This was my reply to a friend who wrote me recently, saying he wishes he were here:
DEAR CHRIS,
Thanks for your e-mail. I know how much you love New York City, and I appreciate how helpless you feel living in L.A. while this is going on.
To be in New York these days is to bear witness to staggering heroism and selflessness. None of us who have seen this will ever forget it.
But I have to tell you that you are lucky not to be living here. We’re a week past the atrocity, and most people I know aren’t anywhere near being OK.
I’ve overheard subway platform conversations that go like this: ” . . . she saw chunks of burned flesh just falling off the guy” and ” he left five little children” and “we haven’t told the kids yet that N.’s mommy isn’t coming home.”
I had coffee with an Upper East Side pal yesterday. He’s one of the most even-tempered men I know. He said, in a normal tone of voice, “My wife and I were talking last night, and we decided that if they set off a small nuclear device anywhere south of 34th Street, we’d probably be able to get out.”
Please understand that this is not meant to be black humor. This is our new reality.
The anxiety is overwhelming at times. I can’t sleep without pills, and these tension headaches have me eating Advils like M&Ms. My wife is too scared to go into Manhattan these days. She believes – she has to believe to function – that they can’t get us in Brooklyn.
I’m all cried out, but the pity, fear and loathing won’t go away. Do I even have a right to these feelings, when so many, many others are bearing an infinitely greater burden of sorrow?
I feel poisoned by suspicion. Do I believe the nice Muslim who sells us groceries is a loyal American because I really believe him, or because I don’t want to think the worst of a friend? By shopping there, am I bravely resisting prejudice or being a sentimental chump?
And I am consumed with hate for those who made widows and orphans of so many, and Americans who blame this on America. I have a rattlesnake writhing in my stomach. I read Susan Sontag’s bit in The New Yorker, in which she opined that this was America’s fault, and compared our leaders to Soviet commissars.
Chris, I wanted to walk barefoot on broken glass across the Brooklyn Bridge, up to that despicable woman’s apartment, grab her by the neck, drag her down to ground zero and force her to say that to the firefighters.
When the war gets underway, the fear is only going to get worse. New York will always be a top target. Every plane that passes overhead causes my heart to skip a beat. Every goodbye could be forever.
We are all inconsolable. And the funerals haven’t even begun.
New York, New York is still the city that never sleeps, Chris. But nowadays, it’s because we’re too sad and scared to close our eyes.
Your friend, Rod.
e-mail: dreher@nypost.com