Pictures of New York
by Will Leitch

I received some pictures today.

It was a wonderful weekend. For my boy Eric's birthday, a friend and I had bought him tickets to go see the Brooklyn Cyclones play at Coney Island in New York City. It's always a trek to go that far south into another borough, but for minor-league baseball against such a beautiful backdrop, it was well worth it. The weather was perfect, and the photos show a bunch of goofy kids having a grand time. Eric drinking a beer while putting me in a headlock. One of our pals pretending to have Down Syndrome so he could run around the bases with children after the game. My girlfriend and I posing in front of the Wonder Wheel.

And then there is another set of photos that, not surprisingly, I'd forgotten about. The night before the game we met at Eric's home, on The Bowery in Soho, about a mile northeast of the Financial District. We had met there to drink, of course, and to give presents to Eric, who has had one of the worst years anyone could possibly imagine. My girlfriend, who has known Eric longer than I have, bought him a Fight Club DVD and made him a laminated wallet card that proclaims him a honorary Fight Club member (it is one of his favorite films). Eric smiled. It was good to see him smile — it hadn't happened much for a while.

Someone bought him a cool clock. Someone gave him a goofy card. I, feeling perverse, purchased a DVD of Requiem for a Dream, one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. Thought it might be funny. A film about human addiction and suffering as a birthday gift. Ha, ha.

It was a large crowd over there. Eric's apartment is small and holds the New York City heat a little too well for my tastes, but it is always open. It is welcoming. A friend once remarked that Eric was the only person we knew who designed his apartment for the comfort of others rather than himself, and it shows. The couch is ample and comfy, located conveniently around his larger-than-most-lofts flat-screen television. He is always cooking — Eric is the only twentysomething I know who can make extravagant meals while watching pro wrestling and drinking a 40 — and his apartment is your apartment. It is the ideal meeting place for kids lost in the city, far away from home, confused, adrift, searching for something resembling a home base.

And oh, his roof. Like any Midwestern transplant, I remain transfixed by the breathtaking New York skyline, and I long ago became an expert on roofs. There is no roof better than Eric's, and believe you me, I've looked. All of Midtown and the surrounding areas, with the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building and all the other cool places I'd read about as a kid, are lit up in their glory, right in our face, beaming out, reminding us why we came here. That roof was home to a mental breakdown I'd had a few months before, when I, continuing to struggle to find my place in this city I'd considered cold until a week ago, began screaming at the skyline, telling it to fuck off and leave me alone, fuck you, fuck you, why the fuck won't you leave me alone, fuck you. That skyline represented to me all that was great and terrible about New York City. It is enormous, unmerciful, imposing, extravagant, unforgiving and, just when you thought you couldn't take it anymore, achingly gorgeous. I screamed and screamed. And then I looked at the Empire State Building, which beams a different colored light every week, shining blue that night, and the city had me right back in its clutches again. And I was grateful it would have me.

It wasn't long until the birthday posse relocated to the roof. We have this game. Right across the Bowery a building is being constructed. The foundation has been laid, but the work area is surrounded by a chain-link fence. It is a tempting target. Hence our game. Since I first met Eric's roof, way back in May 2000, we have discussed whether or not we could throw an empty beer bottle — ammunition we tend to have in abundance — over the street below, over the sidewalk and into the work area. This is illegal, obviously, and dangerous, which is why it inspired so much discussion and so little empirical evidence. We took everything into account. Wind resistance, torque, gravity, parabolas and, essentially, the inebriated nature of the soul doing the tossing. We all agreed that a baseball would easily make the trip, but an empty beer bottle, with all the air it would catch in flight, was the matter of debate (we figured a full beer bottle would make it, but we were most certainly not going to waste resources). Would the thrower toss it overhand, or sidearm? Should it flip vertically or horizontally? Would it be better to maximize the arc, or fire a line drive? Many, many hours were spent on the topic, but no one ever had the guts to try it. But the clock was ticking; the construction was nearing completion.

Our friend Chris, Eric's old roommate, had a horrible week. His girlfriend had moved and he was pretty torn up about it. He needed a diversion. Eric and I had a powwow in the hallway. Tonight was the night ... and Chris would be the hatchet man. When we mentioned it to him, he beamed. We set the countdown, checked the wind, cleared the sidewalk of passersby, took deep swigs and then, with a whisper and a dead sprint ... Chris chucked it.

The wind caught it, but the wrong direction, and it careened away from the building and into the next one over. It landed on the roof — we heard no shatter — and bounced away. We stood up — though, like the weasels we were, as soon as the bottle was thrown we had ducked for cover, lest we be blamed for any destruction — and cheered wildly. We all hugged Chris and sent someone down for more beer.

And we drank, and danced, and partied, and laughed, not a care in the world. Flipping through the photos, I see yet another picture of Eric grasping me in a headlock. Eric and Matt posing like gangster rappers. Greg, Matt and I looking over the ledge, calculating silently. My girlfriend and I, smiling, my arm around her, less out of affection than physical support, so that I wouldn't I drunkenly fall on my face. We all look so happy. We were so happy.

And in the backdrop of the pictures, behind Every Goddamn One ... is the World Trade Center.

There they are, the towers. I'm sitting on the ledge, laughing, and the towers loom right behind me, all lit up and beautiful. Eric is leaning against the wall, gulping a Corona, and the needle atop Tower Two sticks out over his head like a unicorn's horn. They're right there, alive, standing tall, like nothing is the matter and nothing will be again.

Last Tuesday, I sat in my office and saw a news alert that said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Wow, I figured. Planes fly too close to that thing all the time. It was bound to happen. Then the other one was hit. I immediately hopped on AOL Instant Messenger. Eric was the friend who worked closest to the towers, and I sent him an ill-timed joke — none of us understood the enormity of it all, not yet — and he responded with "this is no joke, asshole. We're at war. I'm getting out of here." We set up plans for everyone to meet at his place, the mother ship, later that afternoon, and he said goodbye and signed off, leaving his building, 200 yards from the WTC. Five minutes later, the first tower fell.

Eric was lucky. He sprinted away in time and ended up just covered in ash, soot and fear. Thousands others weren't so lucky. Eric is now home in Boston, trying to collect himself. I am in New York, trying to do the same thing.

And I look at the pictures. I see our laughter. I see our escape. I see our lack of a care in the world. And behind us, those towers, waiting, taunting us, alerting us that this world is bigger than we thought, and we can't sit and drink and toss bottles and laugh forever. That time is over.

The future is uncertain, but now, I recognize, so is that past. Gone is the time where we could be so frivolous and young. We were so stupid, goddammit, so fucking spoiled. I look at those pictures and I feel not sadness, or nostalgia. I feel anger. Anger at myself. Anger at my whining and bitching and moaning about things that are so meaningless. Anger at the thought that I really could just play and laugh and forget everything. Life was so different then. You could do that then.

But it is all different now. Eric's roof is no longer a safe haven. It is just another danger zone. There is death everywhere now. It feels like it's creeping around the corner, ready for any of us.

Will I ever laugh like that again? Will any of us? Do we deserve to? I just want our roof back. It, like just about everything else, it seems, is gone forever.

E-mail Will Leitch at williamfleitch at yahoo dot com.