One Year and Three Days
There's so much I want to do to reflect, remember. But all I can do for now is post what I wrote just a month after 9-1-1. Unedited, Uncut.
Ten Days
A piece that I wrote just ten days before the attacks made on NYC and DC, haunts me slightly. One might say that the writer’s block that has stumbled me for the past few months, has been lifted.
What Remains (September 1, 2001, 6:52 p.m. central time)
Enter: The remains of a dinosaur,
The tip of its ribcage unearthed
By an unsuspecting tourist.
In a parallel universe,
Blood courses through its scaly body
By the tons-
One one thousand
Two one thousand
Three one thousand-
Raptors flee the scene
In a fury of screeches.
The cave people are afraid.
Here they come-
The Channel Five News,
Every big wig in the science kingdom-
Why is this one so special?
Dust to dust,
And everyone’s remembered an impending mortality.
Years have gone by
Since three cats died
From a carbon monoxide leak.
Three trash bags,
Two feet of shoveled winter dirt.
Years have gone by
Since a beautiful husky died.
It was raining and the line was
Severed,
And the house was less than three yards away
From the main road-
The only promise ever broken:
“He’s not dead, Michael. He’s just lost.”
And everyone’s remembered an impending mortality.
Somehow, a portal has opened,
Sliced thin by human hand,
And there is confrontation-
Several serpents
Coiled, upright,
Offering apple pie á la mode,
Instead of regurgitated dinosaur eggs.
Seal the portal shut,
And a funeral is in progress.
Paul, pulling out of the parking lot
At midnight
On Easter
Or the day after Easter
Or two days after Easter-
The Story always changes.
How was he to know
About the high-speed police chase,
When all his sisters-in-law wanted
Was a carton of ice cream?
“Don’t cry,” she had said.
“The car looks worse than he does….”-
His eight-year-old daughter.
Somebody dies,
And their family is expected
To eat dozens of pound cakes
And pies
And casseroles.
There was nothing that could be done.
He was a good man.
Preventable or not,
Nothing is comforting.
And Brina.
She got sober and straight,
Only to have her progress mocked
When,
After years of sobriety,
The HIV diagnosis.
And suddenly,
Everyone’s remembered an impending mortality.
Ms. Searle-
A first-grade teacher
Who taught her students about prejudice:
Anti-gay
Racism
Sexism-
Then, diagnosed with breast cancer.
She didn’t last long.
The last woman, Ally,
Just started college-
Voted “ “best smile” in high school-
Diagnosed with spinal meningitis
Just three days before she died.
Everybody tries to makes themselves
Feel better,
In light of their mortality.
They are angels watching over us, now.
They are no longer suffering.
They would want us to move on.
And these dinosaurs
Are discovered
Years and years later,
Reconstructed,
Put on display
For two dollars per day.
There are no cat skeletons
Or dog skeletons
Or human skeletons,
Because that would be a disgrace.
Even those with the rare ability
To see molecules
Cannot slice through this reality.
Somewhere, it is the future,
And somewhere, it is the past;
Eons forward and behind
Continue on,
And I am a castaway,
Looking inside the now
From without.
One Month
The night before the big crash was a restless night. I couldn’t have gotten more than three hours of sleep, tossing and turning in my place in Chicago. The colors of night faded into morning, slowly. As a persistent headache started to form around 7:30 a.m., I curled into the fetal position, telling myself that I’d go into work an hour late. I justified this decision to myself upon remembering that I’d been working at the office two hours past closing the night before. The clock turned 7:53 a.m., and I slowly made my way out of bed. I brushed my teeth and got dressed, and even though it was the first morning in months that I had not taken a shower, those first few minutes really were like any other day.
When I got upstairs to the kitchen, the television was on. The kitchen TV was never on. John was buttering toast. He was still in his pajamas. The smoke that appeared on the news creeping upon the corner of my eye, the mess bounced off of the conscious mind; nothing registered. Either that, or I assumed that it was old footage. I grabbed my bag and proceeded to exit through the back door.
John turned his head slightly and casually asked, “Did you see this?”
As I had no expression on my face, he must have assumed that I already knew. “No,” I said. My feet were rooted to the floor. Sandra stepped into the house and said, “Come on, you’re late for work.” But my eyes were fixed to the screen. That was after the first plane had hit.
