9/11 @5
I Watched History Explode with a Room Full of Children
Yes, I am still angry. After five years, I’m afraid I always will be.
On September 11th, 2001, I was teaching fourth grade in New York City; John Wayne Elementary in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to be specific. I remember waking up late that morning and just feeling a little bit off. I got to school and picked up my students from the auditorium, as would become routine. The school year had just begun; this was the fourth day of school. I still didn’t know all of my students by name. My room was on the third floor. We walked up the stairs to a hallway with glass from one end to the other. There was a beautiful, unobstructed view of the towers.
I always admired that view; I would look at those towers and say to myself “Wow. I live in New York City. I made it.” When I was a kid, growing up in California, though I was born in Rock Hill, SC, I had a poster of the 1978 King Kong movie remake. Kong is standing on top of the Twin Towers with a crushed airplane in his hands. My mother told me that those were the tallest buildings in the world, 110 stories tall. Wow. From that day on, I wanted to see them for myself.
Eventually, I had a girlfriend who transplanted me there. She wanted to be an actress, and we broke up about a year later. I have many stories from the Big Apple. I took advantage of all the city had to offer. I’ve slept on the street and I’ve met the President of the United States. I thrived and survived. New York is where I finally grew up, at the age of twenty-something. My first forty-eight hours there is a tale on par with Homer’s The Odyssey.
Those towers symbolized everything for me. From idealistic freedom to economic captivity, depending on my mood or my financial situation: A symbol of man’s achievement or a beacon of debt. There were two of them. That’s what was so striking: Two of them. Huge and identical, nearly three times as high as the tallest building around them. Our city had said, “Not only will we build the tallest building in the world, we’ll build two of them!” They were archetypal, eternal, and iconic, like an Aztec temple where ritualistic sacrifices took place. They were a temple of sorts. Our enemies realized this too.
Beyond their iconic significance, the towers were also a directional marker, like a compass or a calendar, a touchstone of place and time. They were always there. You could tell where you were by looking at them; north, south, east, or west, day or night, near or far, smoggy or clear. Without a doubt, the Twin Towers told you where you were.
I remember a rooftop party I went to in the summer of 2000. My friend’s roof had a gorgeous view of the downtown. It was nighttime. The towers were lit up. There were helicopters cruising around below them. They appeared to be a city in the sky, complete with flying cars. All those stories we had heard about life in the future had come true. I could see it with my own eyes. It was truly the year 2000. We had made it. I felt so proud of the human race.
The view from John Wayne Elementary was no less spectacular, but I don’t remember looking at it that morning. It was just after 8:30 am. The first plane had not yet hit. My morning activity, no matter what grade I teach, has always been journal writing. I write a question on the board and the kids write about a page or so on it. This day the question was “What can you do to make the world a better place?” After writing for 15 minutes or so, we started sharing our answers. The kids talked about planting flowers, picking up litter, helping old people, and feeding the homeless.
One of my co-workers came to my door and whispered to me “They’ve just bombed the World Trade Center.” She watched the class while I stepped out into the hall, with that incredible skyline view, to have a look. I’ll never forget the sight of those two beautiful towers smoking, filling the sky with black smoke. It was a crystal clear day. The wind was blowing southwards. I was stunned. I always knew that the Twin Towers were a target, and I had expected this day to come in some form, but watching it with my own eyes was overwhelming. I did not yet know they had been hit by airplanes, but there was no doubt that they had been attacked. It felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Someone told me the Pentagon had also been attacked. I went back to my desk at the front of the room. My hands were shaking uncontrollably; they have never stopped shaking since that day. They don’t shake as bad, but I still can’t hold them completely steady. Fear. Terror is what I felt.
I asked the class to resume where we left off. I didn’t feel like telling them. If I did, they would all want to go look, and I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. The talk about flowers and kindness toward others as a way of making the world a better place now seemed so ironic and obsolete that I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t feel anything – just numb. I put my trembling hands in my pockets so the kids wouldn’t see how scared I was.
When they eventually wrote about that day in their journals, many of the kids mentioned how nervous and angry their teacher was. One girl wrote of her experience: “I remember that the Twin Towers fell and the world looks different without it.” I knew just what she meant. Our world had indeed changed forever. One of the boys had been promised a trip to the top for his birthday, and ended his reflection; “I never saw them close up.”
Anytime I had friends or family visit me, I would always take them to the observation deck at the World Trade Center. Visitors could actually go up on the roof. I had been there just a couple of weeks before the attack, with my father. He is an architect, and we shared our love of this incredible structure like kids in a candy store. There was such an amazing view of the city, the greatest city in the world. I could see where I lived, places I hung out, and the school where I taught. I decided that I would take my class on a field trip to the observation deck. Of course that never happened, but the idea of possibly being on the roof with those children when the planes hit haunted me all year.
