I didn’t see Satan’s face in the smoke. All I saw was Ma.

Here was our day, That Day: I burned the toast. Ma sighed. I rolled my eyes. She said goodbye. I didn’t reply. She asked me for the millionth time if I’d thought about my goals for the future. I said that yeah, I decided to be a porn star. She shook her head and left. That was 7:30 in the morning and by 9:00, it wasn’t a normal day anymore. There’d never be a normal day again. Even the pigeons knew that. They flew. Even the cats in Brooklyn know that. They won’t eat.

Ma took the subway into Manhattan each day. I keep thinking what if she’d missed the train. But What Ifs don’t change a thing. What Should Have Beens don’t either, and neither do What Never Should Have Beens.

I remember that she was wearing a red dress, fiery like flames, and a big silver cross, shiny as an airplane. We’re Catholic. I keep wondering where in the hell was Jesus and Mary and the Saints and the CIA.

It’s just her and me. Me and Ma. I never had a Dad and I never had a brother and I never had a grade below A because I just wanted to make her happy. Ma deserves happy.

I’m so proud of her, the way she worked her way up. High in the sky, Ma was, in a tower reaching for Heaven. You should have seen people’s faces when I told them that my mother works in the World Trade Center. The freakin’ World Trade Center. Most of the moms in Brooklyn work at lower places than that.

I just turned seventeen. Soon, I can vote. I can go to war. I can smoke but I

won’t. I want to be healthy enough to fight. I’ll register with the Selective Service because it’s a federal offense if you don’t. I used to think that I’d try to get out of it somehow. But that was then and this is now. Then I didn’t want to go into the service because Brooklyn was home. Now I don’t care because home’s not home anymore. It’s like somebody came in and rearranged the living room without telling me. I stumbled home in the dark. The lights never came on.

Nothing feels right. Even now, eight days later, there’s still smoke and soot and The Smell. All the flowers in the world can’t help. People mean well. But none of it helps.

Smashing the television didn’t help. Neither did setting fire to the newspapers or throwing the boom box in a dumpster. I still know what’s going on.

I still know that Ma’s gone.

I’m on the bus. New York to New Jersey. I quit my job at Carbarino’s Five And Dime, where everything costs a dollar and they don’t pay the employees for shit. I want to see the ocean, but not the Coney Island ocean. No. That was Ma’s ocean. We built sand castles there. We ate hot dogs and rode the roller coaster. We saw Koko The Killer Clown and Bambi The Mermaid. I need a new ocean.

I’m heading to a place called Beach Haven. I found it on the Internet. It sounds peaceful. I need peace. I need the beach. I need clean sheets, but I haven’t done the laundry. I need to eat, but I’m only hungry for stuff Ma makes. I can’t even cry. All this stuff is smoking inside. I need to keep on living, but I feel like dying. Which is worse: living when you want to die, or dying when you want to live? Ma did one. I’m stuck with the other.

So here I am on this stinking bus, where everybody sits in their own little world of quiet aloneness and half-closed eyes. I wonder if the driver knows what he’s doing. He’s huge and fleshy, and the back of his head looks like a block. I’m putting my life in the hands of a blockhead.

We’re bombing Afghanistan now, at this very minute that I’m sitting on a soft-seated bus and eating bagels from a bag. We’re dropping bombs, and we’re dropping food. How screwed up is that? Beans and bombs. Sounds oxymoronic to me.

I don’t even know that I’m talking out loud until this old man across the aisle turns.

"They say it’s a politically correct war," he says. He’s wearing a stained white sweatshirt with somebody’s picture and the words Bertha J. Lamb. The old lady - Bertha J. Lamb - is all decked out in pearls and a pink frilly dress, along with those glasses that hang on a cord. I assume she’s his wife. Was his wife. There are two dates - birth and death - underneath the picture. Who would wear something like that? And it looks like the stains are raw egg or baby puke. This guy is messed up.

