that building.”
They discovered they were all sensitive to different sounds. Ryan went quiet. When they got on a roll, it was usually Alfonso riffing with Daniel, or Alfonso with Ryan, or Alfonso with Alfonso. Daniel and Alfonso went at it this time.
“Sirens don’t like trigger me,” Daniel said.
“Me either,” Alfonso said. “But alarms—”
“When I hear a siren, I think of a shooting.”
Alfonso nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“Also.”
“Guns.”
“Obviously,” Daniel said. “My friend told me he was gonna go to a gun range and shoot an AR-15. I don’t know how that would ever help someone, but apparently that’s a way of coping.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I’ve shot a gun before,” Alfonso said.
“I’ve never.”
“I’ve shot several. It’s fun to shoot guns. It is. I went to a range.”
I asked about coping mechanisms:
“Joking,” Daniel said.
Alfonso smiled. “This.”
“Activism and jokes,” Daniel said. “And, I mean, unfortunately they don’t go well together, because when you are joking during an activist thing, then people—”
“Oh no, they love it!” Alfonso paused, reconsidered. “No they don’t—”
“But the people that don’t like you are like—”
“‘Oh, you’re so not funny! How dare you joke—’”
“‘They’re not real, because they’re having fun—’”
“By the way, he asked about coping mechanisms,” Alfonso said. “I think there’s three very clear answers. One, Never Again activism, obviously. Two, absolute trash food. I seem to be incapable of eating healthy, which is a real pain. I just started going to the gym consistently and then all of this happened.”
“That’s terrible,” Daniel said.
On his way to the third one, Alfonso got sidetracked on his girlfriend. They’d just broken up, that week, a few days shy of their six-month anniversary.
Was it related?
“Yeah, definitely. Beforehand we were having little problems, but after this we— My worldview changed. I’ll be honest: one thing I’m noticing more is, I hate to admit it, but I’m pretty materialistic. There are those people in life, I am one of those people, I’m never gonna turn down a Gucci bag. You know like, how could I, right?”
“I could so easily turn down a Gucci bag.”
“Me and Daniel are different.”
Ryan chimed back in. “I’d be like, ‘Ohhhhh, a pretty sack.’”
“Wow, a twenty-thousand-dollar sack,” Alfonso said.
“With a shiny ‘G’ on it,” Ryan said.
They kept rolling with it for a while, until Alfonso’s smile suddenly sagged, followed by his shoulders, and his pitch. “People just mean a lot more to me. Because the reality of losing someone is a lot more real.”
Everyone dropped the playful tone. “When I’m like texting people, I make sure to always say goodnight to them,” Daniel said. “And I always hug like everybody now.”
“I respond to everybody,” Alfonso said. “I try to always be there for people that have been there for me—beforehand, not just now.”
“I think I’ve become just altogether more social,” Daniel said.
Ryan had gone silent again, so I asked him how it was affecting him. “Pretty much same thing. But I like didn’t break up with my girlfriend.”
“He’s still with her,” Alfonso said.
“It’s been tense but like we just spoke at a church in New York last night.”
I asked if both girlfriends were Douglas survivors. Yes, they said. Daniel seemed stunned about the breakup and asked if it was really over.
“We don’t speak about that,” Alfonso said.
I asked if he was comfortable sharing her name.
“No, you know, privacy. And I try to be respectful as much as possible. And by the way, please get this on the record: I’m an asshole, OK.” He was smiling again.
“Good,” I said. “I’m gonna put quotes around that.”
There would be many more breakups ahead of them. When Columbine happened, the federal government rushed in a huge team of grief counselors. One of the leaders, who had just spent years with Oklahoma City survivors, outlined what lay ahead in the first week: Lots of long, healthy relationships would snap for no apparent reason—or sometimes for obvious reasons that had been brushed aside for months or years. Boys who had never kissed a girl would go on dating binges. Kids who had never sipped a beer would go on benders. They would take up smoking, or rock climbing, or weight training—or quit. Secretive kids would suddenly open up to their parents, talkative kids would stop. Drastic change was one of the most common coping mechanisms—to correct a problem, or for the sake of change. It was generally temporary. Most survivors settle back into old habits eventually, but for weeks or months or years, chaos can reign.
The activism seemed to be helping, but does it ever get to be