the burp of the century

There are vending machines in the Pentagon. And when the percussive force of the sept. 11 jet plane attack went through the building all of the glass in those machines burst. People came out of their vault like hovels of secret activity to find the halls filled with candy and cokes. Oh, and the smell of burning horse hair.

I had another 9/11 burp. Years ago, high, I had worked on a job for TJX, Marshall's & TJ Maxx parent corporation. We went out to their headquarters, filmed all sorts of people in suits, smiling and waiving. After a few sleepless nights we committed all sorts of antics in the name of their promo video. Put them in a Brady Bunch type grid, even. What was the ad agency that had us do that? the one with the grossly fat project manager. She had to ride up to our office in the sardine can elevator (which could fit 3 comfortably or 4 skinny folk) by herself. I did all the text titles for that piece. All the photoshop files of names lined up neatly in the bottom so as to match up with the video of the smiling face, not block the face yet be inside title safe. There were dozens of names. I was so tired, after weeks without sleep, I accidentally fell asleep and missed a key meeting. I was the kind of tired where after a moment I could fall over, unwakeable, and be none the wiser. Even B~ played guitar in his sleep and hallucinated a conversation with me.

In the days after the September 11 attacks I stood on a subway platform in the heart of Boston reading the roster of people who were on each of the planes sent crashing into new york. Some names I knew out right and for a moment it brought a real horror into my bones. Hands tied, yelled at by strange men, last moments, cell phone calls, honey - I love you - bye bye. Some names I knew I was grateful not to be seeing as they had their plans changed by chance or employers. But others on the list seemed somehow vaguely familiar. I couldn't place them. I couldn't see a face. Were they from a job where I used to work? Had they been people I just talked to over the phone, like at that theater job? I couldn't tell. So many names filter through our fingers, it's easy to misplace the people.

So B~ was in town this weekend and we caught up on 9 years of stuff. And as he described his experience of 9/11, the hallmark of modern day catching up for folks who haven't seen each other in a bit, more pieces fell into place. A bunch of people from TJX were on planes intended for CA and ended... That's how I knew those names, from making all of the titles. I couldn't remember the faces, I wasn't doing the video part. But I knew the white letters that defined who they were.

So there you go.

I wish 9/11/01 would just go away. I wish I never again had to say "my sister worked in WTC, tower 2, and on that day her alarm clock failed to ring so she was running 45 minutes late". 45 minutes. Does that mean she was blessed? That would make other people cursed and just I don't buy that. I wish there was no "where were you on that day" subtext to a discussion of millennial events. I wish the whole mess would stop lending it's foul, poorly spiced after-burps to contemporary life and let us simply digest our grief and confusion in peace.

When we were in New York 2 weeks ago, the day said sister was hooded with her PHD, my brother wanted to go see the site. I haven't been back there since October of 2001.

It's a big hole filled with night sky, now. "Where were they? Were they big?" he asked. I stretched my arm out to the side and high into he sky. "you'd have to look up like this." I craned my neck back. "I tricked M~ into going up onto the roof, once, and it was so quiet up there. Up is the only OUT for a city this big."

In that hole, one month on, were the burning remains of workers, computers, jet planes and paper work. Angry chards of architectural exoskeleton howled in the smoke. In that pile, somewhere, was a pair of pumps she kept in her desk. What happened to those shoes? That's the only question I have left for September 11. I guess the rest is just rhetoric.