The next day was surreal. I had told Mac the day before that I wasn't going to argue with people as this thing carried on. I didn't want to upset someone who had lost a friend or loved one in the tragedy. I didn't want to cause anymore grief than had already been caused.
Of course, my close friends knew what I really felt, but they knew me well. A complete stranger with emotional ties to the WTC massacre didn't know me from anyone else, and I decided it wasn't worth trying to make a point with anyone who wasn't thinking rationally.
The offices were quiet and subdued. It was on everyone's minds. The few people who did talk about it warranted a response from me, but I stuck to facts and tried to keep in mind that, unlike myself, most of these people at this company weren't mentally prepared to confront the horror of such things.
"We're gonna bomb 'em back to the Stone Age," a Born-Again Christian co-worker of mine said aloud.
"Bomb who?" I asked. "Who are we going to bomb?"
"Whoever did this to us," he said, shaking his head. There was a lot of head-shaking going on.
"Afghanistan," another co-worker said. "Those Taliban motherfuckers, that's who."
"The Taliban, maybe. But the people of Afghanistan didn't do this. They're oppressed too. They don't want the Taliban in their country."
"Then how come there were little kids on the news dancing and laughing at our misery? How could they do that? Fuck 'em, that's what I say!"
"Those kids were in Palestine. Older people handed them candy. And I bet that, if the cameraman had turned his camera, you would've seen people who were not happy ith this. To them, it means they have to get the fuck out of Dodge before we start killing them." I kept my cool. They all knew me, and were prepared to read me the Riot Act if I was out of line.
Someone acting as the Voice of Reason said, "It's too early to tell what's going to happen next. So until then..."
"We keep to the facts," I said, finishing his sentence.
I started talking to another co-worker, a man named Bill who was a Born-Again Christian but less prone to angry outbursts. Weeks earlier, Bill and I had gotten into a lengthy discussion about the R&B singer Aaliyah, whose Cessna plane crashed on its way back from the Bahamas, killing everyone onboard. In tribute, I posted pictures of her all over my office. He had seen them and came in to ask me what I thought.
I said, "I think it's a shame. She was truly talented, and to lose her life at 22 when she had so much to offer is tragic. I wasn't the biggest fan of hers, but I definitely thought she deserved her fame, more so than someone like Britney Spears or N'Sync, who I hate."
Bill said, "Yeah, and it is a shame... but people die all over the world all the time, and I think the media plays up the death of one girl who no doubt was talented but nevertheless didn't have the kind of impact that warrants all the hooplah..." Bill was stern and unemotional.
"I understand why you think that, Bill. But take Princess Diana's death for example: I didn't feel that sad for her, and that's because she wasn't that big of a deal to my generation. To your generation, it was sad for sure. But it didn't do a thing for me."
"Yeah, but Princess Di was a princess. She had a family, had children, she was royalty."
"She also had affairs, and divorced her husband, as opposed to trying to make it work. Not that I care, because Dodi Fayed was there for her anyway... But she was no saint. Neither was Aaliyah. But she did more in her short life than most people who are three times her age will ever do. And there was more to come. That's what saddens me. From all accounts, she was a humble and grateful and truly beautiful person, and she had a grip of talent."
"Not to be callous, because I see your point, but I just think it's odd how the media plays these things up like it's the end of the world. I guess I'm just sick of it, that's all."
"It's not that you're sick of it, Bill. It's that it doesn't affect you personally. You said yourself that Aaliyah's death didn't warrant all this hype... well, imagine how I felt when Elton John put out that song, originally written for Marilyn Monroe, as a tribute to Di. I liked the song when it was about Marilyn, yet Elton was friends with Di, so it made sense. But I found it a bit capitalistic-- yes, the proceeds went to charities, but why couldn't he just pay a humble tribute instead of putting out this one-time single? In short, I wasn't affected by the death of your princess. But Aaliyah was my generation's princess. We all have our princesses."
