"Pray For Are Victum's"

 Entry 1

A few weeks before 9/11, Jenny and I flew American out of Logan to NYC. It's hard to imagine today what it was like back then. If you weren't flying, you could accompany departing passengers to their gate, or meet arriving passengers at the gate. Things were more lax than that. We were at the gate early--so early the flight in front of ours had yet to depart. We were prepared to wait. I'm sure we had our Palm Pilots, and were quite happy just playing the masturbating monkey game. It was a thing in 2001, it just was. 

Anyway, the plane for the flight before ours was at the gate and was delayed--la plus ca change and all that. It was delayed a lot. So much so that American personnel allowed people to deboard the plane and go get food, stretch their legs, whatever. The counter was across the room from the gate, maybe 30 feet away. As people returned, the gate agent, who was at the counter and not the gate, asked people to hold up their boarding passes. From that distance, not even Superman could read the lettering. It isn't hard to see that the hijacker's chose Logan and American in particular, for a reason. When I traveled last week, I got the full pat down, everything but a cavity search. I even had to take off my knee brace, which hadn't shown up on the scanner as an area of concern--I didn't challenge it, you can't win.

I flew out of Newark on Delta the day before 9/11. It was my 35th birthday. That morning I had taken a cab over to the J.C. Penny catalog store to pick up a rocking chair I had purchased for Jenny, who was four months pregnant, as a surprise, and needed to retrieve it. I hailed another cab and got the box back to the dorm, where I hurriedly assembled it before I got in a cab to the airport. 

The next morning I was in Alabama, stressed because I was supposed to meet my client that day--a death row inmate--and Delta had lost my luggage. We had an apartment in Montgomery, and one of my roommates was already in the car. The other roommate and I get into the car before 9 and are shushed because NPR was on and reporting a plane had hit the south tower. No one knew it was a jet yet on NPR or in the car. 

We got to EJI before the second plane hit the other tower, and were watching the television at that time. I had my Sprint cellphone with retractable antenna, and called Jenny, who was working on the Upper West Side. All phone lines were jammed. All day long, I tried to get hold of her. No luck. Eventually, I thought to call Jenny's mom, who had spoken to Jenny, she was okay, and had walked home to West 3rd and Mercer. The subways were not running. She had made sure to stay in the middle of the street--like all pedestrians that day--away from buildings.

"Pray For Are Victum's"

The next morning we drove into EJI again. As we approached the freeway exit, above an overpass was a handwritten sign that made me understand almost everything I needed to appreciate Alabama.  

I spent today alone. I did the Puyallup. I had a frozen pizza. No ice cream, no cake. No presents. Abby texted early and called later. My sisters texted. One said she didn't realize we were doing dinner tonight--implausible given we were texting about it last night, and the other said she

September 2023

forgot--odd given it was her idea. It was nice, nonetheless. I got to hang with Willow tonight, and she has been particularly in need of belly-rubs--which is about as good as it gets these days.  

Abby called tonight. She got into the acapella group she auditioned for at school and is very excited. I am a proud papa.