THOMAS LARSON

(Raven Chronicles. Volume 10. "Writers Examine 9/11 and Its Aftermath." 2003.)

Gladys is a bulgy-eyed woman and, at 56, her reading glasses like little big-screen TVs magnify those eyes even more just as they’ve magnified the minutiae of insurance bill- ing receipts which, for the past three years, she’s been feeding into the computer at her desk on the twelfth floor where, at this moment, she is not returning to, though, post coffee-break, she almost has having just heard the “return to your offices” announcement, but, rather, in the melee, she has tripped on the balcony above the first-floor atrium beside a row of elevators and has fallen hard, the brunt on one knee, her glasses spinning away, and, reaching for them, she feels the explosion from within the building, then suddenly sees him, him, Hope, who’s right there beside her on the balcony, it’s him, she’d know that jowly face anywhere, despite its age—from those dingy TV specials, from those dingier road movies with Bing and Dorothy Lamour, it’s Bob Hope at One World Trade.

Hope’s one old hand is holding onto the railing and in the other there’s a microphone. He’s poised to do schtick, though it’ll have to be quick since on every side of them both the New York skyline is commencing its cascade, gathering steel desks and file cabinets, office dividers, phone lines and bottled water jugs and cubby-hole refrigerators, loosened from their perches in an imploding chute of tumbling debris—but no, Hope, the Great One, is saying, Wait a minute: I know it looks bad but it’s not like we can’t take a moment for a bit of levity, maybe a skit, a bit—road shows and USO tours that have been his calling for half a century: No matter the decade, the conflict, the enemy, in whatever swamp-hole or battleship deck, if this is war, then Hope’s there, with gag and girl, doing something wacky to keep the troop’s minds off the carnage.

Gladys can smell the smoke, the rain of smoke, thick as flannel, coming down; she can sense the people, too, the rain of people, their descent having ground to a halt as the floors pancake, 110 into 109, 110 and 109 into 108, the gangway of gravity, the equanimity of the Great Down, employer/employee merged at last, while others are running from the elevators, out the stair wells, the few lucky ones, escaping and free in what was a bright blue morning. But first, Gladys wants to get with the fleeing crowd but it’s not easy, her glasses strewn somewhere. And yet here’s Hope, still alive, and we thought he was a gone out there in Palm Springs. But it’s him, imagine.

The Greatest Entertainer of All Time is hanging onto the railing above the atrium, where trees and shrubs and ivy have once fought for light (but no more), and he’s saying that just yesterday he was in New York with Jack Benny and the pair had to buy tokens to ride the city’s subway, so Benny asks Hope, how much is a token, and Hope says, Jack, it’s a dime, a lot more than you can afford, and Benny says, You’re right, I’m going to spend a nickel, ride halfway, then get out and walk the rest, after which Hope says, but seriously folks, his signature, like a rim shot. Many in the mass below have glanced up and been struck, My God, that’s Hope. At a time like this? What’s he doing here? Timidly, they wave as they assail the doors, screaming at the air and shaking their heads that things can’t be that bad with the comedian, perhaps the most recognizable Tinsel Town mug of all, here in Manhattan.

Far-sighted Gladys can see that mug, though it’s thinner and frailer than she recalls. Still, even as firemen are marching up the stairwells with hoses and axes, there’s the icon—that ski-jump nose; that play-dough face; that legendary timing with that quick turn-of-the-head glare; his widow’s peak, his Lyndon Johnson ears (despite his Republican bona fides), his pear-shaped body; those droopy eyes which still flash a lightning wit; that curled half-smile; and that style, neither laughing nor grinning, the deadpan half-grin, the jokes still funny to him on the inside ; and that voice, the I wanna tell ya ladies and gentlemen this reminds me of the time Der Bingle and I were on the carrier U.S.S. Roosevelt in the South China Sea and the men hadn’t washed since the Tet Offensive, I mean, you could keel over from that smell.

That day in Vietnam, he says (he’s audible but, like an Ives symphony, in conflict with cries and sirens and explosions and the on-going Roman candle sink of steel that held it all up), I was the epitome of cool, man, with golf club, fatigue jacket, rumpled hat, Crosby on my right and Raquel Welch on my left and behind me, for crying out loud, the Rockettes, all 28 of ’em, kicking in sync: You know what Sinatra said when he heard the Rockettes and I were on the same plane: Send in the National Guard.

Gladys imagines the scene, circa 1969, of Hope, Crosby, Welch, and the Rockettes clacking those taps on the boards, the smell of hair spray, the smiles burned onto their faces, it’s all a hoot and perfectly normal, the way it should be, the way we’d be in our backyards, barbecuing and cutting up, if not for this conflagration. Gladys, still unable to bend her knee and get up, remembers church as a young girl where she prayed to the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. But church wasn’t fun or funny, the ring of theology over virtue.

