MATH”
Shit was bad
before September 11th. It is not my intention to go down as one of
the post tragedy statistics but I have to be honest it was and I am probably
am. You may or may not be as well. You know. I don’t know if it was the same
for any of you not in New York City on that day, but I was, big hunks of me
still are and the key to my office from 5 WTC is still on my key chain. But now
it hangs on the wall beside Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo here in Hollywood, CA
3000 miles technically from Brooklyn but somehow much closer and way further
all at the same time.
Relationship;
relationships of a male/female nature is what is at the heart of it and on
September 11th, 2001 that was something I had little experience with
and at the same time too much. Too much with one person, not enough in general.
33 years old, practically half of that spent with the same person. But that too
is not the heart of the matter. Nor is it in my heart very much at all any
more. My heart was set free when those two big buildings came crashing down.
They had help. I had help. We all get help whether we ask for it seek it out or
not … it comes looking for us, and it usually finds us no matter where we may
be. It found Elvis on the shitter. If it could find the King while crapping,
really --- what chance do any of the rest of us have? I could stop right there
and have my universal truth. Couldn’t I?
Shit
was bad before September 11th. The love that had been there had
dissipated on the back and forth between Brooklyn and Los Angeles and back to
Brooklyn again. I compared it to a sine curve when people asked. Ups, downs but
not stretched out like some hoary thing and all the king’s horses and all the
king’s men couldn’t squeeze it tightly again. It was time to go … it was
someone’s time to go and I always thought it would be me but never exactly as
it played out, it never is, but then again, no one expects the Spanish
Inquisition. God damn I wish that was my line, but I have my own. The love of
The Fall, the love of repetition but this time to learn something from that.
Repetition can be bad. Of course, it takes many forms as I was to find out.
I
remember walking down Clinton Avenue towards the subway probably feeling
disgusted with myself, dressed for them and knowing that the 19 year old me
wouldn’t recognize the 33 year old me. And if he did, good god, he would have
kicked me, if not in the face but at least in the shins with his Doc Martens.
But I didn’t see him coming that morning and if I had I would have crossed to
the other side of the broad, majestic block lined with Mr. Pratt’s mansion and
all the mansions he built for his kids. I didn’t get a mansion for my
graduation. Didn’t get a car either but then again, what the hell would I have
done with it anyway, used it as a planter? I don’t know how to drive, but that
doesn’t fit here, I was not concerned with that then as I am now. I was never,
ever leaving Brooklyn again or if I did, for the finer golden paved streets of
Manhattan Island.
I
got off the R train at 59th Street at Central Park, there was an
announcement of some stoppage of subway service but I paid that no mind. I was
where I was supposed to be and damn everyone else. You would have thought the
same thing. There’s the Plaza Hotel where I had spent a romantic/non-romantic
night less than a month prior for our 2nd wedding anniversary. Dinner at Tavern on the
Green too. I may have been thinking that. I crossed 5th Avenue and
gazed downtown, downtown where my heart was, downtown where I didn’t wear a
suit and a tie that I couldn’t tie, and shave everyday. I saw some smoke
downtown but that was nothing special. Something’s always burning somewhere.
This is New York Fucking City as the t-shirts say. All that fucking going on,
shit’s bound to burn, right? I crossed over to our building Trump Plaza,
formerly the GM building, and the home of FAO Schwartz and CBS news on the
ground floor. The crowd of people gathered out in front of CBS’ huge monitors
did not alert me to anything. I swear I thought it was for Michael Jordan’s press
conference on his return to the NBA. Who really would have thought it was
anything else. C’mon? Really now?
Uneventful
express, elevator ride to the 47th floor and the palatial offices of
Icahn Industries. A stop for a quick piss before trudging to the cubicle. The
bathrooms with the framed cancelled checks to Icahn for millions and millions
of dollars in the foyer. No one could convince me otherwise then that these
checks were not strategically placed there when our cocks were on our minds.
Never, ever let us worker bees forget who has the biggest cock of all. Maybe a
billion dollars worth of cancelled checks framed on the wall outside the men’s
room … what do you think?
