The Twin In The Towers
I met up with Shawn on September 11th at 11:30 a.m. at his job in the city. I hiked across the Queens bridge and walked down to 43rd and Third. We decided to head up to my place in Harlem.
I put on a pair of his running shoes he had under his desk for the journey. He suspected it was Bin Laden, even before we made it to the house and turned on CNN. I didn’t even know who the man was. Shawn’s on- line research had already offered him enough clues to start putting the pieces together.
“Mother fucker! He done played Bush. It’s all over a pipeline, sexy– one that a lot of folks want to install on Arabian soil.”
I was happy to be out of work early and headed home. There was so much gossip flying around town that day. Conversations of strangers were loudly overbearing and on every street corner–
“Oh my God, my sister worked there until just last week.”
“Yo! I was just in that fuckin’ building yesterday,” a handsomely hung bike messenger said on his two-way radio.
“Someone said they found bombs on the subways.”
“You think that’s bad, I heard there are still at least a dozen planes unaccounted for.”
I attempted to tune them all out and not listen to all the hype. I was feeling quite anxious. I disagreed with Shawn’s hypothesis that Muslims had highjacked the planes and couldn’t wait to get to the house. Quite simply, I was sick of hearing it all.
We took note of how happy New Yorkers seemed that day, despite the closeness of all that likely death. Smiles were abundant on September 11th, perhaps it was only because we were out of work early and far from the spill.
"New Yorkers really know how to act in times of crisis," the papers later informed. There were smiles everywhere. I remember that vividly, at least among the crowds north of 43rd Street.
He kept talking about that pipeline– as if he had invested money into it or something. People kept smiling at me. I didn’t understand all the joy. “I can’t believe he did this. They don’t know the scope of what just happened here,”
Shawn tried to explain to me as I wove in and around the slow walkers. “They had something with them on those planes– some kind of psychotropic chemical. Just look at them sexy, can’t you tell they are on something?” We stepped from the lines of people plowing north and watched in disbelief.
I put on a pair of his running shoes he had under his desk for the journey. He suspected it was Bin Laden, even before we made it to the house and turned on CNN. I didn’t even know who the man was. Shawn’s on- line research had already offered him enough clues to start putting the pieces together.
“Mother fucker! He done played Bush. It’s all over a pipeline, sexy– one that a lot of folks want to install on Arabian soil.”
I was happy to be out of work early and headed home. There was so much gossip flying around town that day. Conversations of strangers were loudly overbearing and on every street corner–
“Oh my God, my sister worked there until just last week.”
“Yo! I was just in that fuckin’ building yesterday,” a handsomely hung bike messenger said on his two-way radio.
“Someone said they found bombs on the subways.”
“You think that’s bad, I heard there are still at least a dozen planes unaccounted for.”
I attempted to tune them all out and not listen to all the hype. I was feeling quite anxious. I disagreed with Shawn’s hypothesis that Muslims had highjacked the planes and couldn’t wait to get to the house. Quite simply, I was sick of hearing it all.
We took note of how happy New Yorkers seemed that day, despite the closeness of all that likely death. Smiles were abundant on September 11th, perhaps it was only because we were out of work early and far from the spill.
"New Yorkers really know how to act in times of crisis," the papers later informed. There were smiles everywhere. I remember that vividly, at least among the crowds north of 43rd Street.
He kept talking about that pipeline– as if he had invested money into it or something. People kept smiling at me. I didn’t understand all the joy. “I can’t believe he did this. They don’t know the scope of what just happened here,”
Shawn tried to explain to me as I wove in and around the slow walkers. “They had something with them on those planes– some kind of psychotropic chemical. Just look at them sexy, can’t you tell they are on something?” We stepped from the lines of people plowing north and watched in disbelief.
posted by Charles George Taylor at
9:08 AM
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