Monday came and went without incident. Our lunch took an hour and a half, and my boss warned me about being late, but other than that the day was unremarkable in every way. I went home and watched TV for a while. Then I worked on some music. I waited up to see if Flora was going to show up. It was midnight before I knew it, and I went to sleep knowing that at least she had the code to get into my apartment complex and a key to get in the apartment. I hit the hay and slept long and good.
I was awakened in the night by a phone call, but I was too tired to get up and get it.
The next morning, as I got up to take a shower, I realized that Flora hadn't come back at all. I wondered if she was going back to Fred. I wondered if she was okay.
Flora walked in around 7:30 AM and changed her clothes. She had slept in her car-- she couldn't remember the code to get into the complex, and couldn't figure out how to open the security gate with the key I'd given her. She tried phoning me, but I was asleep. So she slept in the car, and I felt somewhat guilty.
"I think I'm going to stay with my parents," she told me before she left for work.
"You're probably better off, " I said. I knew she wouldn't last here. It's hard to go from having your own house and your own life to sharing a run-down apartment with an old high school friend. "If you're parents are cool with it..."
"Yeah, they are. I was over there last night, talking to my sisters and my parents. They were really understanding. I thought they'd be upset at my failure."
"Failure? Give me a break. Eight years is not a failure to me." She was being too hard on herself. "If you'd given up after a year, that's one thing. But you stuck it out and gave it your best. That's nothing to scoff at. Most people don't last half of the time that you lasted."
Flora left for work, and I had time to kill so I turned on the TV. I looked for CNN, one of my favorite news channels.
I saw the Twin Towers burning out of control. I saw the second airliner ram the Towers. I saw one of the Towers crumble, like a fuse burning down the length of its wick.
I called Mac and told him to turn on CNN. He couldn't believe it.
"Dude, should we even go to work?"
"Let's show up anyway. They'll tell us to go home. But we should show up."
I was in shock, but I was also alarmed that I wasn't in a major shock. I was more upset at the fact that I wa so anti-American the day before. It seemed like I got what I wanted. I ranted the day prior about how someone needs to blow up all the Credit Unions, so that we can all start again debt-free. And now I was watching CNN, and it was saying that the Stock Market and the World Bank had to shut down.
But as angry as I could get about captialism and greed, I never wanted it to end up like this.
At all.
Mac picked me up and we went to work. We discovered that our New York offices were closed and evacuated. People were fearing that there was a jet on its way to L.A.
We worked in a skyscraper, the tallest in Sherman Oaks, and our building was empty by ten in the morning.
I tried to call Diane, my friend in New York, but the phone lines were dead. We were sent home, and the whole time Mac and I tried to make sense of it all.
"Fuuuccckkkk...." he said, shaking his head. "How fucking wild is this? What do we do now?"
"We go back to my pad, light some bowls, and watch the news, I guess." I was trying not to emote.
"Sounds like a plan."
Conspiracy theories swarmed in my brain as we approached my apartment. As a lover of paranoid literature, I weighed the possibilities in my head: Who did this? An American? Osama Bin Laden? Wasn't he CIA at one time? Our economy was in the dumps-- and wars always make an economy go up. Will anyone take credit for this? Did we know about this in advance? Would the U.S. let terrorists kill thousands of innocent people just so we could go to war? WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
No amount of marijuana could match the numb, dull effect the footage had on us. In between channel hops I called New York, trying to see if Diane was okay. She worked for Viacom in Times Square, but you never know if someone has to be in Lower Manhattan for whatever reason.
"What does this mean for us now?" I asked Mac, curious as to what his answer would be.
"This means WAR, man!" He said. Mac's voice was the type that carried, no matter where he was. "We've got to get them for this!"
"But who's 'they', in this case?" I asked. "I mean, it's obvious that we have to do something about this. But who is to blame? The Taliban just denied it. Arafat denied it. All these countries that normally hate us are denying or condemning it. Saddam Hussein condemned it. Even Khadaffi is condemning it. What gives? I'd think that whoever did this would want to take the responsibility for it. Otherwise, why else do it?"
"Dude, they just want to start shit with us. Well, they wanted shit, THEY GOT IT. Dude, my dad used to go into that WTC building all the time, and now... now it's GONE, man! GONE!" Mac took a hit and shook his head in constant disbelief.
"Fuck," I said. I didn't know what to do about it. I felt responsible for it, like my words the before had somehow triggered these events to transpire. I felt like I needed to denounce my former statements. But at the same time, my stance on things also helped me to understand why someone or something would do this to us.
"I guess we were more right than we thought about the rest of the world. They really DO hate us. I mean, I hate America because it's corrupt. But at least I live in a place where I can say the things I do without being put to death or in jail... and I love America for that. It is a great nation... but this is also bad karma, you know? It was only a matter of time before the barbarians started clanging at the gates..."