Another student wrote a list of images in her journal. She conveys a sense of loss and finality amid a collection of epic, majestic, patriotic symbols:
The toast knows when to pop.
The calendar with no days.
The princess with no castle.
The flag with no stars.
The statue who didn’t have a torch.
As the day went on, someone came in and told me the Supreme Court had been bombed. I got bad information like this all day. I was told that eighteen planes were unaccounted for. In my mind, I went down the list of possible targets; the White House, the Capitol, the Sears Tower, the Space Needle, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Gateway Arch, Mount Rushmore, Disneyland... It seemed like all I loved and respected about my country was in jeopardy, and that our entire infrastructure could be taken out in a matter of hours. Our nation, our way of life, and all I believed in seemed so fragile at that moment.
Then the adorably cute Miss Cifferelli, who I had such a wonderful crush on, came into my room, pale as a ghost. I told her everything would be okay, or something like that, and she whispered to me “They fell down. I saw them fall down.” I thought “What? No way. They can’t fall down.” I walked outside to look, and they were gone. Gone. Nothing but a huge cloud of smoke. I didn’t realize I was looking at a funeral pyre that would burn for months.
I never saw them fall. One minute they were smoking, and the next minute they were gone. I never got to say goodbye. Those towers which had been a part of my dreams since I was a little boy living on the other side of the country were gone. Gone. I just couldn’t believe it. I also realized thousands of my fellow New Yorkers must be dead and dying. I did not see them fall. I can’t imagine the chest-crushing, can’t-breathe sensation that must have come with witnessing such a sight. My chest still hurts when I think about it. My numbing fear turned to anger, and then set in a sense of waiting – waiting for the next thing to happen. Waiting to hear what else had been destroyed, waiting to see how this would end. Waiting for revenge. I am still waiting.
This was only my second year teaching, and I barely knew my students, these children. One of the veteran teachers was in the hall. I asked her what I should tell the kids. She told me if I hadn’t told them yet, not to. I trusted her judgment. I myself didn’t know what was really going on, or what to do about it. I didn’t feel like telling the kids that World War Three had just begun in our backyard. How could I possibly explain such a thing?
Of course they asked me what was going on, and I told them that something very bad had happened in Manhattan, but that we would be okay. One of my students had a mother who worked at the World Trade Center, though I didn’t know that at the time. I can’t imagine what would have gone through his young mind if I had told him that the towers were gone. His mother was forever changed by this experience. She was so worried about the possibility of a biological attack, that she had her son vaccinated for smallpox. Then all the other kids wondered why they couldn’t be vaccinated.
Everyone expected another attack. I remember casual conversations about escape routes from the city. I was going to put my cat in a backpack and ride my bike south. On Halloween, only six kids came to class because Halloween seemed like a good day for an attack, I guess. I remember one little girl pulled on my shirt and asked in her sweet little voice, “How do I know if I have Anthrax? Cause I think I might have Anthrax.” These kids started asking questions that should have never been on a little kid’s mind. They became obsessed with the idea of someone bombing the school as bomb threats around the city became almost routine. One girl moved to Chicago and told the class, “The Bible says God will destroy New York.” This is not something I was prepared to discuss in a public school classroom. There was so much I was not prepared for.
Some people have told me, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell them that the Towers and been blown up. You should have told them.” I don’t regret my decision. They would find out soon enough from their parents, and I thought that was better. I felt like I was watching the end of the world. I was not the right messenger, and I knew we would have the rest of our lives to discuss what happened that day. I will not be responsible for these children’s nightmares, I told myself.
September 11th is not something that happened on TV. It was not like watching a movie, as so many people say. It was real. It happened to us. It stayed with us. America had been punched in the face, but New York lost its two front teeth.
As the day went on, people from the office would pick up a couple of kids at a time, using the back stairway to avoid the view from the hall, as parents showed up to take them home. At the end of the day, one of my students from the year before and her sister were still waiting for their mother, who I knew worked at the World Trade Center. I was beginning to doubt that she would ever come to pick her kids up. At best, it would take her hours to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to where our school was. We hung out, played cards, talked, and acted like things were maybe kind of normal; never acknowledging that she may never come back. By early evening, mom showed up, delayed of course by the chaos of a mass exodus from a ruined city. I stayed with them while we waited for mom to show up. That’s what I did to help on September 11th.
