Until Tuesday (1) Monday night. It was cool and breezy. My boss told me I didn’t have to work that night because there weren’t that many reservations, so I went straight home from Saint Xavier University to my apartment. I was sleepy and drained when I got home, but I didn’t know why. I had been so enthusiastic about transferring to this school-it was my resurrection. I was going to be a grade school teacher, and nothing was "gonna stop me." I even built up a little routine out of my commute, my work, and my food. But that Monday evening I missed my friends at my old school. I missed my teachers. I wanted to tell them something and I didn’t know what it was. I remembered how rooming with my brother gave me someone to talk to, and now I was a bit lonely. More and more memories came. Then I waved them off as nostalgia and tried to do some homework to get rid of it. Whatever it really was, I couldn’t get rid of it. I put my books on the floor and leaned them against the couch, as if I would pick them up later. I was so sleepy. Why? I’ve worked longer and harder than this for years and didn’t feel a thing! Why am I so tired? I almost started to regret leaving my TV with my brother. Oh, well-we were sharing it anyway. He’ll need it more than I do. I nodded off again and again, as tired as I was back at my old school every evening. But this was different. This was empty. This was sheer daze. Am I frustrated? With what? I was fine. Everything’s made sense so far. It’s not like before. I decided-against all my logic, all my due dates, all my work-to take a nap. I slept. Slept. Slept. Hours later the deep blue sky ran black. The memories caught up with me when I woke up. Sitting in the dorm room with my brother. Talking to him about all the things I realized about being a student at VanderCook College of Music. Telling him that being a music education major showed me things about music I never knew before. Telling him how I never really knew what it was. Telling him that I never truly enjoyed it like I thought I did. Telling him I don’t really know what joy is. Unintentionally sounding suicidal. Reassuring him. Then came memories from that summer. Realizing that music was my way of escaping reality. Stumbling on a completely different view of reality. Getting hired as a club’s jazz musician. Changing my entire understanding of music. Applying to other schools. Getting accepted at Saint Xavier University. Declaring a new major. Changing my entire understanding of education. Realizing I can’t stay on campus if I transfer. Realizing I can’t move into the dorms because it’s too late in the summer. My mom suggesting an apartment available near her on the far north side. Moving in. I illogically put on my shoes and went to see her. She was asleep when I opened the door. For some reason I walked in anyway and continued my nap across from her. She woke up some time later, happily surprised. She asked me why I was there. I couldn’t answer. She asked if I was hungry. She asked if I was cold. She asked if I was angry. I still couldn’t answer. I gave up on logic completely and just told her, "I can’t do my homework. I don’t know why, but I can’t. I know the answers-I understand the work-I know the due dates. But I can’t do it tonight." "You’re just sleepy. Did you work at the Plaza Club?" "No, they didn’t have enough reservations." "Is everything alright?" This was the only question I could answer, but it didn’t help. "No, Mom. Something is very wrong. I don’t even know what it is. Everything is fine and yet something is wrong. It doesn’t make sense." My mother was scared that I was relapsing back to my old confusion and frustration. "This is different, Mom," I continued. "It’s not me. It’s something else. I feel as though…as though nothing I work on tonight will mean anything tomorrow. I feel as though I need to…just live." Confusedly, my mom managed the best answer she could. "Well, sometimes we need to just relax. You’re just tired. Go get some sleep." I haven’t even started on my work. I had a course load last year that dwarfs the one I have now. I worked myself to no end. I did more there than I may ever do. Why do I feel the same now? I told her I’d go back and sleep at home. I kissed my mother goodbye and left. I lay on my couch staring at the ceiling as I did so many times before. I must have just been born lazy. I’m just a deadbeat who can’t keep a steady thought. I can’t just keep transferring my life away. Then I remembered what I was like in grade school. High school. Even before school and outside of school. I was never a deadbeat. I was someone. I was always someone, actually, contrary to personal belief. The words "you’re done for the day" came to me, so I set the alarm to full-blast mariachi radio, turned off the lights, and went back to sleep, my books still leaning on my couch. Tuesday morning. A long commute across Chicago lies ahead of me. I wake up to a sunny Tuesday morning. My devious subconscious always tries to put outside noise into my dreams so I don’t wake up, but the trumpets and joyful hollering of a Mexican radio station at nine in the morning is too much for it. But there is no mariachi music this morning. In its place is a series of serious people who say things like "sangre" and "triste" and "corazón," and