On my 45-minute commute to work, I, like some others, couldn’t help but think, “Why not D.C.?” Definitely the more obvious target. The sky was exceptionally quiet that morning.
When I got off the bus, I went to Dominick’s to get a pastry, since I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. As I picked up my change at the end of the counter, I noticed one of the baggers pacing, his hands behind his back. He said, “That’s a shame. Damn shame ‘bout those people in New York.” His cashier and supervisor nodded their heads in solemn agreement. I thought to myself that, had I gone to work on time, all of this would have happened while I was on the bus, and that would have been the first time I heard the news. And then, as I looked at my watch that read 8:54, a more startling thought: Is someone hitting all the major cities?
Central Standard Time: Chicago’s workday had not entirely begun.
When I arrived at work, I went through the back door like I always do. I walked towards the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, like I always do. Except, there was no coffee made. And the only lights on were those of the hallway and main office. I checked my voice mail, and Megan, who shares my office, had left a message at 7 a.m. saying that she would not be arriving until 10. Everyone was a little off that day.
Following the dull hum of the television, I found myself in the conference room, where all of my co-workers had congregated to watch the coverage. Four planes, not one. And now D.C. Seconds after I had entered the room, we all covered our mouths as the news replayed the second building’s collapse. All of those people.
Chicago’s workday continued.
I was in such a state of shock-and, at the same time, not-that it wasn’t until around 10:15 that it occurred to me: I have friends in New York. Where were they? I checked my email and already had eight group messages saying who was okay and who still needed to check in. I tried calling out to friends in New York, but the lines in the city were down.
All day.
My mother had made several calls and was able to track down my phone number at work. The four-minute conversation consisted of her saying, “I just wanted to say that I love you and wanted to make sure that you were safe.” We had just spoken two days before, the first time since I arrived in Chicago exactly a month before. Jenna and I had been on the phone for hours the night before. I vaguely remember saying something along the lines of, “Tomorrow marks a month of me being here. Does that mean something bad’s gonna happen?” Or maybe the funny feelings that we both had in our stomachs was even more ominous.
At work, Judy was freaking out because her husband works for American Airlines. He had called her, but could only speak with her for five minutes, at which point he was ordered to turn off his cell phone and proceed with the questioning.
Raquel’s husband, Jorge, wanted to deliver a letter through the post office. But when he got out of his car, he was pushed back in, and all he heard was, “There’s a bomb!” This was downtown Chicago.
Several of our site workers were at our general office downtown for a meeting, just a block away from the federal building. It took them three hours to make it back to our office after everyone working downtown was ordered to evacuate the premises; usually, it only takes half an hour to 45 minutes to make that trip. The train schedules were readjusted in order to expedite the clearing of downtown for the day, and yet people insisted on taking their cars even though it was taking three times longer.
As the workday ended and the night drew in, I was able to reach my remaining friends by phone.
Nadia could see the smoke from her apartment in the Upper West Side. Her boyfriend, José, was much closer to the scene when the buildings crumbled. Working for the city parks, he was able to secure an official looking shirt so that he could help the police and firefighters clear the rubble. He was not allowed to see any civilians.
Josh works on Wall Street, and when he got to work, he was instructed to go home. Soon after, he saw the second building collapse. Covered in soot, he made the six-hour trek home. He was not able to contact anyone by phone until four hours into his journey, when he finally reached his hysterical mother in North Carolina.
Anita and Bob, two cherished family friends, had a son whose best friend was in the Pentagon when it was hit. He’s dead, now.
A man from my college class and two other alumni. All dead.
And those were just a few of the stories. Soon after, I heard the counts of several other people I knew, who saw the WTC hit from all sorts of different angles. If you didn’t know someone directly affected, you knew someone who knew someone. You didn’t even need all six degrees of separation to make the connection.
And still, I had not cried.
“I’m taking some time off,” Josh said. “I can’t be here right now. It’s just too much.”