But
where the hell was everyone? Had there been a coup? Hope it was a bloody one, but
the Persian carpets were spotless. Then in the boardroom, I find a few gathered
souls. Some of Carl’s lawyers who were prone to expletive laden tirades
followed by whimpering ‘but Carls’ but they were quiet. We had a straight shot
down 5th Avenue coupled with being 47 stories in the air. Lower
Manhattan was burning. This is usually where I begin the tale. When people
inquire why such a died in the wool NY’er is in sun-shiny Los Angeles, I now
often say that “one morning I looked out the window and these two big buildings
came crashing down. Perhaps you heard of it?” When irony died, it grabbed
sarcasm tightly by the arm and pulled into onto the funeral pyre. Neither
kicked. Neither screamed. But in all actuality, and you know this part, that is
what happened. We had the huge boardroom TV tuned to the news so we had a
double view. This was before the 2nd plane. We thought … we thought
…. We thought and thought and thought. But we didn’t think this was
intentional. Even in a city where people kill over apartments, parking spots,
sneakers … how could this be intentional? It couldn’t. It couldn’t. I still
cannot believe it writing this now, thousands of miles, lives and stories to
fill all the books of all the times … how could this be real? I was torn between
watching on the TV and from out the window. Which was real? Neither could
actually be real.
And
then the second plane hit.
There’s a blur, I
could delve into it. But I don’t want to and you can’t make me. The next thing
I recall was one of the lawyers saying look there’s so much smoke you can’t
even see the first tower, and nose pressed to glass, safely dangling 47 stories
in the sky and 60 some-odd blocks north which seems like so much and so little
at the Pame time. Someone said “it’s gone”. It may have been me. I hope it was
so then I could be like Mr. Vonnegut in Dresden in “Slaughterhouse Five”. I may
have said “it’s gone”. And then I was. I grabbed my shit and took a non
non-eventful express elevator ride back down to terra firma but the ground was no
longer firm. Nothing was firm. I have never been to the town of bedlam, or the
asylum, but I imagine it must have looked a lot like 5th Avenue on
that morning. Everyone running around. Cell phones pressed to ears attempting
calls. Lines of people at payphones. Cars pulled over to the sides of the
streets at haphazard angles, 1010 news not giving us the whole world in 22
minutes. How could they? The whole world was here now, and it was on fire and
you could see it when you looked down 5th Avenue. A cell phone pressed to each ear, 2000
attempted calls to my parents safely retired in Upstate NY. 2000 attempted
calls to my wife, June, teaching high school down on 15th street.
Does your cell phone work? No, sorry. Yours? No, can I borrow, can I use, can
I? Wandered into the drug store but nothing could remedy. Back on 5th
Avenue my thoughts pulling me towards my wife and wanting to make sure she was
inside and all right. That cell working? Can I borrow? Hey please. I need to
make a call. We all need to make a call. We all need to make a call.
Then
the second tower came down in a pillar of smoke.
At some point as I got further
downtown, pilgrims were coming in the opposite direction. And I thought I had
it bad. They were ghosts. They had triage bracelets around their wrists. Their
faces were dead. They were Butoh dancers. They were Pompeii. They were
Hiroshima. They were tornadoes and hurricanes and fire and brimstone. They were
coming towards me, I was moving past them, though them. They were covered in
dust. They were dust. Hey, can I borrow your cell? Hey, does it work? Has
anyone seen…… you didn’t want to stick around for who. Somewhere between up
there and down here, I got 2 calls though. Mom, Dad, I am okay. Although what
the hell was the new definition of okay? It was alive and that’s about it. June
was stuck in school with the students. I got downtown and damned if I was going
to die, it wasn’t going to be in an ugly, cheap suit. Urban Outfitters! God
bless Urban Outfitters. For some reason, the kids at the Urban Outfitters kept
the shop open. I guess they couldn’t figure out what the hell else to do. Who
could? People were actually shopping. I didn’t think I was getting home that
night. I don’t want to be buried in a suit. I bought a pair of blue jeans and a
blue baseball jersey with 55 on it. This is still my 9/11 outfit. Sometimes it
just winds up that way. My bar was closed. My friend Pam wasn’t answering her
buzzer. I wandered a little west to Helen and Steven’s place. They let me in. I
am sure they slept though everything. They are blessed; they could sleep
through anything if it happened during daylight hours. Helen’s Korean Mom was
in the city. She was coming in for a landing here too. I remember being told
this is North Korea before the war. An uncle with all his money in the bathtub
is how they got out. A truck, I remember a truck. Helen and I hit the streets.
$300 maximum from the ATM. As much water as the supermarket will allow, 10
pounds of sticky Korean rice. Chocolate. I know there was chocolate. Should we
go give blood? They say we should. The line is insane. Helen’s mom needs us
back at the apartment. Never liked giving blood anyway.
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