it’s somber enough to keep me asleep. The time is a quarter to 10, too late for me. I rush a quick shower and dress hastily so I can catch the train. Irrationally, I step away from the front door and go back to the radio. I switch it to the news. Cynically I expect to hear something stupid about stem cells or Gary Condit or drilling holes in Alaska, but instead I hear an infantile debate between some caller who doesn’t know what she’s talking about and a radio personality about Islam until I acknowledge the fact that I am late and turn them off. I don’t bother getting the mail out front and run out the back door. A strange woman stops me in my tracks. She asks me if I’m going downtown. I tell her that I’m passing through. She tells me clumsily that I shouldn’t go downtown because it’s completely evacuated. According to her, some guys landed planes on some buildings. I take it with a grain of salt, seeing as I’ll be in the subway downtown anyway. "Well, I’m late for school today, ma’am, but thank you very much for the warning." I rush toward the Red Line trains. Geez. I’m so late. There’s hardly anyone left on the trains, it’s so late in the day. Maybe it’s because of that evacuation-if there is one. I take out my books and try to do some of the homework on the train. A few people gradually join me and slowly we dip into the subway system before we get downtown. I’ve never seen the subways so empty before. That woman was serious. We surface and fare southward. Crowds of people are waiting at every stop. Geez. I shouldn’t be here. I shoulda called the school and told ‘em about this evacuation. I could be relaxing at home now, listening to the radio and sleeping. I wonder what this is all about. Oh, well-I don’t wanna miss class, anyway. Plus I gotta finish this homework. But these newcomers are quite talkative. I’m not used to hearing these South Side folks theorizing about politics and religion like they are now. I’m hearing about five different subjects at once: President Bush, New York, airlines, Islam, and war. I put my books back in my bag and almost feel compelled to ask someone what’s going on, but they don’t seem to know any more than I do. I continue to listen, and I realize that something bad happened in New York. Something about the Twin Towers. Man, I wish I had a radio right now. Something about a plane. Hold it. Did they evacuate the buildings before or after it happened? Something about an explosion. I feel cold. The story is mangled and confused-everybody’s two cents is put in. Will someone please gimme a straight answer-what happened this morning? The conversations all converge into a religious debate, with arguments like, "those Arabs shoulda been taken care of in Desert Storm when the President’s daddy was in charge." My plans to buy a cell phone in November are greatly altered, and I wait nervously for my stop. The payphones on the platform are ludicrously destroyed, so I run out and wait for the bus. At least I’ll be okay at the school. An announcement blasts through the depot. It cackles and sputters a message about the Red Line trains being halted indefinitely. I can’t even go back home. My bus comes. The atmosphere is somber, and every bus stop has a dazed passenger who seems to have heard enough talk. I refrain from conversation. Halfway to Saint Xavier, the bus has let off all the other passengers. The ride is even quieter than before. The bus sails past stops, and reality is blurred out the window. Time is now measured in stop signs, traffic lights, railroad crossings, and heartbeats. "So where ya headin’?" says a hidden voice. This is the only question I can answer, but it doesn’t help. "Saint Xavier," I reply. "Heh, wow," says the bus driver. Then he says something frightening. "Ya think classes are still going on?" All this for nothing. Do I ‘think classes are still going on?’ I don’t even know what happened! I don’t even know why I’m going to school today! "Maybe," I manage to say. I say my goodbyes to the driver and inconspicuously hurry to the main building of the school. No one is driving on the lot-a few students are sitting on the steps without textbooks. I step in. There’s a note on the stairway doors: "Catholic Mass, 2pm. Pray for the souls lost in this morning’s tragedy." How many souls? I run to a payphone, but before I do someone’s radio booms from a nearby office behind me. I hear President Bush in the middle of a speech. I hear the word "attack." Attack. I hear him call it a "tragedy." Tragedy. I hear the word "terrorism." Terror. There is distant weeping across the hall. I imagine the all too optimistic scenario of a plane full of innocent people crashing on top of one of the Towers because of an inept hijacker’s failed stunt. That must have killed, like, three hundred people or something. How terrible. I wonder if anyone survived the crash. Of course not. I give my moment of silence for those whom the President calls "heroes." Heroes. There aren’t any TVs around, so I make my way to the payphone again. I call my grandmother first and leave a voicemail message saying that I’m okay and I’m going back to Mom’s as soon as I can. I call my brother next because I know he’ll be calm and frank enough to tell me what happened. "It’s me!" I scream. "I’m alright! I’m at the school." "Why