Evening

The clouds are rolling in, furious in the graying night sky. I spent Sept. 10, 2001, at the Odeon on West Broadway, seven blocks from the World Trade Center, which, if you can't picture it, was close enough to make the buildings loom as large as a fluorescent-lit chimera, only with a warm and fuzzy tint, like a crazy mythical creature that reminds you again, and forever, you'd think, that yes, you are definitely in Hades, and isn't it warm and cozy here?

My journalist friend and I exited the restaurant at just about midnight. Red wine tickled our bodies. We stopped on the sidewalk and looked up, as if magnetized.

"It's just so beautiful," I said.

"I know," she said.

And then we went our separate ways, and went to sleep.