story1543.xml
Title
story1543.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-08-29
911DA Story: Story
I remember trying to make it through the New York Times Sunday Paper.
The Times (September, 2001)
I like to try, on Sundays, to live a little. As best I can I mimic cultured characters that my father told me about in bedtime stories. I would wake and without showering I would put on a pair of old brown slippers ? leathery with dark blue crushed velvet on the inside. My pants are bulky wool trousers, like army pants from WWII, that have been worn thin enough even for summer but still keep my thighs warm in the fall. I have worn a hole where my heel steps down on them. When I walk through my flat the wooden planks in my room and down the old stair case in my building I avoid, as best I can, the nails that haven?t worn down as fast as the pine floor boards and the cracked tile in the door frames. I have a red T-shirt that I wear on Sundays that has ?Sunday T-shirt? printed on it. It is a 50/50 cotton/poly blend. Every Sunday I leave my apartment at dawn or right near then and go to the corner snack shop to buy fruit and coffee and the New York Times.
I live in Kansas City in the dead area between two delapitated sections of what used to be an exciting down town. They had, I?ve heard, gone as far as they could go. The building I live in used to be a factory or something, most of the other buildings on the block still are. Except the snack shop on the corner that sells The New York Times. It is out of place. I am one of 15 people that live close enough to walk to the place, but it?s always packed full of people that come down from other parts to get the NY paper from some place other than Barnes and Noble. People that are hipper than most of the rest. I like the people that come down well enough, but to be honest, I think I?m better than they are. I go to YJ?s Snack Shop not to be cool or to avoid the main stream, but because it?s the closest place to my house to get a cup of coffee.
They come, the hip and cool, on Sundays to see what The Times has in sections A through Q of its Sunday Edition. They come to talk politics with Y.J., the owner and political aficianado that has been kicked out of Mexico permanently for trying to start a revolution or something equally hilarious. As I head out of my building I notice that it seems my building should have beautiful tile and tin stamp and the like, but it doesn?t. My apartment is old wood and bricks. Sometimes, however, in the right light, right before night, my flat glows yellow and then red.
When I get to YJ?s he is already yelling. ?Bush is a fucking moron, I tell you, and Ashcroft is a fucking lunatic! I don?t know when those fucks in Washington are going to get a fucking clue?? He is preaching to the choir. They listen intently.
I nod and get the paper. I will come back later in the day, after I?ve read the paper. I come in and I sit and Y.J. gets me a coffee and he puts a little whiskey in it for me, because he likes me. He forces a cigarette on me, saying, ?It?s only civilized.? Then he preaches to me ? I tell him he charges too much for the Times.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving I got a banana and a kiwi fruit to go with the coffee. The Times was huge that week, the week before Thanksgiving, what with all the ads and war and all. I could hardly hold all of it. After the short walk home and the teetering walk up the stairs trying to keep the behemoth under my arm from falling out all over the place, I decided to do my reading in bed.
My bed is a double in the middle of an open loft. I keep it off center and unmade to confuse party guests that rarely come over. I put my coffee and fruit down on the little table next to the bed. I piled all the pillows at one end and then lied down with The Times across my lap.
I like to start out by reading the front page of all the sections. This way I can know a little bit about everything. So I started out like I do every Sunday by having a look at the International, National, Politics, Business, Technology, Science, Health and Sports sections. After I amused myself with American spin control or the suffering job market or whatever each section?s front page had to offer, I would discard it to my side. What I didn?t realize, this being an oversized Edition, was what a mountain I was creating around me.
I took a moment to appreciate the ?New York Region,? and ?Education,? articles. I stopped for a while in the Weather, Obituaries, Real Estate and Automobiles sections. Classifieds and Advertisements really got the paper unfolding. Macy?s had a section all its own. I?m not sure how long I was browsing in the Nieman Marcus holiday catalog, but if the phone rang, I didn?t answer it.
The Special Section: A Nation Challenged full of ?Pictures of Grief,? and more war propaganda was instantly thrown out.
I skipped right over the Op/Ed and Readers' Opinions. When I tried to find a place to set these sections I realized I couldn?t see any of my bed any more. Actually the paper had begun to wrap itself so high up around my body I could hardly see over the seemingly endless information.
Not giving a shit I began a stroll through the cultured sections of the times. It starts with Arts and then come Books and Movies. I read through these sections and so huge sheets come off when I?m done. And these sheets flow up and around and try to spiral their way over the mountains of newspaper that now surrounded me.
