9/11-911

Tim Krzys

This story is written for those who have a morbid curiosity about death and tragedy, and for the survivors and loved ones of the victims of 911. All names are fictional as are the specific events. However, there are many factual components in the story related to timing of events and the structural collapse of the WTC. This story is not meant to open wounds, but to help some never forget, and to help others who must understand the last moments of a loved one in order to let the pain and memory rest.
Great care was taken to respect the survivors. All the fictional names were checked to be sure they did not, by coincidence match any of the victims of that horrible day. While many events are accurate down to the minute and second, all persons and businesses are purely fictional.
The World Trade Center twin towers, like New York City, were tall, proud and stood out from the crowd. They were 110 stories high, Tower One, the North Tower being 1,368 feet tall, and Tower Two shy of being its exact twin by four feet at 1,362 feet tall. Combined, they held about 10,000,000 square feet of rentable space that was occupied on any given day by almost 50,000 people. The rentable space on each floor amounted to nearly an acre, or 43,200 square feet, or about the combined floor space of thirty, average sized ranch homes.
It was called the World Trade Center for a reason. There was a bigger purpose than to provide space for its tenants. One purpose was to promote world trade, and world peace. Trading partners, when linked by common economies, are often reluctant to go to war or undermine the economy of the other. The two towers housed offices from over 430 businesses from at least 26 different countries. They were the world’s tallest buildings for a short time until the Sears Tower was completed in Chicago. Despite that fact and the fact that neither of the Twin Towers stands today, they shall always rise out of the ashes like the mythical Phoenix and remain tall in our hearts.
American Flight 11 was preparing for its journey from Boston to Los Angeles. It was only 7:30 on a Tuesday morning, as the long line of passengers slowly made their way past the ticket counter, down the gate to the jet, where they waited while those in front stowed luggage before taking their seats. It was like any normal, routine day at the airport. Crowds of strangers hauling their luggage behind them walked down the long shiny halls, past vendors selling gum and magazines and snacks, past hot dog stands that were preparing to open later that morning. Overhead pages, some in foreign languages boomed through the airport, anonymous voices that were largely ignored and just part of the ambiance of the bustling environment. Small electric carts beeped their way down the hall, their electric motors whirring as they swept past.
It was as normal as a day could be, giving absolutely no hint of the history making event that had already been set into motion. That’s how death and tragedy typically take center stage. Death is often disguised as routine, walking among the living who are too busy going about their lives to notice its cold and chilling presence, but it’s always there waiting to steal tomorrow. And with few exceptions, it comes as a surprise, as if tomorrow was a promise and that promise had been broken, our trust violated. As people hurried to their gates, their thoughts were filled with family or work, worries about money or health, and some dared to entertain concern about flying. Fear is not a stranger at airports. In the best of times people approach flying with some measure of fear and hesitation, somehow feeling safer on the highway even though statistics called those thoughts lies.
Had anyone considered the possibility of the horror that would lie ahead on Flight 11, being terrified would have been an understatement. But no one’s imagination conjured up the events that were about to unfold, and it’s likely that only fifteen percent even gave any consideration of being in a plane crash, and if they did, the thoughts were quickly dismissed as routine cloaked the shadow of death. As passengers boarded Flight 11, some were anxious, some slightly fearful, but most simply boarded, found their seats and stowed their luggage and sat down as if their whole future was still waiting for them to write it.
Dan Powers was 29. He stood barely over six foot and was considered the short one of the four boys in his family. He had warm, green eyes that were intelligent, sharp and perceptive, sexy and full of expression. In high school the girls all commented about how cute he was, but his eyes were irresistible. In the blink of an eye they could go from looking happy and excited, to whispering of pain and sadness. It was as if all of his emotions were expressed through his eyes without the necessity of one word being spoken. Dan had a strong, athletic build, a soft kind face, and short dark brown hair with a touch of gray coming in on the sides. He considered coloring his hair, believing 29 was too young for any gray, and at least one morning a month he stood in front of the mirror for several minutes having a debate with himself over the pros and cons of hair coloring. No matter how strong his argument for either side, he always came back to the strongest argument of all, his wife loved the touch of gray and promised to always love it. Still, he kept a small bottle of Grecian Formula hidden in a drawer in the bathroom, tucked way in the back of a drawer behind a pile of folded washcloths. His wife Beth knew it was there and periodically checked to make sure it hadn’t been used. Beth colored her hair because gray didn’t look well with blonde, or any color on a woman for that matter, according to her. She told Dan that when she was a great-grandmother, she’d let the gray finally show.
Dan was a CPA for a large Boston accounting firm that was branching out into L.A. Because of his Harvard education, his strong work ethic and especially the way he worked so well with others, his boss personally requested he be the one to monitor progress in the L.A. office. Like any young man striving to build a great career and to have more toys than the average man, it was an opportunity he couldn’t refuse. He disliked flying, and disliked being away from home even more. But not everything could be carried up the career ladder.
As he stood alone in the crowded airport, nearly oblivious to the activity around him, Dan kept thinking of Beth. She was home ill, fighting a bad cold that arrived every year about this time as if it was a seasonal requirement. It had been that way since she was a little girl growing up in the suburbs of Boston. Over the years the colds decreased in severity and duration, but always arrived on time every September. Two years ago it arrived late, and she didn’t become ill until mid-October. The break in routine was actually distressing, leaving her to worry that maybe an undiagnosed cancer was mucking up her schedule. That morning Beth woke only long enough to kiss Dan good-bye and call in sick to work. She was a paralegal for a large attorney firm and had hopes of maybe one-day attending law school. Being employed by a law firm would soon provide great benefits, but little if any, true comfort.
Dan tucked his garment bag into the overhead compartment, being careful as he moved aside an old duffel bag and two other carry-ons. He had discovered over the years that some passengers were extremely touchy about having their luggage rearranged by strangers unless it was the flight attendant. When he was satisfied with the placement of his carryon, and confident the overhead compartment would close without problem, he sat down in the window seat and fastened his seatbelt. He imagined that one day he would join the aisle seat crowd, those business people who didn’t fly for the view, and wanted to save as many seconds as they could upon landing by being able to exit quickly so they could hurry up and wait some place else. Dan still enjoyed the view of a window seat, but imagined that one day, as he grew older, he would lose the child-like curiosity and excitement of seeing the world from thirty thousand feet up. On occasion and if the sky was clear, and the jet took a certain flight path, he could spot his home. In his den was an enlarged photograph of their home he had taken three months ago as the jet made its final approach for landing. Despite the graininess of the enlarged photo and its obvious amateurish appearance, he had hung it with all the pride of a fishermen displaying a trophy, award winning swordfish. Plagued with boredom if he wasn’t constantly busy, Dan retrieved a Grisham novel from his briefcase and began reading. As the crowd of passengers squeezed through the aisle, every arm carrying something, a woman checked her ticket and then sat down beside Dan.
“Good morning,” she said with a cheerful, melodious voice.
Dan lowered his book, looked over and smiled. “Good morning.” He thought she seemed awfully cheerful for so early in the morning. “You must be going to L.A.,” he said, a little unsure of exactly what to say to a stranger on a plane.
“I sure hope so. It’s a non-stop flight,” she said with a wide grin. “I’m looking forward to getting home,” as she sat back in her seat.
“I wish I could say I was going home, I live here in Boston. My wife’s sick and I hated leaving her this morning.”
“Oh, anything serious?”
“No, just a severe cold.” He paused a moment, held his place in the book with a finger, and offered his free hand. “I’m Dan Powers, accounting.” They shook hands and he was impressed with the strong, firm grip and the softness of her feminine hand.
“Lisa Hodges, marketing.”
“Ohhhhh.”
“What does ohhhhh, mean?” she said smiling.
“I guess it didn’t surprise me. You seem so cheerful and outgoing. I guess those would be good qualities to have in your field.”
“Yes, they are,” she agreed. Lisa placed her purse on the floor between her feet and then leaned back in her seat.
“Well, cheerfulness and early morning flights fit together for me like a square peg and a round hole. Or is it a round peg and a square hole?”
The woman laughed. “Oh, it’s not that early and you seem to be in a fine mood.”
“It’s the window seat. I’m like a kid when it comes to flying. I love looking out the window.”
“Me too,” she agreed. “but I can’t wait to get home and asked for an aisle seat. Quicker exit that way. I flew in Sunday night for a big presentation on Monday, and I’m exhausted. I think my body is still operating on west coast time.”
“Yes, I have that to look forward to,” Dan said. “Do you have any family in L.A., or are you one of the millions of transplants who moved there from one of the other forty-nine states and Mexico?”
“No, I’m a little unusual. I was born and raised in the L.A. area. I don’t know why, but I never had the sense to move away. There’s something beautiful and alluring about the area, but it’s also false and fairytale. My roommate is an aspiring actress, and sometimes I think half of the people in L.A. have aspirations of breaking into show biz.”
“I’ve heard that. Just in the small firm we’re starting up, we have two people who have been extras in some movie. I have no idea which one and don’t really care. They’re still hoping for a bigger part, you know, to get discovered. One man was on The Price is Right.”
“That certainly is a claim to fame!” she said with a giggle.
“Can you believe he even included it on his resume?”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. I think ninety percent of LA is delusional about their talent and chance of becoming famous. Do you go out there often?”
“No, thankfully. Just once a month or so to check on our newest accounting firm. To be honest, I don’t care for traveling, but it scores points with the boss.”
“And none with the wife I’ll bet,” Lisa filled in for him.
“You got that right. You have anyone special in your life? Perhaps that’s too personal a question.”
“No, don’t worry about that. Half the fun of flying is getting to meet someone new. I have a boyfriend. He’s a cameraman for a game show.”
“NotÉ”
“Yes, can you believe it, The Price is Right!” They shared a laugh at how small the world really was. “I hear all about the wannabes that come onto the lot looking to become the next big star. It amazes me what some people call talent.”
