story10624.xml

story10624.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-05-29

After many libations and a nightcap of some smokeable herbs, I found myself catatonic in my married buddy?s one bedroom Manhattanite shoebox dwelling. It was late. He was eyeing me. His look was subtle but it made his point. ?I love you bro but you got to go? were his unspoken words. I don?t blame him. He understood all too well the confusion that engulfed both visitors and natives alike, a confusion that left everyone exhausted both physically and mentally. But I moved slow as I was drunk and very tired. I had spent the day walking through midtown Manhattan, trying to summarize the overall feelings, grasping for a sense of the city?s general state of mind. Impossible. My thoughts and feelings were sporadic at best and there was so much more to think about during this visit to Gotham, a city I knew well. I felt confusion, maybe the same as the 10-year-old French boy that tugged at his mothers dress, pointing to the Squares giant video walls that prominently displayed the Stars & Stripes amid the barrage of Madison Avenues bigger-than-life visions. To me, the language barrier was irrelevant; the child?s inquisitive face exposed a soul both young and old despite his youth. I also felt anger, a natural, instinctual feeling, one instilled in us since the beginning of time. Angry because I didn?t know who or what to blame, or how to rationalize the all too real, tangible evils that exist in our world. It seemed to seep out into the city like a subtle, slow gas leak. It left me wondering what the catalyst would be that will undoubtedly ignite our world into the true apocalyptic flames that?s been predicted since time began. Anger, fear, hatred, confusion, what emotions are left to surface here if any? I saw a lot today. I grew up here and saw old familiar scapes. I saw the New York I remember, with mass people everywhere and the loud, persistent background sounds that sometimes drown out your own thoughts but eventually going unnoticed. I felt a New York that didn?t seem terrorized by the prospects of a brighter future, unsure maybe, but one that will never forget the day our nation suspended itself in disbelief, September 11, 2001. American flags were being hawked on every street corner along with everything and anything else imaginable. A great sea of red, white & blue littered Times Square while most of the foreign visitors just gawked at the buildings that surrounded them, the lights hypnotizing them, not knowing just what to feel. They were not Americans yet I didn?t feel any bias toward them let alone any concern with their nonexistent American patriotism; they were here because it?s all free, free to see and absorb. As I said, I?m not new to the Big Apple, having spent much of my teenage years exploring the many culturally vast sections which makes New York the cornerstones of the world, the gateway to the promised land. I even gave the first professional job of my young adult life to an office in the Trade Center Tower One, once known for it?s majestic heights and engineering beauty, now a tomb for the many who are buried beneath the rubble. Despite the tragedy, this was still New York. I knew the drill. I walked and just kept walking, a born and bred New Yorker who knows not to make eye contact with too many people. I knew the rules, hip to all the midtown scams, the fake Rolex?s, the supposed French designer clothes actually made in Bangladesh sweat shops. Nonchalantly, I dodged taxis and schools of tourists as I continued through the streets. I knew the ebb & flow of how crosswalks were orchestrated and how to swim with the currents of the masses, never missing a step. Despite the emptiness of the downtown skyline, the air still had that New York electricity that never ceases to energize me and I felt no threats. An electricity mixed with a hint of the metallic smoke still seeping from our Nations wound. New York energy, there is nothing that can substitute it. I was walking the streets where the blood literally spills and reality is as concrete as the magnificent facades that enveloped me. I passed makeshift vigils on many street corners, people would stop to light candles or leave flowers. Firemen gathered in front of their stations as if they were protecting their turf from invaders, all in full gear. Their ?missing? were proudly displayed in pictures which hung from the stations brick face. Policemen alertly walked their beats while tourists approached them to ask for directions, disrupting their thoughts that would otherwise be focused on their fallen brethren. As I waited on a corner to safely jaywalk, I became affixed on the newsprint that clung to the street pole. It was moving, it was defining, it was engrossing. This was an image worthy of freezing in time. I snapped a few shots with an archaic digital camera I brought with and continued to document my stroll. Due to memory constraints (the camera?s, not mine) as well as a west coast brain in this New York minute, I walked back to my hotel to rest and unload the images I managed to capture. My sanctuary was modest, I had an upgraded room complete with a picture of Warhols? Golden Marilyn and the floor had a constant wet spot on the left side of the bed which greeted my feet every night as I made ready for sleep. I imported the images into my laptop and when the photos downloaded, it was then that I had the time to really look at and feel them.