As the week progressed, I waited for the other foot to drop. I waited for something equally as catastrophic to happen. I waited. As the days progressed, I started to wonder. Wonder why Bill and Hillary had that sudden interest in New York in the first place. Wonder how it was that no high-ranking government officials happened to be at the Pentagon that morning. Wonder why I chose to work for AmeriCorps, having arrived in Chicago exactly one month before the attacks. Wonder why I pulled my applications to jobs in both Brooklyn and D.C.-such easy acceptances-at the last minute, starting all over again to get this job in Chicago. Wonder why. As the minutes progressed, I couldn’t escape the news. Couldn’t escape the footage of billowing smoke and crumbling buildings and running people and crashing planes and frantic reporters and grieving wives and sweating firefighters and hopeful civilians and angry racists and a vengeful president.
Dead or alive. Dead or alive. Dead or alive.
These words came from our stiff-lipped president, adam’s apple bobbing as he pretended to be a cowboy on national television. And at the same time, I couldn’t help but think that he was doing a better job than I could have ever anticipated. And I couldn’t help but wonder just how relieved Gore was that day, having lost an election that had no right to go on as long as it did, teasing the American public. And I ask, how would things be different if Gore were president right now, if there were a different staff, if his wife would have advised him differently? There’s Laura Bush on the morning talk shows in New York. Oh, there she is again on “Oprah” that same afternoon, right here in Chicago. There she is.
There are many Americorps*VISTA members that have kept in touch since our initial training in August. We were all sending rapid-fire emails back and forth to the group list, expressing our thoughts, fears, astonishment. I asked them when a day of mourning would come. Molly responded, telling me that there was no count yet, that it was too soon. So I asked, why no moment of silence, then? I was informed by Amanda L. that the president had declared a moment of silence for the following Friday, just five minutes before I wrote that email. September 14th at noon, was to be a time when we could reflect on days past; September 14th, the birthday of the husky in the poem. September 14th, exactly one month before my own birthday.
I said, we’ve had this coming for a long time. We deserved it, as much as I hate to say that. Look what we’ve done in and to the world; we are not the blameless victims portrayed on the news. Rob responded, “I am proud to be an American, and even prouder to be working for AmeriCorps. Why so cynical, Melissa?” For once in my life, I had no convincing answer to the question. Perhaps cynicism is often a thin veil for a disturbing kind of fear. I had taken pride in the fact that I was not a vengeful, angry American like so many others. I was proud that I could control my emotions, holding back the frustration and tears. I had no right to be proud. Not for that.
That Thursday-the 13th-I left work late, just as the sun was setting. I’ve never been a religious person, but every time I saw groups of people walking into places of worship, I wanted to follow them inside. On the buses, the drivers waved and honked to each other a little more than usual. I noticed the makeshift paper flags taped to the buses’ windshields. I noticed the flags hanging outside of almost every single house on my street. And I noticed the public flags drawn down at half-mast. I thought about how Americans are supposed to see each other as sisters and brothers, and what crap I’d always thought that was. As the lumps formed in my throat, the tunes rang through my mind, and I tried to forget my leftist politics, I wondered if, for the first time in my life, I was actually feeling…patriotic.
I still don’t know if I can say that.
On Friday the 14th, I went along with two others at work to lead a long-planned weekend retreat for our senior caregivers. I was to be a translator for the monolingual Spanish-speaking clients going on the retreat. I was told that this was the first retreat of its kind in the state of Illinois, and that only five other states had programs like ours. I swallowed this information greedily-anything but the news was welcome conversation. On the bus ride to the camp, I translated a 1970’s Bill Cosby comedy tape playing on the VCR-a routine that came out just months before I was born. Aimlessly, Rosa looked out the window. “Mira-las aviones….” A smile crept over Rosa’s face as she pointed in the direction of the sky. I too looked out the window, albeit with skeptical eyes. “Las aviones,” I repeated. “Finalmente.”
The following Tuesday, just one week after the attacks, I stopped in a pizza shop after work, just in time to see the six o’clock news. Some ex-security guard from Chicago had threatened to hijack a plane heading from San Francisco to Chicago, whose flight was scheduled for some time that day. He had made at least ten threatening phone calls from a stolen cell phone just the night before, his voice full of anger as he declared that he would intentionally fly said plane into the Sears Tower. He was, of course, arrested. And delusional. All the crazies were out. And to think, I had just spent the entire day in meetings downtown. And most of the afternoon in the Federal building. Standing next to my kitchen window in my apartment, I can see the Sears Tower.
October 7, 2001. I am walking downtown, looking for a birthday gift for my mother. I am listening to my walkman. The channel slips. We are bombing Afghanistan.
