I was unemployed and living in an apartment in Elizabeth. Pretty much every day then was already a drunken panic. I was between retail jobs but was trying to get by on those work-at-home schemes. Mostly scams. With a little more panic and a lot less drunkenness, maybe I could have got by, soldering circuit boards or assembling beaded necklaces and selling them myself. (Wait, I have to sell them myself?) Point is, I had no reason to be up that morning. My roommate, a friend from high school, was quite gainfully employed (in The City) and the only reason I lived in an apartment that was really nicer than I had business being in and ultimately had no way to afford. So he was at work. Everyone in that building hated me, with reason. Phones were out. There was plenty of booze in the place and I started most mornings with records and sifting through the wreckage. Sometimes I wonder how far into the day I might have gotten before I got the news.

But it was 50/50 that I’d turn the radio on if I didn’t find a record that caught my immediate mood. I clearly remember sifting through the stacks that morning before checking my phone: “No Service”. That’s odd. I flipped on FMU. It was Mike Goodstein, speaking in a shaky voice about what ever it was, an accident at the WTC. This is right before the 2nd tower fell. I ran to the TV in the next room just in time to see it happen. So that was something. This was more than what it was for me. Not that I’m too special in this, but was normally in the building at that time in the morning. More accurately underneath it, in the train station. It wasn’t the best route, but I preferred transferring there, just to be there. The whole complex under there was pretty impressive. When I first moved to North Jersey we used to drive up to Weehauken just to look at the skyline, then later, hanging out on the Jersey City waterfront, the Towers dominated. But more than the idea of being inside that place, it really was something, even during rush hour. I remember the rows of payphones that lined the main concourse that sometimes you still had to use then and you felt like you were in a movie even thought I hate admitting it. I hate having to be sentimental about a city commute. If someone blew up the Turnpike would we be fondly remembering the rest stops? Probably, but it was a little more than that. I’m thinking about the inside of the place itself that I miss. Then there’s the people. I didn’t know anyone that worked there or who was otherwise unlucky that day.

But I don’t know how to finish that paragraph. Are you ready to remember? The thing you weren’t supposed to ever forget? I honestly haven’t been thinking about too much, the details I mean. You can’t walk around in constant state of trauma, that’s crazy. Civilization would go nowhere and…uh…but we’ve got youtube now, which is…almost as good as tv! And our cellphones are bigger that they’ve ever been, at least the most expensive ones. So maybe civilization peaked in 2000. That makes sense tho, right? Gotta peak sometime.

But anyway, my other big memory of the WTC was seeing The Box Tops reunion. It was a decent show, I guess. The other people in my band that had just broken up were really into Alex Chilton. He’s alright, but I make a point of trying to make everyone else look like a poseur (it’s a problem) so I couldn’t miss that show, but I mostly wandered around the plaza. I wandered around NYC a lot back then but usually did not have am excuse to be in that plaza that was between the towers. I never had the cash on me to make to the observation deck but figured I would whenever. I just chilled on the huge circular bench around that weird globe fountain, looking up at the things. The lights in one of the towers from were I was sitting that day were like eyes. It felt like Tron a little. But it didn’t feel like anything else really. It felt like you sitting in front of the damn World Trade Center with little lights that look like eyes looking right at you and over there is Alex Fucking Chilton who maybe you don’t care about that much but he produced the Cramps, man. I was drinking a ginger beer.

%