"It’s a politically correct war," the old man says again. "Sure is a lot different than World War Two. I was in there for three years that felt like a lifetime, but I’ve never seen nuthin’ like this. Never."

The guy’s got pathetic pants and a gold-tipped cane. In the old days, I would’ve thought If I ever get like that, just shoot me. But that was then and this is now. Now, I think Everybody might need help walking some day. Even me.

He pushes up the sleeve of his ratty sweatshirt and points to a tattoo. His finger is quivering and he’s got long gray stand-at-attention hair on his arm. There are dangles where muscles used to be. The tattoo’s faded, but I can see USA.

"Now everybody’s gettin’ them," he says.

I don’t answer because I’m busy trying to imagine this guy as a soldier. He crawled on his belly and ran for his life. He carried a gun, and maybe love letters from somebody back home. He killed people, this old coot with washed out eyes like blue toilet bowl cleaner on the day that you need to buy a new dark-blue one.

"Do you have any tattoos, son?" asks the guy. Mr. Lamb, I guess.

I shake my head.

"Cost too much."

"What would you get if you had enough money?" The guy uses his cane to pull a silver gum wrapper from the aisle.

I shrug.

"Well." The old codger Mr. Lamb fishes around his pocket and pulls out a rusty money clip in the shape of a dollar sign. There are white hairs tangled in it. He riffles through the money and hands me a wad.

"Here you go, boy. Get yourself a tattoo. Just make sure the needles are clean. Too many diseases nowadays. And don’t go in if they have a lady in leather standing outside the door. That’s always a bad sign."

I nod. I take his money. When he’s not looking, I count it. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.

And then I stare out the window. I don’t say another word. I just stare until it all blurs together: gray road, yellow lines, blue sky.

I wish I could cry.

We’re almost in Beach Haven. I brought a map, so that’s how I know we have to go through all these dinky little places: Ship Bottom, Long Beach, Spray Beach. Brand-new American flags are everywhere, flapping. Store windows say God Bless America. I say where was God on That Day? How can you forget about towers that tall and thousands of people? It’s not like it was just one person or anything. There’s no excuse.

All of a sudden, I’m remembering how Ma took me to Windows on the World. It was my birthday - I was finally sixteen - and it turned out to be the biggest elevator trip I ever took. We went to this thing called Sunday Jazz Brunch, and a bunch of black guys were playing the blues. I can still see it: glistening black skin, gold saxophone, glittery red drum kit, ivory keys and smiling teeth. They played so hard that the sweat ran rivers down their faces. There was stuff for brunch that you couldn’t imagine: salmon and shrimp and lobster with fancy sauce. Ocean food. Not farm food like eggs and bacon and sausage. Well, they had that, too. And champagne. They had everything.

Now there’s nothing.

It was foggy that morning and the waiters kept apologizing as if it was their fault or something.

"Come back on a clear day," the one guy said. Ramone was his name.

"You can see forever," Ramone said.

All I can see now are run-down fish joints and crummy T-shirt places with signs: PROFITS TO AMERICAN RED CROSS. WE’LL NEVER FORGET. PRAY FOR THE VICTIMS.

When I look at those signs, I feel like I’m looking in a mirror. That’s me. That’s about me. But nobody knows. Nobody around me knows anything about me. I could be anybody: some kid on his way to visit a rich Great-Aunt-Sally. A druggie. An escaped convict. Somebody on the honor roll. Somebody schizophrenic. A spaz. A sped. A nobody.

An annoying little kid is whining in the back of the bus. Somebody sneezes. I jump, and there’s this image in my mind of the towers crumbling down. All because of a goddamed sneeze. Maybe God sneezed. Maybe that’s what it was.

I pick up a crumpled New York Times that was left on the floor. There’s a story about some lady who called New York City on That Day. She got a wrong number, but stayed on the line anyway. Her and this guy she didn’t even know just kept the connection going. She didn’t care about the phone bill. All she wanted was to hear him breathe.

