Nine-One-One

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music — more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

— Leonard Bernstein   

My Honda Accord hit the road that Tuesday morning at the same time a certain Boeing 767 left the ground, 110 miles to the northeast. As I arrived in Middletown at 8:48, WCBS reported that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. One less Piper Cub, I thought. Class was about to begin, and my students were waiting. At our 10:30 break, some students tried to log onto CNN.com. No luck. They tried other Web sites. The Internet was slow. They couldn’t get on all at once. You knew when someone finally got through, because they would yell, “Oh, shit!” or gasp, “Oh, my God!” Yellers or gaspers, one or the other.

Every site, though, said something different. It wasn’t one plane, it was two — no, it was four. Flight computers were routing passenger jets into the World Trade Center. A lot of fire, a lot of smoke. One tower fell. No, both towers fell, and the Capital had been bombed. And the White House. And the Pentagon. A car bomb blew up the George Washington Bridge, and the Accidental President was heading for a safe location on Air Force One.

Terror must have felt right at home when it was born in the midst of the usual chaos of New York City that September morning. Its new address was a fifteen minute walk from my son’s dormitory. His phone was dead. Maybe he was, too.

He wasn’t. He was outside his dorm, watching débris shower from the tower. Through the telephoto lens, though, it wasn’t débris, but people cartwheeling and tumbling, accelerating on their way to heaven at 32 feet/sec².

I ended the class and got in my car. Cars were everywhere along the roadside. Those that were moving were moving slowly, every driver leaning to his right. I saw their red, grotesque masks as I passed. I thought, if I keep driving, I could be there in under an hour.

The radio station said that another jet had gone down in Pittsburgh, and then it played Adagio for Strings because it didn’t know what else to do.

My other son lives in Pittsburgh.

I put on my own red mask, like the other drivers, and leaned to my right, trying to find a radio station that made sense. At Exit 61 I turned and went home. My wife, the counselor, was at work, counseling people. The answering machine had no answers. It was full of messages, but none I could understand, with the TV and two radios on so loud.

The jet hadn’t crashed in Pittsburgh, but 70 miles away. I was thanking God for packing so much space into 70 miles when the phone rang. It was Terry, a high school friend of my son in New York. My son had e-mailed him to ask him to call me and let me know he was all right.

That’s how my week began.

The next day, my grandmother died. She was old and ill. She didn’t burn to death. She wasn’t crushed under a gazillion tons of steel and concrete. She didn’t dive out a window. She was old and ill and she was dead. I was sad. She was one hell of a person, and her life made one hell of a story. She was old and ill and she was one person and she was dead and I was sad.

I was sad that she had to stand in line when she got to heaven. The day before, 5,952 New Yorkers died. Fourteen of them were students of mine. They were not old, they were not sick, but they’re all just as dead. They won’t recover 5,952 bodies because a lot of them were incinerated. Ashes covered the city. Some of those ashes were all that were left of somebody’s dad, or mom, or son, or daughter, or best friend. They were from all over, but they were all New Yorkers, and now they were all over New York. Every one of them had a story. Some stories were heroic. Not all of them, but too many to count, and far too many to bear.

I watched a lot of TV that week. It was clear that, if you wanted news, you turned to CBS. Dan Rather, who all summer correctly and courageously refused to pass off the innuendo du jour as real news, got it right, again. When he appeared with David Letterman, he got that right, too. He wondered aloud, how could anyone ever again sing the words:

undimmed by human tears? Dan choked on his, and I choked on mine. I watched everything I could, even Fox News, for the same reason you listen to gossip: the facts were wrong, but the details were mesmerizing.

Local television scrolled the names of the Connecticut victims, like a list of school closings in a blizzard, under a montage of sound bites that looped and looped and looped and looped. Here’s the first explosion. Here it is again, from a second angle. Here it is again, here it is again, here it is again.

The Accidental President came out of hiding long enough to denounce the cowardly attack and to declare war against terrorists, an action he doesn’t understand against a group he can’t define. One of his dweebs claimed that they had “clear and credible evidence” that the White House was an intended target, never mind that big Dick Cheney was there with the other grown-ups doing the work that had to be done. They knew nothing, of course. Nothing at all. They should have. As the week unfolded, the only thing that was clear and credible was that they kinda knew a lot of stuff, just not enough to make a difference to 5,952 innocent men and women and the people who loved them.