And that was that. But now, Bill was at my door, and he said:
"This WTC thing sheds a whole lot of light onto what we discussed a couple of weeks ago, doesn't it?"
"And how, " I said. "It's crazy. You didn't lose anyone in New York, did you?"
"No, thank the Lord. But it's too unreal. Like a scene from a movie or something."
"I know. It's hard to believe. A whole generation of kids will never know what the Twin Towers looked like." I was working as I spoke to him, listening to CDs and making sure they were all ready to go.
"This is a wake-up call, when you think about it," Bill said, head turned down.
"I agree. We have it way too easy in America. Like you said, thousands, if not millions, die all the time. But as I said, it only means something when it hits close to home."
Our conversation was cordial and heartfelt. We talked for some time, and then he left.
All day, that day, I ended up listening instead of speaking. I went to smoke a cigarette, and let the other smokers in the plaza vent. I wanted to speak out and correct the speakers who were wrong about this or that, but I held my tongue. I decided to listen. I'm good at listening. I know this about myself, maybe more than ever. I'm better at listening than making proclamations. I knew that all I could offer was an open ear and (in terms of words) solace.
Sitting in the plaza, smoking, listening, I remembered how I had christened the year 2001 "The Year of Death". It started at the end of 2000, when my friend Sharky's girlfriend lost her father a week before Christmas. A month later came the funeral, which I attended despite not ever really having known her father.
Sharky's girl, Brenda, loved her father, who was very old and very well-liked by his friends and family and co-workers. Mr. McNeil was the man who had single-handedly invented the cue card as we know it in Hollywood today. He was Bob Hope's cue card guy for decades, an interesting footnote considering that everyone in the world knows that Bob Hope used cue cards but yet never knew who was actually holding them. People just assume it was some Union kid with acne and a ridiculous salary.
At the funeral, I recognized a lot of celebrities. Brenda's dad had lived a long, full, rich life. He'd seen the Great Depression, WWII, the post-war boom, and Vietnam. At the funeral a colleague of his retold the story of how Mr. McNeil had inadvertantly saved Bob Hope's life in Saigon: it seems that McNeil was constantly late, no matter what the occasion was, and when the USO troupe had landed in Saigon he left his cue cards in the Huey that transported them. They went back and retrieved them, and then when they arrived at their hotel they found out that the Viet Cong had bombed it. They were hoping to kill the USO troupe to demoralize the American forces in Saigon. The bombing had occurred fifteen minutes before they arrived at the hotel; if it hadn't been for McNeil and his chronic absent-mindedness, Bob Hope and the whole troupe would've become more casualties in that war.
Many celebrities were there, but what was amazing was the number of celebrities that McNeil had known who weren't there-- they'd all died years and decades before. And now he was going to be with them again: Lucille Ball, Ed Wynn, Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, Orson Welles, Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Red Skelton, Ernie Kovacs, John Wayne, William Holden, Montgomery Clift... the list of names went on, and at the Presbyterian church where the services were being held there were innumerable photos on display, some that McNeil had taken himself. In each photo, any of the above-mentioned names and more posed with him. I came to realize that, even though no one knew who he was, McNeil in fact had been the most important person in Hollywood, especially during its Golden Age.
And one of his colleagues, in an eloquent and telling eulogy, stated that McNeil was well-liked because "he knew how to listen to people. And that's what I say to you today, as we mourn the loss of one of the nicest, sweetest, kindest persons to ever grace the planet with his prescence."
"The key to life is to LISTEN."
The church was quiet. They were listening. I was listening. I heard it loud and clear.
And all throughout The Year of Death, I have been listening. I've been listening to the tears of daughters and wives who lost their respective fathers and husbands; I've heard the sobs of my younger sister, whose boyfriend died in a car wreck as he was on his way to see her in Lancaster; I trembled at the sound of a co-worker informing me that his wife had suffered a miscarriage, right after I had asked how she was doing; I listened to Aaliyah's records when Death came for her; I listened to another co-worker grieve his ailing son, who was close to dying, and the boy was only two years-old...
