Some people sit on their butts;
got the dream, yeah, but not the guts.
That's living for some people,
for some hum-drum people I suppose.
Well, they can stay and rot!
But not Rose!
Some People – from the play “Gypsy”
In the United States we’re commemorating the fall of the Twin Towers, something that always seemed so immovable, so mighty, and like the US economy, we’re learning we too, can fall without warning. I have one story to tell regarding that day, and it’s the only one I can recall, yet I won’t share it on a larger scale, nor will I link this page back with any markers regarding it. I’m sharing it with the people who mean something to me, not the world in general.
(Should fame follow me one day this story will be better-known, but there are many, and my life doesn’t revolve around it.)
I was in college and trying to succeed as a part-time student/substitute teacher when this tragedy happened. I was on the Literotica boards waiting for a friend of mine when my mother called me, saying on the phone, “Did you see it? Someone flew an airplane into a New York skyscraper.”
Sounded impossible: “You’re kidding ma, that’s not possible.”
She replied quickly: “They say it’s on the internet. And it’s on TV too.”
I went to my laptop instead of the TV and found video footage streaming/replaying on Yahoo. I thought it had to be some kind of prank in all honesty, and felt ‘Maybe someone’s fuckin’ with the world wide web. World’s greatest prank.’
I saw the footage, unable to believe the POV from the street as I looked at the belly of an airplane closing in then disappearing into the glass windows and a fireball flashed out. A friend of mine from California sent me a note asking if I saw it. I replied that there was a level of denial and disbelief but I couldn’t turn away. It was the World Trade Center, something indomitable. I was reading everything I could find and I was glancing to the monitor as often as I could while trying to get ready for class. I dressed, shutting down the laptop, trying to rethink about my day and what was gonna happen to society. I knew we as Americans don’t take to change, and we’re resistant (or believe we’re immune) to whatever happens around the world, so I went to school, driving, listening to NPR and wondering what’s gonna happen next today. NPR said there was a rumor that one plane was headed for the White House and the Pentagon had been struck. I shut off the truck, the last word being that two fighter jets were chasing it along the Potomac to possibly shoot it down.
(This is later learned to be United 93, where the passengers fought and crashed their own plane instead of allowing the terrorist to follow their own plans against this country.)
When I entered the corridors and outer halls of the school, I found people had pushed or pulled TV’s out and were watching with breath held the same vision I had seen earlier. The news was replaying the atrocity again and again, telling us where else the planes had struck. I was still thinking about my friends around the country, trying to recall if there was anyone I knew on the East Coast or if I should just sit in my tiny place and wait for whatever inevitability would occur today.
I could hear my shrill teacher’s voice, saying, “I guess we’re gonna wait a little longer.”
When I stepped into the room (late as usual) every head turned towards me, and I stared back. The group was unblinking, and we were using information gleaned from radios, e-mails, and TV as Smart Phone’s hadn’t come into being or onto a common use factor yet.
The teacher looked at me, asking, “What have you heard?”
I said matter-of-factly, “Two fighter planes are possibly chasing a jet headed down the Potomac towards the White house.”
She looked down at her ugly shoes, then at the class. We all stared at her, then a young man who was in the SAPD (local police department) stood up, edging out past me, leaving the room quietly. No one said anything; we knew he was going to be reporting to duty or waiting on-call for whatever would be next that day. Finally the teacher looked at us and said, “Class dismissed. We’ll meet again Thursday if there’s a place for us to meet.”
I went to see my folks, wrote in my personal journals, and thought little about myself for once. I cried, prayed, messaged, chatted and waited, like the rest of the country, to learn more about the infamous coordinator, Osama Bin-Laden and what panic looks like when we’re caught unaware.
Our lives have returned to a certain level of normal. We have lost whatever humanity made us donate blood, give money, and want to drive to New York or even to enlist in the military service. We’re still selfish and conceited, and we need to change.
I feel ghoulish. A teacher I know is suddenly losing a family member; she sent me an e-mail that had a sense of finality. It felt like my last job, where the teacher was falling apart slowly, but in this situation, it’s a rapid descent to sadness. She didn’t even ask me to pack anything for her, just offer it to the other teachers and toss the rest into recycle. I feel bad, since there are fewer teacher jobs available currently, and there are a lot of other teachers losing their jobs and I still haven’t passed my certification test yet. I’m taking my next one Saturday the 24th at 8:00am and I hope this will be the last one for my job. Maybe then I won’t feel like such a fraud working at the schools.
Even then I don’t think I’ll feel like a teacher, or at least a teacher for what I’d like to do but it’s something I’ve gotta do right now with all the bill collectors calling me at all hours. I’m alive and I am still trying people, friends and readers … and some of you I owe so much for all your support and assistance. I haven’t given up on my dreams, but it’s slow going.
But it’s still going.
Thanks for listening as always.
Love,
~ j ~
