Okay, well, 9/11, yes, I remember where I 9/11 was. And I didn’t have any 9/11 big plans this year to mark 9/11 the 10 year anniversary but 9/11 it’s beginning to seem impossible for me 9/11 personally to not write something 9/11 about that day, and how fucking 9/11 terrifying it is to me that it’s 9/11 been ten years 9/11. Seriously, a fucking 9/11 decade? 9/11!
I remember being downtown the day before and feeling very sinister energy. I’m not saying it was a premonition; I sensed this sinister energy often back then, during the days I worked at Easter Seals, and it was coming from my own city and my fellow citizens, not from any terrorist threat. Still, after the fact, reading through the oversized journal I kept that year, I was at least amused at some of the things I’d written (since lost.) The first quote, on the first page, said “This could all end in disaster.” Norman Mailer said that, talking about the JFK assassination, and the mentality it instilled in Americans. Full quote: “America never really quite recovered from the idea that ‘This could all end in disaster.’”
Even in its original context it’s a fairly apt quote. Better than apt, even.
Then there were the horrible, horrible poems. I was indeed, in January of 2001, going through a bad time, psychologically, having anxiety attacks and such. I repeatedly wrote about “a terror”, and “the terror.” I was fixated on that word. Terror was the most appropriate word for what I was feeling, and believe me, my word choice back then was often fucking silly.
But anyway, the morning of, we were outside the building, waiting for the kids to get off the buses, when rumors began to buzz. Some planes hit the World Trade Center. The Pentagon. The White House. Etc. I honestly didn’t know what the World Trade Center was; couldn’t picture it. Now, of course, watching an old (ha) movie or TV show, I never miss it. How could I?
I laughed nervously hearing the rumors.
That was a bit after 8 AM. I didn’t see the footage until I got home at 6 PM. Between then was conjecture, radio reports, pure and absolute shock and an inability to comprehend.
I worked at 35th and State and lived near Touhy and Harlem. On my way home, I got off the Green Line to get a cup of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts before transferring to the Blue. DD was the only place open that I could see. It was like a ghost town, State and Lake, 5 PM on a Tuesday.
I called Petrov, one of my best friends. He was down at our apartment in Normal, IL, where I was scheduled to move a week hence.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it…going?”
“Okay, Jones. How are you?”
“Well, I’m downtown right now…”
I looked out the Dunkin’ Donuts window from the payphone. City workers were loading newspaper dispensers onto a truck.
“…It’s dead.”
