But I digress, I finished my cigarette grabbed a clean towel and jumped in the shower. I flipped on the 1985 Sound Design boom-box I had inherited from my older sister that sat on the tank of the toilet to provide music for bathing as well as the occasional extreme bowel movement. There was also a small library of Maxims, old school Nintendo Powers, and porno mags for the extended dance mixes your colon was wont to produce from time to time. We also had Tetris and a Gameboy Color. Anyway, as I scrubbed my tanned muscular 20 year old body free of dirt and sleep I was only half listening to the radio. It was basically background noise to keep me from falling asleep with shampoo in my hair. But the news report about a runaway airliner DID capture my attention.
I was kind of baffled by it. I wondered “what the hell is going to happen here, exactly? Where are you going, guys?” But then a guitar driven guitar ballad captured my attention away from those thoughts and it was back to drinking my Coke in the shower and washing my balls. I shut off the radio, dried off, and dressed in a clean uniform and apron for work. It was around 8:20 or so, so I had time to join D.W. on the couch for whatever cartoon or mystery show starring Angela Lansbury he saw fit to watch on his day off. But nothing so tame was on the television that morning. CNN or some local news was what D.W. had graced the Nintelevision with as I sat down next to him with a fresh can of Coke and lit another Camel.
The story was about the runaway airliner I’d heard about earlier and my attention was again grabbed. When the newscaster went live to New York my jaw, stomach and heart fell. They showed footage of the World Trade Center. One of the Twin Towers was smoking with a big hole in the side of it. “Holy Shit…..” I said aloud. “Accident or on purpose, you think?” he asked between the guitar scales he was playing. “Don’t know. We’ll see, I guess”, was all I could say as I snuffed out my cigarette in the comically large mid-70’s ashtray on the coffee table.
It was about that time The League of Mothers started making calls to The Oregon. Realistically they weren’t much of a League. But we liked to picture our mothers all around a huge Bond villain conference table with a citywide map behind them plotting our demise and destruction. First to call was Lanzer’s’ mom. She asked if we were watching TV, were sober, and if her son was awake. Not in that order, I’m sure. He was not; it was before 9 in the morning, after all. She insisted that I go wake him up; post-haste. I did and he trundled his sleepy hung-over ass up to the living room to see what his mother was babbling about. His response to the NYC skyline billowing smoke out of a skyscraper was about the same as anyone sitting in the TV room, a look of shock and an almost dropped phone and some expletives. Joe had joined us, being awaken by the ringing of the phone and coaxed away from his path from the bathroom back to sleepy town by D.W. and the promise of shit going all wrong on the television. D.W. and Jim’s mom was the next to call after Lanzer hung up the phone. She pretty much asked the same questions as Lanzer’s counterpart. As we watched New York burn, and the second Tower get hit I realized I needed to get to work. As I was gathering my keys, lighter and wallet my mother called and we briefly discussed the doom being broadcast on CNN and I told her to keep me updated at work. She promised she would, said she loved me, and I tossed the phone to Joe saying his was probably the next that was going to call and left for work.
When I got to work my manager Judy had no idea what was going on so we switched the usual piped in music to the radio with a news station so we could be kept abreast of the situation. Being East Canton there was very little the customers normally discussed on an average day aside from the weather. This obviously was not an average run of the mill day because not one person wanted to discuss the cloud cover and the chance of precipitation. The hungry masses were convinced it was the End of Days. The Rapture. The Second Coming. The Apocalypse. We’re All Fucked Day. This went on for about half an hour or so. Making sandwiches and trying to hear what was going on in the world. The announcer formally confirmed that it was a terrorist attack. Judy and I locked eyes in a look that said “Fuuuuuck”. We then continued to make sandwiches for people and tried to keep the panic and concern off our faces. Then my mother called with a report that the first Tower had fallen, and the second was likely to fall any time now. I was starting to worry about my Brother from Another Mother at that point. John was in NYC for college, the belly of the beast as it were. I hoped he was safe and couldn’t wait until my shift was over so I could give him a call and check in to see if he was OK.
