My first thoughts were of my old friend Andy and his wife Krickett. I met both of them during my Cinemark days, when I was working at that multiplex movie theater I reminisce about all the time. Andy was an usher, a skinny kid with hair so meticulously combed and gelled that we used to tease him about being an android (or, as the android character Bishop in Aliens dubs himself, an “artificial person”), because no natural human could possibly have had such perfect hair. Krickett was a candy girl. I imagine they probably call them “concessionists” or some other politely neutral term these days, and I’ve noticed there’s no longer a gender-based distinction in theater jobs as there was in my day, when boys were ushers and girls were behind the counter. But just keep in mind that my day was the Pleistocene, and all the way back then, in the dim mists of pre-history, we had candy girls. Anyway, Krickett was cute and vivacious and kinda-sorta resembled Julia Roberts, back when the whole world had a crush on Julia Roberts. She and Andy were almost immediately besotted with each other. Hopelessly besotted. They were also very young, just 16 I think, and being a wise old jaded cynic at the age of twentysomething, I honestly didn’t think they were going to last.

I lost track of Andy and Krickett for a long time after I finally left the projection booth for good, but of course I eventually came across the two of them on Facebook, as you inevitably do in the 21st century, and I was pleased to learn I’d been wrong about them. It turned out their teenage romance had had a happy ending after all. They got married, had some kids, and are still together and still happy after two decades. As it happens, Andy has become a long-distance runner in that time and — I’m sure you can see where this is going — he was in the Boston Marathon yesterday, fulfilling one of his “bucket list” goals. On his wife’s birthday, no less. So when news of the explosions came flashing across the InterWebs, my immediate reaction was to hope the two of them were safe.

They were, thankfully. Andy checked in with me later in the afternoon and reported that he had already completed the race and they were both back at their hotel when the bombs went off. I felt a surprising amount of relief, considering I haven’t actually seen either of them in the flesh since Jurassic Park was in theaters the first time.

I’m also relieved to see that, so far anyway, the country doesn’t seem to be going bananas over this. The Marathon bombings were an obvious act of terrorism, and in the minds of many people, that means Muslims. I read this morning that every major Muslim group in America has already issued press releases condemning the attack, essentially trying to pre-empt the hysteria that inevitably gets directed their way following a terrorist attack. It depresses me that these groups feel it necessary to do this, but I understand why they do. Personally, I think it’s just as likely what happened in Boston yesterday was perpetrated by some self-proclaimed “patriot,” a white, Christian, anti-government, Timothy McVeigh-type protesting against income taxes or something. (It strikes me as significant that yesterday was April 15, tax deadline day.) Or it could have been a nondescript nutbag with no particular cause at all, other than to hurt some people and create mayhem. We just don’t know yet. But regardless of who the eventual suspect(s) turn(s) out to be, it gladdens me that I’m not encountering a lot of paranoid, xenophobic, reactionary chatter online. In fact, other than pro bloggers and news sites, I’m not seeing a lot of chatter about the bombings at all. People are tweeting and blogging and Facebooking about the same old stuff… movies and hobbies and jobs and family, what they had for lunch and what funny things are happening to them. Normal life. Could it be that finally, twelve years after everything changed on 9/11, we’re finally beginning to heed the wisdom of that old slogan, “Keep calm and carry on?” Maybe so. (Of course, there could be lots of chatter happening that I’m not seeing due to what I personally choose to follow online. I prefer to think otherwise, though.)

I don’t have much else to say about this whole terrible event. What is there to say, really? Any remaining sentiments of mine were already better expressed by the comedian Patton Oswalt anyhow. The comments he posted on Facebook yesterday have already been disseminated far and wide, but they’re so eloquent, so on-target, that I’m going to repeat them here as well, just in case somebody reading this hasn’t seen them yet:

Boston. Fucking horrible.

 

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, “Well, I’ve had it with humanity.”

 

But I was wrong. I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

 

But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness.

 

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

 

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

Amen, brother.