There is more than just those things, but I can't remember them all. There has been much death, and so I called 2001 The Year of Death. But I didn't know how right I was.
I hate being right, now more than ever. I was right about Flora and her doomed marriage. I was right about America having a lot to answer for. But I get no satisfaction out of being right about catastrophe and destruction. I think I'm starting to get it now: it's easy to make predictions, but it's hard to live with the results.
I don't want to be right. I want to be wrong. I want to be completely wrong about how things are going. Right now I feel like America is confused and doesn't know what to do and that it will get far more worse than it is right now.
I hope to God that I am wrong.
Speaking of God (and getting back to the day after the attacks), my friend Mac, an atheist, started getting right-wing on me. He wants to go to war, he actually wants to enlist. He doesn't forsee a short end to this whole situation. He wants to nuke innocent Arabs, in some weird "an eye for an eye" bloodlust. When I reminded him that "an eye for an eye" comes from the Bible, he scoffed. And then the thought entered my mind that, if someone doesn't believe in a higher power, what does one do when it seems like the world is going to end? The answer: find a stationary object, like a rock or an immovable structure, and hold on to dear life.
After all, even John Lennon, an atheist at a time when it wasn't fashionable, eventually began to write things in his lyrics that alluded to God. In 1975, when he was separated from Yoko Ono, he witnessed a UFO above New York City. He was so convinced he'd seen it that he called a local radio station the next day and regaled them with the story. On the cover of one of his solo albums, Lennon wrote (in small type) that he'd witnessed a close encounter of the first kind. Then, when he reunited with Yoko, he took five years off from making music to raise their first child together, Sean. When he came back, shortly before he was assassinated, he was wriitng different songs, influenced no doubt by spending time with his baby boy. In the demo for the song "Real Love", which was unfinished until the surviving Beatles reunited and recorded it for their Beatles Anthology collection, Lennon sang, "I don't expect for you to understand / The kingdom of heaven is in your hands..."
In the song "Beautiful Boy", which was included on the Double Fantasy album that was released before his death, Lennon sang, "Before you go to sleep / Say a little prayer..." And in the song "Nobody Told Me" from the posthumous Milk & Honey record, he talks about "UFOs over New York / And I'm not a bit surprised..."
Nowadays, certain corporations who own a disproportionate amount of radio stations in major markets let their Program Directors decide which popular songs are "inappropriate" for airplay in the wake of this terrible assault on American freedom. John Lennon's "Imagine" was one of those songs, included on a list with "all Rage Against The Machine Songs" and "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, among others.
As for me, it seems like all I've been listening to is John Lennon. My sister played his greatest hits on the way back from Vegas. I surprised myself by knowing the lyrics to ALL of the songs on the CD. If anything, we need to listen to more of John. He was a man in search of peace, who didn't truly find it until the months before he died.
I'm not insinuating that a belief in God is essential to inner peace. Rather, I'm trying to say that Lennon was the type of person who wanted to believe, but had no evidence, and it wasn't until he saw a UFO and genuinely raised a child (as opposed to being an absentee father with his other son, Julian) that he found evidence of something beyond him. Some would call it God, some would call it enlightenment, some would argue that he came to terms with his demons.
But for a man who'd gone to India looking for inner illumination, for a man who had money and girls and drugs and devoted followers, for a man who stayed in bed for a week with his newly-married wife to promote peace in a time of war, it's fair to say that whatever he found at the end of his life that made him change his tune was close to God, or whatever one elects to call it. He was humbled in the final years, and he wasn't ashamed of it. "No longer riding on the merry-go-round / I just had to let it go..." he sang on "Watching The Wheels", and I believe it. Which is why, in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, I break down into tears when I hear his music.
When that happens, I put on "Hope" by Bauhaus. That song makes me feel better. I think that I will play that song every year on this terrible date from now on. Because a year won't go by without a newspaper or TV show commemorating this dark and gloomy day in history.
