more shit we really didn't need, and how the weather was

What a week. To revisit another week we'd rather hadn't happened, sashay on over to the 9.11 diaries here.

We didn’t need the excitement, see. This is new york. It’s other places that need livening up.

But there we have it, the week that was. It’s really been the two months that were, but this week’s been pretty exceptional.

I’m looking at a hand-drawn map of the BMT Subway and Elevated Lines that dates back to the early 1920’s, when there was an El running down my street, and a stop not a block away from my front door, where I could have jumped on and ridden across the Brooklyn Bridge to Park Row, where I’d transfer to some uptown-bound line.

Today, the 1920’s are seeming pretty good.

We had an election around here. I think that the saying goes, “Remember, Remember, the Sixth of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.”

We’re the United States, not Great Britain. It may not be have been the sixth, rather some other day in November that’s Guy Fawkes Day, but here on our shores, on Election Day, there was certainly plenty of treason and plot.

The papers were full of it. Neck and Neck, Thisclose, Squeaking by, etcetera ad nauseousness.

The truth was, nobody had a fucking idea what was going to happen, and on the radio, they said much the same for the entire day, commenting a great deal on Anthrax that turned up in Ekaterinburg courtesy of a Post Office in Washington DC, and the race for New Jersey Governor which was called for Jim McGreevey fairly quickly, which nobody cares about.

At seven o’clock, Bill Clinton calls. Vote for Mark Green, he says. I know him, and I consider him a close friend, he says.

Wrong number, I said, but it was a recording.

And then at eight o’clock, the phone rings again, and it’s not anyone I’m expecting, it’s Rudy Giuliani.

Please, he says. Vote for Mike Bloomberg. He makes his case and then another voice cuts him off reminding me that the polls are still open, and remember, he says – remember:

The Mayor is counting on you.

Suddenly, I was putting on my shoes. I wasn't going to vote, see. But the Mayor is counting on me!

As someone who at least two years ago decided that if it were by some Act of God humanly possible, I would bear Rudy Giuliani’s children (although I’ve seen Andrew, and boy is he one hell of a free lunch), I responded by bolting at the door, throwing a hat on as I ran down the stairs, two blocks to the polling place.

I waited in the twenty minute line (Rudy was counting on me, see) and so help me God, when it was my time to pull the lever, I voted for Michael Bloomberg.

I did it. God help me. God help all of us.

There were days in between that were pretty quiet, mostly because I was sitting at home looking for work that didn’t exist – the economic situation worsens in these parts, every avenue I’d usually depended on dried up like an old prune. Messy stuff.

Winter showed up. It got bone-cold, everyone huddled up in their peacoats and I watched the leaves fall off the trees along the Park Slope side streets as one by one, cities in Afghanistan began to fall out of the hands of the Taliban and a new order is created over there.

Way far away from places like the corner of Prospect and Sixth, where the little fountain burbles away in front of the Romanesque catholic church and school across from the Olive Vine Café where you can eat falafel and kababs. There is a big American flag above the restaurant.

And we were turning our attentions to other things, like where Mayor Mike’s mansion was, Judy and Diane, the First Girlfriends hanging out at various social events in the city, showing up on the front cover of the papers. Finally, we were gossiping again. Like the old days.

Tuesday, November 12th. There it was, bright and clear like many other days we’ve had throughout the past two months, much like another day we’ll never forget. Almost identical, actually.

Another brilliant morning, blue sky marred by plumes of smoke seen for miles, more dead, more fear, another lockdown, more sadness.

In the midst of the latest state of high alert, nothing was quite as clear cut as anyone would have liked – the uncertainty was a little much.

Regardless of what comes out later, what we knew was, a neighborhood upon which so much tragedy had been visited, the Rockaways, home to so many September 11th widows - this neighborhood had exploded into flames, flames brought to the quiet corner of Newport and Beach 131st as a Santo Domingo-bound passenger jet plummeted from the sky over Jamaica Bay.

Some people, like my neighbor's cousin Lisa, sat in their friends houses some blocks to the west, home from work and yet unable to go home. Lisa's house, which she just purchased with her fiance, is at the corner of Newport and 129th. She still doesn't know in what condition she'll find the house she couldn't afford, when the roadblocks are cleared, and the wreckage is pushed to the side.

True, most of us were fine, and yet again, many still aren’t - was it terror, was it an accident. Rumors everywhere, the uncertainty is too much to handle for some, others would just like a cigarette, many are shredding plane tickets, no one wants to listen to the news.

On the radio, families wept, families of passengers on the ill-fated flight, gathering at the Ramada Inn out on the Belt Parkway, waiting, crying, hoping. What exactly they were hoping for was not immediately clear.

HELLFIRE, read the headline. 265 DEAD IN QUEENS.

Oh my God, said the mayor. Oh my God.

Oh no, God, please, God, not again, said an outbound passenger waiting for news at JFK.

You might say that.

 

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com

Next Update: Thanksgiving Weekend

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