Let me start with my conclusion. I don’t understand the purpose of blowing off the legs of Marathon runners and of the families awaiting them at the finish line. But there is a lot I don’t understand. I don’t understand why American dollars are allocated to Israel to turn Gaza into the largest open-air prison in the world. I don’t understand why the US uses drone strikes on Yemen – Yemen! – or why it pretends that Iran or N. Korea is big or bad enough to truly threaten us. I don’t understand why women still make 77 cents for every dollar men make in this country. Or why there aren’t any bankers in jail for destroying our economy. Or why our country doesn’t provide universal healthcare and higher education. Or why Guantanamo is still open. Or why the levels of everyday violence against women and of gun killings don’t constitute a grievous emergency. I don’t even understand why colors – especially pink and blue – are distributed on the basis of gender.
Getting There
Now let me return to the beginning. For the first time I celebrated Boston’ Marathon Day yesterday. My senior fitness student and friend Doreen invited me to join her in front of her daughter Amy’s apartment along the race route. Our little cross-generational gang were located past mile 23 on the 26 mile route – that is , just a couple of miles from the Copley Square finish line. We were distinguished by the line of our out-stretched arms and flat, palms-up hands offering chilled slices of oranges to the passing runners, a tradition Amy and Doreen established years ago.
I had had an annoying journey on public transportation to get there. I didn’t take my car because the whole area is blocked off. Instead I drove to Cambridge, the town beyond mine, and parked in a public lot – it was free because it is a Massachusetts holiday: Patriots day. I hopped the Red Line to downtown Park Street and then went to get on the Green Line to Amy’s place.
There were a gazillion people waiting for the Green Line because, in a twist of traditional Boston scheduling, a Red Sox baseball game is always scheduled for 11:00 on Marathon Day, supposedly so that when the game ends, the Sox fans can pour out of Fenway Park into Kenmore Square – the last Square before the Marathon finish line at Copley Square – to cheer on the runners. So between the baseball and the Marathon fans squashing into the old Green Line cars, we were packed into a crushing public intimacy I could have done without. Relief came at Kenmore Square, where the rowdy Sox fans got off.
At The Marathon
It was an unusually glorious day for Marathon running. Chilly but not cold; bright but not blinding. I had missed the wheelchair contingent, but caught the elite men and the masses of runners. There seemed to be a bumble-bee theme (well, three guys anyway) among men who wore tutus and headbands with bouncing antennae. One guy ran as a hot dog. Many of the women were as sparkly as the bees. Neon running shoes and clothes marked the serious runners.
I had to get home to teach a writing class, so around 2:40 I got back on the Green Line. However, as we pulled into Kenmore Square, they stopped our train and told us to get off and out of the station. One transit cop downstairs told me there was an emergency and that the subway system was being closed. But out on the street, another told me there had just been bombs at the finish line in Copley Square at 2:50. Our train would have next passed through Copley on our way to Park Street.
Kenmore Square was chaotic, with Marathon runners who had been stopped from continuing a few more blocks to the finish line milling confusedly with Marathon supporters and Red Sox fans – the game had ended earlier. Cops and other emergency folks barked out contradictory orders, when you could hear them over the sound of uncounted emergency vehicles going by. There were the usual ambulances and police cars, but also a long row of speeding dark cars with subtle emergency lights that I never identified. The FBI?
Getting Home
I was disoriented, but finally decided that I would head towards the Boston University Bridge, cross over it, and get up to Central Square where my car was. But how? At the bus stop there were about 40 people and no sign of any bus. So I tried to hitchhike along the Commonwealth Ave. route I had hitched many times in the 1960s when I was an undergraduate at BU. Two drunk Sox fans teased me – “Hitch often, do you?” – but in a good humored way. I explained that I had to get to work. But the drivers of the cars had not yet heard of the bombings, I suspect, and didn’t even look at me, let alone stop.
A miracle. From somewhere a taxi pulled up. All 40 people leaped on it, but the tipsy Sox duo got there first. They had a quick consultation with each other and then – the second miracle – they waved me over and gave me the cab. I yelled to the crowd, “Anyone going to Cambridge?” but no one was and I took the taxi to my car and my car home.
On the way home I called Barry, who had not yet heard about the bombings, so that he could check on his kids. While we spoke, Judy texted me to see if I was alright. My cell phone was working only intermittently, but she was on Twitter and was able to fill in the picture of what was happening. She heard that the whole subway system was closed; that BU was on lockdown; that shortly after I crossed into Cambridge, the bridges had been temporarily closed (we heard nothing to confirm that later). I felt that my timing and my luck had collaborated.
As I stepped into my apartment, Allegra texted from Amherst to check on me. I hurried to my computer to post on Facebook that I was back from the Marathon and that I was okay. I was blown away when about 50 people “liked” my message and another 20 wrote comments. The phone never stopped. Miri called from Israel. Sue called from London. Jean and Kaz and Liz wrote from England. Tracy called from LA and Tomer from DC. Larry and Linda wrote from NY. And many others. I felt rich.
My students arrived and we watched the President’s rather generic message before settling into our writing exercises. When they left, I bounced around both the local and national news – which had pre-empted other programming – but other than more details about the injured and murdered there was little that was new. It was all homilies and clichés, the same video loops.
I listened to BBC on the radio, where they were describing a tidal wave of solidarity messages coming from such places as sub-Saharan Africa (which has produced a number of Boston Marathon winners), the Wisconsin Light Brigade, and prayers and love from the Beirut Marathon. It is a shame that the mainstream American media failed to acknowledge these gestures. For after all, the Boston Marathon – the oldest in the States – belongs to the world. There were participants from 96 countries yesterday – and all of them had a piece of the pride and the distress. Those folks were absent from the news cycle, except for anecdotes which showed how hospitable Bostonians were being – a good thing.
Other Bombs
This was not the first bomb I missed by a mile or two. After all, there were 20 bomb incidents in London during the 1990s when I was living there. And in 1996, when I was staying in Tel Aviv with my friend Miri for a couple of weeks, I had a close call. After shopping at the main shopping mall, Dizengoff Center, I had walked the few blocks back to her place. I took the elevator up to her apartment in what is now called Rabin Square and just as I got into the living room there was a massive explosion. I could see the smoke out of her picture windows. A suicide bomber had detonated himself in the pedestrian crosswalk I had just passed through minutes before. Thirteen people were killed; 130 were injured.
The personal chaos then was a bit different. One after another Miri and her family and her closest friends arrived to her apartment to try to find everyone else. The phones were down and there was no such thing as Twitter or Facebook. It took several hours for everyone to be accounted for. Yesterday, in contrast, I was able to assure most of my peeps of my personal safety almost instantly. My traffic on Facebook, email, texts, and calls gave me a sense that there are people out there who care about me and have my back. And that is priceless.
I only hope we can all show the same empathy for the people around the world who are suffering similar tragedies, too often at the hands of our own US military. As Gary Younge, writer for The Guardian, tweeted: “I'm up for us "All Being Bostonians Today". But then can we all be Yemenis tomorrow & Pakistanis the day after? That's how empathy works.”
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