New York City—September 12

Like the Irish who throw wakes instead of funerals or the jazz musicians of New Orleans who play for the people after the death of one of their own, on the night after the attack some New Yorkers partied and mourned at the same time.

Perhaps they were given permission by Rudolph Giuliani, the Mayor, who said during a news conference: "Don't feel locked in. The reality is we're going to go on with our lives. They should go to stores. They should go to restaurants." New Yorkers, as well as stranded tourists, took his advice, living a little at a sidewalk café, a four-star French restaurant, a hotel martini bar, a pool hall, a gay disco and even a strip club.

For John Denatale, the bartender at the Royalton Hotel's famed Round Bar, whose eyes welled with tears as he mixed a Granny Smith apple martini, staying on the job was a form of protest: "We gotta get out. Show that we're not intimidated. My heart's broken, but I'm not going to let some chicken-shit bastard destroy my city. "

In the hotel's Lobby Lounge, a haunt of the editorial and advertising industries, as well as the crowd in town for Fashion Week - this had been Fashion Week in New York - Penelope Murrey just wanted to calm down. Dressed in black down to her strappy high heels, the Montreal native sipped a glass of Merlot and smoked a cigarette, although "I don't drink or smoke." On Tuesday Morning, she had been about set off for One World Trade Center, where she planned to meet with clients and sell them financial research.

"My clients-most of them are dead now," said Ms. Murray. "I saw on television that the plane went into One World Trade around the ninetieth floor, and my clients are on the 93rd floor. I'm just devastated. But we're totally sick of being in our rooms. It's therapeutic, talking with your friends and sharing your fears."

Her party of four crossed the street to DB, the fancy bistro opened recently by master chef Daniel Boulud. The place was packed. Boulud, who had just prepared and donated food for hospital workers, got on the phone with me to explain the decision to open for business. "We went back and forth, but the staff encouraged me to open. I didn't want [the decision] to come just from me." He added that he wanted to provide a refuge for his customers, especially stranded tourists.

It was a company decision. No, a family decision. In New York, where so many apartments are the size of walk-in closets elsewhere, local restaurants and bars often function like extended kitchens.

"Working here I must know half the City," explained Querelle, the maitre 'd at Cafeteria, a late-night spot on Seventh Avenue and 17th Street, about a mile north of Ground Zero. Asked why he opened tonight, Querelle, a slight, bald man who's quick with a hug for his patrons, replies: "We need to get in the business of life right now. Once we realized that there is the possibility that life can continue, will continue, New Yorkers are going to try our best to lead as normal a life as we can. We need to stand up and be here for the country. Also, we want to see so many friends."

Querelle escorts me to sidewalk table-a burning rubber odor hangs heavy in the air. He introduces me to Jason, a Morgan Stanley trader from St. Louis who had been in Two World Trade Center at the time of the attack. "I was on the 44th floor of building two when the [first] plane hit. It was mayhem. Chaos at first, then we got down. They said the building was secure you can go back up, but I chose to go back down."

Sitting at a table lit by votive candle in a white paper bag and under a brown canvas beach umbrella, Jason marveled at tonight's' "hustle and bustle" and expressed optimism for the future: "People will bond and unite and we'll become a stronger nation. In the long term, after all devastation has past, things will get much better," he said.

Why did you come here tonight?

"You can't hide."

"What did you have for dinner?"

"Mac and Cheese."

"That's called "comfort food," I tell him.

***

It should be said that it was hardly a happy scene on the streets last night, as noted by my cabby-an Egyptian fellow who hid his hack license so his name wouldn't show-"I've never seen people walk so slowly in Manhattan," he said. Broadway was dark. The majority of restaurants and clubs were shuttered. Times Square was devoid of people, except a few tourists and the Senegalese peddlers selling counterfeit Oakley sunglasses out of garbage bags. Behind them an eerie electronic billboard recalled New York's salad days: MORGAN STANLEY . . .CONNECTING PEOPLE. IDEAS. CAPITAL. Yet, from Greenwhich Village to Harlem, you could find pockets of activity, the sound of laughter competing with sirens.

"The smiling and laughing bothers me,” Phil Nicolau tells me from his perch at the bar of an Italian restaurant in Midtown over a glass of Chianti. "I don't feel like they have a right to be laughing and smiling, but I also realize that everybody reacts to things differently so a laugh or a smile might be the best way to deal with something that they can't find words for."

The night is not without moments that are difficult to describe. At a "Gentlemen's'" club in the Flatiron District, known for its banker clientele, the manager lets me in when he knows he shouldn't. He opened up tonight--"cause the competition did,"--but he feels queasy about it. "These people were my clients," he says. The heavy glass door to the club swings opens.

"Go ahead, don't talk to the girls."

Perhaps a dozen clients, and five dancers are inside. A giant projection TV, about eight feet across, is tuned to CNN, and--as one of the Twin Towers implodes in slow motion again and again, a nude dancer--Amber or something- climbs the stage and starts twirling wildly around a silver pole, a strangely wide smile plastered on her face. Meanwhile, in the back of the club, a bearded man splashed out and bought himself a pair of lap dancers. The blonde shakes her butt before him. The brunette woman grabs his right arm extends it over his head and starts massaging his hand, then works her way down to his back--his head lolls around.

I have to get out of this joint, but I refuse to judge these men on this night. There are many ways to cope with crisis, and if a lap dance gives you pleasure on a day without pleasure, so be it.

I walk to Slate, a pool hall where I sometimes play. It’s also in the Flatiron District. Nearly every table is taken. In the corner of the spotlit room, Nevin Patton and about a dozen of his friends, celebrate his 27th birthday, which was September 11.

"I didn't think of it being my birthday yesterday, " he said.

"I love my friends and that they were all willing to come out tonight. They are my surrogate family here. . . I wasn't born 27 years ago because of some terrorist and I'm not going to keep living afterwards because of some terrorist either."

They sing Happy Birthday. Nevin's girlfriend hands me a moist piece of coconut cake, and a banker at the next table buys me a beer. People are like that tonight. Spontaneously generous, gracious, considerate, happy to talk. "It makes me feel so good seeing people here," says the banker just before he sends the cue-ball hurtling down the table.

"It's not some revelry. We're keeping our minds on the suffering inflicted on people, but we're all trying to get over it the best we can."

I wonder whether hitting something, even the cue ball, feels good. "Maybe subconsciously," he says. "If only everyone could do it non-violently like this."

###

Near midnight, I grab a cab in a bid to find a disco. The usual suspects are shut. Only a gay club-Splash in Chelsea-is open. The dance floor wasn't packed, but it wasn't empty either. Maybe 100 men there, including William, from Brooklyn, who bops by himself.

Why did you come here? I ask.

"You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, Tonight's OK, but you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.” And, as strobe lights cut through a purposeful fog generated by a smoke machine, the men danced-danced hard-- to Survivor by Destiny's Child:

I'm a survivor
I'm not gonna give up
I'm not gon' stop
I'm gonna work harder
I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it
I'm a survivor, keep on survivin'

And the beat goes on.