John Charles Jenkins was a man who lived uncourageously and died courageously. At least, that's what Meredith thinks. Or more realistically, John Charles Jenkins was a man who lived by all the sets of unofficial rules of life with occasional outbursts of spontaneity. Or perhaps he was an everyday daredevil as a firefighter. Meredith doesn't know. Her family was visiting Grandma Grace in Arizona when 9/11 happened.
     Meredith is with her friends Francis, Johanna, and Carson on a Friday night in the only city they recognize as home. They walk together in pairs, Meredith with Francis and Johanna with Carson, because that's just how it works when it comes to a group of friends walking after dark.
     It is almost May, but the temperature is reminiscent of February. Meredith has only a lazy cardigan under her trench coat and so she leans closer to Francis. He tightens his grip around her arm and for a while, their steps are in sync.
     It was Carson’s idea to visit the 9/11 Memorial. He is the only one who has a car of his very own, a black Mercedes with an Ohio license plate.
     Meredith has not been here in years, though she is in the neighborhood every day. She is still astonished by the sheer depth of the pool and the black plate that runs along its perimeter, the names of all the victims carved into it.
     They walk the length of the pool only once. Johanna, they all hear, is sniffling. Carson stops walking and Johanna leans into his chest to cry.
     They all know Johanna’s connection with the Twin Towers.
     There are roses and small American flags stuck in the indentations of some of the carved names. Meredith tries to read them as she walks by with Francis. She is fascinated by all the names that exist in this city. Even the common ones like John Charles Jenkins. And all of them have stories. Meredith wonders about John Charles Jenkins’s sorry. She wonders about his family’s stories and their epilogues.
     “I still can't fathom it,” Francis says.
     Meredith knows what he means. She squeezes his arm and points at One World Trade Center. “Imagine the man on the hundredth floor. Surrounded by smoke and no friends to help him out, surely to asphyxiate.”
     “Better to jump than to burn to death or suffocate.”
     “If you jump from that high up, you're dead before you even hit the ground.”
     Then Meredith and Francis are both quiet. They wait for Johanna and Carson to catch up.
     Carson observes, “There is no pollution here. In my hometown, a place like this would be the mayor’s utopia.”
     Francis points at a man dressed in neon green picking up trash from the concrete with an extended pair of tongs.
     The temperature drops yet again and the wind blows harder. It beckons them somewhere warm.
     They say their own silent goodbyes to the memorial and head towards North End Avenue. Meredith turns around at the right moment. She sees the same sanitation worker picking the red and white flowers and red and white stripes out of the names. He drops them into the garbage can he is wheeling around.
     Francis and Johanna and Carson don't see this. They all see the city in their own ways.
     They finish their night by watching a midnight screening of a movie at the Conrad Hotel theater.