I walk into the alley before Jim can argue. He follows. The rats, unmoving, watch us approach. But there is movement here. Low along the walls of the buildings on each side, the shadows are scurrying. There are hundreds of rats here, agitated by the day's explosions, driven above ground into the space we are now crossing.
They close in on us at the halfway mark, so close to our feet that we could kick them with little effort. Would that scare them back or anger them forward? We press ahead briskly. A pickup truck is abandoned at the end of the alley. We will have to squeeze by one side. The rats squeeze in with us. I can feel them brush my ankles, skitter across my shoes. And then we are out of the alley, in the open, clear.
Travel
I started the day on foot, running home from the gym. In a taxi, I learn from the radio news that the trains running to New York are at a dead stop. I get the cabbie to change course, from the train station to the newspaper to meet a waiting car.
The New Jersey Turnpike is pandemonium, but that is not normally news. We get off and use back roads across the state to reach the river bank in Jersey City. Our first view of it. Towers gone. Huge smoke plume. A ferry captain agrees to take us back across with him. But on the far bank, the FBI has other ideas. "Back on the boat," an agent yells as I step off.
We drive north to a bridge still open, far north of the city. "You going to Manhattan?" the toll taker asks. "It's closed." In New York, we race the car down the other bank on a highway closed to traffic. When the road ends, we are still 50 blocks from where we need to be. Back on foot.
Messages
On our way to New York, my cellphone is not working. I can't call the office or check my messages. I am out of touch. Then the radio makes me think I should turn around and head home. A newsreader just said that an airplane has slammed into Jenkintown. Jenkintown? Why?