“Talent and TV have nothing in common!” They both laughed at the truth in that statement. “How long have you two been together?”
“We’ve been dating about fifteen months.”
“Any wedding plans?”
“Maybe. I think he might ask me on my birthday, which is next week.”
Just then, the flight attendant began to announce the pre-flight instructions. A few passengers who were standing in the aisle quickly stuffed their belongings into the overhead compartments, slammed them shut and found their seats.
“Well, have a happy birthday,” Dan whispered.
“Thank you.”
The flight attendant reviewed all the safety instructions, made last minute pre-flight checks of all the overhead compartments, and then found their seats and strapped in. The jet was filled with a cross section of Anytown, USA. There were a few small children, all under the age of ten, four married couples, one couple who had been married only four months, several grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, businessmen dressed in suits, men dressed casually in blue jeans and sweatshirts. Several businesswomen wore dress suits or slacks, and a few traveled comfortably in blue jeans and a T-shirt. Among the non-caucasian men, were a few of oriental background, several African Americans, and about ten who appeared of Middle Eastern decent. Among the ten were five causally dressed men who traveled light, appeared to be flying alone and blended in quietly with the other passengers. They fit in well with the melting pot of passengers aboard Flight 11. They politely took their seats and waited patiently for take off.
A few minutes before eight, the jet taxied to the runway and joined the short line of other jets waiting for takeoff.
“I hate this part,” Lisa said.
“I hate landings,” Dan replied, his mouth curving into a grin.
“Oh, that’s great. Between us, we’ll have fear sandwiched between the two events.” They both laughed as the pilot throttled up the powerful jet engines and the large, Boeing 767 moved forward on the tarmac. The wings were filled with over 10,000 gallons of extremely flammable jet fuel. The Boeing 767 had a maximum takeoff weight of approximately 450,000 pounds, a wingspan of 170 feet 4 inches, with a length of 201 feet. Its typical cruising speed was 530 miles per hour. In forty-seven minutes its speed would exceed 600 miles per hour. In a fully loaded 767, flying at an extremely low altitude where the air density is greatest and its resistance highest, the entire structure of the jet would begin to approach its point of self-destruction. Inside the 767 there were two aisles with three seats in the center in economy class, and two center aisle seats in business class. In first class there were two seats on either side of the aisle, and one in the center. It boasted a roominess that would soon feel tiny and smothering.
After the jet was air born at exactly 7:59 a.m., it banked gently around to head west. The Boeing 767 had a light passenger load of only 81 passengers, two pilots and nine flight attendants. While still climbing, the flight attendants began to prepare the galley for beverage service. As soon as the seatbelt sign blinked off, people unbuckled their seat belt, got up, and headed for the restroom or to grab a different magazine. Some simply stood and stretched before returning to their seats. A few passengers opened the overhead compartment to retrieve reading material, a laptop or PDA from their luggage. Amidst the normal routine, and unnoticed by anyone, one by one, five Middle Eastern men got up from their seats, opened the overhead compartment and pulled out a small bag. They carried out their activities slowly, almost as if they were purposely delaying returning to the seats. But no one noticed because there was no reason to notice. One of the men, Atta walked confidently toward first class, pushed aside the curtain dividing the two areas, and continued toward the galley.
“Can I help you sir?” A flight attendant asked.
He said nothing. With a sudden and very rehearsed swiftness, Atta swung one arm around the woman’s neck, abruptly spun her around and pulled her towards him. Within a second, she was subdued in a chokehold with a sharp box cutter held against her throat.
“Hey!” a first class passenger shouted as he stood.
Suddenly, four other men rushed through the dividing curtain, each one holding a box cutter with a sharp, shiny razor blade exposed.
“Don’t be a hero,” Atta spoke with a heavy accent. “If anyone moves, I will slit her throat then kill one of you.” The passenger who was standing froze, looked Atta straight in the eyes, glanced around the first class section, and slowly sat down. Quickly and without discussion, the four other terrorists subdued the flight attendants in first class, and three of them escorted the flight attendants to the rear of the aircraft. Atta and Al-Omas remained behind.
Atta retained his choking lock around the woman’s neck as he dragged her toward the cockpit door. Al-Omari kept watch over first class. “Open immediately,” Atta commanded, striking the door firmly with his free hand. The woman stood still, her eyes widened with terror. The knife blade was pressed against her neck so firmly that even the slightest movement would bring blood.
Atta stepped back slightly and waited as his partner moved closer. A moment later, the co-pilot opened the cockpit door. He stood tall wearing a white shirt and minus his jacket. “What’s the problem out here?”
Al-Omari kicked open the door sending the surprised co-pilot sailing backward. He fell to the floor landing hard on his back.
“We are taking over the plane,” Atta said firmly. He moved in front of the open door still clutching the woman. “If there is any resistance, we are prepared to die and to kill everyone on board this jet. I suggest you do not resist.” The flight attendant tried to look away as the co-pilot fell, but Atta’s arm kept her head positioned so she had to watch. She gasped and the sudden noise made the terrorist tighten his grip around her neck. Her eyes were bugling and she was breathing hard. The pilot turned around in his seat as his co-pilot landed on the floor beside him. “What the hell is going on!” The pilot demanded to know.
Without a word, the terrorist pressed the knife blade against the woman’s throat until a tiny drop of blood emerged and dripped slowly down her neck. Without a word or warning, he pressed harder and slid the blade across the flight attendant’s throat. Blood squirted out and sprayed the wall beside the cockpit door. She screamed and immediately clutched her throat as the terrorist released her. A rapid gush of bright blood flowed between her fingers. Her contorted and twisted face drained of color, her knees buckled and then her eyes glazed over. The terrorist reached out and shoved her to the floor and she collapsed like a small tower of Jello. A woman sitting in first class screamed and then suddenly fell quiet, sobbing nearly silently after the terrorist glared at her.
“If you follow our instructions, no one else will die.”
The co-pilot grabbed onto his empty seat and pulled himself up, never once taking his eyes off the killer.
“Both of you, get out. Now!” The terrorist commanded.
“Who will fly the plane?” the pilot asked.
“That is not your concern. I’m not going to say this again. Get out.”
The pilot and co-pilot looked at each other. Both hesitated, trying to figure out if there was a solution to this attempted hijacking. There was unusual and almost eerie silence in the cabin. The pilot slowly got up from his seat and stood beside the co-pilot. They slowly stepped out of the cockpit, moving cautiously as they walked past the terrorist leader. Two of the terrorists had stepped into first class to make sure no one tried to be a hero. Atta spoke some firmly giving commands in a foreign language to the two remaining terrorists. They quickly grabbed the pilot and co-pilot, and with box cutters in hand, lead them to the rear of the plane where they would be tied up with duct tape. As they moved down the aisle there was near silence. Every passenger watched in silence.
Before they entered the business class, one man stood up and was abruptly struck across the face. He fell backwards into a woman passenger as blood spilled from his nose.
Atta looked behind him, his eyes glaring at the seated passengers, and then he stepped into the cockpit and slammed the door shut.
As the two pilots were lead to the rear of the plane, the terrorists warned the passengers to remain in their seats unless they wanted to die. The cabin remained unusually quiet and still. A sense of shock and disbelief had settled into the large jet, which now was feeling extremely small, stuffy and isolated from the entire world.
“What’s going on?” Lisa asked quietly, leaning toward Dan. Her voice was nervous and breaking.
“I think we’re being hijacked.” Other passengers were growing restless, looking around the cabin and whispering to one another.
“Attention everyone. In the name of Allah, we are now in control of this plane. I must warn you to strictly obey our instructions or be killed. If anyone tries to resist, we will begin killing passengers beginning with the two pilots. Unless you want to be responsible for someone’s death, you must stay in your seat. If you need to use the restroom, raise your hand and we will address your needs.” There was a long pause before the deep voice boomed over the intercom again. “You must follow our instructions. You must remain calm and quiet, and must stay in your seats. Anyone failing to follow these instructions will be killed immediately. I hope I have made myself clear.” The intercom clicked off and the cabin fell completely silent. The hum of the jet engines was the only sound that filled the length of the cabin. A small baby began crying, and whispers of the mother trying to calm her infant floated among the seats.
“What are we going to do?” Lisa whispered.
“Nothing. We’re going to do nothing. Hopefully, we’ll fly to Cuba or Columbia or something, and they’ll let us all go.”
“They don’t have any guns, do they?”
“I don’t know. But they have box cutters that they got on board somehow. I don’t really want my throat slit.” Dan turned around in his seat in time to see one of the terrorists walking up the aisle. He was holding a box cutter in his hand and looked ready to use it.
Despite the large size of the cabin, the six seats across and the two aisles, Dan was beginning to feel as if they were all seated in a tiny and crowded Lear jet with a narrow width and low ceiling. The air was beginning to feel stale and stuffy. They were on their own, at the complete will of their hijackers. Flying was normally a surrendering of power, of not being in the driver’s seat. That feeling of powerlessness had just been jacked up a few hundred notches. Dan looked around the cabin, wishing he had a gun, a parachute, something to help even the odds.
“You!” the terrorist said, pointing at Dan.
“Me?” his voice cracked.
“Turn around unless you’d like to join the pilot in the rear of the plane.”
Dan quickly turned around and remained silent. There was nothing to say. He wanted to be as invisible as possible, and that meant remaining silent. The terrorist walked past him, staring him down with his dark eyes. The jet began banking sharply to the left. Passengers suddenly looked out the window trying to determine where in hell they were going. Except for quiet whispering, and there was little of that, the cabin remained extremely quiet. No one moved, no one read a magazine or turned on their lap top. It became a jet filled with still and quiet statues.
Within several minutes, the four terrorists separated many clusters of passengers throughout the cabin. Almost out of some absurd kindness, they did not separate people who were traveling together. When they were finished, the 81 passengers were spread among the entire length of the aircraft. Dan and Lisa were allowed to remain in their assigned seats.
Suddenly a woman’s scream ripped through the quiet like a cannon shot, and then almost as suddenly, silence returned to the cabin like a thick, impenetrable fog. Some passengers turned around to see what was happening, but most sat motionless in their seats, wanting and not wanting to know, their faces white with fear and hands tightly clutching the armrests.
