Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

offended.
    Almost the whole ride to the Bronx was underground, which made me incredibly panicky, but once we got to the poor parts, it went above-ground, which I preferred. A lot of the buildings in the Bronx were empty, which I could tell because they didn't have windows, and you could see right through them, even at high speeds. We got off the train and went down to the street. Mr. Black had me hold his hand as we looked for the address. I asked him if he was racist. He said poverty made him nervous, not people. Just as a joke I asked him if he was gay. He said, “I suppose so.” “Really?” I asked, but I didn't take back my hand, because I'm not homophobic.
    The building's buzzer was broken, so the door was held open with a brick. Agnes Black's apartment was on the third floor, and there was no elevator. Mr. Black said he'd wait for me, because the stairs at the subway were enough stairs for him for one day. So I went up alone. The floor of the hallway was sticky, and for some reason all of the peepholes had black paint over them. Someone was singing from behind one of the doors, and I heard TVs behind a bunch of others. I tried my key in Agnes's lock, but it didn't work, so I knocked.
    A little woman answered who was in a wheelchair. She was Mexican, I think. Or Brazilian, or something. “Excuse me, is your name Agnes Black?” She said, “No espeaka Inglesh.” “What?” “No espeaka Inglesh.” “I'm sorry,” I said, “but I don't understand you. Could you please repeat yourself and enunciate a little bit better.” “No espeaka Inglesh,” she said. I pointed a finger in the air, which is the universal sign for hold on, and then I called down to Mr. Black from the stairwell, “I don't think she speaks English!” “Well, what does she speak?” “What do you speak?” I asked her, and then I realized how dumb my question was, so I tried a different approach: “Parlez-vous français?” “Español,” she said. “Español,” I hollered down. “Terrific!” he hollered back. “I picked up a little Español along the way!” So I brought her wheelchair to the stairwell, and they hollered to each other, which was kind of weird, because their voices were traveling back and forth but they couldn't see each other's faces. They cracked up together, and their laughter ran up and down the stairs. Then Mr. Black hollered, “Oskar!” And I hollered, “That's my name, don't wear it out!” And he hollered, “Come on down!”
    When I got back to the lobby, Mr. Black explained that the person we were looking for had been a waitress at Windows on the World. “What the?” “The woman I just spoke with, Feliz, didn't know her personally. She was told about her when she moved in.” “Really?” “I wouldn't make that up.” We went out to the street and started walking. A car drove by that was playing music extremely loudly, and it vibrated my heart. I looked up, and there were strings connecting a lot of the windows with clothes hanging on them. I asked Mr. Black if that's what people meant when they said “clotheslines.” He said, “That's what they mean.” I said, “That's what I thought.” We walked some more. Kids were kicking rocks in the street and cracking up in the good way. Mr. Black picked up one of the rocks and put it in his pocket. He looked at the street sign, and then at his watch. A couple of old men were sitting in chairs in front of a store. They were smoking cigars and watching the world like it was TV.
    “That's so weird to think about,” I said. “What is?” “That she worked there. Maybe she knew my dad. Or not knew him, but maybe she served him that morning. He was there, in the restaurant. He had a meeting. Maybe she refilled his coffee or something.” “It's possible.” “Maybe they died together.” I know he didn't know what to say to that, because of course they died together. The real question was how they died together, like whether they were on different ends of the restaurant, or next to each other, or something else. Maybe they had gone up to the roof together. You saw in some of the pictures that people jumped together and held hands. So maybe they did that. Or maybe they just talked to each other until the building fell. What would they have talked about? They were obviously so different. Maybe he told her about me. I wonder what he told her. I couldn't tell how it made me feel to think of him holding someone's hand.
    “Did she have any kids?”