THE OBSERVER

Trying to cope

By Sam Allis, 9/16/2001

he poet Charles Wright calls our efforts to keep fear at bay ''this tiny arithmetic against the dark undazzle.'' Never has our math seemed punier.

But consider the wry optimism of Reinert Uhrmann as he surveys the Thursday lunch scene at the Top of the Hub: three couples eating in the 186-seat restaurant on the 52d floor of the Prudential Tower.

''This is progress,'' notes the affable maitre d'. ''There were two lunch parties yesterday.'' That was 24 hours and change after the bad guys hit the World Trade Center.

''Half of our reservations canceled yesterday,'' he adds. ''The guys used their wives and girlfriends as excuses. Then another 20 percent didn't show. A lot of functions here for the weekend have been canceled. You can't blame them. We'll get over it.''

Three waiters stand by examining their cuticles. I ask them if they're scared to be up here? ''Not really,'' says one, sounding an awful lot like me as a kid when asked if I were scared of the dark.

Skyscrapers are supposed to define us. The higher your perch in one, the theory goes, the more important you are. If you're a Master of the Universe, you get the view, the keys to the executive bathroom, the single malt, whatever.

Until last Tuesday. Since then, the mail room looks swell. Exit strategy trumps panorama. (I've booked hotel rooms on the seventh floor or below ever since a guy told me that's as high as a ladder truck can reach in a fire.)

I ask Sven the Viking if he'd like to be up at the Top of the Hub. (Sven is the Duck Tours driver who wears horns on his head and faux fleece over his loins. ... Hey, it's a look.) ''No, no, no,'' says Sven, shaking his horny head. ''I want to be at the Bottom of the Hub.''

Joking is no longer a laughing matter to this guy. These are tough times for people paid to be funny. ''All the drivers are talking about it,'' he says. ''This is not a good week for comedy. I don't think I'll crack a joke.''

And what of the dreaded quack? Duck Tours drivers emit signature peals of infuriating duck noise as they cruise through Boston streets in their popsicle-colored vehicles. To quack or not to quack - that is the question. ''I won't quack today,'' he says flatly.

Sven's challenge is our challenge. We're all searching for emotional cruising speed. It's tough to find because we lack context. American flags are fine but they don't help much in the small hours before dawn. We're in spiritual waters that would be labeled in medieval oceanic maps: ''There be dragons.''

Denial is a tricky thing. It gets a bum rap these days, yet it allows police, fire personnel, and trauma surgeons to do their jobs in the face of the unimaginable.

So how do we measure our emotional health? By crowd size? Does it matter that Stephanie's on Newbury is packed for lunch? Should we be alarmed that foot traffic is lighter than usual at Banana Republic? We'll be on the road back when we stop counting. The most calming thing I've ever done is laundry.

I find it comforting to see construction workers building something instead of clearing rubble. I like the traffic delays on East Berkeley because of the men laboring there. Hard hats look damned good around here these days.

Churches are prized once again as sanctuaries as well as Sunday lecture halls. ''We opened the church earlier in the week and people came in just to sit,'' recalls the Rev. Benjamin King, an Episcopal priest at the Church of the Advent below Beacon Hill.

And that's the point. We don't want to be thundered at now. Smart preachers understand this. ''We're not going to do the forgiveness bit much on Sunday,'' he says. ''We'll just try to calm people down a bit. In a crisis, the less you say the better.'' Hear, hear.

As a Brit, King cannot avoid the issue of black humor. His tribe is famous for the maudlin jokes it has used for centuries to deflect the worst of life's horrors. But there will be no jokes about this carnage. Not ever. I have never heard a joke about Oklahoma City. Not one. No Brit is cracking wise now.

''The size of this makes it impossible to joke about,'' he says. So what are Bostonians talking about? The dogs of war. Mark Harris, who cuts hair on Newbury Street, says his clients want Old Testament vengeance. ''Tuesday was disbelief. Wednesday was sadness. Thursday is anger,'' he recounts. ''The left and the right are saying the same thing now. There's a lot of talk about assassination. I'm hearing it from women, too.''

We're going to be emotional oil slicks for a long time, drawn to dark places and back with the psychic tides. It makes no difference where we live. As many have noted, we're all New Yorkers now.

That includes the five grad students from the University of Washington I meet who are here on vacation. They're wondering: Do we travel to New Jersey for a long-planned party? ''What's appropriate?'' asks Bennett Slothower. ''It's going to be bizarre no matter what we decide to do.''

I suggest they finesse both the party and the flight home, which is bound to be unamusing, and drive there. They pause to consider the idea. Ryan Burt pictures the call to his family: ''Hi, I'm going to be about a week late.'' They all break into grins and nod. An American road trip. How cool is that.

Sam Allis's e-mail address is

[email protected].

This story ran on page A2 of the Boston Globe on 9/16/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.