September Remembered

I don’t get into work real early. I used to, in the early ’90s I guess, but it wasn’t really in my true nature. Anyway, that’s why I wasn’t yet in Manhattan when the towers were struck on September 11, 2001.

I was all ready to go in. Showered, shaved. In the mornings I listen to WCBS Newsradio 880, with traffic and weather together on the 8’s. At 8:48 a.m. I heard what Wikipedia says was the first radio report of the first plane hitting. All they knew was smoke was coming out of the World Trade Center; perhaps a small plane had gone off-course.

I went about my business, getting dressed, shoes on and such. But when that second one hit, wow. Hmmm. I better turn on the TV. And then that Pentagon strike really freaked me out. What the fuck is going on? Is the world ending?

I guess I’m not going to work today.

Petty early thought: Man, I already showered and shaved, just to stay home. And you don’t want to waste a clean dress shirt. Two instances stick out in my mind, senior year in college I think, a nice red shirt I was wearing for a sort-of date in D.C., which was cancelled, and I had to wear that damn shirt all day. And then this, the purple long-sleeve button-down from September 11th. So off with that (and whatever stupid khakis I had on) and I threw on a black “Disney Quest” t-shirt I’d picked up for free somewhere.

Hoboken, where I live, is just on the other side of the river from the World Trade Center site. But I stayed in my apartment and watched on TV like the rest of you, the rest of the world.

Soon after the towers fell—what?!? The towers fell?!?—my friend Carli, who lived around the corner, came by in understandable panic. She says I was very calm. Should we donate blood, she wondered. I didn’t know. Should we evacuate? Would I drive her to her parents in central Jersey? No, I was staying put, for better or worse. Did I think it was safe? “I don’t know. This has never happened before,” she recalls me saying.

I ventured out to the waterfront, to the Hudson River, the pier, to see that… smoke. Massive cloud of smoke. When did I meet up with Joe, my great friend, former roommate, then living two blocks away? His girlfriend had stayed over on September 10th (what had I done that night? Saw the movie Jeepers Creepers in the city with my friend Terry) but after she went back to Brooklyn (when did the trains start running again?) we met up. Did we eat lunch? It was that day or the next, at Piccolo’s, our friend Patty-Boy the proprietor, cheesesteaks, soup (chicken pastina for me, pasta fagioli for Joe), a Coke, probably fries as well. Somber, man, hadn’t been so somber at Piccolo’s since Sinatra died.

The Internet won’t back me up on this but I feel certain that that night, Joe and I turned away from the coverage, the non-stop coverage that a decade later still hasn’t stopped, and we watched a sneak preview of the first episode of the new season, second season, of Curb Your Enthusiasm, because why wouldn’t we? You gotta eat; you gotta laugh. If you stop laughing, the terrorists win, right?

The World Trade Center. Can’t say I’d ever given it a lot of thought. Pre-9/11, two main memories. Visiting New York City from Maryland, over Christmas 1979? 1980? Dinner at “Windows on the World” atop the North Tower, maitre d’ saying that sorry, 10-or-11-year-old me can’t wear denim in the restaurant, Dad explaining, no, it’s an outfit, matching vest and pants; they let me stay. And then December again, 1996, corporate holiday party, except why was my girlfriend spending so much time, laughing, standing close, with that other guy? Which soon enough would became clear.

But in 2001, no, the World Trade Center was really just a stop on the PATH train for me, not my usual stop, but, if it was raining, or if I was tired at night, after the gym or something, I’d treat myself, pony up the extra subway fare, the Cortlandt Street subway stop was right there so I could get between work and home with much less walking or time outside. And I’d given blood there a few times; there was a branch of the New York Blood Center. Also a Borders Books I went into sometimes. Saw the band Luna play in the courtyard outside after work one night with my friend Lizzie. Summer 1990, internship, met my friend Grace down there, the TKTS window, got tickets for Prelude to a Kiss starring Timothy Hutton. In 1976 in Concord, California, I had a color-it-yourself poster-board poster of the King Kong remake, the big gorilla atop the Twin Towers; I never colored it in.

When people visited me in Hoboken, we’d walk to the water. It was nice, walking, looking at the skyline. The towers, an exclamation point.

Would I have taken the train to World Trade Center that morning? Probably not. Possibly.