I fold up the paper. I don’t want to read anymore. I already know too much. All I want to do is put my face against the cool glass of the window. I can’t close my eyes, so I just look into the sky. I can’t even close my eyes without seeing it. It’s painted on the back of my lids. It doesn’t go away. Who did those assholes think they were: putting something in my eyes without me saying it was OK? That’s like giving a tattoo without permission. It’s just wrong.

I can’t close my eyes - I won’t close my eyes - so I just look into the sky. You can see forever. Almost. It’s a clear blue sky, just like the sky That Day. It never ends.

An airplane slices through the blue. It cuts like a knife.

I wish I could die.

"Been nice talking to you, son."

The old man is standing up, shaky. The bus is stopped. People are in a hurry, in a big rush to go nowhere. A horn honks. Some dickhead swears. Things are getting back to normal in the real world.

"You, too. Thanks for the tattoo."

"Think of me every time some young lady touches it," says the old coot Mr. Lamb. He winks.

"You an Army man?" he asks. I shake my head.

"I don’t even shave every day," I say.

The old man rubs his chin.

"Just wonderin’," he says. "I’m always wonderin’."

Once, we went to Atlantic City, Ma and me. We took the bus trip where you get more gold tokens than you paid for the bus tickets. Ma blew the tokens real quick in slot machines, and then we just walked the boardwalk.

Outside of Trump’s Taj Mahal sat this dude in a wheelchair. He didn’t have legs or a shirt. Tattoos covered the skin of his arms and chest, and his hair was long and straggly, sun-bleached. On the footrest of his wheelchair where his feet were supposed to be sat an old Folger’s coffee can. Please Help, said a sign. Vietnam Vet. Four Children To Feed. The guy was sweating bullets.

So you know Ma: she stopped to talk to him. She talked to everybody, even people with pus coming out of their eyes. Ma wasn’t afraid of anything.

"My brother went to Vietnam," she said. That was my Uncle Frank who I didn’t know. He never came back.

The guy looked up. His eyes flashed. Ma was OK-looking for her age, I guess, but I think what got to people was the way she cared. You could see that.

"Nobody ever stops to talk," he said. "Nobody. I served this country and look what I get. They just act as if they don’t see. Walk right past me into the palace. The goddamn palace. This is America."

"What happened to your legs?" Ma asked. "Landmine?" That was Ma: she’d ask anybody anything. Funny thing was, they always answered.

"Landmine," the guy said and Ma got quiet for a minute. Then she babbled something about how someday she was going to take me to see the Grateful Dead - what was left of them, anyway.

"If I had feet, I’d dance," the Vietnam vet said.

Ma’s eyes were red as a road map to nowhere. Any second now, she was going to start crying. I knew the signs.

Ma opened her pocketbook - the black backpack that looked like a survival kit for the rest of her life - and took out a twenty. I knew that was the end of her money.

"Thank you for serving our country," she said. "I’m sorry about your legs." The bill fell to the bottom of the coffee can.

The guy was crying. He looked up at Ma and I knew he was in love. Either that or stoned out of his mind.

Ma went to hug him, and then decided to shake his hand instead. It was all awkward, like when you go to kiss somebody for the very first time.

The guy stuck out his hand and it was missing fingers. All of them. There were only stubs like thumbs.

But Ma didn’t flinch. She just took that torn-apart hand in hers, and he held on for all he was worth.

Beach Haven doesn’t have a boardwalk. But it has an ocean, and when I see it, I cry. I finally cry.

I’m just sitting there getting sand in my pants, crying like a baby. A baby who needs his Ma. I’m crying loud, because the waves drown out the sound. At least that’s what I think.

I cry until I’m all cried out, and then I use my shirt for a pillow. There’s the squawk of seagulls, and the good-bad smell of Jersey water. I close my eyes and for the first time, there’s nothing painted there.