Wasn’t Hope out of commission, age 90 or so, when he’d reached senility or the onset of Alzheimer’s? I guess not. He’s right here beside me, Gladys thinks, as the Great Down continues, the stockbrokers and the underwriters piled in with the secretaries and the filing assistants, the woman with two high-school kids in Bayonne, another, an intern, who just graduated from Vassar, still another who’s been emptying waste baskets since she arrived from Haiti five years ago.

Concrete and girders and joists and elevators, shafts and cables and wiring, are pulverizing each other in the butt-and-twist beam-bounce-and-recoil, the once unbreakable building, now an ash in air, and yet there’s time for each person to ask, Am I going to die? This pummeling how it ends? Not yet because Hope’s reminding them, I think we need to distinguish fear of a thing from the thing itself: How many times has Dolores rushed me to the E.R. with just a touch of pneumonia, after which everyone starts thinking of the headlines: HOPE ON HOSPITAL DEATH WATCH. What I do is kick back a few days, get plenty of rest, kibbitz with the staff, then Boom! I’m on my feet, tottering, yes, but game to go. Where to Sarge? So, when I heard about one of the Towers in trouble and the call that came through that we’re under attack, I said; To hell with taking it easy, let’s go.

If anyone can beat the reaper, it’s Hope. As long as Hope is alive, the minions dawdle in awe that they’ve not been forgotten. Hope’s role is the apotheosis of show-biz. Another audience, a better performance, a bigger laugh, the newest Miss America on his cuff. Usually, he’s with Les Brown and his Band of Renown, babes with cleavage in hot pants and mini-skirts and thigh-high white boots, bending over in sloppy sketches, after which, switching the subject, Hope says, The cafeteria food in One World Trade is so bad I finally found something to match Dean Martin’s cooking.

The rubble is piling, but there’s Hope’s hand, beckoning to Gladys, her aqua-blue blazer and slacks, bleached white by the dust, her skin ghostly except for her popeyes that can barely make him out, and his hand, though it’ll be difficult with those old bones of his to hoist her up. An infirm pair—Gladys and Hope. She asks him, now, up on her knees, where they’re going, and he says, You’re right, and she asks if she should be afraid, and he replies, Now, that’s very kind. He’s not making sense, she thinks. But Hope continues. That’s what I do, my dear, is like the fireman I show up. I leave it to others to tell me where I need to go. I play it well or I play it poorly, the role I’m assigned, nothing more. The life I’ve lived and the life I live inside those I’ve loved and who’ve loved me—all our boys desperate for a sign from home—are one and the same.

He remembers, helping Gladys to her feet, the New York Friars Club Roast in 1953 when several hundred friends and celebrities, Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Fred Allen, Bernard Baruch, honoring him with a testimonial and a statuette, to which he replied, No man can be this great, but I’m convinced I’m the exception. If I’d known you were going to eulogize me like this, I’d have done the decent thing and died first.

Hope asks Gladys, whether she can get to her feet. She says she thinks she can, and, rising with his help, she stands next to him on the balcony, holds on while they breathe the final slivers and shafts of air, packed between the ash motes of the falling colossus. Hope says, Between you and me, I think that’s a wrap. What a helluva crowd. Couldn’t be any better. Gladys says, I’ve never thought of the twin towers as an audience. Oh, they’re an audience all right, Hope says. They’ll never forget it. Seeing all this crumble. I’m glad I got here in time to see it, too.

But why single out me? Gladys asks.

Hope answers: Why you? indeed. Why me? Why any of us? It’s not for us to ask. If I knew the answer, I would never have left the dressing room—oh, Marilyn, Dorothy, Jane, I’m telling you. If I knew the answer, I would have put Cardinal Mahoney out here as emcee, but seriously.

Gladys is upright, now arm and arm with Hope. He says: Here, take hold of my hand and I’ll show you why us. Since I’m an old man, you’re going to pretend—Nurse! Nurse! I’m worse!—you’re like a cane from vaudeville, yanking me off the stage. Make it real, as they do right before the commercials. We’ll be right back, after a few words from our sponsors, Osama and Al Qaeda and their air fleet. What a team! I used to play golf with those guys, but every time they swung the club, their turbans went flying. I mean really. Is that crazy or what? Here’s Johnny! Live from the Copacabana. Mr. Hope. How did you make all your money? Simple. I went out to where the houses ended and I bought the land. That’s Show Business!