That morning a jet roared above the East Village. I opened my eyes. Lots of planes and helicopters flew over Manhattan. None of them ever this low or fast or loud. Thirty seconds later my apartment windows shook with a muffled thud that sounded more a boom than a crash. The children in the alley day-care center screamed in the playground. They was no quiet in any of them and I dressed for breakfast at the Veselka diner on 2nd Avenue. The telephone rang in the living room. It could only be my Thai ex-girlfriend wanting money. Mem didn’t deserve a single baht after leaving me for a young Italian tourist and an angry curse boiling in my head was better left unsaid and I left the apartment without answering the phone. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was ideal for September. The trees on East 10th Street were tinged by hues of red and yellow. Autumn was less than two weeks away. My bank account had been sapped by six months in Thailand, but I wasn’t too worried about money, since last week Manny, my boss had offered my old job at the diamond exchange. Everything would work out for the best and I walked toward 1st Avenue. At the corner my downstairs neighbor, Jim, ran up and sputtered, “A plane crashed into the Trade Tower!”
“You’re kidding!” “No, you can see the smoke from First Avenue!” Jim pointed to people in the middle of 1st Avenue staring downtown. “In World War II a bomber had slammed into the Empire State Building.” “During a storm. Not on a day like today.”
The clear sky was so blue that New York could have been atop the highest peak of heaven. My neighbor said, “I’m going to the roof.”
“I’ll meet you in a minute.”
We bounded up the stairs two at a time and I ran into my apartment, grabbing my binoculars before climbing another four flights to the roof. The fire door was open and on the roof several neighbors gaped south with good reason. Flames gushed from the shattered northern skyscraper of the World Trade Towers and an apocalyptic plume of smoke trailed east over Wall Street. TV helicopters fluttered around the stricken building and all over Lower Manhattan sirens whined from fire engines, police cars, and EMS vans. The view made no sense.
9/11 took us by surprise and shock the world. Two planes striking skyscrapers in New York.
Amazing and horrifying.
I stood on my roof in the East Village and saw the people jumping. I saw the approach of the second plane and heard the collective groans from the throats of thousands watching the horror.
I will never forget that day and this small book contains the truth and lies about that day.
And the days and years that have followed 9/11
To purchase A DAY FAR REMOVE FROM NORMAL for $12US including shipping, please go to venmo @Peter-Smith-18
The landfill from the World Trade Center excavation 1978.
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