The Travel, Dining & Wine and Home & Garden sections lightened up my grey pre-Thanksgiving mood. One man had been to Japan to hike through the hot springs. And a woman had been to a French eatery on the Mediterranean that had the most wonderful sounding fish stew. I was about ready for a bite of fruit. I suddenly remembered my coffee and looked to see if it was even still visible. I looked right, and I looked left, but alas it was all paper. I tried to reach my hand through it but it was too heavy. I was getting a little nervous. I wanted my coffee but the only way to it was through The New York Sunday Times.
Had it ever been done? Had anyone ever actually made it through an entire Sunday Times? I was getting frantic. I decided to ignore my predicament and continued as if nothing were unusual. I looked at Fashion & Style. Moving faster and getting a little upset I tore through New York Today. I about cried when the Cartoons opened into endless pages. Who gave Doonsbury the right to half a page? I want that man?s head. Until that morning I had never truly appreciated the TV pullout. They have a whole week of TV programming in there! Then, just when I though I might be to the end, Its award winning Magazine and Week in Review came from nowhere. I couldn?t help it. I had to read up on what happened last week. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Ignore current events?! What is my humanity, but current events? The Week in Review is the New American Bible of the sophisticated age!
Lost and alone I looked up from the hole I created. Page upon page folded and unfolded up and around me. There was no more up and down ? no more side to side. Only me and the paper.
Now some may have ventured one way through a Sunday Times, but I am quite comfortable that no man, woman nor child has read it both ways. And this, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the paper of papers crammed with ads and stories that seem like ads and a war year no less, I was going both ways. I shit you not I was very scared I wouldn?t make it.
?No God!? I yelled, ?Somebody help me! I?m fuckin? lost in the fuckin? Times!?
But no one heard my screams. I doubt they could escape the monster that surrounded me. So I started backwards. Week in Review, revisited: I walked again through award winning articles. And then again the Magazine. I was building speed, trying to find a rhythm through the Cartoons (again I didn?t laugh at Doonsbury?s political satire) and then New York Today?s calendar of hip things to do that I wouldn?t do because I was trapped under an oppressive coastal paper in Kansas City!
Fashion & Style mocked my Midwestern sense of security and classic fits. ?DKNY go to hell!? I shouted as I rampaged. Home & Garden, with your uptown twist, your understated use of plants in the kitchen, do you know the way torture me? Can you taste the bile you cause in my mouth? ?How did I ever love you!??
Dining & Wine and Travel ? reminders of how stuck I am under this unforgiving pile of paper. Will I ever relax in a Japanese natural Hot spring? Not fucking likely. Movies. Books. Arts. The weight of your existence being critiqued is suffocating me. Must, again I read of Shallow Hal, of new adventures in self-exploration, of people in New York painting and singing. ?Does this paper have no end??
I tried to dump Op/Ed and Readers? Opinions over my head but the only way to the other side was through. ?Harriet? from Ohio thinks we should ?bring justice to the evil doers that don?t believe in the good God.? ?Please Paper!? I yell ?I beg of you, don?t make me face my nation! Let me through!? I started ripping through the pages. I pulled criticisms apart and made a hole to escape through. I could feel air from the outside. I tore my way through Op/Ed (Referred to as communists by ?Nick? from Des Moines).
I slammed hard into the Special Section: A Nation Challenged. The paper wouldn?t let me bring any more destruction to a nation faced with so much already. I had to resort to peaceful means of getting through. I had to read about street venders getting hassled by cops for selling pins of the World Trade Towers. ?I lost my store!? Hasim Abdul Jhidomalamad said, ?They only give me bad time because of what I look like.? Fucking cops, does anyone like you?
So many dead people around right now, all up in the Obits. It is page after page of death in this section. Stories of life, recovered in death, almost as if these lives were just discovered, like porn under your son?s bed.
And this just in? Weather is looking up for the holiday season from the Rockies west but watch out if you?re headin? East ? it could get a little messy. In Education, teachers have problems as do students, administrators, parents and school buildings themselves.
I was finally approaching the heart of this thing ? Region, Sports, Business, Politics and the front page. The region is in political chaos, Steinbrenner is gonna do his damnedest to buy another World Series for New York (in its time of need) and stocks still suck but the bottom has got to be around here somewhere. In politics, lots of people are dying, but not enough, or the right ones. On a bright note, Guliani may one day not be the mayor of New York.
With that I fell out the side of the bed, the mess of Times still piled up everywhere. I breathed. It was fantastic to breath without the air being filtered through the fucking Times. I walked around the mountain, trying to take it in, trying to figure out how to get it out. I went to try to pick it up, but couldn?t bring myself to touch it, being that I was afraid it would somehow drag me back in. I picked up my coffee. It was cold now. I looked outside and noticed that the morning sun had made its way to evening. The brick walls began to glow yellow. I went and leaned against the bricks. I slid my hand over the old stone and enjoyed the warm sun and its wonderful timeless feeling.
