I opened the window a crack to hear the waves better. Suddenly skunk fragrance invaded my car. I laughed out loud to picture some lovely moppet defending herself in that comical way. A wave of love for my local critters warmed me.

On a normal morning we'd all doze our way to work, wrapped in the comfort of our measured routine and the nearness of our neighbors. But I needed to tell them what I'd heard.

"A plane hit a building," I said to my friends as I settled in the back of the bus.

"No!" Frank exclaimed. "Where? What happened?"

"I don't know much. I only heard the first bit and then the bus came. The World Trade Center, in New York City."

"What size plane?" Elena asked.

"I don't know, they hadn't gotten to that part. It would have to be a small one, wouldn't it? The big ones have all that fancy fail-safe stuff."

Frank nodded. "Yeah. Probably some little training plane, or company shuttle."

"Still, this is awful," I said. "I'm sure all the people on the plane would be killed. Or most of them, if a few are lucky."

"And some of the people in the office on that floor would be hurt, too," Elena said, starting to look really upset. "Maybe one or two floors more, too, depending on how big the plane is." She brightened up and suggested, "But at this hour, there'll be almost nobody there. Maybe there's be no workers hurt at all."

"They're three hours later than we are," Frank reminded.

"Oh, but it's New York City," Elena scoffed, waving her hand. "No one goes to work until noon there."

I laughed. But she had a point.

"And you can bet the media will beat it to death," Frank scowled, "no matter how trivial it turns out to be."

"Yes, Americans are very spoiled," Elena observed, "and complacent. Every little thing, they think it's the only tragedy in the world. Completely self centered, Americans. Let's say, absolute worst case, there's what -- fifty, sixty people killed?"

"Oh, it could be more than that," Frank argued. "Could be as many as a hundred, hundred and fifty."

"No way, not with a small plane and an empty building. But -- even if you're right, and you're not -- that's still nothing. I mean, it's sad and all that, but Turkey's earthquake killed over a thousand people; four hundred and fifty were killed in China's mudslides, not to mention all the people who were never found. And those disasters hardly made the front page," she complained. "The Americans just shrugged their shoulders and said, 'B-F-D'."

"Big fantastic deal," I muttered to Frank.

"But let a measly hundred Americans die and it will be front page for a week." She folded her arms sharply, satisfied that she'd given the events a definitive wrap.

We meandered to other topics as we neared the city, leaving the horrors behind, then gradually submerged into our morning dreams.

I love that moment when we crest that last rise of the freeway and a spectacular view of the city explodes in our eyes. Especially this time of year, with the sunrise greeting us in a blaze of rose, apricot and gold. Nat King Cole's song wafted through my head -- "What a wonderful world."

I got off at my stop at the old mint, now a museum, and admired the mint's tibouchina shrubs, covered with rich purple blossoms. A few of the night's drunks lay on the steps, still wrapped in rags and newspapers. This area was suffering "gentrification," which created a continuous juxtaposition of climbers with fallers.

One of the fallen appeared now, wild-eyed Jenny, with her ragged hair streaming as she rushed to me.

Years ago I worked the streets helping "recovering" addicts, and even now I still kept an eye on some of them, like Jenny. Habit, I guess. I was cynical about the predatory freeloaders, but retained a lot of feeling for those who truly had no resources. Jenny was one of those; one of far too many.

Most days, Jenny cried. All day. She frightened most of the bus patrons, shrinking them up against the mint's gates and driving their eyes desperately up the street in hopes of seeing their bus. She cried for a lost child. I could never figure out how the child had been lost or whether it had even been real, but that didn't matter. It always soothed her for me to listen, nod, and murmur. I saw that as my real role -- to nod understanding of things I could never begin to understand. That, and to not look through them.

On this morning, though, Jenny was energized and excited. "It's happening! The plot is revealed! The evil ones bring the end!" Her eyes were even wilder than usual, but alight rather than distraught.

"Jenny. Tell me," I invited.

"The terrorist lizard people! They've started. They're taking over the country. And the world. They're destroying the sins of New York. New York is on fire. It's crumbling. They're going to vaporize the Pentagon, and the White House!" She clutched my arm feverishly.

Even for Jenny this was a serious break with reality, and I was frightened for her. I debated whether to call the MAP truck. MAP is our Metropolitan Alcohol Program, a worthless grain of sand in mountainous dunes of ill-directed pseudo-effort. But, in extreme cases, you could sometimes at least get transport to City General. If you were willing to wait a few hours.

It wasn't the delay that made me indecisive, though that, too, was an issue; the main problems were that it took a lot of persuasion to make the MAP drivers believe a case was serious enough to take their time, and -- worse -- the almost complete lack of care waiting for them at the hospital.

After listening to her and scanning her face for a few minutes I finally decided she was better off on the street than with MAP, despite how badly she'd gone off, and I went on toward my office building. But worry gnawed at me. Jenny was really whacked out. I wondered how much longer she'd last now that she'd truly lost it.

I stepped from the elevator to find the sacred early morning silence stomped to death by a fellow early bird's radio in the cube next to mine. Some east coast sports event? Stock market? As I approached, the newscasters' avid voices built me a picture of what was happening in Manhattan. I turned away and returned to the elevator, frozen and blank. I didn't want to hear this. I couldn't hear this. I hid in the basement coffee lounge, mercifully empty at this hour. I couldn't comprehend what I'd heard, and didn't want to comprehend. I picked up a discarded newspaper which was innocent of the past hour's events, and pretended to read it.

"AIDS Deaths Expected to Top 9000 in California Alone This Year," blared the headline. I was still frozen, still blank.

I turned the page.

The ice cracked. I couldn't risk opening my steel doors to thousands of humans, but I had let my guard down for one baby elephant. And the thousands of lost human sons and daughters poured in the doors after him. I cried. I cried like Jenny cries.