Infamous Day

My September 11, 2001 began in the dark. All days have that distinction, but generally I prefer to wait for the sun to signal my rising. But that morning I awoke at 4:40 a.m. for my opening shift at Starbucks. I struggled to shake off sleep as I moved around in the dark quiet of my parents house, pulling on my Starbucks-approved khakis and black collared shirt and tugging my hair into a ponytail. By 5:30 I was punching in and getting the coffee started for the early commuters. Calgary is two hours behind New York City. I was weighing coffee grounds while people were boarding airplanes. Starbucks plays canned music, not the radio, and so we were insulated from the information until a customer came in after the sun had risen and said, "I can't believe you guys are open. Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. One of the towers has fallen. It looks like it was on purpose. It looks like the US is under attack."

News like that is strange. I didn't know what to do with it. I think I had heard of the World Trade Center. I had certainly seen its distinctive silhouette in movies without really knowing what it was. Skyline shots of New York always featured it prominently. I had definitely seen the teaser trailer for Spiderman starring Tobey Maguire in which he traps a helicopter in a web strung between the two towers.

"It looks like the US is under attack."

I didn't know what to do with the information, but I felt sick. Apprehensive. Someone had successfully launched a sneak attack on America. 

"A day that will live in infamy." 

That's how Roosevelt described the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. September 11, 2001 was another infamous day. Who would do this and why? All of a sudden, the world was a different place and we were all in the dark as to why and how it had happened. I felt sicker still when one of our mentally ill 'customers' came in and said loudly and obnoxiously she was glad because she hated America. I had to walk to the back room because I couldn't stand to listen to her. I was nineteen and felt like a kid. Today I would have made her leave. 

Little did I know then that her raving would become a politically acceptable response in the decade that followed. My lunatic customer had a prescient sense of the coming zeitgeist.

My shift ended at 9:30 a.m. since it was also my second day of university. I walked across the parking lot to my parents Honda Prelude aware of the juxtaposition of the glorious morning of blue sky and golden leaves changing with the horror that was unfolding right then. A horror and uncertainty that had sent me--a distant Canadian--reeling. By the time I got home the second tower had fallen and the news was replaying the scenes of it crumbling. There were so many other scenes too. Scenes of people running through the streets of Manhattan as a tsunami of dust chased them. Shots of black specks falling from the towers that the horrified newscasters suddenly realized were people jumping to their deaths rather than stay in those towering infernos.

Other news, too. An explosion at the Pentagon that turned out to be another plane. All flights grounded over North America. Recordings of voicemails from passengers on the planes saying goodbye and I love you. A passenger revolt on Flight 93 that prevents the plane from being flown into the White House or the Capitol Building. 

I went to class that afternoon, but nothing was going on. The university administration had rolled TVs into the common areas and the twenty-four hour news coverage began in earnest. My memory of my first days in university is that of the image of the smouldering tower and the insane sight of a plane flying full speed toward a skyscraper. 

This morning looked just like that morning. Blue, blue sky. Green leaves lightening to a brilliant gold. September 11th. 

An infamous day.