The Times (September, 2001)
I like to try, on Sundays, to live a little. As best I can I mimic cultured characters that my father told me about in bedtime stories. I would wake and without showering I would put on a pair of old brown slippers ? leathery with dark blue crushed velvet on the inside. My pants are bulky wool trousers, like army pants from WWII, that have been worn thin enough even for summer but still keep my thighs warm in the fall. I have worn a hole where my heel steps down on them. When I walk through my flat the wooden planks in my room and down the old stair case in my building I avoid, as best I can, the nails that haven?t worn down as fast as the pine floor boards and the cracked tile in the door frames. I have a red T-shirt that I wear on Sundays that has ?Sunday T-shirt? printed on it. It is a 50/50 cotton/poly blend. Every Sunday I leave my apartment at dawn or right near then and go to the corner snack shop to buy fruit and coffee and the New York Times.
I live in Kansas City in the dead area between two delapitated sections of what used to be an exciting down town. They had, I?ve heard, gone as far as they could go. The building I live in used to be a factory or something, most of the other buildings on the block still are. Except the snack shop on the corner that sells The New York Times. It is out of place. I am one of 15 people that live close enough to walk to the place, but it?s always packed full of people that come down from other parts to get the NY paper from some place other than Barnes and Noble. People that are hipper than most of the rest. I like the people that come down well enough, but to be honest, I think I?m better than they are. I go to YJ?s Snack Shop not to be cool or to avoid the main stream, but because it?s the closest place to my house to get a cup of coffee.
They come, the hip and cool, on Sundays to see what The Times has in sections A through Q of its Sunday Edition. They come to talk politics with Y.J., the owner and political aficianado that has been kicked out of Mexico permanently for trying to start a revolution or something equally hilarious. As I head out of my building I notice that it seems my building should have beautiful tile and tin stamp and the like, but it doesn?t. My apartment is old wood and bricks. Sometimes, however, in the right light, right before night, my flat glows yellow and then red.
When I get to YJ?s he is already yelling. ?Bush is a fucking moron, I tell you, and Ashcroft is a fucking lunatic! I don?t know when those fucks in Washington are going to get a fucking clue?? He is preaching to the choir. They listen intently.
I nod and get the paper. I will come back later in the day, after I?ve read the paper. I come in and I sit and Y.J. gets me a coffee and he puts a little whiskey in it for me, because he likes me. He forces a cigarette on me, saying, ?It?s only civilized.? Then he preaches to me ? I tell him he charges too much for the Times.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving I got a banana and a kiwi fruit to go with the coffee. The Times was huge that week, the week before Thanksgiving, what with all the ads and war and all. I could hardly hold all of it. After the short walk home and the teetering walk up the stairs trying to keep the behemoth under my arm from falling out all over the place, I decided to do my reading in bed.
My bed is a double in the middle of an open loft. I keep it off center and unmade to confuse party guests that rarely come over. I put my coffee and fruit down on the little table next to the bed. I piled all the pillows at one end and then lied down with The Times across my lap.
I like to start out by reading the front page of all the sections. This way I can know a little bit about everything. So I started out like I do every Sunday by having a look at the International, National, Politics, Business, Technology, Science, Health and Sports sections. After I amused myself with American spin control or the suffering job market or whatever each section?s front page had to offer, I would discard it to my side. What I didn?t realize, this being an oversized Edition, was what a mountain I was creating around me.
I took a moment to appreciate the ?New York Region,? and ?Education,? articles. I stopped for a while in the Weather, Obituaries, Real Estate and Automobiles sections. Classifieds and Advertisements really got the paper unfolding. Macy?s had a section all its own. I?m not sure how long I was browsing in the Nieman Marcus holiday catalog, but if the phone rang, I didn?t answer it.
The Special Section: A Nation Challenged full of ?Pictures of Grief,? and more war propaganda was instantly thrown out.
I skipped right over the Op/Ed and Readers' Opinions. When I tried to find a place to set these sections I realized I couldn?t see any of my bed any more. Actually the paper had begun to wrap itself so high up around my body I could hardly see over the seemingly endless information.
Not giving a shit I began a stroll through the cultured sections of the times. It starts with Arts and then come Books and Movies. I read through these sections and so huge sheets come off when I?m done. And these sheets flow up and around and try to spiral their way over the mountains of newspaper that now surrounded me.
The Travel, Dining & Wine and Home & Garden sections lightened up my grey pre-Thanksgiving mood. One man had been to Japan to hike through the hot springs. And a woman had been to a French eatery on the Mediterranean that had the most wonderful sounding fish stew. I was about ready for a bite of fruit. I suddenly remembered my coffee and looked to see if it was even still visible. I looked right, and I looked left, but alas it was all paper. I tried to reach my hand through it but it was too heavy. I was getting a little nervous. I wanted my coffee but the only way to it was through The New York Sunday Times.