Minutes moved like sluggish giants in a tight corridor. Anyone who glanced at their watch stared long enough to make sure the sweep second hand was actually still moving. Some simply sat staring, being careful to avoid any eye contact with one of the terrorists. Others pretended to be reading, but no one could plow through more than a sentence before they glanced up from the page again, totally aware of the precariousness of their own safety. In the cockpit, an air traffic controller attempted to contact the pilot to inquire about the course change. He received no response. The new pilot increased the jet’s speed and set the heading for New York City. Cleverly using a Global Positioning Device, Atta programmed the target’s address and used it to assist in guiding the jet. After several minutes, the pilot made an announcement over the intercom.
“This is your pilot. If you wish, you may use the in-flight phones to call whoever you would like. You may say whatever you like, but I must ask that you do so quietly. If not, we will help you become quiet.” There was another click and the intercom fell silent.
“What do you think is going on here?” Lisa asked in a whisper. She rubbed her face nervously with trembling fingers.
“I have no idea, but I don’t like this at all. Why would they let us make phone calls, unless it doesn’t matter?”
“What do you mean, doesn’t matter?” Lisa’s face was twisted with fear, her eyes were widened circles and her brow wrinkled with tension.
He regretted making that comment. “I’m not sure. But something tells me we’re not going to Cuba.” He looked at the phone on the back of the seat in front of him. Dan checked his watch. It was 8:20. They had only been in the air for twenty-one minutes. Beth was most probably still sleeping and maybe wouldn’t hear his call. He sat motionless and waited, wondering if the whole thing was a trick of some sort. Maybe they would kill whoever made phone calls. Maybe they would make them special hostages, telling their loved ones on the other end of the line to meet their demands or listen to them being murdered. His mind played with all sorts of possibilities, none of them positive. After an extremely long and endless minute or so, he heard someone making a call. He continued to sit motionless and heard another call being made. It was followed by another, and then another. He kept the debate going in his mind, wondering about the safety of making a call. So far, nothing had happened. Finally, he reached out and pulled the phone off its rest. “I have to try and call home.” He thought of saying this may be his last chance to speak with his wife, but decided against it. Dan leaned over, pulled out his wallet and retrieved a credit card. He swiped the card on the phone, nearly missing because his hand was trembling, and then dialed the number. “I hope she hears the phone,” he said to Lisa. Dan placed the phone close to his ear and waited. After a long delay, the phone began ringing in suburban Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts.
It rang a second time, and he waited, and then a third, and he waited, and waited, and then a fourth ring and the waiting grew longer, and a fifth time, and he waited. Dan looked at his watch. It seemed he had to wait to verify the second hand was still moving.
He looked at Lisa. “I don’t think she’s awake. The damn cold medicine, probably knocked her out.” It rang a seventh time, and after a long delay, an eighth, each ring seemed to take longer and longer, finally a ninth ringÉ.. he’d never heard such a slow ringing phone before in his life.
“Helllloooo,” spoke a hoarse and groggy voice. “Who’s this?”
“Honey? It’s me. You need to wake up, you need to wake up now and talk to me.”
“Dan? What’s wrong?” She coughed to clear her voice. “Are you okay? Aren’t you on your flight yet?”
“Yes,” then he repeated in a quieter voice. “Yes. That’s the problem. We’ve been hijacked.”
Beth sat bolt upright in her bed. A pillow dropped to the floor. “Dan! What do you mean, you’ve been hijacked?” Tears began forming. “Are you okay? Do they have guns? Is anyone hurt? Are you okay?”
“Honey, I’m okay. I think someone was hurt. I saw blood on one of the hijackers and I don’t think it was his.” Why did he tell her that! What was wrong with him?
“How many are there?” She was sobbing now, hoping, praying that she was still actually asleep experiencing a cold medicine induced nightmare, a horrible nightmare that even in life, could never feel real. She looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. The red numbers glowed 8:22. It felt like three in the morning.
“There are five, I think. I haven’t seen any guns, but they have knives, box cutters. They’re flying the plane and I have no idea where we’re going, but from the position of the sun, I think we’re heading south. The pilot and co-pilot are sitting in the back of the plane. I don’t know if they’re okay or not.”
There was heavy sobbing into the phone and spits of static clouded the sound. “Oh my God! Oh Dan! Are you going to be all right? What is going on? Do they know you’re on the phone? Pleeeease don’t let them hurt you.” The sentence ended with tears and heavy sobbing. Beth looked at the clock again. It seemed to be the only proof she had that this conversation was actually taking place. The numbers glowed 8:23. Suddenly the numbers changed to 8:24. That small change in a minute was proof that the day was marching forward, moving ahead and out of control. In an odd sort of way, how digital clocks sliced time into such small increments reminded her just how precious every moment really was.
“I don’t know why, but they’re allowing us to make phone calls. I don’t know if I should stay on the phone for very long or not. I don’t know what is the right thing to do.” Dan raised his head slowly and looked forward, peeking over the seat in front of him like a soldier expecting return fire. “Some of them are up in first class. They have the curtains pulled so I don’t really know what is going on. A lot of people are making phone calls.” Soft crying sounds could be heard throughout the cabin. Dan noticed a few callers wiping their eyes as they held the phone tightly to their ear. He knew how they felt. Clutching the phone, embracing it was the only closeness to family that remained. “I love you so much, Beth. I don’t know if, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Please call my parents and my brother. He should be at work. Grab the address book in the den. His number’s in there.” Dan blinked hard. He could barely see through the tears clouding his eyes. He needed to remain strong. There was no telling what he had yet to face. “I love you. I love you so much. You know, I never say that enough, I never tell you how much I appreciate you and everything you do for me. I’ve been working too much lately when I should be home more with you. I wish¾”
“Stop! Dan, don’t do this! Pleeeasse, don’t do this. You’re a wonderful husband and I couldn’t love anyone as much as I love you! Please tell me that things will be okay.”
Dan paused, trying to picture Beth sitting up in bed, clutching the phone tightly, wiping her eyes with a soaked tissue. He had been working too much, trading in memories of being together to get ahead in his career. Life was so short, way too short, and he had been racing through each day as if there was an endless supply of them. Why was that so easy for people to do? Why did money and things matter so much when the real wealth in life was the time with loved ones and the memories they created?
“Dan? Are you still there? Dan?” He could hear the panic across the miles.
“I’m sorry, yes, I’m here. I was just thinking. If something happens,” his voice cracked. There was a lump in his throat the size of a large rock.
“Don’t talk like that. You’re coming home, I know you are. You have to!”
“Beth, if something happens to me, you must be strong. We have to consider what could happen.”
“Stop!” Beth screamed into the phone. Her voice cut sharply through the static and the miles. “Stop it! Now stop talking like this. You’re coming home. I know you will. I love you so much. You’re not leaving me. I know you’ll be home. You have to be. You can’t leave me, you can’t leave me,” she finished, her voice trailing off to tears.
“Okay, Beth, okay. Call everyone, and turn on the TV. Maybe there’s some news about what’s going on.”
The conversation continued for a few more minutes, and each word was pulled from his heart. The longer they talked, the more impossible it became to find the right words, and to push back the growing flood of emotion that was tainted and stained with guilt and fear. He wanted the conversation to never end, and he wanted to end it immediately. When Dan finally said goodbye, it was like trying to talk fluently in a foreign language he had never spoken before. The goodbye seemed so final, like he had actually been witness to life’s end and he was still living. In the pit of his stomach he knew he would never see Beth again, never touch the softness of her hand, listen to her laughter, enjoy the warm moistness of her kiss or feel the wonderful sensation of her embrace. When Dan pushed the button to end the call, not one word existed in his thoughts of what to say next. People talked of being left speechless, but rarely were. There was always a remnant of a thought, a word waiting to be inflated into a sentence always on deck ready to push forward. This time however, his mind was completely blank. Not even an image existed in his thoughts. It was as if twenty-five billion brain cells had suddenly ceased functioning, save for a few that regulated the basic body functions that normally occurred without consideration. After a long pause that existed without the benefit of time, Dan absently handed the phone to Lisa. He glanced down and checked his watch. It was now 8:34. Slowly, the nightmare reappeared; thoughts sluggishly fell together into a sloppy pile, still not making any sense. Dan turned his head slowly and looked out the window. As his mind powered up on dying batteries, he noted the sun’s position and saw something familiar.
“I think we’re headed toward New York City.” His voice was weak, robbed of strength by intense grief.
Lisa looked out the window, and then looked at Dan. “Here,” she began, holding the phone. “Put this back. I could never in my life make a call like that. Maybe I’m a coward, maybe I’m just scared to death, but finding the words to say what you just told your wife, is, well, I don’t know what it is. I can’t even talk well now.”
Dan looked at her and looked at the phone she was holding. “Are you sure?”
Lisa nodded silently, swallowed hard and handed him the phone. Dan took the phone, replaced it and looked across the aisle. A woman was wiping a tear from her eye and talking on the phone. She looked to be about seventy, and from her appearance, Dan guessed she had money. Her clothes looked expensive and she wore beautiful diamonds on her fingers. He checked his watch again. It was now 8:37. Less than nine minutes remained before the jet plowed into World Trade Center 1, the North Tower. He knew something was going to happen soon. Life gave those that listened, an intuition that was rarely a blessing and often a curse. He knew, he was certain. Every glance at his watch reminded him that it had now become useless except for the minute and second hand.
Three of the hijackers continually moved quickly through out the plane. Their constant movement was aimed at keeping everyone off guard, unsure of their location and intentions. Yet, there was something else behind their movement. It almost looked like pacing, impatient waiting for an event to occur. It seemed they never stood still, bending over occasionally to glance out the window, and then talking to each other in their foreign language. At times they smiled at one another, and as time passed, their chatter became more frequent.
For the most part, the passengers remained quiet; a few were crying, some sat silently in shock, staring forward or simply looking out the window at the Long Island Sound below them and to their left.
Dan looked out the window again, and then glanced at his watch. It was 8:38, and unlike only a few moments ago, the second hand seemed to be almost spinning.

