2001-10-25 - 2:06 p.m.

The car jolts forward and stops. We sit stupidly in the middle of the intersection as angry drivers honk around us. In the driver�s seat is Marius Wilson, trying to figure out what to do.

Once he masters the stick shift, he�ll be set. His roommate is letting him borrow her truck whenever she�s not using it, and all that takes is knowing how to drive a standard. So we�ve switched seats for a night, he in the driver�s seat, me in the passenger seat, against my better judgment.

�Fuck,� he says. �What did I do?�

�Okay, it�s stalled,� I say. �Turn the keys.�

He turns the keys and restarts the car.

�Now push in the clutch and put it in first. Press the gas, and let up on the clutch slowly.�

The car jerks forward again and clears the intersection. You needed to downshift, I explain, you were going too slow. He�s getting the hang of it, though, which is good � I can see that my time with him is drawing to a close, new priorities and missions, less time to bounce aimlessly. I�m glad I could help him learn to drive himself before I shoved off.

For tonight, though, we�re off on the town one more time. It�s been a strange week since the attacks Tuesday, a bad week for selling videos. The bars have been dead, and nobody�s buying.

But Marius has to keep getting out there, attack or no attack, and keep chasing the American dream. He can�t stop when the world stops; his life, like all our lives, is a treadmill that can�t be turned off.

Some things have changed since I last drove Marius. The Sears Tower, soaring above the highway in the distance as we drive south, looks more like a target than a symbol of power. Parking is no longer allowed along the tower, which complicates parking when we stop at the off-track betting parlor across the street.

An American flag hangs from an outside railing at one bar; behind it is a group of boisterous girls at a picnic table. And on street corners all over are people huddled together, waving American flags, singing, or holding candles for the victims of the attacks. Perhaps they have been unconsciously aching to feel a sense of belonging all along. I wish it didn�t take an event like this to make it happen.

I ask Marius if he feels patriotic. He says, yeah, of course. He never got into waving flags or anything like that, but yeah, he�s proud to be an American.

I wish I was more patriotic at times like this. I wish I could pledge my allegiance, say God bless America, and feel proud. But I can�t. I�ve never been able to understand people who concerned themselves with American lives, America�s interest, more than people�s lives, the world�s interest. Why should one American life be worth more than one African or Asian life? Are we crying because 5,000 people have died, or because 5,000 Americans have died? Nationalism seems no better than racism to me.

I don�t feel like a proud citizen, like I�m a part of this America that�s coming together. I don�t feel like a part of any country or even timeframe. I live in a bubble of myself, a self-proclaimed citizen of the world, the universe perhaps, existing everywhere but a part of nothing. So even at the time of my nation�s greatest crisis, as people wave their flags and sing their songs, I am once again on the outside looking in.

I think of America not as a country with great potential facing great dangers, but as another nation in a long line of nations. It is a nation that was once young and ambitious, that felt its wild oats in the expansion west, that grew up as its economic and military power triumphed, vanquishing its enemies and finding itself powerfully alone. Once you have reached that powerful peak, you start to worry about keeping it, you try to hang onto your edge and your security, but nothing lasts forever. Eventually, you push too far, or you get comfortable and lose your edge. And now that we have outlived our brash youth and had our time in the sun, America suddenly feels old.

I imagine myself centuries from now thinking back on America, from a time when these terrible events have been sanitized by the cold type of history books. I think of America as a historian would think of Rome � an experiment that rose and fell like every nation rises and falls. Those nations that followed it, perhaps, learned from its mistakes, but as always happens in history, new questions were raised with each problem solved.

But I�m not existing out of time and in the universe; I am here in America today, and I cannot abdicate my responsibilities. Even if it all seems pointless, or inevitable, I can�t let other people determine the fate of the world while I watch on.

I can�t be spending my precious time driving Marius Wilson around, either. Driving around town with him, the music blasting, I almost feel nostalgic, like I�m trying to remember a simpler time, when all was right with the world and driving Marius was the best thing in the world. Then I laugh at myself, because I know I never had much fun driving him, I tried to convince myself I was happy but it never worked out like that. But the moment something slips into the irretrievable past, it takes on a whole new rosy glow. Even if you know you hated the past, the nostalgia�s still there, maybe not for what you were doing, but for who you were, and for the mere fact that this spoiled present didn�t exist.

No more worrying about the past, I tell myself. The present is screaming at us. It craves our attention. We must attend to it.

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