping back away from the window before he could be noticed. If his stepbrother was here, then his parents probably were as well. If he was looking at the clock they were probably due to return soon.

Matt huddled into his jacket and walked back up the hall, not meeting anyone else's eyes lest they be the parents who had no idea he existed, as if they could somehow tell who he was to their son. In a day already full of understandings, he now understood the guilt Reichert had always felt, and he didn't feel safe lifting his eyes until he was safely slumped in the shadows of Ross's bar, cradling the bottle the bartender had passed to him, "On the house, because you need it," along with the offer to drive him home when the time came. Matt had never gotten drunk before, had never seen any point in it. There was enough of a point now. He wiped at his own eyes in between swallows, trying to replace the image of bandages with that of caressing hands, of bruises with hazel eyes, of tubes and machinery with a hesitant smile that took weeks to appear but had finally been worth it.

In the following days he paid more attention to the news. To the handful of people who stepped forward-an office worker from Tower Two, the mother of a firefighter, a young patrol officer, several people from the North Tower-each telling their own story of what they'd seen the "hero cop"-that was what the media called him now, instead of "miracle survivor," now that they knew who he was-do that morning.

The patrol officer told of how he'd been driving to the scene somewhat late, the man running on foot who'd flagged down his car-practically jumping in front of it-flashing a badge as he climbed in, asking what had happened even as they sped to the site, how he'd learned the stammering details from the patrol officer himself, how as soon as they'd arrived, he'd jumped out of the car, running into the smoke and ash, and had been lost to the younger cop's sight. He'd figured he was dead by now.

The office worker from the South Tower told of running through the choking darkness as the building came down behind her, how she'd fallen and had no idea how long she'd been lying there half-invisible in ash when someone finally picked her up, how she'd groggily started to come to in time to glimpse the face of the man who passed her off to an emergency worker; she hadn't had the chance to get his name, hadn't been able even to speak to him, but had recognized his picture on the news.

The firefighter's mother-speaking for him as he was still recovering in the hospital, the same hospital Reichert was in-told her son's story of getting struck by falling debris which pinned his leg, how like the office worker he was far enough out of the way and buried well enough that no one could immediately see him, how someone-made gray and indeterminate by the ash-had freed him and helped him to his feet, letting the firefighter lean on him as they made their way back toward his fellows, how whoever it was had turned and disappeared as soon as they had hold of him, before they could see if he needed any attention himself. Like the office worker, the firefighter had managed to get a glimpse of his face only at the last moment, and that only because the other man had suddenly swiped his hand over his face to clear the caked dust away before he was lost from view.

A receptionist from Tower One told of being practically buried in a mound of concrete and steel, of pulling herself half free but being unable to finish the job due to the section of metal keeping her pinned down; of a man appearing seemingly out of nowhere and grabbing at the metal beam, jerking back with a hiss and his smoking hands held up to his face; how even after that, he'd wrapped them up in his jacket, and pushed the beam over, so she could scurry out of the rubble and to safety. It had never occurred to her that he was dead, she insisted; she knew he must still be alive, because God didn't let guardian angels die until it was their time, and this was obviously somebody with a lot of good things left to do.

The handful of people from the North Tower told of him briefly appearing in the lobby to direct them to a safe way out, what with the accumulating smoke making everything difficult to see, though they knew it was him. He hadn't been so coated in ashes, or his hands seared, just yet. They knew he'd escaped Tower One along with them, as he'd accompanied them and a handful of firefighters even as other firemen were heading inside; they'd lost sight of him, but had been surprised to learn of his disappearance, since he'd been right behind them, they insisted. They couldn't believe at first that he'd actually gone back into all that mess, but after hearing the other stories they were no longer surprised.

Matt listened to these accounts with growing fascination, leaning toward the TV in the dark, as he'd been too preoccupied to bother turning on the lights when night fell. There were other interviews. The police captain of Reichert's precinct. His family themselves. Part of Matt rather wished Reichert could see all of this himself. He would have been able to gloat and make Matt choke on it-You're only one person and can only do so much-and Reichert's argument, which he'd found so trite and childish at the time-Just because you can't fix the world doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Some of us actually like to try to fix something.

Matt had once asked him where he'd gotten such an attitude, since it seemed so out of keeping with the rest of his mindset. Reichert had hesitated to respond."You'll think it's stupid." Matt insisted that he tell him anyway. He learned not only where Reichert had gotten this attitude, but why he'd become a police officer in the first place.

"You've heard of Kitty Genovese, right...?"

"Of course."

"Let me recap anyway. Put things in perspective. New York, 1960s. Pretty young lady on her way home from work late at night. A guy runs up and stabs her in the back. She starts screaming for help. Somebody yells out a window, guy runs off, but comes right back to finish the job. Stabs her, rapes her, and leaves her to die. Whole thing takes around a half hour. A bunch of people in their apartments see or hear at least part of what's going on. Only a few bother doing anything and what little they do turns out not to be enough. The guy who finally calls the cops? Sees the assault in progress outside his door. Shuts the door and calls not the cops, but a friend or some such and asks what he should do. Don't get involved, he's told. Good Samaritan calls the cops anyway. Kitty dies anyway. What took him so long to call, they ask? He was drunk, and he was tired, he says." A pause."Granted, a lot of the bigger story's been exaggerated over the years...but still, people didn't do nearly enough. Including the cops, people didn't want to call them because they'd get brushed off and treated like shit so often. I heard this story when I was in school. Couldn't believe it, that people could just not care to get involved. Nobody should have to die like that. Nobody should have to wonder why nobody else got involved.

"I'd had no idea what to do with myself before hearing that story. Then I heard it, couldn't believe it, and something clicked. Maybe I can do something. Nothing much, sure, but something is better than absolutely nothing. Something might have saved Kitty. Something as small as a shout or a phone call. It doesn't have to be something big. Everybody can stand back, or somebody can bother getting involved. I figured it may as well be me. Now, before you go spouting some self-affirmation kitten poster shit, I've always known I'm just one person and can do only so much, and in the big scheme of things, it might not make much difference. But if I help just one person one time, a Kitty or just some lady who had her purse snatched and her ID and money stolen, then in my opinion, at least that's something, and it's better than absolutely nothing. Maybe I can't change anything big or important. I can try to change something small, though. Sometimes small things are what's most important, anyway. And that should count."

Go figure that he had actually proven himself right in a manner so stupendous he would have grimaced at the unbelievability of it, if it had been fiction. Matt knew that despite all this, he wouldn't have gloated. It wasn't his style. He might have smirked and given Matt the finger, though, and said good riddance to those fucking milk cartons.