New Jerseyans will know what I mean. What I mean is
they will know what I mean geographically. In the year 2001, I was
working for a company in Clifton, New Jersey that was located just off one of
the many exits off of Route 3. The exit, and therefore the building, was
on the side going east. For those non-New Jersey types who might be
curious, this route, when going east, leads directly to the Lincoln Tunnel
bringing you as dry as a bone under the Hudson River and, inevitably, with
frazzled nerves, into what I believe to be one of the greatest cities in the
world.
On the morning of September 11th
2001 I was inside this little building just off good old Route 3. I,
along with two other diligent workers--earnest worker bees!--showed up a little
earlier than the usual lemming-like crowd that would fall in yawningly at
something like five minutes to nine. What a beautiful morning! Do
you remember? I hope I don’t state with untethered hyperbole that the
morning was absolutely crystal clear. One really thought one could see
for my miles. Add to this those little whispers of clouds and you had
exquisiteness come alive! It was exquisiteness directly projected through
a large employee kitchen window, in a small building off of Route 3, in Clifton
New Jersey. What gorgeousness! I mean in that rejuvenating of the
spirit kind of way. It really was transcending. Forgive my over
indulgence but, I really do remember! Truth be told, I was neither
partaking in its rejuvenating charm nor was I enjoying the view from this
particular employee kitchen window. But, I would be using it as a
projection screen in a matter of minutes. And in a matter of minutes it
would be projecting on me something less than exquisite.
You see, this window encompassed
a whole wall and looked directly eastward. It overlooked a skyline
roughly 6 miles away cut from the sky and, on any given season of the
year, could pass as a wide shot for the credits of a Woody Allan film—shot, of
course-- at any time of the year. This day was exquisite. I’ve said
that already. When looking out this window on such a September morning meant a
luscious scattered assemblage of trees on the Jersey side that managed to
both vie for the sky’s attention in their intensity, but also obscure a good
deal of Manhattan’s skyline. Don’t get me wrong. One could still
work out different parts of this cityscape through the negative spaces of the
trees. In fact, the amalgamation of trees and skyline made the whole all the
more charming. One would not have wished for lesser trees or more
skyline. It was a unified whole except---except those two incongruous
twins lunging skyward over on the right side. They seemed to stick out
like a pair of sore thumbs!
It was when I sat having coffee
with a colleague that we were interrupted by another colleague who, I shall
just say, was prone to (I want to put it politely) “over-excitedness.” On
this morning he did not let down. As if on cue, he came through in the
form of racing around the corner shouting that there was something we just had
to see. We had to see it and we could, in fact, if we just made our way
over to the employee kitchen window with him. When we got the obligatory
eye roll out of the way we concurred and did just that by following him through
the halls and to said window. Arriving at the window we did not need to
be told where to set our gaze because on initial site we both saw one of those
“sore thumbs” billowing smoke out of the top of it like a military man with
perfect posture puffing out a contemplative ring of cigar smoke. We were
shocked to say the least. I think here it might be important to remember
that it was early. So, when I tell you my over-eager colleague laughed at
the fact that initial reports were saying one of those single engine Cessna
planes had just accidentally flown into one of the twin towers, I’m hoping he
can be partially forgiven. Believe me when I tell you, as someone who
does not always see things abstractly, (even from a distance) I was shocked
that even this would be considered funny. The irony mounts. It is
the kind I do not like.
We stood in absolute awe.
There is no demarcating line here. It is one of those situations where
sight and sound work together in a kind of double dream-like state. So, I
cannot point to a particular moment when I realized what was going on.
Three of us stood at a window as the sight unfolded and the sound unfolded
simultaneously as fragments of news that built together like a terrible
crescendo. One's ears were a cymbal and one’s eyes were another and they
came crashing together to make your head ring. This was not a small
Cessna. This was light years from funny. And, in those moments that
seemed to freeze the nervous system in to a thousand hours while sight and
sound still played upon them in real time, I shall never forget my colleague—a
friend—ask like a curious child almost in a whisper what that strange small dot
was coming seemingly closer to the building. Before even his breath came
to a halt after the last word, the small dot melted into the other
building. In seconds, it too was smoking.
By this time people came pouring
in and the employee kitchen was beyond capacity. They also brought news
from the outside. “We’re under attack,” I remember someone say almost to
themselves while shaking an unbelieving head. It all seemed simply confusing.
However, time and information melt away this confusion, but only a
little. Confusion mingles with reality. It mingles with reality and
it becomes a kind of buzzing noise that you want to stop for fear of slowly
driving you mad. But this buzzing can become an all too alarum bell; One
that takes your nervous system out of its slumber by thawing it with one
particular echoic din. Mine was a scream.
Mine came less than an hour after
first setting eyes on the sight. Strangely, as the number of people
swelled, the whole environment became quieter. It was an
eerie quiet. We all watched as if collectively knowing what could happen
but dared not say it. Less than an hour later I stood there frozen in
disbelief with more than a dozen other like-minded people. It was then
first tower crumbled before our eyes in a grey and dusty implosion. It was made
all the more surreal in that it was noiseless. But, the
room was no longer noiseless. There was the scream. A female employee
standing next to me screamed that scream, one I had never heard before in my
life. The buildings came down simultaneously with the most natural, most
primal scream I think my ears ever witnessed. I am attempted here to
amend that and say one my soul never witnessed. I didn’t even twitch. It
just served to melt my nervous system back to reality. It went through
every single fiber in my body almost peacefully before reaching something very
deep that told me of the often tragedy of living.
I revisited that window several
times afterward. In fact, well into the next year. But, what played
upon my psyche was a little image that seemed to do nothing beyond poke my
sub-consciousness. I think now the reason why I it took that long to
fully bore in to the consciousness was that the image was on the side where the
towers no longer existed. But, I couldn’t help myself. I finally looked
in that direction. It was the outline of a small building off in the distance
so far away that it appeared almost ghost-like in its smoky blue
haze. It seems like a mirage. It stood alone and the mystery
was in its solitary uniqueness as well as its distance. But it was within
sight. Even if I had to wonder if it actually did exist, it did nothing to take
away from the piquancy it played upon me. Even if it were of the
imagination it did not lessen the impact of such a poignant little sight.
A little wispy smoke of a building. I think, too, that it seemed to come
out of nowhere as if it didn’t exist until then. With further observation
and some cold insight, I came to finally realize it was a building far off into
the distance I had never seen before, nor could I see it because it had until
then been obscured by the two buildings since gone.
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