Tuesday, Wednesday. Back to work, when, Thursday? Friday for sure. Hugs. Tears. Emails, phone calls. Are you OK? Yes I’m OK. It’s so weird, so terrible. Our friend Suzy’s brother Michael is dead. Cantor-Fitzgerald. A co-worker we don’t know, his wife, dead. A sister of someone from high school, dead. But you’re OK? Yes I’m OK. Thank god. But it’s so weird, so sad, I feel so weird.

Friday night we go—me, Joe, our good friend Jim—we go to Puck Fair, Irish bar. We sit upstairs, eat, drink. It’s good to be with friends. Really really good.

Would it have been that Sunday? The 16th? We drive—me, Joe, Jim—we drive to the Jersey shore, for Michael’s memorial service. I know it was Sunday because on the way down we listen to the Glen Jones Radio Programme Featuring X.Ray Burns on WFMU. X.Ray is cracking wise about the towers falling, “a piece of steel sticking out of some guy’s neck.” Black humor may not be for everyone but in the car, driving down, we needed that, that release. You need to laugh. Later, driving back, we stop at the Windmill for hot dogs. You gotta laugh, you gotta eat.

The next Friday, the Tribute to Heroes telethon on TV. No studio audience. Quiet. Somber. Springsteen performs “My City of Ruins.” Rise up, come on, rise up. I’ll always connect him with that time, helping us through: the telethon, then a fundraiser concert in Red Bank, Count Basie Theater, for local victims’ families. Suzy brings me; it’s a powerful night. Bruce, Jon Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, Smithereens, Joe Ely, Phoebe Snow. “Bobby Jean” hits hard. Months later, the album The Rising, capturing it all, loss, anger, resilience. Sky of love, sky of tears, a dream of life. Come on up for the rising.

Moments stand out but mostly a blur, days into weeks into months. Not an emotions-on-the-surface sort of fellow but emotions definitely on the surface. Had walked past the Engine 24, Ladder 5 firehouse, 6th Avenue just below Houston, most days since ’94. Eleven dead. Impossible to walk by without crying.

The pictures they’d post from kids who sent letters. Flowers. A neighborhood fundraiser for the families. The thank-you card still hanging on my fridge.

Anger. For what they did to my city. For the months they took from me, walking in a daze. For making that beautiful skyline look like… Hartford. Like anyplace else.

When did people start acting stupid again? Subtle, slow, sad shift to “normalcy.” Tears now and then. Six months later, the Tribute in Light, twin beams shooting into the night sky. One year after, and on the day ever since, names read aloud. I watch on TV and listen for Michael McCabe, listen for Louis Arena; I don’t know him but for whatever reason Arena’s name sticks in my head of the 11 lost from Engine 24, Ladder 5. The names on a plaque outside. Emotions come right back. Walking by the firehouse in tears.

But over time, fewer tears, further apart. O bla di, o bla da.

Two years later, the World Trade Center PATH station reopened. So strange, like walking through a ghost station. Layout exactly the same, but everything… gone. Tiles, lights, stores, all replaced by clean grey concrete. But these were the steps I’d walk up. And that’s where the ATMs were. Over there was a Strawberry clothing store. And the entrance to the subway, right where it was before.

Ten years of shit. Anthrax. Cipro. My friend Leila’s first day at the office as a college intern: If you’re comfortable opening the mail, please put on these rubber gloves. Suspicious package? Lingering dot-com bust pissing on the economy. Shock and awe. War. Freedom fries. Airport security. Shoes off. National guard with machine guns at the subway station. If you see something, say something. Memorial? New tower? By 2009. Or ’10. No, ’11. Big hole in the ground. Cortlandt Street subway stop closed since 2005. Real-estate bust, economy tanks AGAIN? Glimmers of hope, of tolerance, beaten down again and again. What is our true nature? The coming-together after sorrow or the self-interested jackassery of the other 364 days? Good people doing good things all the time, everywhere. But too often shouted down, shouted over.

Have we learned anything? Have I learned anything? Or am I just 10 years older? I won’t spend the whole day today watching the news, the heroes, survivors, the grown-up kids who lost a father or mother. It’s “Mitzvah Day” here in Hoboken, we Friends of the Library teaming with the synagogue to read to kids on the west side of town, far from the river. Tonight, season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm. You have to laugh. When you think about it, you just have to laugh.