The Inevitable Story

I was being a little brat and sleeping in during my telecommuting job with headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama. I was supposed to be up and ready and caffeinated and at my desk by 9 a.m. – I was sleeping and tired and uncaffeinated and in my pajamas when I logged onto my laptop at roughly 9:15.

And I was met with an email from my forever friend Rachel: “Two planes just flew into the World Trade Center.” She was working in the B&N corporate office in Chelsea.

People don’t remember there was a previous World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. Which is not to say those of us in NYC (I was in Brooklyn, Rachel was in The Bronx) weren’t fucking freaked. I think it’s safe to say that we were more freaked because this was the second try.

So I was trying to convince the CEO I reported to that I was not going to be able to work that day. I was not helped by the British co-worker who just wanted to get into my pants, and who insisted to that CEO and me that Americans were weak for not taking over cockpits and flying the planes because HE had RAF training. And that Americans were being too emotional and we should just get over it.

Meanwhile, people were jumping out of buildings.

I don’t talk about my kids much because they have their lives and I don’t want to speak for them. I will say that Tuesday was their dad’s custody day, and he picked them up from school and comforted them, and then allowed them to come down to me, where I did the same in the way I knew how. Cooking. Closing the windows. Running the AC.

A roast chicken. Mashed potatoes. I’m not sure what veg – green beans or asparagus or spinach – something. Gravy. Rinse, repeat, also do an apple pie for good friends coming over for connection.

My older daughter told me about the paper rain. The remnants of offices blowing into Brooklyn while she was at recess as a fourth-grader. That is not my story to tell, but it really shocked me when she told me about it.

My younger daughter was in day care and blissfully unaware. Except she was not. I found that out later.

Almost immediately, the fascism clamped down. The establishment of the Homeland Security department – the use of the word “homeland” got my hackles up. It sounded entirely too…when was the last time a country used the word homeland? Germany in 1938. During a fascist government.

After the Homeland Security department was established, ICE was established immediately thereafter.

And there was the Patriot Act. Basically unlimited surveillance, including libraries. Especially libraries.

Shortly after the attack happened, I was on a plane to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Where a couple of Egyptian men were hauled off the plan in the jetway because the captain basically didn’t like their looks – it was awful and unfair. Then the plane was functionally empty – just a few people, and rows and rows to ourselves. I did my bit in Frankfurt, and then went to a chocolate shop, where the young man immediately twigged me for an American and wanted to know my story. I told it. Including the Egyptians.

This attack unleashed the worst of us. I know in many ways it also called up the best of us. But the reason we are here – at war with Iran, with a dementia President – can be traced back to this moment. In fact, it can be traced to the moment Nixon was elected. We have been this awful for a long time.

But I believe in the best of us. I know it’s stupid, I know it’s naive. I’ve seen a lot of human nature. Call me an idiot. I have to believe in this.