Doc Rivers said he was driving to the Boston Marathon, only a handful of blocks away, when he learned of the explosions.
WALTHAM -- They don't get it, do they?
Whoever these monsters are -- who bomb public places, who kill and harm our children, our parents, our friends -- they don't seem to understand how evil works. Set off a bomb and you could kill a few people, hurt hundreds more, cause devastation and panic and pain, the worst type of pain, that belonging to a mother whose child died during an event only meant to bring joy.
But they don't get it. None of these monsters do. Suddenly police officers are risking their lives to save strangers. Civilians are walking toward debris, toward a bomb zone, to carry away injured people they've never met. Thousands of people are volunteering to shelter strangers with no place to stay. Others are donating money, pledging a portion of their salaries. Phone service is down because everyone wants to reach their loved ones.
Try to destroy a city and you might cause pain, blood, death. You might leave scars that will never go away. But try to destroy a city, and chances are you will only highlight its courage.
"Being in the city, you’re just really proud to be a part of Boston," said Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, who was driving to the Boston Marathon straight from practice on Monday.
He only lives a couple blocks from the finish line, in a hotel, and he allows himself the pleasure of watching runners end the race every year. He was driving there on Monday, was just a handful of blocks away from the race, when he started to see weird things. People running, panicked. Ambulances. "Hysteria," he called it. "You’re coming out and all of a sudden you see all this and you don’t know what’s going on." He turned on his radio. That was when he learned that explosives had detonated near the finish line.
His daughter called him or texted him 16 times in a row, by his estimation. The rest of his family contacted him, too. So did much of the coaching fraternity. Tom Thibodeau and Lawrence Frank, former Celtics assistants, got in touch right away. "Just because they don’t live here anymore, they’re still part of this," Rivers explained. "And so they really felt for everybody.”
People were afraid. Maybe Rivers had been at the race, they worried. Maybe he'd been injured in the explosion. Some monster caused the city of Boston to panic. Some monster caused the city of Boston to display love like it almost never does.
"It was awesome, watching people help people," Rivers said. "I’m driving, I can see people helping people walk, helping people go to the right places. This city has an amazing amount of spirit."
This happened in Boston, but it didn't have to. We've learned since September 11, 2001, that anywhere is susceptible to heartless attacks. We are not entirely safe at movie theaters, schools or marathons. We are not entirely safe on holidays or at the mall. We are not entirely safe because at any moment, someone could be plotting the next American tragedy. We could become some monster's faceless targets in Boston, New York City or a suburb called Pleasantville with so many pretty trees.
Boston certainly deserves praise for handling tragedy with the warmth of a dove yet the force of all the world's lions, but there is a pattern to be found here:
Try to ruin a city, but understand it will come marching back in unison.
It took Rivers an hour to drive the remaining five blocks to his hotel on Monday, he said. His short drive to practice on Tuesday took a lot longer. Streets were blocked off, traffic much greater than it normally is as the city continued repairing itself. He was only driving to practice because the team and the NBA decided together to cancel Boston's game against Indiana, a move basically unprecedented in the league's history.
"(Tuesday) no one would have been into it, no one would have wanted to go to it," Rivers said. "And honestly, we just want to make sure – there are so many people doing so many things right now in the city, and their focus is there and that’s where it should stay. It shouldn’t be on a basketball game."
Rivers doesn't want to push his feelings aside. He watched out of his window as people wandered around the Boston Common, saying he could "feel" that they had no places to go. He suspects anger will arrive soon for him. Heck, he says it has already.
"Whether you were in the city or out of the city, you’re part of Boston. And if you’re part of the city – or this country, for that matter – it’s something that will be on your mind," he said. "And that’s fine. You put things in compartments, and that will happen for this hour and a half of practice. It was a sad day yesterday and it’s sad today, too, as far as I’m concerned."
For now, everything's different in Boston -- traffic levels, closed roads, a canceled basketball game, voicemails left by mothers to their children, a search for the culprit, all out of the ordinary. It's the way it has to be for now as the city snaps back like the world's most powerful rubber band.
But Boston won't always be like this. Normalcy will return to the city, even if it will forever be changed by the events of Marathon Monday.
"I think that’s what our city wants. You can hear the police commissioner today talking about that, that we want to return things as soon as possible back to normal, because that tells whoever did this that you don’t stop the spirit of Boston," Rivers said. "We’re going to be back, we’re going to work the same, we’re going to play the same, we’re going to do things the same. And there’s nothing you can do to stop us from doing this. And next year the Marathon will be bigger and better, and you’re not going to stop us.”
These monsters, they never seem to understand how much they serve to inspire.