October 11, 2001. My laptop’s hard drive crashes. Maybe because I hit it.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking downtown and I saw a middle eastern looking man walk into a major bank, while a friend waited outside with the car running. A light panic gripped me for a split second and I thought, calm down. He’s just going to the bank.
Just two days before I got the offer for this job in Chicago, my high school prom date emailed me after four years of us not talking to each other. He lives two hours south of me now. We have been making plans for him to come and visit me as soon as I get my new apartment filled with furniture. Maybe even go downtown. It was not until a couple of days ago that I remembered: he’s Muslim. Would he get attacked if he were to walk around downtown?
Everybody’s a suspect. Everybody’s a victim.
And in between this all, two other friends had family members die of illnesses that they had been affected with for a long time. People die. It was time.
Coming home from work two weeks after the attacks, I turned on the television just in time to accidentally see a bunch of celebrities singing patriotic songs. All I remember is Chris Rock’s eyes bugging out of his sockets, and wondering if he was an addict. Was it Paul Simon that finally did it? It was the first time that I was able to cry without holding it back. And for the first time in two weeks, I was able to get a normal night’s sleep.
Weeks passed before I could finally take the time to compare and contrast. A month later, I was able to let my eyes scan past the 60+ emails I received in regards to the “September 11th Tragedy”/”Attack On America”/“The Events of September 11th”/whatever the news is dubbing it now. This time, I browsed my emails from September 10th. Indeed, there was a before. On September 10th, Jenna was having car trouble in upstate New York. Working as a caseworker in Massachusetts, Charlotte was stressed about one of her clients’ um, volatile nature. Eighteen hours later, none of that seemed to matter so much.
Indeed, there was a before, and there is an after. I was on the bus a few weekends ago, and just at one stoplight alone, I was able to view five planes in the sky, all heading in the same direction. I’ve gone to work every day, making the phone calls that I should, organizing the events that I need to. Just two weeks after, I didn’t even have to show my ID to anyone at our general office downtown. The public flags have all been readjusted to their full heights.
The police factor has been beefed up a little. O’Hare and Midway’s airlines have had to consolidate flights all over the place, because there aren’t always enough passengers scheduled to depart on any one flight. But people continue to go grocery shopping, as usual. People continue to wait in line at the sub shop at lunchtime. People continue to go to the movie theaters, the bars, and baseball games. They continue to complain, and laugh, and take tourist pictures. People continue.
People do continue, albeit more cautious and alert. I have friends and acquaintances, including one of my roommates, that are flight attendants for ATA. My roommate Alicia’s friend Mel enjoys recounting his adventures in flying. He especially loves it when passengers grab his ear and whisper, “Look, there are four Arab-looking men on this flight, all sitting in different places….” All he can say is, “I’ll keep an eye on it.” And all he can think is, “Yes, and there are four black men sitting in different places on this side of the plane, and, oh look-four older white women like yourself, all sitting strategically….”
And then, the more serious alarms. During the week of October 16th, there was a white powdery substance found one morning at the Clark/Division stop on the red line here in Chicago. Could it be anthrax? The EPA came in to investigate, and at the end of the day the tests couldn’t conclude whether it was baking soda or flour. Anthrax-tainted letters were trickling into news stations, political offices, and newspaper buildings. A photographer in Florida died from inhaling a rare form of the anthrax. Hundreds of political and media staff are being diagnosed daily with infections. I see copies of the tainted envelopes on television, and the writing looks like that of a child. Could this mania really be the work of sophisticated terrorists?
Everyone’s an innocent. Everyone’s a conspirator. Given the proper, world-stopping opportunity of a lifetime, loose cannons turn on each other. The perfect excuse.
And, at the same time, we are all a little more conscious of our intents and actions. Yes, we are more anxious and cautious, but we are also a tiny bit more patient and humble. We are more appreciative of the loved ones both in and out of our lives-the ones we see daily, the ones we patron, the ones we birthed, the ones we love, the ones with whom we are out of love. There is a newfound, profound unity that five decades’ worth of generations have never before experienced.
And yet. History has a funny way of repeating itself, despite the increasing quality of our collective education. I can’t help but recognize that, as the centuries pile onto one another, there has not been a single generation that has been able to skate by without seeing it all happen, again.
