9/11 – A Memoir

September 11th. Another anniversary of “the day” has come and gone and again we sit back and play in our heads the pictures, the emotions, and the simple sounds of that dreadful day. Everyone has a story of what they were doing, where they were going, what they had to do… this is my story…
I was beginning my junior year of high school. I woke up and packed away my soccer boots and training kit for our first training session of the year after school not to mention some books to fake an interest in education. The day was brisk and bright. The sun out did itself that day belting anything its warm presence touched. The cussed N train always had the habit of being late or as the PA would say, “detained.” I hated that train, but loved it when it was there. I think my loss of religion came about because sometimes you can’t believe your luck or lack of, for that matter. Every morning, sprinting up the steps from the 4 train below, only to watch as the doors would close and slowly it would tease as it sat for a few seconds before tugging away and down the tunnel like a worm feeling the light. But funny enough, my wait was shorter than usual that morning and I remember thinking to myself – something’s got to be wrong! It was humour at the time but how right I soon was going to be. The thing you have to realise about New York is that everything is planned and scheduled: coffee is at this time, lunch that time. Everything is planned and improvisation is a new, and sometimes, unwanted object. For example, when I took that train every morning for 4 years, it wasn’t uncommon to see the same faces in the same seats everyday. You never spoke to them, but you knew who they were. You didn’t know where they were going, nor did you care. Welcome to New York. New Yorkers are given the title of a group of people who are cold and selfish and God knows what else. But the truth is it’s not that they are cold and can’t love, it’s just that they love what they love and anything else doesn’t have bearing on their lives. And it isn’t because they don’t want to know, more like: they don’t have time to know. That is why the train was such an eerie place to be. Nobody smiles, nobody talks. Music blares from headphones, more often than not, I contributed to that, the conductor’s voice always struggled to reach me over the like of Oasis, and whatever else I listened to. In turn, however, Liam Gallagher1 struggled as we tore through the tunnel from Manhattan to Queens.
You never know about life. At times you feel it lives you rather than you living it. For a second, think back to where you were when you heard the news… I was getting ready for gym class. I loved phys ed. It seemed so out of place in a building with books and lectures and tests and detention and dorky Catholic school uniforms. Don’t get me wrong, I did like school, because of the people and I figured I’d probably be doing nothing with my life anyway during the day, so school was more of a thing to keep me from being totally bored. I’ll be honest, I’ve slacked and I’ve gone through the motions but I do thing because I like to do them, not because somebody tells me to. I didn’t go to school because I had to, or because Dad told me to, but, because I genuinely wanted to.
Mr. Collins was this big, white haired and moustached retired fire-fighter who was not only my gym teacher but also the Junior Dean of discipline. My mates and I always said that in the dictionary under grandfather, Mr. Collins’ face would appear. The man was a dead ringer for stereotypical granddaddy! He had the bright smile, red nose, white moustache, white hair. If he didn’t pass for a grandda, he definitely passed for a Father Christmas! He was heavy on his feet and trounced the floor to reach where we were seated.
– Mr. Clarke, can I see you for a second
– Sure Mr. Collins
In addition to being dean and teacher, Mr. Collins was also the number one supporter of the men’s soccer team. And I figured he was going to give me a pre-season pep talk even before our first pre-season practice. But as I walked over to wear he stood, I saw something I’d never seen from him before. His eyes seem to hang even though they were opened and his mouth seemed to just, rest on his cheeks. I still don’t know why he told me first, before anyone else. But I’m glad he did, and that too, I don’t know why either.
People described the day as a blur. Me? I remember everything. I remember who cried, who freaked out, who stared in disbelief, who left school early. It was hard to go to class on the south side of the building because that side of our school faced directly into downtown Manhattan. My journalism class was on the south side. All you could see was this big stack of black smoke glide across this beautiful blue sky. Usually smoke will begin to disappear, but for some reason, it seem to just carry on across, bellowing at times. Ms. Rau, my journalism teacher, got up at one point as one of the students had called her mom and was able to give repeated updates of what was happening beyond New York. She stumbled her wait out the door and I can still remember her crying. It wasn’t soft at all. It was like when you’re throwing up and it just seems to explode out your mouth; she seemed to erupt into a ball of wailing.
Word got round that New York City, the island of Manhattan, was officially locked down which meant my sister and I were going to be stuck in Queens or if worst came to worst we were going to walk across the 59th Street Bridge. Fighter jets screamed from above which made everyone tense because you weren’t sure if it was a fighter or another commercial plane nose diving its beak into something new. I don’t think I have ever felt such a feeling of helplessness.
