Summary

Brandon and Richard start the precarious descent down the stairwell, picking their way through rubble and stepping around dozens of discarded uncomfortable work shoes as people have begun to swarm down the stairs. Brandon cannot stop thinking about his father. “How was he going to be alright?” (197). I am an orphan, he thinks. His father’s parents live in distant Honduras, his mother’s parents live somewhere in Idaho. Firefighters in full regalia pass by on the way up. News of another attack, a plane flying into the Pentagon, stirs the crowd. Who is doing this? “Somebody’s who’s about to get their butts kicked by the US of A” (200), a security guard confidently tells Richard and Brandon. In the confusion, the “river of people” (202), Brandon momentarily is separated from Richard. When the crowd spills out into the grand open-aired 2nd floor...