I don’t blame the administration for saying goofy things. Everyone said goofy things. You did. I did. Even Dan Rather did. We said goofy things at work, on street corners, in Congress, and in churches. We sang “God Bless America” and waved the flag because, in our grief and confusion, we didn’t know what else to do. Oh, some of us beat up a few Arab-Americans and defaced a few mosques. Some patriots killed a Sikh, who, the media reassured us, appeared Moslem. We gave blood, we gave money, but we couldn’t run down and enlist. We really couldn’t do much except say goofy things. A colleague of mine told me that Bush called it “war” to get insurance companies off the hook. I almost threw up on him. We would probably be better off if we had declared jihad against stupidity, but we’d be so vastly outnumbered, that what the hell would be the point? Everyone said goofy things, if they said anything at all.

The lead role in any drama needs a good supporting cast, and the Mayor had the best. If you live in Des Moines, chances are pretty good that the last time you heard the phrase “New York’s Finest,” a newsman was talking about them collectively plugging 44 shots into the bleeding shadows of an innocent immigrant, or introducing a prisoner’s ass to Mr. Toilet Plunger. Then, in one morning shift, they went from zeros to heroes. No story of “New York’s Bravest” can be greater than the band of 200 brothers rushing against the traffic of humanity to rescue helpless strangers as 110 stories of high-rise hell collapsed upon them. If we live to be a million, we shall never fully comprehend their selfless courage. It transcends human understanding.

That was how my week went. It ended the way it began. Only the questions were different.

I teach in New York, at the New School. It’s at Twelfth and Fifth Avenue, about a mile from Ground Zero. When it reopened, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe it would be back to normal. Maybe it wouldn’t. I didn’t know which would be worse.

I got to Grand Central about 7:30. The city wasn’t normal. It wasn’t anywhere near normal. Not even for New York, whatever that means. Just off the Concourse, they had built a make-shift wall of remembrances. Grand Central is not a place where New Yorkers stop and gawk. It’s where Iowans stop and gawk. At the wall of remembrances, everyone stands and gawks. They read as long as they can, and then they put on the same red, teeth-clinched mask, and stumble away in silence.

I took the 4 train to 14th Street and walked to Union Square, a sea of candles, flags, poems, prayers, and missing person posters. “Please help me find my daddy,” said one. There were hundreds of others, but I didn’t read them, because it’s hard with that damned red mask on. People were hoping that, somehow, their daddy, or their mommy, or their son, or their daughter, or their best friend was in a hospital or walking around New York, too dazed to call home, so they brushed aside the ashes, stuck up their pleas, and prayed and prayed. And then they cried and cried.

As I approached 5th Avenue, I knew what I would see and I knew what I wouldn’t see if I turned that corner. I was afraid. I stopped at a café, and, sitting by the window, I watched a little brown man on the sidewalk at the corner of 5th Avenue and 14th Street. Egyptian, maybe. He set up a folding table advertising Rolexes for $10. He wore a shirt with red, white and blue stripes. The blue stripes had white stars. He pulled out a box of buttons that read “God Bless America.” Next came boxes of little American flags. Out came the caps and t-shirts. Some said, “NYPD.” Some said “FDNY.” They all said “God Bless America.”

Just then, two black women yelled at him from 25 feet away. The little brown man yelled something back. The women approached him quickly. One was crying. The other woman reached in her bag. I thought, oh, boy, a confrontation with a Moslem. Just what we need.

She pulled out a billfold. She bought a button and pinned it on the crying woman. The little brown man went back to his work. God bless America.

I stepped out, and when I got to the corner I stopped and looked left. I expected to see nothing, but I was wrong. I saw sky. Hazy, smoky, foggy sky. There wasn’t supposed to be sky there. There was supposed to be nothing. I had to look away. I glanced right to see the Empire State Building, once and once again, the tallest building in New York. It was gone. I looked back in shock. No, it was there. Its outline emerged from the shifting fog clouds. I traced it up, until it melted into the gray morning fog. Then I turned south and walked as far as I could.

