237. I NEVER KNEW
I never knew : war zone,
multiple-level dangers,
anarchy truly put. It was
like this in the immediate
aftermath of 911. I couldn't
shake it. As if I had a paltry
headache of my own, for
weeks. Yet, compared to
the downtown problems
of anyone else, I was a
complete asshole with
not a care in the world.
There was smoke here
that smoldered on
for weeks. Dark gray,
it just kept pluming out.
I was there once, just
staring at rubble, and,
all of a sudden, this
large slab of steel and
concrete, whatever,
maybe three remaining
stories up, still there,
in some jagged way,
just broke away and
crumbled to the ground.
A little more of something.
Anyone underneath that?
I never found out. They
were directing fire-hoses
onto smolders for weeks,
trying to keep down the
acrid air, the dust and
debris, the solid life of
smoke and danger. I
got so sick of seeing
men in fire-suits and
big boots it, in turn,
made ME sick. No
one talked. Nothing
was ever said, or if
it was it was as a
side-handed direction
of words to nothing.
My mental-solution
mind, the worst part
of what I have as a
mind, tried seeking
answers - was there
glass in this rubble?
Had it all melted?
At what degree does
window glass melt?
Does construction
steel and I-beams
really return to molten,
and give way, and melt,
and curl down? There
was no support high up
from down below?
Here at this level
on the ground? Those
who jumped, what
happened to them, how
long is a descent? I
tried configuring a
special sort of death
for that contingency,
but couldn't. All I
came up with, for
the pain and anguish,
was 'Pain necessitates
a future.' Meaning
that, the seven or
eight seconds for
them on the way
down were surely
the worst of it, poor
souls. Once they hit,
there was nothing -
certainly no future,
thus no pain. To feel
'Pain' one would need
the future in which
to feel it. Not there.
Blessed be them,
except for their end.
-
I felt listless and angry.
I had nothing left. What
had become of all this -
a shit-civilization now in
tatters? Or was it just the
myopia of a dumb New
Yorker, whose viewpoint
goes not farther than either
of the rivers and who then
assumes the entire rest
of the world thinks just
as he or she does :
clammy, restless,
paranoid, neurotic,
repressed, elite,
snobbish, jaded,
attitudinal, overly
proud, haughty,
bitchy, greedy, cheap,
high-handed, noisy,
boisterous, crude,
angled, ethnic. All
of that and more.
Who wanted it?
No wonder people
laughed. No wonder
others ran off to
Idaho, Vermont,
or Alaska.
-
People milled about;
were closed. It was all
like some big, horrid,
holiday had been imposed,
giving people time off,
but no joy to go with it.
Very paradoxical. Here's
the thing about New York.
It's invisible. It's a ghost
city you need not ever
know about. It's not the
people and the places
there today and now -
that's nothing. It's a
non-existent place,
it's unseen and secret;
and it can only be
apprehended and
comprehended by
certain people. You
need first the wave-length
propensity, the proper
touch and light, the
tradition of legacy and
learning. You need the
past, because that's all
that lives there. This
rubble, I knew, this
rubble was merely
the present, and the
future. It deserved to
die, but not in this
way. I couldn't quite
come to grips with that.
The funny thing was, I
was just coming to grips
with it, finding its place,
the Twin Towers, the
World Trade Center,
locating it in the
morass of all this
past and present. And
it was slowly, about
then, just beginning
to fit in. I was almost
seeing it differently -
the little tie-shop, with
the piano-keyboard tie
I'd gotten as a gift, the
luggage shops and lotto
stores and all, arrayed
on the streets leading
to it, ragged-looking,
stupid and bizarre places
- emporiums of junk,
food stalls, shoe shops,
the Doll Hospital and -
yes, yes, even, behind
St. Paul's, the Pen Hospital,
where expensive fountain
pens were fixed and tended
to, generations-old, handed
down in wealthy homes,
over and over. A few
lurid sex shops, when
sex shops were still
mostly paper-magazine
porno-smut sheet selections.
A different world. Tailors
and menders, hat shops
and travel bureaus. It
was just all coming
together, after 25 years.
And then it was gone.
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