Learning to Walk

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I gave notice at my job on the first of August and quite honestly, I was very glad to be leaving. It was routine and boring and like most companies, the management never seemed to get around to praising the staff. They seemed to think it wasn’t necessary simply because we were just doing our job, but in two weeks, I’d be done with it - the politics, the attitudes and all the other bullshit that went into a largely thankless job. Don’t misunderstand me, the people being served should always receive care, but it’s a dead-end job. Even a nearly toothless thirty-year-old stripper can be trained to do it. I’m certain of that because that’s what one of my co-workers was, at least before she started doing this job. But I am no one’s judge. I just wish that places like this would be a bit more selective in who they hire. After all, these people are not only disabled, but defenseless and I don’t think that a background check is enough to w**d out those who could be potentially abusive.

I left two weeks later. There were no goodbyes -- no ‘it’s been nice working with you’. Even on my last day, most of the staff continued to avoid me just as they had during the past year. I walked out the front door of the building and never looked back. But, I can say that I did learn something from this experience. I learned that it’s hard, if not impossible, to care about people who only seem to care about themselves. This would reshape my perspective on people, but I would not allow it to make me cynical or jaded. We all have our issues. However, these people seem to think they’re above having any issues at all and I don’t think they would agree, but I think that the word ‘perfect’ loses its meaning when applied in human terms. But, that’s just me and one person’s opinion usually amounts to nothing in the face of insurmountable self-absorption. I don’t hold anything against them personally. It’s the quality of arrogance I despise and all it seems to do is hold us back from making any real progress as a people. A friend of mine would have said that someone had come along and ‘pissed in their gene pool.’ But enough about that.

Classes started a couple of days later. I was back in my element and the previous years’ memories quickly became replaced by textbooks, discussions, and assignments. I realized just how much I really missed the world of academia. It allowed me to not only grow, but to hide from the world, even if temporarily. With all the studying I was doing, there was no longer time to watch the news or read the paper and I actually felt a bit relieved about that. There were too many bad things going on in the world, from violence in the middle-east to incompetent leadership here at home. Then, about three weeks after classes began something unthinkable happened. This was an event that would not only change my life, but the lives of millions of others, and not just in this country but everywhere. I arrived at campus at seven thirty in the morning for an eight o’clock class in clinical psychology. It was Tuesday and class began as usual with the professor checking attendance. At the graduate level, if you missed even one class it was almost impossible to catch up. If you had a serious health issue, you might as well start over next semester.

The class was two hours long and held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but as exhausting as it was, I still felt riveted by its content. At about ten minutes of nine, a teaching assistant entered the room unannounced.

"Um, excuse me," she said.

The professor looked at her with obvious irritation.

"I’m in the middle of teaching a class," he said. “Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait.”

She looked at the professor as though she’d seen a ghost and a tear began to roll down her face.

"New York’s just been attacked," she said.

Everyone in the class was now looking at the teaching assistant with utter disbelief. She was not able to repeat herself and suddenly bursting into tears, ran out of the room. The next few moments were agonizingly quiet as the professor excused himself and left the room. Returned minutes later, he dismissed the class saying that for reasons of security the entire campus would be closed. I left the building with a strong sense of denial.

"We can’t possibly be under attack," I thought. “Probably some kind of accident”.

I stepped outside to see countless other students entering the campus center. Many of them seemed just as confused. In the cafeteria were two televisions, both set to the same channel.

As the images portrayed a large, burning tower, it had been announced that at eight forty-six eastern standard time, a commercial jet had collided with the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. It was believed to have been an intentional act carried out by a terrorist group. What was not known was which one. Time stood still for everyone as shortly thereafter, at the reported time of three minutes after nine in the morning, a second jet slammed into the south tower. Some students began crying as people could be seen jumping from windows to avoid the fire of burning jet fuel. The television cameras intermittently focused on fire and rescue crews running into the towers to evacuate as many survivors as possible. Later, it would be reported that many of them would die in service to their fellow human beings and the only thing that anyone could do was watch.

All told, the number of dead came to two thousand nine hundred and seventy-six. But, that would not be the ‘official’ tally. In truth, the actual number would never be known. We all watched in horror as both towers collapsed under the increasing stress of melting steel. The smoke, dust, and debris now acted as a shroud for the dead. Those who had not been crushed by falling concrete and steel wandered the streets in a state of catatonic shock. They had been forced to stand on the line that lay between life and death and some of them would later realize that there were, indeed, things that were far worse than dying.

I left the campus an hour later, as did many other students. The media would continue to report the attacks and as with anything else, pound it into the nation’s traumatized psyche for weeks. By the time I got back to my apartment, the area had been buzzed by a small squadron of military jets. Airborne patrols had been scrambled up and down the entire east coast as the country was put on high alert. I had not been in the habit of watching the news for quite some time, but when I got home my attention became glued to the television. It’s not that I needed to witness the grotesque nature of this event. I just wanted to know why it happened. Who could we have been pissed off so much that someone would organize something that was no less than m*********r? I was certainly not alone in the asking of this question.

As newscasters and intelligence analysts struggled for an answer, the names of certain organizations came up. It was hypothesized by the media that one of three groups was responsible, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Mujahideen. All three were notorious terrorist groups who were well funded by a few wealthy members of middle-eastern aristocracy. It would later be discovered that money was being funneled to them by one or two governments, including Pakistan, who would later be referred to as our ‘frienemy’. The true meaning of that word still escapes me.

At some point, the grief that had swallowed up the country became something else, something that was entirely unexpected. People came out to celebrate and what was being called an ‘attack on America’ had generated an expression of public loyalty that caught even the media off guard. It was incredible. People came out of their homes waving flags. They lined the streets chanting ‘USA, USA…’ They came together as one, in every corner of the country. Not out of political loyalty, but out of love for their country. That day not only changed the course of history but left a painful wound on the collective psyche of the country, one that would never completely heal. But, I had to see it for myself, and I was close enough to downtown that I could easily walk there within only a few minutes. What I saw beyond belief. People stood shoulder to shoulder, waving small flags while passers-by honked their horns in support. Those who were not holding flags held lit candles as an expression of remembrance for the victims of that day. The words ‘nine eleven’ would be permanently etched into the collective consciousness of the entire country and everyone would remember where they were on the day when the world, as we knew it, came to an end.