I believe there's a God, or something beyond us that we can't begin to comprehend. I read an article in a recent Los Angeles Magazine which argued that humans possess, in their brains, a region that is stimulated by religious fervor. Scientists studied Tibetan monks as they were meditating and found that certain parts of the limbic system and the frontal lobes in the brain experienced high levels of activity. According to the author of the piece, Vince Rause, this begs the question: "Does this mean that God is just a perception generated by the brain, or has the brain been wired to experience the reality of God?"
The neuroscientist who is researching these matters, Andrew Newburg, replied, "The best and most rational answer I can give you is yes."
When I think of that, I think of John Lennon, singing "Yes is the answer" on the Mind Games LP.
Mac won't have it, however. He chided me once, for being so naive and foolish as to think that there is a Grand Design to all things.
"Dude, you're not too far off from all those religious wackos out there," he said. "Science is what matters, not religion."
"What makes you think I'm religious?" I asked. "Just because I was raised in a religious home doesn't mean that I have to be a Christian or an Athiest. It's not a question of Either/Or. It's a question of what one believes. Science has been wrong before, on several occasions. Even Einstein admitted to purposely fudging figures when it came to quantum physics, because he was afraid he would accidentally disprove the existence of God. But no man can disprove the existence of God, just as they cannot prove it incontrovertably."
"There is no God, okay?" Mac was getting upset.
I knew how upset he could get. One time he told me that The Beatles' White Album had originally featured a cover photo of the Fab Four dressed as butchers, with bloodied baby dolls strewn around them. The controversy caused them to pasted plain white covers over the album, and as a result there were a limited number of vinyl editions that had the original covers underneath the new ones.
At the time, Mac said, "Dude, if you do it right, you can remove the plain white cover, and you'll have the original cover underneath!"
And I said, "You're partly right. Yes, there was a butcher cover. But it wasn't for the White Album. It was for Yesterday and Today, a compilation released in 1965."
"Naw, man," he said, getting huffy, "it was the White Album. Believe me, I'm a huge Beatles fan. The guy who told me about it was a big fan too."
"Yeah, but you've also done enough LSD in your life to dose all of us in the building. I'm a big Beatles fan too, and it wasn't the White Album. It was Yesterday and Today." I was absolutely sure of this.
Mac got angry very quickly, especially since we were in the workroom, surrounded by co-workers who often had to witness our discussions on politics and culture. But Mac and I were always on the same side; this time was different.
"Dude, I'll bet you $50 that you're wrong!"
Whenever someone wants to bet me on something that I am 100% sure of, I take the bet. People who know me very well have figured out that, if I take up a bet, it's because I know that I am right. I never bet on things I am unsure of. Any friend of mine who ever took a bet from me instantly knew to call it off, because it meant that I was about to make some easy money.
"Why not bet $100?" I smirked.
"You're on!" Mac was near-furious at this point. I was taken aback at his hostility, and so were all my co-workers. they'd never seen him so angry.
I went online, typed "beatles butcher cover" into a search engine, and tallied the results. There were many links to choose from. I selected one that would have photos to accompany the text.
When I showed Mac the error of his ways, he got visibly upset, saying things along the lines of "you can't be sure of anything online anyway". I showed him three more sites to shut him up. They all said the same thing: the infamous Butcher cover was for Yesterday and Today.
After I showed him the last site, I said, "Forget about the money. I don't argue with people to make money. I argue to make points."
Later on he apologized for being so hostile, but that incident told me all I needed to know about Mac. I'd only known the guy for two years. I met him through my weed connection. Mac was already in his thirties, and tended to condescend when he talked to me. It was no different with the discussions of God, and it was no different when discussing "America's New War."
"When did you become Rush Limbaugh?" I asked him the day after the attack.
"Yesterday, man," he said, almost screaming. "They can't get away with this. Dude, you know me-- I used to be all for the underdogs and all that. But this.... this...."
One symptom of this crisis: people cannot articulate their hurt, rage, and confusion over such an event. Words fail to describe it, even as I am writing this.
I am tempted to remember the old maxim: "The man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."
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