World Trade Center 1, North Tower

United Flight 11
Dan looked over Lisa and out the window. That was definitely New York City below, and they were flying very close to it and the buildings. Three passengers had been murdered, and that event kept everyone else in their seats. There were going to be no heroes on Flight 11. Dan had guessed the woman’s scream earlier in the back of the jet was a reaction to the murder of the two pilots. What else could it be? he thought. After seeing how brutal the hijackers could be, almost as if they didn’t care at all what happened, he started to wonder what they were headed for. And the phone calls. That was totally a mystery. It was another piece of evidence that lead him to believe they were not being hijacked to land anywhere. These terrorists had something else in mind.
Crying could be heard in pockets throughout the cabin. People whispered, some got up and were escorted to the bathroom, one man asked for and received a couple tiny bottles of vodka to drink. He gulped them down and remained in his seat, staring out the window and whispering almost silently to himself. Perhaps he was praying. Dan couldn’t be certain.
“Why are we flying so low and so close to New York?” Lisa asked, as she leaned toward Dan.
“I’m not sure, but I have a sick feeling about this.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa was looking pale, the color had drained from her cheeks and there were growing creases scratched onto her face.
“I’m not sure.” That wasn’t entirely true. He had a feeling they were going to crash somewhere, but it seemed so far fetched and absurd that his mind kept telling him that fear was ruling his thoughts and he mind was filling with insanity. Still, he seriously wondered. He looked at the phone and considered calling his wife again. Some people had remained on the phone the whole time. Dan imagined the reliving of pain when that credit card bill came in the mail. It seemed like a very morbid thought, but those kind of those burst into his mind at will now. He looked at his watch. It read 8:43. He looked out the window again. The huge buildings below really did remind him of giant toys, perhaps an exceptional Lionel train set up, long ago started by a father for his son, and continued even though the young boy was now a married man and a father himself. At this angle, the city didn’t look real. Tiny cars moved sluggishly on the congested streets below, mirrors and glass occasionally glistening in the morning rays. Long, thick shadows cast by the skyscrapers left many streets still in the dark. Tiny red taillights glowed dimly as people enjoy a few last moments before terror would strike them in the heart and soul. He wished he could see where the jet was headed.
Suddenly the jet banked slightly, leveled a little, and then banked again. Every passenger reacted to the movement. A few women screamed, most groaned, or called out. One man, a Muslim who sat three rows behind, began praying. Most simply grabbed the armrests tightly.
Then he saw it, the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It loomed like a huge blockade to their left. Dan noticed immediately their altitude definitely appeared lower than the 110 story building. It didn’t take more than a second for him to guess what was going to happen.
“Say a prayer Lisa,” he said. His voice was rapid. He felt palpitations ripple and flutter through his chest and suddenly felt short of breath. Dan quickly looked behind him and noticed two terrorists in coach were both standing in the aisle. He turned and looked forward. The curtain had been pulled open and he could see that in first class, there were two more terrorists standing in the aisle, each one holding tightly on to a seat. They knew! They knew exactly what was going to happen and they knew they were about to die.
“Why? What’s wrong? What’s going to happen?” Lisa’s words shot out like machine gun fire.
Dan turned and looked at Lisa. Her face was scratched with terror. There was no color in her cheeks, and her eyes screamed the truth of what she knew in her heart. Behind those eyes there was a rapid display of images and memories. There was a spooky blankness to her eyes that he had never seen before, but they vaguely resembled the eyes he had witnessed at a funeral home of someone who had lost everything that mattered in their life. “We’re going to crash, I think we’re going to crash! These terrorists are going to try and bring down the World Trade Center.”
“Oh my God!” Lisa screamed. Other passengers turned and looked at her, but most had retreated into some internal world of their own where they still maintained some control. Lisa began crying and tears poured from her eyes in a way he had never seen before in a person. They were not single tears but more of a tiny stream of grief that flowed down her cheeks. “Please, you must be wrong! We can’t be, we just can’t be.”
She leaned into Dan and he held her, but looked over her shoulder and out the window. Lisa’s whole body shook as she sobbed. The buildings grew larger and closer. The jet engines were straining, going full throttle. The entire jet shook as if they had just encountered violent turbulence. The plane banked slightly, but did not level off. Dan looked out the window, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to close his eyes tightly, hold Lisa as close as he could and brace for the enormous impact he knew was seconds away. Lisa continued sobbing, and he heard others doing the same. Tears moistened his own eyes though he tried to push them back. Facing death with tears seemed both natural and wrong at the same time. Every thought was jumbled and mixed up. Someone was screaming into a phone, saying ‘I love you so very much.’ Some were whispering prayers. A person yelled, ‘oh my God!’ He held her close and tight. He could suddenly see one of the World Trade Center Towers, he wasn’t sure which one. In seconds, it grew huge, sprouting like it had come out of nowhere, dwarfing everything around. Sunlight glistened off the windows in spots of blinding reflections. Many offices were lit, but a few stilled looked quiet and dark, waiting for their occupants to arrive.
Then it was there. The north tower filled the window in an instant. He noticed people going about their normal office routine, sitting at desks, walking around cubicles. In the span of one or two seconds, his line of vision changed from seeing a large section of the tower to seeing only a few floors, and they were way too close. Suddenly, time seemed to slow. His mind took crisp and clear snapshots of images inside the windows. He saw two women standing by the window a few floors up, staring, one covering her mouth in shock. A few sat at their desk in the glow of a computer screen, some talked on phones, others stood talking with co-workers, or were walking, totally unaware of what was going to occur. In an instant, Dan thought it odd how such things happened, catching people off guard, suddenly destroying life’s routine.
And then it hit with a deafening blast.
The sound blew into his ears with a crushing deafness. Metal scraping metal, glass shattering, and a roar that would drown out the sound of a train locomotive or approaching tornado. He’d seen both in his life. Everything happened in an instant, yet flowed by totally unattached to the clock. Perception was warped and time had ceased to be a tool of measurement. The last second of his life slowed, and suddenly the noise had dissolved into a background whisper that his brain did not seem to register.
He heard the wings being ripped off the fuselage, but he saw it happen more than he heard it. In an instant a shadow darkened the cabin as the still intact jet stormed into the tower going over six hundred miles per hour. He saw cubicle dividers explode and be swept away. Papers, chairs, desks all became airborne, and in the mixture of items, he could see people suddenly plucked from their innocent postures and flung about like weightless feathers. Nearly everyone appeared as though they had no clue as to what had just occurred. Dan saw one woman running in the opposite direction. A man was following close behind. It was so very odd some of the details his mind could pick out from the blurry, compact and explosive mass. The man who was running was nearly bald. He wore gray pants and a blue shirt. His red tie was swept over his shoulder and waved in the air. And then in an instant, he was consumed by the ravage of the explosion.
A blinding and brilliant orange flash suddenly devoured the shadow of being inside the tower as ten thousand gallons of jet fuel ignited. The cabin was filled with a blinding light and with the ripping, deafening roar of the explosion. At that moment it seemed everything began to short out. His hearing was gone. The jet bounced and rocked violently. He heard the piercing music of people screaming all around him. The fuselage began to disintegrate like pieces of paper Mache being struck by a baseball bat. The blinding orange light from the fireball stormed into the cabin, followed by an intense, roasting heat.
Passengers were violently ripped from their seats and flung forward like weightless objects, hitting obstacles in their path with a dull and hollow thud. Nearly all of the seats were yanked from the floor and went crashing forward. In an instant the huge, compressed mass of passengers and seats raced forward like an out of control mob. The overhead compartments shattered, flinging debris into the cabin. The intense heat and fire devoured many in an instant, melting everything it touched or approached.
In the cockpit, Atta held tightly onto the controls. He watched the approaching tower with the intensity of a man in a trance from meditation or prayer. When the nose of the jet hit the glass side, the wall immediately surrendered and opened up for the screaming jet. The jet’s windshield shattered and sprayed Atta with tiny glass shards. His face was ripped into bloody ribbons as his body was tossed forward. The nose of the jet began to collapse and the fuselage crumpled from the impact. His bloody face smashed into the control panel and in an instant his features were obliterated in a spray of shredded flesh and blood. He let out a loud groan as the air was instantly squeezed from his chest, and then he fell forever silent as his body was obliterated. A woman standing by her desk was holding a cup of coffee as she suddenly looked up at the crashing sound and was met with the nose of a Boeing 767 racing towards her at over 600 miles an hour. In an instant she was struck, tossing parts of her body in several directions at once. In less than a second, forty-five people on the 90^th floor vanished as the huge fireball devoured everything in its range.
A huge fireball and gray plume of smoke and debris exploded on the side of the impact. Out of the opposite side of the building, a huge fireball exploded. Office contents, papers, desk chairs, tables, desks, lamps, file cabinets, ceiling tiles, window glass and other items mixed together in a confusing expanding mass of debris were flung out of the ripped open walls of the North Tower. The lighter debris caught the gentle air currents of the early, sunny morning and sprouted wings and floated gracefully toward the street, raining down on New York like an enormous ticker tape parade. Speeding past the flying mass of spreadsheets, reports and file folders, a man with arms flailing and legs kicking fell rapidly to the street below. A woman on the thirty-ninth floor was standing by the window enjoying the crisp, clear morning as Robert Murphy fell screaming to his death. She dropped her coffee and screamed. Heads bobbed up behind cubicle walls as if they were all balanced on giant springs that were suddenly released.
The time was 8:48.46 a.m.
The explosion from the jet fuel blew out every window on several floors above and below the point of impact. The stairwells, which were surrounded by mere drywall, disintegrated into a mass of rubble that coated the steps, making any attempts of walking extremely difficult. The nearly acre of office space of each floor quickly filled with thick, choking smoke. The remaining office contents immediately burst into flames, fed by the remaining fuel that was not devoured by the huge fireball.
Dan held tightly onto Lisa. Huddled together, alone with their thoughts, with snapshot images that rapidly paraded through their minds, they crashed into the seats in front of them, sliding forward with the speed and force of a giant piston. A single, large tear spun away from Lisa’s cheek and landed on Dan’s lip. He tasted its saltiness, thought of his beautiful wife, and then the two of them were devoured by the crash and the fire.
They felt nothing, except for two seconds of fear, a brief deafening sound, and the bee sting of the impact that lasted far too short a time to truly register as pain. And then they felt peace, they heard the whispers of bliss, and as their bodies were torn apart by the enormous forces of the impact and explosion, they were no longer there to sense anything of this world.
As the large 767 ripped into the tower, the 170 foot wingspan was only slightly narrower than the tower, leaving only about 16 feet of clearance on each wing tip. Before the wings were ripped from the jet, they acted like a giant plow ramming their way through several office floors. Barely twenty feet inside the tower, the wings exploded and fell away as the main fuselage shot further into the tower like a giant airborne torpedo, and disintegrated before the tip of the jet could even get near the opposite wall. Nearly everything between the 93^rd and 98^th floor crumbled and surrendered to the exploding jet.
Floors collapsed with a thunderous noise, crushing office workers while they sat at their desks, reading newspapers, filing papers, talking on the phone, hearing only a loud thud, followed immediately by an explosion before they were suddenly killed.
United Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 92 people onboard, 92 souls with countless memories and many loved ones left behind, was gone forever. On the west coast in Los Angeles, a few people were shutting off alarm clocks, or having their first cup of coffee, eating breakfast, or taking their morning shower, each one of them thinking about the reunion they would enjoy at the airport in a few short hours as they waited to pick up friends or family, and it would be a wait that would never end,