It’s hard to appreciate just how big 60 to 70 feet of mangled steel can be until it towers above you. There was a small crowd across the street. They broke into applause as some fire fighters approached. They clapped until the heroes were well down the block, where another crowd picked up the beat. The fire fighters didn’t smile, but some nodded to the crowd. The streets were filthy with trash and débris, though I was still many blocks from Ground Zero.

Trucks hauled rubble to Fresh Kills Landfill, its very name overwhelming the senses. It was all that way — the sights, the sounds, the ungodly stench — all overwhelming and all beyond words. Mammoth machines were everywhere, like huge, intelligent, clawed machine-beasts from another world. It was familiar and ethereal, loud and quiet, busy and serene, hope and despair, all at once.

It was foggy and the air was heavy, but I could see smoke from below, giving the illusion that, that the fallen giants were still stay alive, and slowly exhaling. Workers crawled among the alien machine-beasts like ants among vultures on their carcasses. The broken bones of the fallen giants loomed precariously above them at crazy angles, dead, but alive enough to kill the ants below. One giant groaned in agony and coughed dust into the air.

Their brothers had made New York City world-famous: the Empire State Building, Carnegie Hall, Wall Street, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Yankee Stadium, Rockefeller Center, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Grand Central Station, the Brooklyn Bridge, Broadway, the U. N., Harlem, Madison Avenue, and Lincoln Center, to name a few of the buildings and places that every terrorist knows. On September 10, it had 56 buildings taller than anything back home in Iowa. On the 12th, it had 54.

These giants didn’t make New York the national bull’s eye. Terrorism isn’t about buildings and places. It’s about people. It’s what happens to them and how they respond. It’s the firemen, the policemen, Rudy Giuliani, and the little brown man selling buttons. It’s the people at the vigils at Union Square. It’s 4,000 natives and 2,000 adopted sons and daughters from 63 nations who breathed their last in this town. Behind their terrible red masks of grief and pain, you’ll find eight million other winners and losers in life’s lottery from every corner of the world. They’re black and white and brown. They’re saints and sinners who happen to be Catholic and Jewish and Moslem and Protestant and a hundred other faiths. By birth and by creed, they’re from all over the map, but they are all New Yorkers. New York is the ultimate city of immigrants in this, the ultimate nation of immigrants. They all woke up in freedom that morning, and they all went to work to make a better life. That’s New York. That’s America.

I commute to New York, a family friend who can leave any time I don’t like what’s for supper. But I’m proud to know the family pretty well, and they want you to know something. Given the circumstances, you’ll understand that their actions will have to speak for them. This is the message: even in its darkest hour, this is still the best damned town in the world. God bless New York. God bless America.

Post Script: By December 7, 2001, the death toll had been revised downward. The victims at the World Trade Center, listed on both sides of this screen, stood at 3,050, including the 157 souls aboard United Airlines Flight 75 and American Airlines Flight 11. At the Pentagon, an additional 189 people were murdered, including the 64 passengers on American Airlines Flight 77. In Pennsylvania, 44 people perished on United Airlines Flight 93.

Post Post Script: The wall of remembrance at Grand Central Station was taken down in December 2002. The café at the corner of 5th Avenue and 14th Street closed about the same time. Its business never recovered from 9/11 — though, last I saw, the little brown man was still on the same corner.

Post Post Post Script: During the summer of 2009, I revisited the World Trade Center site everyday for three weeks. Work is going on, but not much. New coconuts, same old monkeys. No fingers pointed up at Freedom Tower, just fingers pointed the blame at anyone and everyone. It makes me sick. Also, on 9/11/2009, I had to modify my original posting. In the original, I sang the praises of Rudolph Giuliani. I was wrong. He turned out to be just another shiftless politician who was — and is — is all hat an no cattle. He's little more than the talking heads on Fox News. It's a shame, because he could have been an honorable man.
        As for me, I think about one particular woman who was lost every single day, and then I think of all of men and women who were lost. It's probably not healthy, and I should probably get rid of the visual cues that make me think of her. Still, keeping her memory in my heart seems to be the best way I can honor her...and all of them. It beats the hell out of all the dopey plaques in the world. I suppose I should take this site down, too, and move on, and all that. But then I think about that bin Laden bastard running around free, while my friends are still dead, and I reconsider.
        There you go, TW.