Dialog Fails
Note how sticky stupid things can be
What do you remember about today?
On Sept. 11, 2001 I woke to the clock radio and a bulletin about a plane crash. We hadn’t owned a television for ten years, so I went to a neighbor’s house. This man had been raised in a small farming town, and had moved to another small town, and had never been to the East Coast.
As I watched the endless televison coverage, this neighbor joined me for a moment. As he watched the planes veer into the towers, he said, “Well, if you’re going to live in a city like New York you have to expect these things to happen.” He shrugged and walked away.
Note how sometimes the most stupid lines of dialog are the most lasting.
Midtown Manhattan. Can’t get a line out from my desk phone because everything’s busy but I’m trying to call my dad at his office across from the WTC. Finally got a hold of him and his voice shook and he said, “I just saw that second plane hit. Oh my god, all those innocent people.” I can still hear his voice.
Hours later I’m waiting by W38th by the Hudson River to get one of the Weehawken ferries. I could see my apartment building across the river. One by one city buses went down the Westside Highway filled with cops, people in scrubs, etc. Enormous plumes of smoke from downtown and people walking up covered with white soot. Cell service is down but the information moves through the crowd about other planes crashing in other places.
The name of one of the ferries was Yogi Berra and I remember seeing that and thinking those days are gone.
The days after were so strange because every lunatic came out of the woodwork and there were more than a few to begin with. Everyone constantly evacuated their buildings because of bomb threats. When the Red Cross hospital ship docked I saw a woman with flaming red hair walking on the westside in an old fashioned Red Cross nurse uniform with hat and a cape and everything. Still have no idea what the fuck that was.
I didn’t lose anyone that day but I know enough people who did. Firemen and office workers. Even someone who happened to be at a business breakfast at Windows on the World and he didn’t even work there.
It hit me hard last year on the 20th anniversary but I tear up still when I think of it. It is such a line of demarcation in our history because so many terrible things came of it. The only good thing was that people really linked arms and stood together in NYC. We all donated, volunteered and looked out for each other.
I was two days away from being alive for a whole year, and at least 2 years away from making memories that I can now only vaguely recollect. I remember learning of what happened later as a kid because -- and this was my introduction to what happened -- someone said (paraphrasing) “Some planes were flown into two big buildings in America; they made a movie about it a few years ago.”