World Trade Center, North Tower, 101^st Floor

On the 101^st floor, nearly all of the twenty-eight staff of Cohen Electronics who were to report to work that day had arrived. Three people had called in ill, and five others were taking vacation time. One person was to attend his mother’s funeral that morning and had stayed home.
Angela saw the huge 767 racing straight for the World Trade Center. The jet banked slightly as it turned toward the tower. Her screaming immediately caught the attention of everyone in the office. People stood up and peered over their cubicle walls, several stepped out from behind their walls into the aisle, all of them staring at Angela. No one needed to have anything explained. They could all see the jet coming straight for the tower. Both Angela and Vicky began backing up from the window, both too frightened to move quickly. Vicky covered her mouth and held her breath. The sight of the jet in a place it should never be stunned her, leaving her shocked and speechless. Seeing the painted nose of a 767 racing to a collision with the World Trade Center, staring it down with nowhere to go pulled the breath from her. The speed of its approach was impossible to judge. There was nothing to benchmark it against. NASCAR fans saw nothing in comparison as they watched small cars race around at 200 miles per hour. Flying aboard a 767 at a normal cruising speed of 530 miles per hour seemed slow and dreamlike as distant clouds and the world below provided no method for comprehending its true speed. Seeing a jet in this situation was just totally foreign to the brain.
It approached the tower with what seemed to be the swiftness of lightning. Every second it grew larger in the window. Distant one second, and huge the next. The other office workers raced toward the two women. Some simply stood behind their tiny, cubicle walls, hopelessly wondering if they would offer even the smallest safety from an impact. As the jet nearly filled the entire view out the window, Bill Freeman, whose office faced the approaching 767, thought he saw a single pilot in the cockpit. In the split second of that visual encounter, his brain took a haunting snapshot. The man guiding the 767 was smiling. In the time it took to blink, the jet had disappeared.
There was a huge THUDDDDDDDDD, the kind of sound that was immediately recognized as a huge object hitting another huge object. The entire floor shook. Windows shattered and shards of glass were sprayed across the office. Suddenly walking or standing was like being on the deck of a ship during a violent storm. And then everyone felt it, the swaying of the tower. It was not a back and forth sway, the kind so often felt on extremely windy days. It was the sway that touched every nerve and rubbed it raw. The building tilted away from the impact. Many stood still and held their breath as they felt the tower continue to move. It went on forever, the waiting, every nerve in their feet waited for the sensation of the swaying to end. Nerve endings in the balls of their feet and in their heels went on high sensation alert as each toe gripped the inside of the shoe. But the tallest building continued to sway away from the impact. They could all feel it and every one of them pictured the giant tower toppling over onto the bustling streets of New York. The sensation was dizzying.
“It’s tipping over!” Vicky screamed. She wrapped her arms around herself and braced for the inevitable.
“It can’t! It can’t!” Angela yelled.
No one moved. They were all frozen in place, their feet paralyzed with fear, minds conjuring up cartoon-like images that the slightest movement would tip over a 110 story building. The swaying continued, growing more gradual as each tenth second slipped by. Seconds slipped by like sluggish minutes do when you stare at your watch. And then finally, the swaying slowed. Some pictured an image of the tower breaking at the base like a large tree being snapped off in a high wind.
And then finally, the swaying sensation gave way to a vibration. In the mixture of panic, confusion and fear stoked paralysis, the jet exploded and sent shock waves through every fiber of the building. The entire panoramic view of New York was immediately erased as a huge, orange fireball erupted outside the window. The entire office interior was briefly painted orange. There was a roaring SWOOOSH sound followed by a billowing cloud of smoke and dust. Debris exploded into the air, some of it seemed to float for a moment before being snatched by gravity and pulled toward the earth. Papers fluttered in the wind like injured birds that would fall to their death. As the office workers stared, they could recognize some objects. Aside from the waterfall of paper, Bill saw a stapler shoot through the air. Jim stared with disbelief as a dented, black file cabinet shot past the window, and Angela saw a desk and chair fly into the sky. She couldn’t be certain, but it did appear as if someone was still sitting in the leather desk chair.
“Oh my God! What the hell has happened?” Ed Cohen asked, as he walked out from his office. The floor was littered with objects, that only a few seconds before, had sat on desks.
“A jet, a jet crashed right into the tower!” Vicky said. She was crying now, and the sobbing made her speech shaky and stop and go.
“A jet? You have to be kidding?” Cohen responded. But he knew she wasn’t kidding.
The swaying had stopped, but the sensation of having felt it still teased the nerves that tried to verify it was no longer present.
The entire office fell silent for a brief moment. It was as if each individual was stunned, trying to comprehend exactly what had happened. Cohen was the first to break the brief silence.
“We need to assess the damage, determine exactly what is going on.” He looked around the large, open office. Every eye was watching him. “George, Nick, and ummÉ.” Cohen turned his head and scanned every face. “David, why don’t you check out the stair wells, call security, and let’s stay calm and first find out what our situation is before we panic.”
The three men left for the stairwell. Nick told the other two he would call security.
The North Tower continued to bleed thick smoke from its wound. Small groups of the office staff gathered and talked about what had just happened, recalling their fear, what they had seen or felt, and above all, the unbelievability of it. Many returned to their desks and made phone calls, most amazed the phone lines still worked. There was an odd mixture of urgency, panic and calmness that was about to be eroded away. Cohen walked over and stood by the window. Debris still floated in the sky. Thick, choking grayish brown smoke continued to bellow out of the building.
“I had a hard time getting through to security,” Nick said as he rejoined the gathering. “They’re still assessing the damage and what’s going on. They said to sit tight for now and keep them informed of any problems we encounter.”
“Thanks Nick,” Cohen told him.
“I smell smoke!” Angela said loudly. As if on command, everyone started sniffing the air.
“I smell it too,” Vicky added.
“So do I,” Jim and Bill both said in unison. Others nodded in agreement.
“Got problems!” George said as he returned from the stairwell, David following on his heels. Both men were walking quickly. “The stairwell is rapidly filling with smoke, and it’s thick. It’s also feeling pretty hot the lower you go. We couldn’t go more than a flight and a half down.”
“There’s one helluva fire,” David added, obviously winded from the stairs and short, brisk walk.
Several of the women gasped, yelled ‘oh no’, or made some comment of their fear.
“What are we going to do?” one woman shouted. It was Clara from the accounting department. Normally very calm and quiet, she looked too tightly wound and ready to burst if anyone did so much as poke her in the ribs.
Cohen turned around and stepped away from the broken window. He looked toward the area of the stairwells and noticed that thick smoke was now finding its way to their floor. “It looks like we better come up with a plan, and soon. Nick, call security back, tell them our situation and find out what they would advise we do. And hurry!”
Nick ran to his office to make the call.
“That smoke is getting thicker,” Jim began. “If we can’t go down, and I assume we can’t because of fire, we’ll need to go up.”
“And how will that help?” Leslie asked.
“It’s better than frying,” Jim shot back. “Besides, we can get up on the roof and hopefully a helicopter can rescue us.”
“Let’s wait and find out what Nick is told,” Cohen suggested. He noticed the thickening smoke that was creeping up the stairwell. “Is that door closed?” he asked, referring to the stairwell.
“It’s closed,” George told him. “But the smoke is pretty thick. It’s probably also coming up the air vents.”
The office staff was growing restless. No one stood in one spot for more than a few seconds before they began pacing across the floor. Some ventured near the stairwell, others walked to their desks, but didn’t sit down, some stared out the broken windows, keeping their distance, while others simply paced aimlessly around the office. Wind blew into the numerous windows, stirring papers and blowing them onto the floor. Small groups of individuals wandered around the office, talking, looking out the window, falling silent and giving in to their worry and fear, thinking of families, wanting to touch the ground again, that from the 101^st floor, seemed like a whole world away and impossible to get to. The air was quickly becoming chilled.