People kept going on about how the Akron/Canton area was the next on the terrorists list. You know, due to our production of wartime materials during World War II. What they failed to realize as the Akron wasn’t the top tire maker anymore, and that Hoover mainly made vacuums and wasn’t able to shift to munitions manufacture with the flip of a switch or the pull of a lever. Shit, their vacuum cleaners caught fire if you turbo charged the motor and tried to sweep up 50 pounds of flour with one. But the populous was still worried. Add to that the reports that were pouring in about Flight 93 basically crop dusting us and it was near a full fledged panic.
I got off work and went home listening not to the usual mix-up of Beastie Boys and Nirvana CD’s, but I actually turned on AM radio. Bad news kept rolling in by the second. By the time I got home I had heard 20 minutes of disturbing shit and had several messages on the answering machine. One from Stark State saying that all classes were canceled for the 11th, one from Bruce I think, and one from my very panic stricken girlfriend. I called her to say I’d be up as soon as I got a shower and made a few phone calls. John’s dorm phone was busy, and his cell phone said that all the lines were already in use. Not a huge surprise with all the primitive cell phone traffic on the networks out there. I sent out an email to him anyway, showered and left the house.
The girl I was dating at the time was going to Kent State, so it was about a 45 minute drive up there. I resumed the random CD routine because I knew we’d be watching the news up there and I wanted a break from all the horribleness happing. So I put on some tunes and hit the road. When I arrived on the Kent Campus, it looked like a ghost town. Completely deserted due to class cancellations and everyone being glued to their TVs. That gave people something to do besides panic, I guess.
Three and I sat on her top bunk eating pizza and watching the news on her 19” TV/VCR combo set up in the corner. Carolina Roommate wandered in, sat on her bunk watching for awhile and then went to smoke or call her family in North Carolina. Maybe drink, I’m not entirely sure. A few hours later and many news clips of shit on fire and other shit falling down I left for home. The rest of Kent was as deserted as the campus. The only thing actually open was the Sunoco station, and they were changing the signs. Gas went from two dollars and some change a gallon to around $6.50, in the span of a day. Yep, the panic was starting to set in and people were starting to lose their collective shit. All the other gas stations on the way home featured jacked up prices also.
The next day school was back in session and all we did was talk about what happened. Like an AA meeting, or group therapy. And it was pretty badly needed all around, I think. I think the one thing that stands out about September 12th was the lack of noise outside. The Akron/Canton airport was on federal lockdown. The lack of airline noise in-between classes on cigarette breaks was unnerving. Add to that the solemn mood of most people that day and it was spooky quiet.
Talk to your grandparents and they can tell you exactly where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Ask your parents and they can tell you what they were doing, and where they were the moment they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. Pretty much anyone ages seventeen to adult? We can tell you what we were doing on Tuesday September 11th, 2001.
Several interesting post scripts to this little autobiographical entry:
1. The next day I climbed up on the roof of The Oregon and lowered the Pirate Flag to half mast. The guy across the street (Frito Lay as we called him due to him driving a Frito Lay truck for work) who usually called the cops on us because someone threw beer bottles at his truck and caught his mailbox on fire was out doing some yard work. We made eye contact after I lowered the flag and he gave me a kind of nod of approval. Like a “You guys are a constant pain in my ass and I think you steal my newspapers on the weekends, but you guys are decent people in your own fucked up little way. Well played, sir.”
2. On the 13th I went back up to Kent as per usual and saw the most fucked up display of Patriotism on the way home. I drove by this house:
See that porch? A scruffy guy was standing on that porch in a camouflage jacket with pins and metals on it. He had that haircut that middle aged men have that shows they haven’t been to the barber and had been rocking the same hairstyle since around 1974 or so. Also, he had a glorious Foghat mustache. But what really caught my attention was that he was waving a faded American flag. I know, everyone was waving flags that week. But he had it on the end of a RIFLE. He was on his porch. In a camouflage outfit, probably from Viet Nam, waving a flag on the end of a gun next to state route 44. Holy shit that’s Patriotic! Like if Captain America had walked by this guy would have called him a pussy and stolen his shield to wave off the end of something.
Thanks for reading. But that’s it for now, kids
Heart,
The Doctor
