In a matter of months, reporters would be looking at the Rust Belt and scratching their heads. They would search through their best metaphors to explain what had happened, and I would think back to the story that Jack told me at the beginning of orientation. I was wrong to think that the story didn’t impart a message. Jack hadn’t been quick enough to save his friend from the wheel of the crane, and he hadn’t walked outside to save his dog, and whatever guilt connected those two events didn’t deserve to be dressed up or watered down. Sometimes you just had to let things be what they were.
