story499.xml
Title
story499.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-05-02
911DA Story: Story
My father-in-law pounded on the bedroom door and told me to get up and look at the TV. I saw smoke and buildings but still wasn?t sure what I was looking at. Slowly it occurred to me that some kind of a disaster had taken place. I recognized the World Trade Center engulfed in smoke and asked my father-in-law where the other tower was. That?s when it hit me that there was no other tower. I ran to the TV and shouted, ?Where is it! Where is it!?? Then the other tower collapsed.
Within a few minutes my phone started ringing. Friends and relatives who usually called to talk about their relationship problems were frantically asking me why this happened. I had no idea. I had seen footage of Israeli tanks in the West Bank the night before and thought that this was probably some form of karmic payback, but I didn?t really know.
Since I was a contractor who billed by the hour I decided to go to work. I passed someone on the sidewalk who looked as frightened as I was. He mumbled something about there not being many people out on the street and I agreed.
No one at the office was doing any work. People were confused and talking. I called my wife in Los Angeles and told her not to fly back to San Francisco. I would drive down there and pick her up. Then I called my girlfriend in Brazil and mostly listened. She exclaimed repeatedly that the terrorists were stupid and that all they did was kill a lot of people. She mentioned all of her friends in New York. She said the word ?stupid? again and again. My girlfriend was a leftist with no real love for America, but for now al l she felt was sympathy and revulsion about what had happened.
More friends continued to contact me and some asked me why other countries hated us so much. I referred them to various Web sites that could explain the results of America?s foreign policy better than I could. At this point I was convinced that we would be in a state of war for the rest of my life and my children?s lives. More to the point I was certain the world was going to end.
Downtown San Francisco was largely abandoned. As I parked the car I heard the Mayor of New York describing the catastrophic loss of policemen and firemen. When asked how many had died he said, ?too many?. I went to a massage parlor that I used to frequent a long time ago. After I signed in and was lead to my room, my masseuse made a perfunctory remark about the terrible thing that had happened and got down to business. Here, it seemed was one part of the world that would never change under any circumstances. When we were finished, I showered, got dressed and went to another massage parlor.
Later when I was walking home I heard an airplane in the sky for the first time that day. It was a small plane that made tight little circles over San Francisco. When it passed overhead I saw the glowing afterburners and realized it was a fighter jet.
When I entered the apartment, my in-laws were cooking dinner. They discussed the day?s events briefly but didn?t seem too preoccupied with them. They were war refugees and none of this was new to them.
As time passed my own mood toward and perception of these events changed. For a while I tied a flag to my car to show my support for the country and for the victims. As the flag wore away I made plans to replace it, but things soon changed. By this time, it seemed that everyone was trying to co-opt 9/11. The president used the events to declare himself infallible and to push through some worthless defense contracts that would make his friends richer. Movie stars held benefits that focused on themselves. Journalists quickly switched from meaningful investigation to repetitive jingoism. Untalented writers slapped 9/11 on their manuscript titles and rammed them through to publication. An array of ordinary citizens claimed that they were special or that their point of view was indisputable because of their proximity to the towers or because of a friend?s or relative?s proximity to the towers. When America slipped back to its old opportunistic ways I found that as much as my heart bled for the victims and for all the rest of us, I could not bring myself to replace that flag.
Within a few minutes my phone started ringing. Friends and relatives who usually called to talk about their relationship problems were frantically asking me why this happened. I had no idea. I had seen footage of Israeli tanks in the West Bank the night before and thought that this was probably some form of karmic payback, but I didn?t really know.
Since I was a contractor who billed by the hour I decided to go to work. I passed someone on the sidewalk who looked as frightened as I was. He mumbled something about there not being many people out on the street and I agreed.
No one at the office was doing any work. People were confused and talking. I called my wife in Los Angeles and told her not to fly back to San Francisco. I would drive down there and pick her up. Then I called my girlfriend in Brazil and mostly listened. She exclaimed repeatedly that the terrorists were stupid and that all they did was kill a lot of people. She mentioned all of her friends in New York. She said the word ?stupid? again and again. My girlfriend was a leftist with no real love for America, but for now al l she felt was sympathy and revulsion about what had happened.
More friends continued to contact me and some asked me why other countries hated us so much. I referred them to various Web sites that could explain the results of America?s foreign policy better than I could. At this point I was convinced that we would be in a state of war for the rest of my life and my children?s lives. More to the point I was certain the world was going to end.
Downtown San Francisco was largely abandoned. As I parked the car I heard the Mayor of New York describing the catastrophic loss of policemen and firemen. When asked how many had died he said, ?too many?. I went to a massage parlor that I used to frequent a long time ago. After I signed in and was lead to my room, my masseuse made a perfunctory remark about the terrible thing that had happened and got down to business. Here, it seemed was one part of the world that would never change under any circumstances. When we were finished, I showered, got dressed and went to another massage parlor.
Later when I was walking home I heard an airplane in the sky for the first time that day. It was a small plane that made tight little circles over San Francisco. When it passed overhead I saw the glowing afterburners and realized it was a fighter jet.
When I entered the apartment, my in-laws were cooking dinner. They discussed the day?s events briefly but didn?t seem too preoccupied with them. They were war refugees and none of this was new to them.
As time passed my own mood toward and perception of these events changed. For a while I tied a flag to my car to show my support for the country and for the victims. As the flag wore away I made plans to replace it, but things soon changed. By this time, it seemed that everyone was trying to co-opt 9/11. The president used the events to declare himself infallible and to push through some worthless defense contracts that would make his friends richer. Movie stars held benefits that focused on themselves. Journalists quickly switched from meaningful investigation to repetitive jingoism. Untalented writers slapped 9/11 on their manuscript titles and rammed them through to publication. An array of ordinary citizens claimed that they were special or that their point of view was indisputable because of their proximity to the towers or because of a friend?s or relative?s proximity to the towers. When America slipped back to its old opportunistic ways I found that as much as my heart bled for the victims and for all the rest of us, I could not bring myself to replace that flag.
Collection
Citation
“story499.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/9590.