"It's only going to get worse, " Mac said.
The day was a waste. Everything closed down. I finally got through to Diane, and she was okay of course, but she was in shock as well. Mac left around two in the afternoon, and I sat in front of the TV until I could stand it no longer. I worked on some music. I smoked some pot. I drank a half a bottle of tequila. I starting writing poems and lyrics. I found my Phil Ochs album and played the whole thing. I stared into dead air as the news of the carnage spilled over into nearly every single network and cable channel.
"... Mayor Giuliani has declared a state of emergency..."
"... President Bush is on his way to Nebraska aboard Air Force One... Vice President Cheney has been moved to a secret location..."
"... This is truly a day that will live in infamy..."
"... suspects include Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network..."
"... Everywhere you look, New Yorkers are walking around with a dazed look in their eyes..."
"...Thousands are feared to be dead or missing..."
I was sickened to hear Henry Kissinger speak on CNN, barely containing his glee as he detailed his plan for what America must do to retaliate. At one point, he started going into some eerily specific descriptions of a "systemic attack" before he stopped himself and said, "I don't even know what [systemic] means..."
I began to fear the future: Arab-bashing, war-mongering, the whole nine... but what started to become clearer and clearer, as the day went on, was that if anything this tragedy would bring the American people together in an unprecedented way. I began to feel that, even with the high cost of human life that was paid, this war would be good for us. Because now, no one could deny that we are living in some turbulent times. Now, no one could bury their heads in the sand or feel unaffected by this. I began to realize that the things I was fearing, like the blind nationalism that always erupts when things like this happen, were actually just normal reactions to such deeds.
I began to see that, if anyone was upset about this, they had a right to be. This was not a war that was happening on the other side of the Atlantic. It was right here in our back yards, and instead of our usual indignance and arrogance, we were feeling a genuine sorrow and a collective grief, possibly for the first time in my lifetime. I came to conclude that even those who live under rocks or in caves now had no choice but to confront the reality of this world.
I think that's what's always been my problem with this country. The apathy of the last twenty years was killing this nation slowly but surely. This was a wake-up call, in a way. That's what everyone kept saying on the news: "This is a wake-up call for Americans..." I felt like I was always trying to awaken people, with my conspiracy theories that I only half-believed, with my refusal to sweep politics under the rug in the workplace, with my contempt for the safety and convenience that Americans often took for granted.
Later that night Flora came by to grab her things. I sat on the couch, watching the news like I hadn't done since the night of the 2000 election. I asked her what she thought about the news, and she said she was disturbed. But then she changed the subject.
"I don't think you're gonna like what I have to tell you."
"What could be worse than what's going on right now?" I asked.
"I think I'm falling for this guy who works in our San Francisco office."
I paused for a moment, somehow not sure I heard her right. "Are you talking about the guy you wanted to have an affair with last year?"
"No, not Ryan. He's weird. He wants to move into something way too fast. No, I'm talking about Phil, the musician. It just feels so right."
"Uh, Flora, how long have you known this guy?"
"Three months."
"Okay... And given that you aren't even officially divorced yet, how does he feel about it?"
"He said he's cool with it. He told me to do what I have to do. He's cool. He talks to me when I call late at night. He listens to what I have to say. It feels right. My sister went up with me to San Francisco two months ago, and when we were all hanging out she said that she'd never seen me so happy before."
"Flora, of course this guy's going to say that it's okay. He has nothing to lose. As for your sister... well, maybe she just saw that you were happy to be out of the house, as opposed to being in love. I mean, do whatever you want. But take it one step at a time. You haven't even filed divorce papers yet. And you never know-- what if you and Fred patch things up before..."
"There's no patching it up. It's over. We're done. I think I'm going to move up North after all of this."
I sighed. "Flora, I think you're getting ahead of yourself. I think you need to handle what you have to handle at the moment. Yeah, after it's all done you can date or marry whoever you want. But for now, it's not going to get easier. You need to focus on the immediate."
"I need help with my bags."
Flora left, and I was pissed. Leave it to her to be concerned, not with the loss of lives in New York, but with who she's going to be dating after she's a free woman. I silently feared that Fred, as cool and laid back as he was, would not want to give up so easily. It reminded me of when she got married for the first time: she wasn't thinking about the future, just about the here and now. Look at what she got herself into by not thinking about the future.
Then again, her marriage taught her a lot of things that she wouldn't have learned had she stayed single. She knows what responsiblility is-- perhaps she wanted to dodge it, after eight years of dealing with it and staying home as all of her friends (myself included) were out getting drunk and having fun.
I always told her that the grass was greener on the other side. I tried to convey the fact that, even as she saw life pass her by, she wasn't missing much of anything except for heartache and lonliness and romantic near-misses. But at that moment it all seemed lost on her.
I went to sleep, after taking two Vicodins and smoking the rest of my weed.
No comments:
Post a Comment