One student in the classroom next to mine lost his grandfather. Members of our faculty lost family members who were first responders, and I had friends who lost friends. I didn’t personally know anyone who died that day. Maybe that’s why I focus so much on losing the towers themselves.
In the weeks that followed, our mayor asked the children of New York to submit their ideas for what should be built at the former World Trade Center site. With few exceptions, my students wanted the towers to be built back just the way they were; however, without any prompt from me, each child had added something. One kid drew a 110 story slide, another a giant fire pole. When I asked what it was for, the children said “That’s so people can get out, when they blow it up again.” That idea, “when they blow it up again,” was reflected in almost every drawing the kids made. It was strange to see such a fatalistic concept coming from the minds of nine-year-old children, but they were obviously on to something. The adults in charge of the site have faced the same dilemma, and five years later we still have a hole in the ground.
Our President asked the children of America to donate money to help clothe and feed the children of Afghanistan, as their country underwent a restructuring in our search there for Bin Laden. Our class raised $12, which we were told converted into millions. We were hoping for a letter back; a thank you. Our class wrote to the White House repeatedly, with no reply. I told one girl when we finally stopped writing, “Maybe somebody stole our money.” She responded, “I don’t think someone stole our money. I think the President stole our money.” What should have been an experience in charity became a lesson in disillusion. Children were further terrorized with forced remembrances. Unexpected instructions would come over the intercom: One day we said the Pledge of Allegiance and sung the Star Spangled Banner three times.
Many of my students had absentee fathers, but the Twin Towers were always there, looking over them. And now there was a hole in the sky; a lost presence. It could not be seen, but felt. There was a ghost image, a glowing outline of where they were, exactly. Then, over the days and weeks and months, their position became vague, until their image slowly faded from memory and sight. There were vantage points around the city that I knew as well as my own face, but after a while, I forgot where the towers stood exactly.
I couldn’t believe they were gone. It took months before I wasn’t surprised not to see them. I’d walk out my door in the morning or cross a street where a view of them was prominent, and consciously and subconsciously I was never ready to not see them, for them to not be there. My mind would say, sometimes aloud “Huh? (something’s wrong, missing)… Oh, yeah (I’d realize)… Damn (they were blown up)… You bastards.” I’d go from surprise, to realization, to regret/loss/sorrow, to anger. I wanted someone to die. Death seemed like an appropriate price to pay for such a crime.
My hate has subsided over time. I like to tell myself that I learned not to hate after September 11th, that after those buildings crumbled I learned that hate only destroys. Nothing good comes of hate. But I am still angry. My anger is specific. We were told that we would get those who were responsible, but we haven’t. How can we not find this Bin Laden guy? Am I missing something?
I can’t help but notice, when I drive around town, that most of the flag stickers bought in the days and weeks after September 11th have faded; perhaps only a faint hint of the blue field is left, the red stripes faded completely. I never bought a flag sticker for my car. I believe a flag should be made of fabric and flown from a pole, not embossed on plastic and made in China. All the flags have faded. The plastic patriotism has chipped and frayed. Perhaps we misunderstood what we needed to do to make our freedom and our pride endure and prove truly meaningful. Buying a flag or a commerative t-shirt is no substitute for finding a solution to our problems and bringing our attackers to justice. We missed an opportunity to make the world a better place.
Let me say this: We should have begun weaning ourselves off of foreign oil back in the seventies, when it was obviously a problem, and first labeled a crisis. We didn’t beat the soviets, our last arch-enemy, by engaging them on the battlefield, but by going to the moon. Our technological advances left them in the dust. Until we are 100% energy independent, we will always be at the receiving end of other nations’ whims.
“The defining moment of our generation” we have been told again and again. I knew that when the smoking towers were still standing. It was obviously an historic event and a significant challenge. We have answered this challenge, but we have not risen to it.
My thirst for blood has cooled, but my desire for a reasonable plan for the future has not. Nothing can change what happened that day or what led to it, but our generation’s definition is still being written. How will our generation resolve this challenge? This is an important time to be a teacher. We need to educate ourselves, open our imaginations, and perhaps acknowledge some of the luxuries we take for granted.
Something positive did come from this destruction: I learned to appreciate life, to love the people I’m with, and to try to be honest with myself and everyone. The point of life is to be happy. You are not guaranteed one day on this earth. Find what makes you happy, and do that. It is time to be happy. Every day is numbered.
I think about the Twin Towers everyday, sometimes several times a day. Maybe some day I won’t anymore, but then I ask myself: What is worse, being haunted by those images, or forgetting them? We all know the answer to that question, but what have we done about it?