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, fianc�e, 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 experhyment 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.
