Thoughts of Kin, Talk of War

Ellis Henican

September 23, 2001

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The terrorists have struck. The president has spoken. America is rushing toward war. And all Kevin Farrell can think about is his brother and his son.

"My brother Mickey is a captain in the Fire Department," he was saying at the end of a very rattling week. "He was due to work that evening. He lost nine of his guys. Guys in their 30s with little kids. I knew all of them. The firehouse is 38th and 10th in Hell's Kitchen, Engine 21. Mickey's 56. His work schedule that day saved the Farrell family. The captain is the first one in."

I first met Kevin a couple of years ago, when he was working in an office near the World Trade Center. We had coffee one afternoon at a neighborhood place he liked called Ivy's. He tried to explain to me what his company did, but I couldn't understand it and he didn't seem to care. Had something to do with money, I remember that. Large amounts of money. Trading, converting, whatever.

All I knew - all that mattered - was that Kevin came from a huge family in Brooklyn. For many years, the family had a bar called Farrell's, but not the Farrell's in Park Slope - the other Farrell's, the one in Bay Ridge. And Kevin could write. Really write. He'd send me his short stories, send them to a few other writers he knew. And all of us would tell him, "Kevin, write some more."

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"When I was working downtown," Kevin said, "Ivy's used to make these pizza pies. I would take a couple of them - it was all expense-account - and go see my brother with pies for the firemen. We'd have a few laughs. Now, Mickey calls me up, just crying. It's survivor's guilt, I guess. I'm not used to that from him."

Which only clears the deck for the next generation.

"Kevin Jr. is 18 now," his father said. "He's putting off college 'til December. He just registered for the draft. We don't have a draft now. It's a volunteer army, but the kids still have to register. Kevin Jr. signed up three days before the Twin Towers got hit. With the country united like this, they could start calling people up in a day, if they had to."

The morning of the terror attack, father and son were both still at home.

"I'm in the bathroom," the father said. "My kid says, 'Hey, Dad, look at this!' We saw the second tower come down on live TV like it's Las Vegas and they just dynamited the Sands Hotel. We looked at each other. We just hugged. 'Oh my God, the Twin Towers!' I remember living in Bay Ridge, when it was only a short red building. It took seven years to build them both. And they're the reason we're going to war."

And what a war it will be. Kevin Farrell's been studying up.

"The Russians were in Afghanistan for 10 years, right?" he said. "We supplied the Afghans. So they'll be shooting us with our own guns. I heard someone say on TV, 'If Jesus Christ took all the rocks in the world and piled them somewhere, that would be Afghanistan.' It's gonna be very bloody. This is not the Persian Gulf. This won't be a CNN kind of war, where we're just kicking --."

This is not an enemy likely to run.

"I don't think they were four-for-four on September 11th," Kevin said. "I think they were four-for-50. This network is big. If anybody is prepared to die themselves, how are you gonna defend against that?"

The patriotism of this weekend, he's been telling himself, is on balance a good thing.

"But I went to a bar around here," he said. "Guys were arguing about what we should do. One guy is saying, 'I'm a Vietnam vet. Where were you?'

"People are hugging on the sidewalks. They're flying American flags. But I'm telling you, the alchies have already started arguing in the bars. 'We should kill everyone.'"

Kevin Farrell - brother of a firefighter, father of an 18-year-old - said he asked one of the barflies.

"You don't have an 18-year-old?"

The man had an answer for that. "In America," he said, "you should be proud if your son dies for his country.'"

Kevin shook his head. "How old is your son?" he asked. "Thirty-five?"