Had it ever been done? Had anyone ever actually made it through an entire Sunday Times? I was getting frantic. I decided to ignore my predicament and continued as if nothing were unusual. I looked at Fashion & Style. Moving faster and getting a little upset I tore through New York Today. I about cried when the Cartoons opened into endless pages. Who gave Doonsbury the right to half a page? I want that man?s head. Until that morning I had never truly appreciated the TV pullout. They have a whole week of TV programming in there! Then, just when I though I might be to the end, Its award winning Magazine and Week in Review came from nowhere. I couldn?t help it. I had to read up on what happened last week. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Ignore current events?! What is my humanity, but current events? The Week in Review is the New American Bible of the sophisticated age!
Lost and alone I looked up from the hole I created. Page upon page folded and unfolded up and around me. There was no more up and down ? no more side to side. Only me and the paper.
Now some may have ventured one way through a Sunday Times, but I am quite comfortable that no man, woman nor child has read it both ways. And this, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the paper of papers crammed with ads and stories that seem like ads and a war year no less, I was going both ways. I shit you not I was very scared I wouldn?t make it.
?No God!? I yelled, ?Somebody help me! I?m fuckin? lost in the fuckin? Times!?
But no one heard my screams. I doubt they could escape the monster that surrounded me. So I started backwards. Week in Review, revisited: I walked again through award winning articles. And then again the Magazine. I was building speed, trying to find a rhythm through the Cartoons (again I didn?t laugh at Doonsbury?s political satire) and then New York Today?s calendar of hip things to do that I wouldn?t do because I was trapped under an oppressive coastal paper in Kansas City!
Fashion & Style mocked my Midwestern sense of security and classic fits. ?DKNY go to hell!? I shouted as I rampaged. Home & Garden, with your uptown twist, your understated use of plants in the kitchen, do you know the way torture me? Can you taste the bile you cause in my mouth? ?How did I ever love you!??
Dining & Wine and Travel ? reminders of how stuck I am under this unforgiving pile of paper. Will I ever relax in a Japanese natural Hot spring? Not fucking likely. Movies. Books. Arts. The weight of your existence being critiqued is suffocating me. Must, again I read of Shallow Hal, of new adventures in self-exploration, of people in New York painting and singing. ?Does this paper have no end??
I tried to dump Op/Ed and Readers? Opinions over my head but the only way to the other side was through. ?Harriet? from Ohio thinks we should ?bring justice to the evil doers that don?t believe in the good God.? ?Please Paper!? I yell ?I beg of you, don?t make me face my nation! Let me through!? I started ripping through the pages. I pulled criticisms apart and made a hole to escape through. I could feel air from the outside. I tore my way through Op/Ed (Referred to as communists by ?Nick? from Des Moines).
I slammed hard into the Special Section: A Nation Challenged. The paper wouldn?t let me bring any more destruction to a nation faced with so much already. I had to resort to peaceful means of getting through. I had to read about street venders getting hassled by cops for selling pins of the World Trade Towers. ?I lost my store!? Hasim Abdul Jhidomalamad said, ?They only give me bad time because of what I look like.? Fucking cops, does anyone like you?
So many dead people around right now, all up in the Obits. It is page after page of death in this section. Stories of life, recovered in death, almost as if these lives were just discovered, like porn under your son?s bed.
And this just in? Weather is looking up for the holiday season from the Rockies west but watch out if you?re headin? East ? it could get a little messy. In Education, teachers have problems as do students, administrators, parents and school buildings themselves.
I was finally approaching the heart of this thing ? Region, Sports, Business, Politics and the front page. The region is in political chaos, Steinbrenner is gonna do his damnedest to buy another World Series for New York (in its time of need) and stocks still suck but the bottom has got to be around here somewhere. In politics, lots of people are dying, but not enough, or the right ones. On a bright note, Guliani may one day not be the mayor of New York.
With that I fell out the side of the bed, the mess of Times still piled up everywhere. I breathed. It was fantastic to breath without the air being filtered through the fucking Times. I walked around the mountain, trying to take it in, trying to figure out how to get it out. I went to try to pick it up, but couldn?t bring myself to touch it, being that I was afraid it would somehow drag me back in. I picked up my coffee. It was cold now. I looked outside and noticed that the morning sun had made its way to evening. The brick walls began to glow yellow. I went and leaned against the bricks. I slid my hand over the old stone and enjoyed the warm sun and its wonderful timeless feeling.
Collection
Citation
“story1543.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 20, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/18316.