didn’t you stay home?" he asks calmly. "I was running late-I never heard the news. What happened?" "You don’t know?" "Tell me!" "Some hijackers took two commercial planes and rammed them into the World Trade Center." "How many people…" "Ida know, thousands I guess-" My eyes grow heavy. "Did the planes just hit the buildings, or…is it all gone?" "It’s all gone. There’s nothing left. The Twin Towers are completely destroyed." Time is measured in heartbeats. Slow, pounding heartbeats. I ask dumbly, "Are you okay?" "Yeah, I’m fine," he says. "Call Mom. She’s probably worried sick." "I was just about to. I’ll see you when I visit. Tell the guys over there that I’m coming real soon to see them." "Okay." My mother’s voice is choked and strained when I call her. "It’s me, Mom," I say. I’m at the school." "What are you doing there?" she yells. "Get back home now!" "I can’t-they stopped the trains. I don’t know how I’m getting back. I’ll have to sleep over with someone or hitch a ride. I’ll figure it out." "Well, you sure you’re okay?" I couldn’t answer. "Are you there?" "Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m here. And-I’m okay. I’ll call you later." "Love you." "I love you too, Mom." I walk slowly to the class that isn’t in session, and half the students are there listening to my professor. She’s a kindly lady who will tell me about monotheism and the nature of Judaism and Christianity, but I don’t know this. She will tell me about the difference between piety and spirituality, but she doesn’t know this. Right now, however, she is telling all of us about how she lived in New York for a good portion of her life, and she is telling us how different the skyline will look now that the Towers are gone, and she is telling us how she worries for her friends and family still in the city. And she tells us that class is cancelled on Thursday because she will be out of town. The only reason she’s at school today is because, for some reason, she has a meeting with the other faculty, and she also didn’t want to just leave those who showed up without telling them about Thursday. That is so nice of her. A morbid curiosity mingled with aching wonder makes me wish there were a television around so I can see what happened. But I’ll have plenty of time for that later. I’m sure they’ll show the footage day after day. Right now I have to find out where I’m going, and when. And how. The teacher adjourns the class, and I ask clumsily, "Um, I’m sorry to hold you guys, but I commuted here today because I never saw the news, and now I’m stuck here ‘cause they stopped the trains. Are any of you going up north?" "Where do you live?" a voice asks. "A little south of Evanston," I say stupidly. Worried whispering produces an idea, and our professor says, "Go run after Tom-he just left before you came in. He’s going up that way, I think." Murmurs of agreement fill the room, and I thank everyone graciously, bolting out the door after a guy whose name I’ve already forgotten. "Sure, I can take you up there," he says as we walk toward a car. "Where is it again-Evanston?" "Yeah, but I have no idea what road to take from here." He proceeds to suggest expressways and directions, all of which sound good enough to me, and I say, "Sounds good." We drive endlessly on Interstate Something and make a right into a neighborhood I’ve never heard of, until somehow we’re in Skokie, which is relatively close to home. All the while Tom and I are waxing philosophical about things that are not President Bush, New York, airlines, Islam, or war. I make a new friend. "So, are you a Religion major?" he asks. "Actually, I’m an Elementary Ed major," I say as though none of this is happening. "I’m just taking the course as a requirement." Sad how I meet one of my first friends at this new school only because of all this mess. Oh, well. I guess it’s supposed to be. I guide him as he drives through my neighborhood. I offer to pay half for gas and he thankfully refuses. He lets me use his cell phone to call my mother so she knows I’m all right. I’m home. I thank Tom, shake hands, and wave goodbye as he drives wherever his home is. Childishly, I walk straight to my mother’s place. I never could have planned on living so close to Mom during a time like this. A composed, tense greeting waits for me at the door. My mother offers me something to eat. I don’t remember how to be hungry, but I say "yes" anyway. "Billowing smoke!" my mother describes. "Nothing but smoke and fire. We all saw it at work and everyone was running out because of the evacuation. And then the people…" My mother’s face pales. "The people…when they fell out of the buildings-there were two people holding hands-they knew they didn’t have a choice. There were so many-we all saw the bodies falling…" She weeps hard, and I hold her. I have nothing to say because I wasn’t there to see it. She composes herself, and after a few commercials she points to the television. "See? This is what happened." I watch as the newscast starts the footage from the beginning. I cringe when the first plane hits. Fire. Smoke. Screams. So many screams. The bodies raining through the air. The second plane. Smoke. Fire. The roaring avalanche of a Tower.
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Copyright © 2002 Alif Muhammad |