"Somebody just crashed a plane into the Pentagon!" The toothbrush froze, leaving my mouth flecked with foamy paste as I looked at the man who had just barged into the bathroom of the Indiana rest stop where I had spent the night.
"On purpose?" I asked seeking further clarification.
"Yeah, on purpose." He replied with a look allowing his follow up question of 'where the hell have you been?' to remain unasked.
I finished brushing my teeth and went out to my car, tuning the radio past the static to hear special bulletins break in with stunning reports of a nation at war.
The Twin Towers struck. State Department bombed. Planes hijacked and the Pentagon in flames. It came so fast in those first hours. Second tower hit, second tower falls, the first not far behind. Tendons tried to hold my jaw in place but failed and I propelled my little Nissan down the road at sixty nine miles per with a mouth that could not close.
September 11, 2001. I came to the news late. I didn't' have a TV to watch. I was moving. To Virginia. Covered about seven hundred miles of America that day. Passed a lot of small towns and family diners. I pulled late afternoon special editions off the news racks. Full color photos of spectacular fireballs and dark shaped planes flying into the New York skyline. Eerie.
I stopped more frequently than I would have normally. I needed to share my day; it was too much to process alone and I needed human reaction and interaction. At the diners small crowds would huddle around the grainy television straining for a glimpse of the chaos unfolding. Nothing made sense, nobody had a grasp on what was happening. Only that the central target of the Cold War had been struck and the two iconic pillars of our civilization were no more.
"They were jumping!" A lady next to me said under her breath to no one in particular.
And they were. Like human raindrops. Death by gravity or death by fire. Many made the choice that day. 'They were jumping!' was how all my conversations started over the next few days. I kept hearing about the couple who jumped together. She was wearing a red dress. They held hands all the way down.
I went through a lot of emotions that morning and in the days that followed. Shock and surprise gave way to anger and sadness. Deep sadness. But I also felt pride. Pride in my country, pride in my fellow Americans.
Everybody locked eyes that day from the crusty farmer who blinked a tear as he pulled his eye from the little TV in the diner to the gas station attendant who sold me the paper with my $1.03 unleaded and the receptionist at the hotel where I pulled in to catch Dan Rather on the lobby big screen. Everyone was an American then and it was the first time I'd seen it so blatant and so unashamed. There were differing opinions, some wanted to 'Nuke 'em All!' while others held out for a more thoughtful approach but everyone was on the same bus and everyone felt the sting of the Terror Punch.
September 11, 2001. They said it would change the world, that things would be different from here on out. And they are, can't argue that. It's changed and we changed with it. But how did we change and did we change for the better?
The first alteration I saw was instant. The unity. The American Spirit. The defiance of all and the strength of everyone. Together we could do anything. That felt great. Remember? Going into a store and just feeling that? Hey, we're in this thing together. Black, Mexican, Brother or Other I didn't see a hyphenated nationality for weeks. Just Americans. Flag sales went through the roof. The flag means different things to different people but in the days after September 11 that flag meant WE were in it together.
That felt good.
But it didn't last and I ask now, eight years on, what have we done and where have we gone? The flag again means different things to different people, it's no longer an outrage to drag it on the ground and it's once more acceptable to stay seated while it's raised. Our freedom is back and we can push it for our own agenda regardless of how it affects the rest. We're safe from Terror now, the TSA makes sure of that and by God, nobody's ever going to sneak something onto an airplane in their shoes anymore.
Please.
When the Towers collapsed I would have bet paychecks that we'd have something in their place by Christmas. Knock us down? We'll build it back bigger and badder than ever. We'll touch the sky.
But it's eight years on. September 11, 2000 and effin' nine. And what do we have? A hole in the hallowed ground. No monument, no testament to our unified greatness, no landmark that gives New York it's place as the World City.
Instead we've got a bunch of selfish, bickering tweets who elbowed their way to the front of the line and claim they alone have the right and duty to consecrate the land in the way they deem fit. I don't even know exactly who they are anymore there's so many of them. Widows? Fire fighters, cops, bus drivers, Morgan Stanley employees, flight attendants? The list goes on.
And in the New America, same as the Old America, we're going to push, pull and tear to ensure I get mine and my interests are satisfied first.
Eight years later we got a fuckin' hole in the ground instead of a thousand foot finger to the sky that we can all look upon to remind us this war was brought to all of us and each of us has a stake in its outcome. Like it or not and all politics aside We are all in this thing together.
Freedom comes when we withdraw the demand to appease the individual and accept the will of the broad mass. The 9/11 monument will be built when we accept that reality and it will be something we will all be able to gaze upon with pride.
I look towards the day when we will commemorate the land at Ground Zero with a tribute that rises from the ashes and stands tall against the American sky. A legacy that incorporates the emotion that coursed through this country on that day and in the days that followed. September 11 is a day I remember for what it really was, a day in which this country dropped its superficial labels and barriers and became united. That's my 9/11 and that's the fitting tribute the memorial needs to be.
But for now we are forced to consume the monument that stands in its place. A memorial to missed opportunity, greed and self interest. A monument that has taken eight years to construct and one that can only be seen for what it is.
A hole in Hallowed Ground.