Tom Glenn was standing alone by the window, envious of the beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the low seventies, and here he was trapped high above the streets of New York with no apparent way out. It didn’t look good. He stared out a window that was still intact; grateful for a quiet moment alone that he knew would not last long. Tom reflected on his life, shocked by the calmness he felt as he faced certain, or maybe just probable death. Giving up so quickly was not his trait. Maybe there was something to faith that couldn’t be measured, quantified or fully proven. That’s why it was faith. As he stood there staring out the window, he felt a giant hand of calmness wrap around him. He stood silently, arms folded across his chest, when he noticed a thin, jet trail. Against the backdrop of blue it was difficult to see anything flying. He leaned closer to the window to cut out the glare, squinted his eyes and stared into the distance. Among the clear skies he noticed the metallic sheen of a jet. He stared at it for the longest time. There was really nothing else to do at the moment, and he needed the distraction from thoughts that were growing increasingly morbid by the second. The plane appeared to grow larger, and closer. It didn’t seem to be on any normal course for an airport.
“Does anyone have a radio?” Tom yelled suddenly, still staring at the jet. It was 8:59.
“We’re hunting for one now,” Bill yelled back.
Tom continued staring and was soon joined by others from the office. Jim stood beside him looking through the wisps of smoke and the growing haze that was encircling the building. “What are you looking at?” Jim finally asked.
“A jet. Over there,” he said pointing.
Jim held a hand over his eyes and peered out the window. “Oh, I see it. Looks like it’s coming right for us!”
“You don’t supposeÉ..” Tom began.
“Yes, it is. Hey Bill, did you find a radio yet?” Jim yelled
“Yeah, there was one on Hugh’s desk,” Bill yelled back from across the office. Bill turned up the volume, leaving the radio plugged in on the desk. Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen to the emergency broadcast. In less than a minute, their worst fears were confirmed.
The smoke was growing thick, looking like a morning fog in the office. By now, it was covering the nearly acre of office space, and getting thicker.
“We need to get off this floor,” Cohen said as he walked up to the group now crowded around the radio.
“There’s another jet coming this way too. Look!” Tom said. He walked closer to the window. Everyone followed him to the window.
“This is amazing. I don’t know if that’s the right word, maybe unbelievable,” Cohen said. “I never would’ve thought of using planes as weapons.” He shook his head as he stared at the jet. It was close enough to see windows. It was 9:02. By now, the curtain of smoke was thicker and no longer transparent. People were beginning to cough and hack.
“I just quit smoking two weeks ago,” Martin Cain said. He coughed again, and by now, his eyes were beginning to sting. “I really wish I had a cigarette.”
“Let’s get off this floor, and now” Cohen ordered. His eyes were watering now.
“Look!” Bill yelled, his arm outstretched and his finger pointing to the window. They all turned and looked as the huge 767 jet came up on the south tower. It banked sharply and turned toward the tower, then disappeared behind it. Nearly everyone screamed as the jet crashed into the South Tower. An enormous fireball erupted, spraying the air with more office debris. Bill thought he saw one or two people falling in the midst of the smoke, flames and mass of confetti.
“Oh my God! What is happening?” Tom yelled. The entire group of office staff crowded around the windows, staring at the huge plumes of smoke erupting from the tower. More debris continued to flutter to the ground. While they watched, their office continued to fill with thickening smoke. A similar thought ran through each their minds; two jets implied maybe three, or even four. They were a city under siege, and there was no telling what would come out of the skies next.
“We need to evacuate this floor,” Cohen said. “The smoke is getting too thick. Are the phones still working?” More and more people were coughing and hacking.
“I can’t reach security. The line’s been busy,” Tom said in rapid speech.
“Keep trying,” Cohen answered. “Now, let’s get everyone together in the center area. Bill, why don’t you and a couple others go upstairs and see what’s going on up there. And hurry. We need to move quickly.” He coughed, and felt the slight sting of smoke in his eyes. It was growing hazy like a crowded bar on band night.
Bill grabbed a couple of other men, Hugh Lawrence and Pete Murray and rushed to the stairwell. As soon as he opened the door, smoke poured into the office like thick cotton that could be picked apart. “I need a towel or something!” he shouted. Hugh Lawrence ran to the janitor’s closet, running like a tight end racing for the winning touchdown. He was fifty-one, fully gray and slightly balding in the back. For his five-eleven frame, he was carrying an extra forty pounds, and was noticing it now, but he kept running, ignoring the pain in his legs. He wished he had spent more time at the gym and less time at the bagel shop. Hugh opened the closet door and quickly rummaged through the contents. He tossed out mop heads, pushed aside rolls of toilet paper and paper towels, allowing them to spill onto the floor. He found nothing except tiny cleaning rags the size of a washcloth. He grabbed a handful and ran back toward the stairwell.
“This is all I could find,” he said, out of breath and puffing hard. He held out the handful of rags.
Bill took the rags and looked at them. “I guess this will have to do. Go soak these in some water, and hurry.”
He handed them back to Hugh, who ran to the break area, placed them under a full stream of cold water and returned, water dripping from his hands. “Here you go.”
Bill took the rags, handed one to each of the other two men, and motioned for them to follow him. He walked quickly into the plume of smoke and disappeared. The other two men followed, covering their faces and trying to see through the stinging, blinding smoke. Bill found the steps and began hurrying up to the next floor, knowing there weren’t many more floors to go. The smoke filled the entire stairwell. On each floor, Bill pushed open the door to frightened faces. He noticed most people were huddled near the long, tall, narrow windows.
“How are you folks doing?” he asked as he stepped onto the 105^th floor. His eyes were burning fiercely now, and he was coughing.
“It’s not good,” a man said. He looked to be about forty. Maybe late thirties. Bill couldn’t tell with all the fear scratched onto his face. “We’ve broken open some windows for air. We’ve seen some jumpers from the lower floors. Man, it must be hot for people to jump like that. The fire is moving this way.”
Bill studied the man’s face. Pete and Hugh stood behind him. “We better keep going up. I don’t think we can go down, not with several floors on fire. I’m sure that jet fuel caused a huge fire.” Bill turned, opened the stairwell door, and the three men covered their faces and climbed higher. As each man took another step higher, they wondered what was going to happen next. Were firemen on their way up? Would it make a difference? Would they even arrive in time? One by one, they each began to wonder if the tower would even remain standing.
The 911 desk was under a barrage of phone calls. The lines were overloaded, and operators could only imagine the horror that was occurring.
9:09.21 A male called and stated that at the South tower, people are jumping out the side of a large hole, and no one is catching them.
9.09.43 Caller from the 104^th floor of the South tower, all stairs are blocked.
9.10.22 South tower, stuck elevator on floor 104. People trapped and yelling from inside.
9.12.18 Male caller states that there are about 100 people on the 106^th floor. Requests instructions on how to stay alive.
9.15.34 Observers notice several jumpers from the windows of the North Tower.
Bill, Hugh and Pete returned to their floor and quickly begin leading people up to higher floors, which provided only a marginally better situation. Only about twenty made it before the stairwell became too choked with smoke.
9:17.39 A male caller states the stairs on the 105^th floor have collapsed.
9.19.58 Evacuation to top floor of the North Tower begins.
The top floor of the North Tower became packed with people. Each of them reeked of smoke that was quickly filling the entire floor. People sat, rubbing their eyes, crying, holding onto a bottle of water or soft drink, and sitting against the wall in shock. Others kept running around the acre sized office floor desperately trying to find a way out. But 110 floors is a long way to safety. No one remained near the elevators. Listening to the cries and screams of people trapped became too much to bear.
9.22.23 Male caller states he is on floor 84 of the south tower. Says he cannot breathe when suddenly the call is disconnected.
9.32.14 South Tower, people gain access to roof, hoping to be picked up by a helicopter.
Cohen and his remaining office crew huddle near broken windows, trying desperately to breath fresh air. The floor is rapidly filling with smoke and growing hotter, as the flames crept closer and closer.
“It must be over a hundred in here,” Cohen says.
“At least,” Bill replies. “Think we’ll get,” he stopped and coughed, trying to clear his lungs. It is getting to be more and more difficult. “Think we’ll get out of here?”
“Doubt that,” Tom answers. He wipes the sweat from his face using his shirttail. “I hate this. I hate dying like this.”
“I wish I could tell you that you were wrong, but I can’t,” Bill replies.
Angela and Vicky are huddled together near a window crying quietly. Angela continues staring at the other tower, looking for signs that a rescue might be taking place somewhere, one that would be repeated for them, but nothing happens except for a raging fire and billowing smoke. Then suddenly, there is a shift. The entire top of the south tower breaks free and begins to crumble down as one big, intact section.
