story7250.xml

story7250.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-13

On September 10 I made an entry in my journal, rejoicing about the fact that I had a doctor's appointment the next morning and would be allowed to sleep in later than usual. My alarm went off around 8 AM on the morning of September 11. I listened to the radio as I got ready to leave; I was out of my room, the radio off by 8:20. My mom drove me to the doctor's office; we listened to a U2 tape in the car.

After my appointment she drove me to the high school. It was around 9:15 when I walked in the front door. The entrance to our high school is a hallway with the main office on one side and the guidance office on the other side. The guidance office has glass walls and a TV. I remember seeing the janitors standing clustered around the TV and I wondered what was going on. I went to my locker and then to my history class. I had no idea what was going on. Every room in our school has a TV. I sat down in my seat and looked up, and my teacher came over to tell me what was going on. She was crying. My friend Lee and I sat in the back row of our AP US History class and watched the World Trade Center fall down.

When the towers disappeared in a cloud of dust I remember my classmates saying "They're still standing, look, you can see them." I remember telling them "No, guys, they're gone, the towers are gone. We just watched them fall down. The World Trade Center is gone." "No," my friend Jess said, "They're still there..."

We went to band. My band teacher is in the National Guard. He was pissed. "We're going to play," he said. "Everyone get out their instruments because we're going to play. If we don't play, they'll win..." We played. We watched CNN for the last ten minutes of class.

For the rest of the day we watched CNN in every class. Most people skipped lunch and spent the period with a favorite teacher, watching CNN. In Chemistry, in English, in Pre-Calculus, we watched CNN, and everyone was silent. The principal came on the PA system around noon to tell everyone what was happening. Like we didn't already know. He was crying. You could hear it in his voice.

One of the secretaries ran through the halls to the parking lot, sobbing. She had known somebody in the towers. Everyone e-mailed their parents and loved ones.

For the first time ever, the bus ride home was silent.

When I got home I parked myself in front of my computer. My father, a carpenter, was home early from work and was standing in front of the TV, watching CNN. I remember walking into the living room and seeing him standing, arms crossed over his chest, blocking the TV from my view, and feeling safe.

I updated my weblog 15 times on September 11, some of which I'll include here:

6:29 PM: "This isn't real. This can't be real. I was just there this summer, this isn't real. They're shitting us. This is a bad April Fool's joke. It's not real."

7:24 PM: "I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I don't want to leave my house ever again."

7:55 PM: "I think something like this makes us realize how trivial most of the things in our day-to-day lives are. I mean, when it comes right down to it, who really gives a fuck if you do your math homework? Or if you are a little bit non-confrontational. Or if you don't like someone else's writing style.
It doesn't matter if you're pro- or anti-RPS. If you like 'N Sync or Metallica. If you write het or slash or you don't write fic at all. If you're 16 or 46. When it comes down to it, we're a community, and that's really all that matters. All that extra stuff is just bullshit. All that posturing and all those boundaries and I-can't-like-you-because-you-like-her, and I-don't-like-you-because-you-don't-do-this. It's all bullshit. And it doesn't matter, not one bit. What matters is that we be here for each other, and keep up this wonderful outpouring of love and caring and support I've seen so far. This is a beautiful thing, everybody pulling together like this.
I'm going to try to stay hopeful. Everything looks pretty fucking bad right now. But hey...when you hit rock bottom, the only way you can go is up, right?"

10:26 PM: "I'm trying not to go into my room because I know when I do I'm going to curl up in my bed and cry a lot and never come out.
I'm scared. I...all my fucking friends. The world's gonna completely collapse around us, dude, and we have no fucking clue what it's gonna be like.
I'm scared to death of going to school tomorrow because I don't want to pull into the parking lot and see Mr. Swanhall's parking space empty and think, he went. I don't want to know he's down there. Jesus, when I saw him this afternoon, I asked him about music lessons. I didn't even remember he was in the National Guard. Stupid, stupid me.
And I want desperately to hear from Mr. Boyer. I mean, he goes to NYC a lot. It wouldn't be completely unheard of for him to be there. Oh, god, if anything's happened to him...I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I trust him more than anyone in the fucking world.
The enormity of today hasn't sunk in yet. I don't know if it ever will.
I feel like I need to keep posting. Need to keep doing anything that isn't checking my e-mail every four seconds.
I want my nice safe world back, the one where I worry about homework and lunch and where I'm going this weekend. The one where scary is a math test. God. Life is so fucking trivial.
Tell someone you love them, and mean it. Tell someone who doesn't know already. And then tell people that already know. Because fuck, at any moment that person you have a crush on or the friend you're fighting with and still miss could be gone."

11:29 PM: "here's hoping that when i wake up, the world will have stopped collapsing and there will be an e-mail from mr. boyer in my inbox."

I talked to my girlfriend on the phone that night and we cried together.

My father bought 28 pairs of leather work gloves, put five empty taping buckets in the back of his truck, and made the three-hour drive to the city to see if he could help out with the cleanup effort. I wanted him to take me with him, but he refused. Instead, he brought me a flag pin he bought from a street vendor a block from the police blockade. It's been on my backpack ever since.

My bank account was activated on September 10. I wrote my first check ever to the Red Cross.

In mid-September, my family went to New Jersey, because my grandparents live there. On our way home we stopped at Eagle Rock, from which you could see the New York City skyline, including the World Trade Center, and it was so bizarre to not see the towers. An impromptu shrine had been set up at there.

I remember a sculpture, probably made by some kindergartener. Two styrofoam towers glued to a piece of cardboard. On the cardboard, surrounding the towers, was a ragged clay heart.