Ghosts in the Sunlight

It’s another perfect weather day for September 11th—the city buildings standing out against a brilliant blue sky—just like the original day. I walked by a fire station in Brooklyn this morning, and there was a group of firemen in uniform, talking and remembering.

I was on the Q train that morning. There is a point where the subway emerges from DeKalb station into the light of the Manhattan Bridge. “Yo, that shit is on fire.” I looked out the window and saw a plume of smoke coming from the World Trade Center. I did not have a good sense of perspective; it did not seem like anything major. I decided to get off the train at Canal St. and investigate.

A lot of what happened next is uncomfortable to summon. I remember going into a deli and asking for a pen and paper. The guy behind the counter did not have paper but gave me a menu to write on. I also remember that they were still making breakfast sandwiches while people streamed northward outside the door.

The things I wrote on that deli menu became part of an omnibus essay that the editor wrote at the magazine where I worked. The editor gathered what many of us on staff observed and wove it into a statement of collective witness. (A great virtue of print magazines was how they could encase a historical moment.)

I was lucky that day, and foolish. Each year, I wake up on 9/11 and look out the window: here is a day like any other, you could just be going about your normal stuff, your normal routine, and it all could end just like that.