It was that exact moment I knew for certain I was in the most electric, confused, strongest city in all the world. And then there I was, extremely inebriated and high on my married buddy?s chair. It was getting late, but not New York late; a city that doesn?t sleep has no need for time. But I knew I had to leave, and I did. After goodnights to my friends, I sauntered the streets with an accepted drunken sway. I wore my urban dapper attire; certainly I must have an important place to go. I was drunk, I was tired, I had no place to go. Realizing I was very far from my hotel, I managed to hail a cab. As I shut the door, I sat and surveyed my environment in the confines of a dirty backseat. A dark skinned, mid-eastern driver was at the helm, not more than 30 years of age. He was quick on the gas and quicker on the brake. I told him the address to the hotel then kept quiet from exhaustion. The silence was broken when he turned on the radio. What I heard was very foreign to me, a mid-eastern song that my monolingual ears did not comprehend. It was strange and in light of the recent events, not what I wanted to hear. I asked him for a quite ride, the exact verbiage that?s outlined in the ?passengers rights? placard that sits eye level on the plexiglass barrier I found myself aimlessly staring at. Reluctantly he shut it off and it was then I felt an immediate tension between us. Remind you, I had many cocktails and I?m also a native New Yorker. A good thing as I?ll explain. I?m not shy as most who know me would agree and I felt uninhibited enough to try and engage in conversation with this caramel skinned man. Our ages were close and I thought I?d try and talk with him, as a person, a person alive in this very moment in time. Since we both spent about the same time on this earth, surely we must have some common ground. My segue was a less than smooth, very slurred ?Hey, what?s up man, how?s it going?. One in which he reciprocated. I felt compelled and probably more curious to try and keep him talking, he was truly foreign to me. I asked him how he felt about what happened and that?s when I realized that I was truly in New York, the melting pot where many cultures refuse to melt. This man began explaining why these people would do such a terrible act and it boiled down to his peoples religious beliefs, the religion of Islam. Not the Islam religion that most Muslims practice, but one amended by minds filled with hate. He was not mean or arrogant nor did he try soliciting this religion to me yet he was succinct and to the point as he explained his theology to me. He conveyed to me why his religion, a religion I?m completely ignorant of, conflicts with the freethinking philosophy of the Western world. My ignorance fueled my curiosity and I continued to ask him many more questions. Questions that would otherwise be considered politically incorrect, but ones in which he felt no discomfort in answering, and he did. I learned from this foreigner. Like the unsettling, sobering fact that many people in the world vehemently disagree with and despise the Western world, the free world, and all its freedoms and philosophies. I learned that there are people so dedicated to their beliefs that they would gladly and proudly die for them in war, a Jihad. Martyrdom is the highest form of sacrifice for their religious beliefs; fanatics take it to the suicidal level which he quickly agreed was not acceptable. It was possible he was patronizing me and as a cab driver in my America, he had better. The Jihad, as he explained, is a war in which a Muslim follower will kill for the good of his God, whatever that person conceives this good to be. A Muslim belief passed down through all generations and is taught from birth. I?m a spiritual man, an educated man and follow no one true religion but I hung onto every word this man said and truly began to understand how a Muslim views his life as inconsequential in this world. This left me thinking that this very thought process couldn?t possibly be policed, thoughts are free and can easily be kept to oneself. A thought process that calls for a Jihad, a belief, a war based on misunderstandings, divided religions and governments. I continued to ask him questions, unpointed and with sincerity. Questions I needed answered to help me understand the harsh reality and the magnitude of hate which caused this historical event to transpire on 9/11/01. With all his explanation I still couldn?t find it and I knew I couldn?t sway his thinking, nor did I try. He clearly understood his ideologies, I did not. What was clear to me were the worlds religious barriers, barriers that are much stronger and tensile than any physical element and more embedded than one between skin colors or social classes. He extended me the same courtesy of letting our views be our own and we just openly talked, two men, sharing our two different views on this life. He educated me and helped me try and understand what was in his head and I did the same for him. The end result was that we were two persons who have completely different mindsets from one another, ones which will most likely never change. He explained that his life, or more importantly, his afterlife is predestined and nothing that happens to him in this world is relevant. Nothing. A very sobering thought as I realized that we as a race, a human race, are so complex, segregated and stubborn in our own ways that the inevitable end will come. It is now that the chaos theory makes perfect sense. My ride was over.




As I counted the money to pay him, I thanked him for talking to me as candidly as he did. We shook hands. As he pulled away, I stood in midtown and looked around. I was still drunk. A drunken realist who believes that we as a race are ultimately doomed by our differences, but this was New York where time is irrelevant and I was sure I?d see tomorrow. I looked at my watch only because it was there, and then made my way to my room. It?s just a matter of time I thought, contradicting the timelessness in which New York exists. A matter of time I may never see in my life and I can?t give too much concern for the overall outcome. That will be left to fate. ?Ultimately? can be a long, long way off or it can mean we are just now witnessing the start of the end. It all depends on what you believe, who you talk to, or exactly what you care to ask them.