“Oh my God!” Angela yells. “Look! It’s falling over!” She screamed louder than she had ever heard herself, and many others joined her.
“Oh God!” Bill yells. Everyone on the floor turns and stares out the window. They watch as the top few floors break away in unison as a single block and begin to crumble and fall over. As the top of the tower tips and begins to fall, the floors beneath it collapse, and suddenly there is a huge plume of brown, gray smoke and dust ejected into the air. They stare in shock as the South Tower collapses almost perfectly, one floor pancaking on top of another, leaving a thick cloud of dust where the tower once stood. .
10.12.35 A male caller from floor 105 states he can barely breathe.
“We’re going to die!” a woman screamed. The top floor of the north tower is filled with sobbing, crying and very little conversation.
“I never thought something like this would happen,” Bill said in a low, defeated voice. He leaned toward the broken window and took in a deep breath of air. It still smelled like smoke and he coughed as the air filled his lungs.
“It’s amazing,” Ed told him. He repositioned himself on the floor, moving away from shards of glass. “I should’ve lived life differently after my wife and daughter died. I’ve wasted so much time.” The words sounded so out of place and foreign, as if someone invisible sitting next to him had spoken. He had never really mentioned their death for all these years. Instead, he held it inside, stuffed away his feelings and buried his life in his work.
“We never know how to really live life until most of life is gone,” Bill told him. “I suppose I should react differently to all this.” He looked around at a room filled with heartbreak. People were on the phone, frantically trying to reach loved ones, talking to their spouses, parents or children, some were still calling 911, screaming into the phone, desperately looking for an escape. He had given up. He had seen a couple of people falling past the windows, and it was a sight that was tattooed on his brain, a moving image he kept replaying no matter how hard he tried to stop it.
“We never act like today is the last day,” Tom said. “There’s always tomorrow. Everything can get done tomorrow. We don’t say I love you because of tomorrow. We don’t take time to smell the roses, because of tomorrow. And then suddenly, today, this moment, and maybe a few minutes more is all we have left, and tomorrow is no more than a dream.” He hacked and coughed, feeling the smoke burning deeper into his lungs. The air was getting worse and the heat was growing unbearable.
Angela walked over, pushed aside some glass with her foot, and sat down. “I wonder if my husband is down there,” she said, looking out the window at the mass of fire and police vehicles. Her husband was a fireman, and from the looks of the scene, every fire station in the city had responded.
“Did you get a hold of anyone?” Bill asked her.
“I tried. Kids are in school. My mom’s not home, and can you believe it, I can’t remember the number to the fire station! My mind just won’t work right.” At that moment, her husband was racing up the stairs with scores of other fire and police officials. He was on the forty-fifth floor.
“I talked to my wife. I told her I’d try to get out and not to worry. I don’t want her last memories of my voice to be panic,” Bill said.
“I’ll bet that was difficult,” Ed replied. He wiped his eyes and stared out the window at the column of smoke and dust that was slowly blowing away. There was once 110 story tower outside that window, and now nothing but a memory of what had stood there. It was almost impossible to comprehend. He checked his watch. It read 10:25. The second hand was sweeping past 6 and he stared at it a moment, feeling that every second was more precious than he had ever imagined. He suddenly realized how worthless money truly was.
There was a loud rumble coming from the floors below. The building shook slightly and vibrated. As a floor collapsed, it weakened the structure even more. The sides of the tower were similar to an exoskeleton; it held the building up. The floors that were attached to it transferred the weight to the outer skin of the tower. As each floor collapsed, the sides weakened and began to bow outward. The raging fire in the floors below reached over a thousand degrees. The steel began to sag, the rivets weakened and one by one, they failed. Parts of the lower floors began to buckle. The creaking could be heard on all the floors above.
Elevators swayed slightly, and trapped occupants screamed, banging on the doors begging for help. Some trapped in higher elevators had already succumbed to the fire and smoke.
“What’s that noise? What is it?” Angela yelled. She sat up and began coughing. Sweat poured down her shiny face.
“The fire,” Ed replied. “Try to sit back and breathe slowly,” he told her. He knew, the building would not last much longer. Watching the south tower collapse, even though it was hit second, foretold their fate. He was sure of it. The thought gave him an inkling of what it must be like to sit on death row.
There was a loud crashing sound and a huge plume of thick, grayish smoke bellowed up from the stairwell. Everyone leaned into a window and sucked in what little fresh air they could. The floor beneath them shook and vibrated slightly as lower floors began to fail. The screaming continued in short bursts, following by quiet sobbing.
One man, not from Cohen’s office, got up and walked over to a desk and grabbed a large leather chair. He wheeled it closer to the window; picked it up with strength only a dying man can possess, and tossed it through the tall, narrow plate of tinted glass. The window immediately surrendered and the chair disappeared as it fell to the ground 110 stories below. Everyone turned and looked. Screams from lower floors could be heard. The man calmly walked over to the window, kicked away large shards of pointed glass at the window base, and calmly jumped.
“Oh my God!”
Several women screamed and the sound was piercing.
“Damn it’s getting hot in here,” Tom commented, trying to ignore what had just occurred. Beads of sweated covered his face. His shirt was soaked. “It must be a hundred-twenty in here.”
“Reminds me a little of Phoenix,” Bill answered. The temperature was rising quickly. There were more rumblings from the floors below, only louder this time. The building felt as though it had moved slightly. Everyone looked around, studying the fear in everyone’s face. They were eyes of terror, resignation and sadness. They were eyes that had given up hope and were merely waiting for the inevitable. It amazed Bill how death could be faced so calmly, almost peacefully. Only a few continued fighting it.
There was another loud rumbling and this time the screams on the lower floor rose like thick and choking smoke. The floor shook violently. Pencil holders and other small items danced across desks. A lamp fell to the floor, its sound barely noticed. The tower shook and trembled, and loud THUDDDDS filled the air. The noise rose up and became a loud and thunderous roar that filled everyone’s hearing.
Suddenly it felt like sitting in a huge elevator whose cable had just broken. There was a brief moment of feeling nearly weightless as the floor beneath them collapsed. It buckled unevenly, first one side buckled and then the entire floor gave way. Almost in unison, everyone threw up their arms like roller coaster riders often do when the coaster tops the peak and begins a rapid descent. Nothing but piercing screams filled the air.
Bill looked over at Ed Cohen and saw a look of peace on his face. He knew he was going to meet his beloved wife and daughter whom he had ached for all these years. The floor fell several feet, maybe two stories before slamming hard into something. Furniture that had become briefly airborne came crashing to the floor. And then that feeling of weightlessness again. Glass shattered. Desks and office furniture moved about as if everything had suddenly sprouted legs and was running for safety. Loud crashes from below nearly drowned out every human sound. And then there was a horrible feeling of falling as the lowered floors finally gave way and collapsed. The walls caved in and the floor began to break up. Bill grabbed onto the window blinds to keep from sliding across the buckling floor, but the blinds immediately gave way and fell on top of him. Ed Cohen simply let the crumbling floor toss him about. His expression never changed, and the last time Bill saw him, he was sure Ed was smiling, even if just a little. Tom rolled away into a blast of smoke and disappeared. Orange flames erupted, shooting up through the broken floor before retreating briefly, then reappearing even stronger. In the rapid span of a second, the heat grew unbearable, and what didn’t immediately catch fire began to melt. The screams were snuffed out as smoke and fire enveloped the top, collapsing floors.
The crumbled 110^th floor began falling, riding a wave on top of the other floors beneath it. Every time the sandwich of collapsed floors fell onto another floor, there was a backbone, jarring thud before the next floor gave way, and it continued like that, one floor collapsing onto another. Each jarring thud came in rapid fire succession, and for those still conscious, it sounded similar to a machine gun going off, only a little slower. The noise was deafening, and those who were still alive, could not even hear their own thoughts as the tower continued its rapid collapse.
At 10.29.42 all calls from the north tower were disconnected. 595 souls left for home, leaving the earth in a flood of tears and sorrow that only their loved ones could truly comprehend, and many could not even do that.
And somewhere in the collapse, Angela met her husband.

