Sept. 11, 2001 – My Day

It was sunny. When is it not sunny on a September day in Tempe, Arizona? Mostly in the late afternoon when the “monsoon” moisture builds up and unleashes a thunderstorm, but mornings usually are hot and sunny, with fluffy clouds, portents of the afternoon dust-ups, in the air.

I had just got up and was making breakfast when the phone rang. We’re three hours behind the East Coast at this time of year.

I had not turned on a TV or anything. So I answered the phone, not suspecting anything. My mother, who survived as a kid under bombing raids during World War II, was hysterical on the phone. "How could people do that?" she repeated in a trembling shout maybe three or four times. I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. I thought somebody had hurt one of my siblings. I couldn’t imagine what else would make her sound so outright panicked. She was not one to cry or explode in anger all that much. It took real provocation and I couldn’t imagine what it was in this case.

I told her that it was still early out here and that I’m just getting up, so maybe she could calm down and fill me in on what’s got her upset.

That’s when she told me step by step about the planes and that the towers had collapsed. It was just unreal to us, even when we saw those damn TV images repeated again and again over the next few days. What was real was that I had an appointment at a doctor’s office that day. What was totally eerie was driving up the road to his office – our house was south of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, so driving north we would consistently see a stream of planes cross east to west as they took off or west to east in their final approach – and there was not an airplane in the sky. The sight of empty skies was real and it brought home the reality of the attack more than the televised images of the destruction.

For all the shock and all the grief, anger and terror that I felt, my day proceeded as normal, although I felt like a ghost drifting through these activities. My kids, the youngest was 14, watched the news. They lay about the living room knowing they weren’t going to play video games on the TV today and they watched. Like me, they went about the day doing the normal things as far as any casual observer could see.

After the doctor’s appointment, I went to Borders to buy Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft,” which was released that day. I went home to listen to it, amid the background noise of the TV reports.

I was a freelance writer then and I was part of an online group of freelancers and we shared our thoughts and observations.

I know that I wrote -- in response to someone who said that the day’s attacks changed everything -- something like, “Nothing has changed between yesterday and today. There was a threat of a terror attack on the United States yesterday and for years before that, and there is still a threat of a terror attack on the United States tomorrow and for years to come.” What had changed was that Americans no longer had the privilege of ignoring that threat, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think the nation – at least the generations who were alive to witness those events – has been suffering a mass case of post-traumatic stress syndrome. This nationwide PTSD has exacerbated trends that were already on the upswing in national politics, ideas that politics is a zero-sum game that needs resolution only by total defeat of the opposing side. When we faced our next crises, whether the Great Recession of 2008 or the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to coalesce the way we were in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. We had a common enemy, and it produced a moment of solidarity as a nation, but that wouldn’t last long.

I was emailing an awful lot in those days and one email communication in particular stood out to me. It was from my friend, Peter, whom I’ve known since we were in high school back in the Stone Age.

I had sent him an email on Thursday, 9/13, wondering how he was doing, given this earthquake of an event. He worked at BMG in those days and still lives in New York City. This is what he wrote back:

“Sal,

“Thanks for sending this e-mail. I've been thinking of you, was going to call, etc.; what can I say.

“Yes, you're right, BMG is in Mid-Town. On Tuesday I could see the plumes of smoke from our conference room on the 32nd floor, I went up to the 38th floor, as I looked out of the window I saw the first tower collapse, I turned away with tears in my eyes. I left my building around 12:30, not sure if I should stay in the Times Square area; went to a local bar, a psychotherapist was sitting to my left and a guy who used to work for the CIA was to my right … So drinking Margaritas and watching TV with these two was actually fascinating. The female therapist kept handing me cigarettes, I kept smoking them.

Last night, I went over to visit a friend who worked 2-1/2 blocks south of the WTC. He spoke of hearing the second aircraft and noticing in his peripheral vision, then looking out his window and seeing the plane bank and crash into the tower. How all hell broke loose, hysteria, he took two disabled people down the elevator, they got to the lobby, and chaos pursued, people were trying to get out of the street into the building as people were trying to get out of the building into the street. He got out, ran for his

life, all he could think of was his son in school on 23rd street and ran straight for the school.

“I think he is in a state of shock, his wife is concerned about him, I said let him tell that story as many times as he wants to, physically he's fine.

“What horror, it's so hard to believe. I don't know anyone who worked down there other than my friend mentioned above. It still remains [to be seen] what the casualty toll will be.

Another friend lives (he's in early retirement and was home) in Jersey City on the 20th floor with a terrace that looks out toward the Twin Towers; he saw the whole thing from his apartment, I think he is in a state of shock, perhaps all of New York City is, some more than others. I walked to work the last two days, noticed the mood, there is less vehicular traffic, this is a grim time here in the Big Apple, a big chunk has been taken.

“Again, Sal I will keep in touch.

“Hope all is well with you and your family.

“Peter”

 

It was real, but those of us far away went about our days like normal, but with that “big chunk” that Peter mentioned taken out of us as well. But you too know that, don’t you?