Pa-pa-pa-poker Face

You’re a sophomore at a preppy New England college and you’ve woken up early to go run three miles with your roommates before your respective classes. (Early is relative for college students. It feels early and your eyes are blurry – but in reality, it’s already 8:46 AM.) Your third roommate is slow tying her sneakers so you and B flip on the TV as you wait. There’s a shot of downtown New York City flickering in the pixels of the screen and there’s a lot of smoke. You and B glance at each other not sure what to think as the voice of the anchorwoman jerks through her speech, taunt with nerves. Your third roommate finally appears and together, you walk to the door, jog out of the dorm, and run down the streets, your shoes crunching up the first red leaves of autumn.

*

You take the train two hours on the weekends from your college with the ivy-covered stone chapel into New York City. You register with the Red Cross. When it’s drizzling out and you can’t find the shuttle stop where the volunteers for the Family Assistance Center (FAC) are supposed to wait, you knock on the window of a cop car and ask them for directions. The cops smile. They let you into their Crown Victoria and drive you down cordoned off streets to Pier 94 and, because they think you will like it, they flip on the siren for a block or two. They are right. You like it. The FAC is wallpapered with missing person posters – and people with the same eyes, cheek bones, noses, mouths, of the missing and the dead come up to you and grip your hand and ask you how to apply for death certificates. They bring you hairbrushes with the deads’ DNA. One older woman with a thick accent won’t let go of your hand until other volunteers bring her Valium.

*

(Years later, when you shut your eyes and picture that older woman who wouldn’t let go of your hand, you see her in a Muslim headscarf. But for the life of you, you really can’t figure out if that was reality or if that’s your memory playing tricks on you, simultaneously imagining other stories from the war. You remember clearly that she told you her daughter was smashed to death when the second tower collapsed.)

*

The third weekend you leave the FAC and begin working at Ground Zero. You struggle holding huge hoses and spray down the boots of the firemen as they shuffle in from the crater. The crud on their boots turns to mud on the cracked sidewalk. You wonder how much of the mud is cement dust, how much is steel shavings, how much is crushed telephones and photo copiers and desk chairs, how much is smashed human, how much is burnt paper, how much is airplane. You get perks, as a volunteer. All the brand name snack foods you want. Twix bars and Ritz crackers. Free shoulder massages, all crammed together in one room, massage chairs arranged like school desks. One of the other volunteers starts sobbing loudly in the middle of her massage, in the middle of the room. No one says anything. When her massage is over, she stops crying and leaves. One of the other volunteers has bandages on her wrists; it’s a strange crowd. You hang out with the firemen, who sleep in a dorm-like area, having 8 hours off at a time. They teach you to play poker using Skittles (from that pile of snack foods) as chips. You slap cards onto the table and together, you laugh until your bellies hurt.

*

Yesterday afternoon, Sunday afternoon in Eastern DR Congo, on the deck of somebody else’s NGO house overlooking the lake, in the middle of a different war, you are taught to play poker again. Straight flush royal flush two pairs full house high card. You play with real chips and for cold hard cash. The waves smash into gray lava rock and behind your back the sun sets pink. Wine stains your lips red and you bluff and lose and laugh. Then you win. You win seven dollars and then you lose nearly twenty. By the time your driver arrives, you’ve won back most – you cash out down only five bucks. You leave with two friends and drive home to where three other friends are waiting. The generator is still broken and so by candlelight your friends cook pasta and you set the table, plate napkin knife fork spoon. Water glass. Champagne glass. Dessert plate for the tiramisu. You sit around the long table with the warm deep red tablecloth and giggle at stories of California, Iran, Hong Kong, Spain, preppy New England colleges, weird volunteers, snack foods that you miss, computers, gorillas, volcanoes, TV, hair cuts, running shoes, massages, scarves, sirens, cop cars, airplanes, dorm rooms, bluffs, communal living, thick accents, and all sort of things that are only and so very hilarious among friends.