That Conversation

I was at an early spring party, a club on a deck overlooking the Hudson river, well north in Manhattan. We were talking about superhero movies, my friend whose son went to see the new Spider-Man movie. He liked it.

"I missed the Captain America movie. I liked the first one."

"Yeah. I heard it was good."

"New Godzilla movie out."

"Yeah, only this time he tears up the west coast, not New York."

"I think the last superhero movie I saw was the last Superman movie - "

"Man of Steel?"

"Yeah, it was good, good."

" I liked it, but it reminded me too much of 9/11."

"How so?"

"The dust, the destruction. The scenes where they attack the city."

"I though War of the Worlds was the first movie about 9/11."

I thought, despite its plot, it captured the fear, the inexplicable randomness of thousands of people, vaporized before our eyes, the sky filled with dust, so many fleeing in terror.

"Yeah, yeah I can see that."

"I'm not ready to go to the museum, the memorial downtown."

"Yeah, me neither."

"I don't need a reminder, I remember it."

"My niece asked me about it. She's ten, she was surprised it happened before she was born."

"Yeah?"

"She thought, 9/11 meant the year 2011."

Chuckling.

"She asked me what I was doing that day and, I'm OK talking about it, I told her, but I was surprised at how emotional I felt."

"Yeah."

Moments.

"So new new X-Men is coming out. I liked the last one."

"It's like, a prequel to the sequels."

"A se-pre-quel I guess."

"Yeah. "

"I'm gonna grab another beer."