The neighbor says "Did you hear the news? Two planes
crashed into the World Trade Center."
It’s 9:10 at the bus stop. His wife told me he hits her.
He seems like such a nice guy. The Chinese have a saying: "Every family has
a hard book to read."
"Two planes?" I say, "It must be some kind
of beacon problem. They went off course." Terrorism doesn’t even come to
mind. It’s the corner of Here and There in suburban Long Island. All we worry
about around here is too many Canada geese in the little pond nearby. They are
turning the water a sickly green.
Who thinks of terrorism on such a beautiful sunny day?
Terrorism: 1. a belief in terror? 2. Terrifying things done on purpose? 3. My
brother jumps out from behind a tree screaming as I walk to school. I run home
crying.
We put our kids on the bus. His nine year old son hugs and
kisses him. "I love you, Daddy."
"I love you too." he says.
I think of how his wife confided that some nights she lies
awake, terrified. "He told me ‘If you ever leave me I’ll kill you.’"
My own daughter clunks up the steep bus stairs with her
oversized red book bag. She hardly looks back. She has her mother’s eyes,
sometimes her mother’s caustic tongue. For four years since the divorce, I’ve
been Mr. Mom and she still argues with me that I don’t know how to do her
hair.
Inside the house I forget the news, start a breakfast of
too much red meat, greasy fried potatoes. As I reach for the Times I
remember the neighbor’s bulletin and get up to turn on the TV. Smoke flame
billow from the twin towers. An urgency that is usually inappropriate edges the
voice of the news commentator. A camera zooms in on what we’re told is someone
falling. It isn’t clear if it’s a man or woman but the arms flailing
indicates it isn’t a piece of debris.
The screen splits to show a replay of a large plane
approaching a the twin tower, angling to impact with a giant ball of flame. I’m
surprised at how stunned I am. I’ve seen a lot, more than you’d care to
know. "Hi, how are you," is just a ritual. Don’t ask is good advice.
Don’t tell is better.
Just as I’m adjusting to what announcers are calling "a possible terrorist act," someone with a handheld camera screams
"get back" and a tower begins to collapse. It’s just like a slow
motion filming of a demolition scene, layer after layer flattening downward
faster and faster into a cloud of dust and smoke. It’s so much like the
special effects I’ve seen in movies that I’m bothered. It can’t be real.
The people running, screaming must be movie extras. Only
there’s the overweight cop who weaves around other panicking people, shoves a
woman and runs out ahead of the billowing cloud of debris and smoke. Much later
there will be the video footage of cops beating a fellow who "tried to
pedal his bike past a police officer who told him to stop." The announcer
explains, "Impatient, tired, the police seem to be taking their
frustrations out on him." I doubt there will be an investigation.
The entire World Trade Tower is gone. I feel a surprising
tightness in my jaw, hear a ringing in my ears. I’m amazed at how amazed I am.
And then the TV voice asks, "Do you think the other tower is leaning?"
Almost as quickly it’s coming down, only this time the
huge TV tower on top is visibly falling in the center. I remember being out on
the observation deck atop the South Tower, looking over at the other building
and how huge that broadcast antenna was. There as was Frenchman who strung a
cable from one tower to the other and walked across the chasm! What gall! I
always pictured him walking with his balance pole and the cable tied to the top
of that antenna.
Now it’s falling down, falling down. With it goes the
indifference I had recently worked so hard to cultivate. "Who gives a damn.
It’s no big deal; all just part of life." It isn’t nihilism, just a
desire to detoxify, to shake loose from too much pain and too much striving. But
I feel first a great uneasiness rising out of that dust cloud and later an
anger.
The news coverage goes on and on with details. I place a
call to my employer and say I won’t be coming in. I say I have an ear ache—not
completely untrue as I realize I’ve tightened my jaw so much I’m in pain.
Later they will cancel the day’s work and close up anyway. I’m saved a sick
day and a small lie.
A parade of officials come forward to promise "everything we can do to help."
It occurs to me that people inside—one estimate in the
thousands—won’t take much consolation from all this, their bones likely
ground to dust with the buildings’ collapse. The President comes on to say "We’ll get the folks who did this." Not exactly inspirational.
The phone rings several times. Older daughters reassure me
they and their spouse, fiancée, friends are okay. Close calls. One might have
been down by the WTC but decided to head up-town instead. She tells me later
that she walked five miles, from mid-town, over the 59th Street
Bridge and all the way to Astoria to get home. "It was a beautiful day. I
felt guilty because I was enjoying the walk."
The woman who’s husband beats her calls to ask me if I
can get her kid if the elementary school closes. "Don’t worry," I
reassure her. "I’m always here for you." If only it were that easy,
I think. I gave her numbers to call—women’s groups, domestic services, an
attorney. That was a year ago and they’ve stayed together. What can a person
do?
Before I notice, it’s time for my daughter to get off
the bus. There she is all flush with the news. "The teacher didn’t give
us any homework tonight. She was too busy with what happened and forgot."
I bring her in and settle her in front of the TV but every
channel is playing and replaying the plane that crashes into the towers and then
the towers falling down.
"Wow," she exclaims. "I went there and now
they aren’t there." And then it dawns on her, no cartoons. We experiment
and even the shopping channels are either off the air or showing news. A couple
satellite channels are still replaying the usual cartoons. Disney has an old
Donald Duck cartoon in which, ironically, Donald is parading around in his World
War II uniform trying to be heroic.
When I saw that cartoon for the first time we were still
being asked to buy liberty bonds. I think how many times during the day people
compared the events to Pearl Harbor. For me, it was a bit like the assassination
of JFK, as for the magnitude of people’s reactions. We live through so much.
It’s a crazy existence and it’s amazing who does survive.
Not long after my daughter’s return we decide to head
out—upset by the continuing coverage, longing for something to do. We drive
toward a department store where I’m scheduled to pick up a new vacuum cleaner.
Wow, best suction available. I wonder what’s in the thick dust coating
everything where the buildings collapsed. How will they ever be able to clean
that?
I promise my daughter she can get the Tweety quilt she has
been asking for. But when we get there, to our mutual amazement, the department
store is closed. Why? Why would they close on a perfectly good business day? Was
this terrorist thing really such a big deal that a store sixty miles away needed
to let its help go home?
I guess so, I know so, but all the way home my daughter
complains until, turning into our driveway I am forced to say, "For pity
sake, thousands of people have died." We spend a quiet evening pretending
we are safe at home.
