Rhetorical Outbursts

Mr. Ex gave his account of 9/11/01 last year. Here’s mine:

We overslept so I didn’t follow the usual routine of turning on the radio and listening over breakfast. Mr. Ex called me from the car on the way to work about the first plane. My first thought was “That must have been a really bad pilot to hit one of the tallest buildings in the world on a clear day.” My second thought was “Well it’s more likely they did it on purpose.” As I said “That was on purpose” he shushed me and said that they had just reported a second plane had hit the other tower. We got off the phone. I thought of telling him to come home since he worked at the Capitol but didn’t because I knew he would think I was over-reacting.

Our son was four and I was five months pregnant with our daughter. I had to go to the grocery store and decided to take a quick shower before going. This was not a routine day by any means. I did feel a sense of urgency but felt like there were some things that just had to be done first, like washing my hair. Who faces a national tragedy with greasy hair? I listened to WTOP in the shower and heard a reporter from the Pentagon explaining that there were meetings or something about the attacks in New York. She also said it was her birthday. Several minutes later the folks in the news room said they were hearing rumors of smoke at the Pentagon and wondered if she had heard anything. She said that they were just being instructed to evacuate the building but didn’t know what had happened yet. By the time I was fully dressed, they were reporting that a plane had definitely hit the Pentagon. Still locked in the bathroom, I cried.

When I regained my composure, my son and I went to the grocery store. I couldn’t find WTOP in the car. I tried the sister station that plays classical music thinking that they would break for news. They were playing Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries“. That was somehow disturbing and comforting at the same time. My mother-in-law called and said a plane had crashed in Pittsburgh. I said “Pittsburgh? Why Pittsburgh?” Now I have nothing against the good people of Pittsburgh, but if the first three targets were the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, wouldn’t you think Pittsburgh would be a bit lower down the list? Obviously this report refered to Flight 93 which crashed in Shanksville, PA. Once the story was correctly reported I knew I was very proud of someone on that plane. We didn’t know until much later exactly what had happened on Flight 93, but it was apparent that the hijackers had intended something more shocking than crashing into a field. And as we have since learned, the likely target for Flight 93 was the Capitol Building, a world-renowned symbol of the American government. There’s no way to know how such a thing would have impacted Mr. Ex. He worked in an adjacent office building so depending on the angle of the plane and skill of the pilot, it might not have affected his office and escape route at all. Or it might have crashed directly into his office. Who knows?

The store was no more crowded than usual. I bought my regular groceries along with a few canned goods and comfort foods, thinking there was no telling what the next fews weeks would bring, let alone the rest of that day. In the check-out line I overheard someone say that one of the towers had fallen. I thought they must be mistaken and tried to correct them, “No, they were both hit by airplanes and were on fire, but didn’t fall down.” I heard the news repeated a couple more times and figured that there would probably be a lot of misinformation that day. Mr. Ex called me on my cell phone to say that someone was reporting smoke at the State Department and possibly The Mall. These reports proved false. It was probably the result of seeing Pentagon smoke from different angles around the city.

The woman in front of me in the check-out line hadn’t heard any news all morning. At first she was confused, disbelieving what we were telling her. When I said that a plane had hit the Pentagon she said “My husband works there.” I handed her my phone and told her to call and make sure he was alright, hoping that was the correct protocol in such a situation. That wasn’t really covered in my grandmother’s “act like a lady” manners training. She got through to him quickly, telling him she had just heard the news and wanted to make sure he was alright. Then, like a real military wife, she said “O.k. I don’t want to tie-up the phones. I’ll let you go so other people can call their loved ones. I’ll see you when you get home.”

I think I heard in the car that one of the towers had really fallen. I watched the news on TV for the next few hours. A friend who is a doula said she’d had a client go into labor and would I mind babysitting for a few hours. I agreed to go to my friend’s house and let the kids play while I continued to follow the news. Mr. Ex called to tell me when he got home. It had taken him 4 hours. He also told me about Barbara Olson. He used to see her at work sometimes and of course we saw her on TV often. This ended-up being the only 9/11 casualty either of us had any sort of connection to, however tenuous. Thanks be to God!

In the days and weeks that followed, American flags cropped-up everywhere. They were in the usual places in front of people’s houses, but also on cars, overpasses, balconeys, everywhere. When we first bought our house we had every intention of getting a nice American flag to fly out front. I really don’t know why we didn’t do it for five years, but on 9/11 we just had to. But of course by then there just weren’t any flags to be had. Then at work one day Mr. Ex heard that the stationary store in the Capitol (a sort of office supply store) had flags. Congressmen were sending staff down to buy boxes of them to be made available for constituents. Mr. Ex came home with the smallest size they had left, 4 x 6. Yes, that’s rather large for flying on one of those angled poles on the front porch, but that was all we could get so we flew it anyway. I have a 3 x 5 now that I fly most of the time. But the big one is out there right now, blocking the sidewalk in front of our house and flapping in our faces when we come up the steps, but if I can’t fly our special “9/11 Flag” on 9/11 then when can I fly it?