At some point during the day I got a hold of my sister, who went to the same school, and told her to meet me in the cafeteria at the end of the day. At that time, contact to my parents who worked in the city was nil. I called everybody I knew from my cell phone, but cells were down and so were the towers. At one point I laughed as I strolled through the hallway with my cell phone to my ear searching for someone, and Ms. Cooper, a freshman dean as well as an Italian teacher, walked by and asked if I could get in contact with anyone or if I had service. I cracked a smile said my no and walked on. Any other day, my butt would’ve been in detention faster than it takes to say, “But Ms…”
Teachers had their own philosophy during the day and at one point I stumbled across my sophomore global studies teacher, Mr. Penikas. He was clearly shaken and used language I’ve never heard any teacher use in school. My mate Cesar was with me and is a bit loopy at the best of times and asked who would do such a thing. He chewed on a ham and cheese wrap and wiped away a pile of sweat from his head. It was then I noticed his baby blue shirt was nearly drenched in perspiration. The whole idea of a teacher being freaked out kind of freaked me out and decided that the thought of what was going on outside that south side window, was far too much for this man.
It is unfortunate that life seemed so inert that day. We went on in acquiesce at St. John’s Prep. Tears were heard and screams were seen. Hugs were given and handshakes were strong and hopeful as if to say “good luck and be safe.” It was unfortunate, but being in the location as to where I was; like I said, helpless. You, at least I did, receive an image of bodies upon bodies just strewn across lower Manhattan. Life was so inert because you had to accept that people died and were going to die. It was cruel being in New York that day. People say you have to get over it and all this about closure, but in the end it isn’t as if your dog just died, it’s your best mate, or your uncle, or your wife; people who won’t be coming back. The psyche of New York would have to battle after that day. New York – a place that doesn’t care or hasn’t the time to, had to endure a new change in its thinking because all of a sudden, we had to start caring. This was different. September 11th, 2001 affected everyone.
If anybody could, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. That night I went with a mate of mine down to the so-called Ground Zero and for the next day or so, passed buckets upon buckets of rubbish and rubble and dust and whatever else the towers had crumbled into. I felt lucky only because the feeling of helplessness was sidelined. I still can’t get over that these were the tallest office building in the world at one point and the only bit of office equipment I remember seeing was the leg of a computer chair. Another fire-fighter said he had found a keypad with just the left hand side intact. It was eerie, New York – a place that seemed so distant from the rest of the world. The sky shined blue and the sun cried yellow, but everything was grey and everything was discoloured. Nobody talked or made a noise. All that was heard was the sawing of metal in the distance. An American flag draped down a building behind me and people cheered, but then it was quickly silent again as the buckets kept coming.
Later on September 12th, our group was told to take a brake and I walked over to a canteen like area and grabbed a water. A portable tele was set up and was tuned onto NY1 News. The next thing I knew a man I know with ginger hair walked on camera held a photo. It was Brian Macken
– This is my cousin, Michael Armstrong. He worked for Canter Fitzgerald
and is missing, if you’ve seen him, please contact …
Michael was a good friend of mine and our family. My heart seemed to sink well into my belly and grabbing it back to my chest was the hardest thing I’ve ever encountered. I then began thinking of all the people I know. My uncle, Dennis McCool – a fire-fighter in the Bronx, Brian’s brother, Emmit – a probationary cop my cousin and I had grown up with and knew really well. Where were they? Did they survive? They did, thank God, but Dennis McHugh didn’t. Dennis was a fire-fighter round the corner from where I lived and had known him since my early days of playing football in the Bronx. He and nine of his crew members from Engine 22, Ladder 13, perished.
I’ve never really ever told anyone about my experiences of those days in September. I remember the month began brilliantly with Ireland beating Holland at home to secure second spot in qualification of the World Cup. But by the end of the month I had been to so many wakes with empty or no caskets, I struggle to remember whose memorial I was at. Then a few short months later, my nana died. What a year, ah? Definitely the world changed and our lives did as well. Of course we carried on like nothing, but I remember being on a packed subway one morning and a man started rummaging through his back pack. His back must’ve been burnt from all the eyes focused on his every movement.
New York has since moved on, but it will never forget – it can’t forget! I am no different from anyone else living in New York that day. Our lives were flipped, and our hearts, jerked. I did what I did because I felt I had to. People I knew had died, but they were friends. What about those who lost mothers and fathers. Two brothers I had known died. One was a fire-fighter, the other a broker. Two brothers … how do their parents go on from that? I was one of the lucky ones. It is cynical to say “lucky” but out of this horrendous day, I honestly was. Everybody knew somebody, but the relationship of that somebody is the sad part I try to describe. We had to accept that people were dead, dying, going to die. It is absolutely horrible for me to say that I only lost friends. Sure they were close to me, but take for instance my freshman English teacher, Ms. McCourt. I lost a friend; she lost a fiance that was officially proposing over dinner September 11th, 2001. And Michael Armstrong’s fiance – they were getting married in two weeks. People don’t realise that it is easy to say “get over it” or “yeah it’s hard, but you got to move on.” New York as a whole can move on, but you just can’t pretend that nothing has happened because something did happen. Something catastrophic and something that will not necessarily haunt, but something that will plague our heads, our thoughts, and possibly our dreams for our generation and the generations to follow.