The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(111)

Kaeger: He didn’t come in until three-quarters of the way through.

Bianco: I know but I have no memory of it. Everything literally stops there. Right over there in the aisle, when I turned around to wave at my boyfriend. And then it’s just a black hole, until I woke up in the hospital and I still didn’t know what happened.

Jones: After shooting Daisy and Will, Dow jumped from the stage and began firing at people, wounding Marie Del’Amici and another five students. Cornelis Justi, the director of the conservatory’s contemporary dance division, was sitting near the rear of the theater.

Cornelis Justi: It was like watching a movie. Cliché, I know. But there’s truth in it. I just stood there and watched. With my cup of coffee in my hand, can you imagine? For five seconds I thought it was a joke. I thought the theater department was pulling a prank. Someone with a gun, seriously? Come on, this is my theater. People don’t get shot in the middle of rehearsal.

Jones: Panicked, screaming students flooded the aisles, fleeing for the lobby doors and emergency exits. Justi herded as many as he could out, but when he saw James Dow jump off the stage and fire into the orchestra, Justi dove to the floor between two rows of seats.

Justi: Sheer adrenaline. I never felt anything like it in my life. Shots were coming closer up the aisle and then this awful shattering of glass. James shot out the windows of the lighting booth. A boy named Erik Fiskare was in there, he was running lights for the concert. I thought he was killed. It was madness. Then everything went quiet. I peeked up and James was standing still in the aisle. Then I saw Erik. He had come out of the booth and was crouched down in the aisle. I was so relieved to see him, but then he started moving down the aisle. Toward James. And I remember thinking, Dear Lord, what is this kid doing? Then I realized he was probably trying to get to Daisy.

Jones: Erik Fiskare was Daisy Bianco’s boyfriend and Will Kaeger’s roommate. From where he sat in the lighting booth, he had seen the both of them shot. He managed to hit the floor before James blew out the glass of the booth.

Justi: Erik spoke to him then. He called his name. He said, “James.” And James turned his head. I’ll never forget this. Not his whole body, just his head. And he looked at Erik. And Erik said, “James. Come talk to me.” I remember thinking, and I still think it today… Excuse me… Thinking it was the most courageous thing I had seen in my life.

Jones: Here’s David Alto, who was the set and lighting designer for the concert.

David Alto: I was behind the set the whole time. I should’ve been in the orchestra with Marie but I had to fix something. So I was behind the set and I stuck my head up when James fired at Will and Daisy. I hit the floor with one of the other stagehands. It felt like I didn’t breathe for an hour, but how long could it have been? Five minutes? Not even. Things got really quiet so I slowly put my head around the set. And I saw Erik, sitting in the aisle, up against the sides of the seats. And James…had the gun pointed straight at Erik’s face. I was frozen. Thinking I can’t watch this. But I have to.

Erik was one of my best friends and he was alone in the aisle staring down the muzzle of a gun. If I made a move, he’d be dead. If I didn’t make a move…

Jones: He’s not here today?

Alto: … No, he couldn’t be here. Anyway, the gun went off. I didn’t even have time to shut my eyes. James went down in the aisle. He was dead. And it was over. That part of it, anyway. A lot of other things were just getting started.

Jones: Five students were dead in the theater. Professor Marie Del'Amici had been mortally wounded and would die three days later at Philadelphia Trauma Center. Onstage, the situation was grave. Daisy and Will were both bleeding heavily.

Lucia Dare, Will Kaeger’s wife, was also in the theater the day of the shootings. She majored in sports medicine at Lancaster and is now a physical therapist.

Lucia Dare: It’s interesting. The semester before, I had been in Boston, taking an EMT training course. I thought it was something I wanted to pursue. But turns out I didn’t have the psyche for it. And yet the day of the shooting, I was in the thick of it, applying what I learned in the course to my best friend who’d been shot. With my boyfriend over there who’d also been shot. This was happening in my school, to people I love. I should have been a basket case. But I was numb. I was just…

Alto: You were incredible, Luck. Come on. People would have died if you hadn’t been there.

Jones: David Alto, now 32, is in remission from kidney cancer. He’s watching today’s rehearsal from the auditorium, wearing a black wool cap over his bald head. Lucky Dare sits next to him, holding his hand as they relive those difficult memories Alto: I was trying to help Daisy but Lucky pushed me aside. “Get out of the way.” And she was just yelling things at Fish. I mean, Erik Fiskare. We called him Fish.

Dare: I was calm with Will but I nearly broke down when I saw Daisy’s wound. And Erik [laughter]—oh my God—he was leaning on her femoral pressure point and with his other elbow he just whacks me in the side. You know, like you’d slap a hysterical person. “Get it together.” Or something. It worked. My hands just took over and then I was a robot. Like I could feel my brain severing the emotional connections I had to these people. Crazy what happens to you in a crisis.

Alto: The blood was everywhere. Jesus. For a long time afterward I had a really, really hard time with blood. Like if I was flossing my teeth and spit blood in the sink?