I keep hearing airplanes, though. They sound too low. I open my eyes and it’s only the waves.

The tattoo place looks clean. There’s no lady in leather. It smells like lemon Pledge and cigar smoke. Stan The Tattoo Man smokes like a pile of burning rubble.

"How much for this one?" I point to an American flag.

"On sale," Stan says. "Ninety-nine, ninety nine." He bites the cigar between his teeth. He puffs away.

"Do you mind the smoke?" asks Stan, and a chill goes through me.

"Yeah, but, oh well."

I keep flipping through the pages.

"What are you looking for?" Stan asks. "We’ve got some nice unicorns. Gremlins. Stuff like that."

"I want something real," I say. "No fantasy stuff that doesn’t come true."

Stan doesn’t answer. I think that maybe he’s giving up on me.

"What’s your mother say about you getting a tattoo?" he asks.

"She doesn’t know," I say. "Or maybe she does." Stan gives me a funny look, but I don’t care. He shifts the cigar from one side to the other.

"She’s dead." It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and the words taste like dust in my mouth. They’re like papers blown from buildings. They flutter to the floor.

"She died in the World Trade Center."

Stan The Tattoo Man doesn’t know what to say. I look away, because something about saying it out loud makes it true. It’s real. One single tear trickles down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away. I just let it fall. It joins the words on the floor.

Then an idea hits me.

"I know what I want," I say. "A tear. One blue tear, right here." I touch the cheek that’s wet. The left side, right in line with my heart.

"A teardrop?" asks Stan. "You sure?"

I nod.

"You know, some folks around here think that if a guy has a teardrop, it means that he killed somebody. Or that he’s been in jail. Something stupid like that."

"Or that he’s in that gang The Crips."

"Yeah. That."

"I don’t care," I say. "I’ll take the tear."

It hurts. The tear hurts like hell. But Stan The Tattoo Man won’t take any money.

"In memory of your mother," he says.

"Thanks, man," I say. "You should go to New York and give away free tattoos to the people there."

Stan chomps on his cigar.

"Not a bad idea," he says. "I just might do that."

But he won’t. People never do what they say.

I’m walking down a street of Beach Haven, dabbing dots of blood from my face and looking for a church. I hear the bells, but can’t find the building. It’s got to be somewhere. Churches can’t just freaking disappear. Or can they?

"Hey, look," says some twelve-year-old. "Tear Boy."

I don’t reply. Talking changes nothing.

I can’t believe I’m looking for a church. I never liked church, not even for the wafers and wine. The ladies wore hats and gave you pink candies with lint from the bottom of their pocketbooks. The priests were boring. Ma made us go because she said we needed hope.

"Faith will get us through," she said. I always pictured Faith as some big dyke woman with a sickle. Faith could do anything, according to Ma.

I’m still hearing bells. I follow the chimes, and there it is. A church, with stained glass windows of purple and green and red, and a white spike pointing to Heaven. It’s Sunday, so other people are going in. Some of them stare. But I don’t care.

I take a deep breath because I’m kind of nervous. I’ve never gone into a church without being forced by Ma. If some fat lady in a flowered hat hands me a pink lint candy, I’m out of there.

I sit on the bottom step, just taking deep breaths. Out and in, out and in. My heart is beating. I’m breathing. I’m here. Life goes on. There’s a blue tear on my cheek, and red skin where the needle went in. It hurts like hell, and now the pain on the outside matches what’s inside of me.

My heart is beating hard. I’m breathing fast. I’m dizzy: in the dark and spinning. For a minute I’m afraid that I’m blacking out. But I don’t.

I hold on, and the light comes back.

"Good morning," says a man.

I don’t say anything. My cheek hurts too bad to move, but I know that it’ll heal. I was always getting hurt as a little kid: skateboards and bikes and blades. The scabs went away. All I have now are scars.