Salt Of The Earth

Dr Linda L Bielowski

To be swinging on the porch swing, swaying
up-and-back, up-and-back, in swooshing syncopation
with pa’s wheezing breaths on a twice baked Iowa day,
during a dry cough drought, in a season of living by
a single word and a simple handshake. Swinging and
holding a carpenter’s calloused palm, powdered in sawdust and
salt of the earth. Tempted by promises of rainbow cones,
cool watermelon picnics, and pitchers of frosty Kool-Aid smiles.
Soaking in the wisdom of windmills and weathervanes, the
Revelation of a heaven so bright it fills the belly with brilliant
birthstones. Measuring the thirsty corn crop against the ideal of knee-high in July, while teasing thunder beings who bounce on
cumulonimbus trampolines, pa whispers and teaches me
to pray for rain.

Unhealthy Extremes

Paul Stansfield

That night it was the four of us at the bar. Michael Conium (the doc), William Rubin, Rhea Steato, and me, your narrator, Orson Garfield (and yes, with my first name I’ve heard many jokes, especially when “Mork and Mindy” was on the air). We were gathered for our once or twice monthly sit down meeting. We were pretty tight in college, but after graduation, what with all of us getting big boy or big girl jobs and we don’t get to spend much time together as a group anymore. So we value these times.
The place we hang out in, the Cleveland Street Pub, is suited for our purpose. It’s an old man bar; no loud music, no crowds, just a few old guys (and us) sitting around drinking and smoking. We can always find a table or booth, always. Not that we have anything against dance clubs, or meat market bars; they have their own charms. It’s just when you want to catch up with old friends, you want quiet sedateness.
We’d already gone through the important details-in-our-lives updates, so we’d moved on to anecdotes. As usual, Mike had the floor. I should explain; the rest of us had office jobs of one kind or another. Business, computers, all of that. Even we’re bored by the minutia of our careers, the grosses, the payroll accounts, the new software, so the others are, of course, also uninterested. Only Dr. Mike has stories that we can all appreciate. Not shockingly, I’d asked him about anything weird or disgusting that he’d seen or heard of since we’d last spoke (five weeks ago). We’ve learned that it is these stories that Mike enjoys telling the best. Request for tales of heroism, nobility, and inspiration always get him depressed or even pissy. Even the way he tells these stories is in a jocular manner, interspersed with crude and sometimes tasteless humor. Rhea thinks this is a defense mechanism, and I am inclined to agree.
We’d just downed out shots as I recall (Beam for Billy and Mike, Jager for Rhea and myself) and Mike had just fired up a stogie. That’s a funny thing about Mike, and from what he’s told us, it’s a think about doctors in general. You’d think he of all people would be trying to live healthy, given what he sees every day. Hell, he’s shown us snapshots of blackened lungs and cirrhotic livers and the rest, but that doesn’t’ stop him. As he says whenever we bring it up, “Yeah, yeah. Physician heal thyself. Fuck you.”
“I’ve been saving this one,” said Mike, “until we were all together. Weirdest shit I’ve ever seen. It was nearly a month ago. I was on the ER one night, and this guy we’ll call him Mr. S, comes in complaining of severe abdominal pain. It was kind of a slow night, and the case was mysterious, so we triple teamed him. Me Gary, and Tammy. We get his history and do a preliminary check, and don’t know the cause of his discomfort. No conditions, no injuries, and it’s not appendicitis or stones. Then Gary takes me aside for a minute and says he knows this guy. Gary was only with us that night to cover for someone else; normally he’d in obstetrics. Anyway, Mr. S had been in several times with his pregnant wife. Mrs. S was pretty open and chatty, especially when her husband was out of the room. It seems Mr. S was the perfect expectant father, according to his wife. Couldn’t have been more sweet and sensitive. Went with her to all the classes, did all the reading, dealt with her mood swings patiently, did all sorts of extra chores and everything. As Gary got to know Mrs. S better, she revealed even more. Her hubby’s sensitivity was real acute. You’ve heart of sympathy morning sickness, right? He was getting that gangbuster. Mrs. S said something else too; apparently before her husband met her he’d been told time and time again by old girlfriends that he was selfish and insensitive. So it appeared that he was trying to mend his ways big time.”
“We had to get back to our patient then, not that it did any good. We still couldn’t identify the problem. Finally, not knowing what else to do after we’d taken some samples for tests, we bundled him off to get X-rayed. He’s still moaning and screaming the whole time, really in agony. Since we didn’t know what was wrong, we were scared to give him any potent pain killers, and the milder ones weren’t doing shit, evidently. While he’s in the X-ray room Gary tells me more about our mystery guest. Not only had a former girlfriend miscarried years ago, his wife had miscarried the night before! Why Gary didn’t mention that before, I don’t know.”
“Mr. S was back in our charge about five minutes later. If anything, his pain was getting worse, his screams made you want to cry they were so agonized. I was just about to suggest giving him a heavy pain killer, the unknown disease or whatever be damned, when Mr. S grabs his hospital gown and rips it off to the side. He’s writhing there, starkers with the rest of us trying to hold him still and calm him down. Suddenly we see a stream of blood shoot out of his urethra (“His Penis hole,” he added, as Billy looked puzzled). Not just a short trickle, either, it kept going and going. Then Mr. S’s screams meshed into one continuous wall of sound even more intense than before. Our ears were ringing for days afterward, like that time I was next to the speaker all night at the Misfits show. Patients and visitors down the hall actually vomited from the noise. As we looked on, I swear I saw it bulging on the way down, an object the approximate size and shape of a bean made its way out of S’s dick head. Not smoothly, either, as you can imagine. It completely tore up the guy’s member. I saw a nasty accident involving a Prince-Albert-in-the-can piercing gone horribly awry, but this was way worse. It looked like raw hamburger.”
“Enough, enough,” groaned Billy at this point. He was always the most squeamish of our bunch. Actually, to be fair, he’d held out longer than I would have predicted. Rhea was affected strongly as well. She’d been resting her hand on my knee, and she had involuntarily increased the pressure as the tale wore on.
Mike just grinned indulgently at Billy, and went on, less graphically. “I’ve heard stories about mind over matter, like all of you have. Swamis who can cut themselves and not bleed, or stop their hearts temporarily, and stuff like that. I’m skeptical; I’d need to stick my hands in the non-bleeding wounds, so to speak, but I think it’s possible. The placebo effect is well documented, and what are these examples if not conscious, more extreme versions of this? But this, Mr. S, surpassed them all. Forget the leaf, he turned over a whole new forest. Sympathy morning sickness is one thing, but a sympathy miscarriage is quite another. Even Alan Alda on his best day couldn’t do that.”
He let this sink in for a bit, and no one said anything. I think we were all just pondering what he’d just told us. Rhea and me especially, since we’d been trying to get pregnant for a few months. Eventually we all got our thoughts in order and broke the silence.
“Where was his wife while this was going on?” I asked, getting the ball rolling.
“Home asleep. He hadn’t awakened her.”
“You got the tests and X rays back, I assume,” said Billy. “What was going on physically within him?”
“Mr. S was healthy and normal. Somehow his system tapped some blood and tissue for the incident, but otherwise he was okay.”
“And his dick? What happened there?” I asked.
“His penis, like I said, was damaged significantly. Luckily we were able to get him to Johns Hopkins, which is one of the sex change hospitals, and has doctors who are some of the best dick builders, or in this case, repairers, in the business. They were able to fix him up pretty well. They did have to add a device, a pump I think, because there was permanent damage, but he should regain near normalcy, I should think.”
“Plus I hope he gets some psychiatric help,” added Rhea.
Mike shrugged. “I think that would be a good idea, sure.”
“What about the main thing,” Rhea went on, “Was the fake baby alive?”
Mike had been drinking at his beer, and he choked and did a beautiful spit-take. He couldn’t answer for a long time. It was the hardest I saw him laugh all night.
“You’re precious, Rhea,” he said when he recovered. “Oh, that’s rich! No, of course it wasn’t alive. Granted, it’s amazing that Mr. S was able to somehow form a pseudo fetus, and then expel this, along with a lot of blood from no wound, all cause by his own mind, but there’s limits. He couldn’t actually reproduce a human himself, is his body.” He went back to chuckling.
“Okay, it wasn’t alive, but tell me this. What would have happened if his wife had carried to term? Would his body have built himself a false replica of this larger baby too?” Rhea’s eyes found mine as I finished my question. Clearly she’d been thinking something similar.
Mike didn’t laugh this time. “I don’t know,” was all he said. He drained his beer without interruption. “You want to know another weird thing about that might? “ Knowing his question was rhetorical, he went on. “We studied samples of the gore he shot out. Semen, with sperm included was mixed in with the blood.”
And that was our cue to buy another round of shots. And after that we turned to other topics. Weird was cool, but we fulfilled our quote for the evening.
This whole story flashed through my mind about a week later, when Rhea got a call back from her doctor. She’d pissed a blue cross, or whatever, a few days before, and the doctor confirmed what the over the counter oracle had prophesized. We were jubilant, of course, after months of wondering if one or both of us, “was the problem,” and them hating ourselves for suspecting it was the other. We were going to be parents! We spent the evening at the best French restaurant (all right, the only French restaurant) in town (with non-alcoholic champagne, though) and then went dancing. “While I can do it without knocking over about twenty people with my belly,” as Rhea put it. Afterwards, we went home and fucked like bunnies (“just to make sure,” I joked). We were resting afterwards, my ass glued to the wet spot on the sheets, when Rhea let me know that she’d been thinking about Mike’s story again, too.
“For once I’m glad that you’re a selfish bastard. Don’t you go making fake babies and then rip up my fuck toy by giving pretend birth to them.”
“Agreed. And don’t you mess up my love tunnel making and birthing the actual, real baby.” I paused a beat as she giggled. “And go make me an omlette, bee-atch.”
She laughed and punched me, but not too hard.

Grown

Dounia Sadeghi

They weigh me down
-My anchors-
(Self-doubt and skepticism)
To the earth
I am but a fallen angel.
My innocence
Will not do me good there
I must act as though I know
How it feels to be worn.

The stinging is alive.
Inside me
There is knowing and more
To be discovered
I am unable to break its barrier;
To extract the pulse.

It is beating
I know.
I feel it.

It has diminished
Since the second grade
When running was easy
And my sock didn’t match.
It was okay to be.

Just breathe.

And all I did was breathe
And life was complete.

This dying is eventual.
My confidence has faded,
The decay is gradual.
My exuberance has subsided
To a quiet complacency
That endures,
And endures
Until I no longer believe.

The Last Public Hanging

Mel Tharp

There is something about the sight of a stack of pancakes on a platter along with strips of crisp bacon that is generally tantalizing to the taste buds. To me, however, this evokes memories of a special date in the history of American justice. That date is August 14, 1936.
On that date in history Rainey Bethea was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky. It would officially be recorded as the last public hanging in the United States.
In our contemporary it seems incongruous that a ten-year-old boy would be preparing to leave at dawn to watch a man die on the scaffold. Yet, it seems to my parents as well as thousands of others that this was the proper thing to do. School teachers and ministers advised parents that it would serve as an example for their offspring to see a bad man pay for his crime.
As I finished my breakfast, I remember dad urging me to “hurry up, son, and get dressed. We’ll need to get there early.”
Meanwhile, at 3:00 a.m., on a lonely stretch of highway between Louisville and Owensboro, L.I. Dishman and A.O. Reisz, Daviess County Sheriff’s deputies, were racing the dawn to Owensboro. Their passenger, a 22-year-old black man named Rainey Bethea, had only 152 minutes to live.
A few miles away, a Louisville & Nashville train sped westward through the night toward Owensboro. In a crowded passenger can sat author Hash, the man who would spring the trap to send Bethea to his doom. Hash was conspicuous in his white suit and white Panama hat - peculiar attire for a hangman.
At the Daviess County Courthouse, Florence Shoemaker Thompson, the 43-year-old sheriff sat waiting and worrying. If Hash failed to arrive, this mother for four would become the first woman in America to hang a man.
On the streets of Owensboro, a city of less than 20,000, crowds estimates at between 10,000 and 25,000 also waited. They slept in the courthouse yard, on the running boards of cars and in ditches along the banks of the Ohio River.
In the parking lot of the county garage at First and Locust Streets, a bright streetlight cast eerie shadows across the waiting crowd. The raw lumber of a new gallows built the afternoon before, towered 25 feet.
The area beneath it, the pit into which the condemned man would drop, was open to public view. The heavy weather-proofed rope, with 13 turns in the noose, hung waiting through the night.
For 329 years, since a blacksmith named John Read was hanged at Jamestown, Virginia, public hangings had been a part of American justice. But this would be the last American crowd to watch a man die in the gallows.
The road that would end on the 13 gallows steps began Sunday, June 7, 1936.
Elischa Edwards, a wealthy widow, lived in a three-room apartment on the second floor of a house at 322 E. Fifth Street in Owensboro. When she failed to answer repeated knocks on her door that morning about 11 o’clock, Robert Richardson, a neighbor, climbed a stepladder to look over the transom.
When neighbors entered the apartment they found the 79-year-old woman lying dead across her bed. There were bruises on her throat,a pool of blood beneath her.
Coroner Delbert J. Glenn would rule at 6 p.m. That she had been strangled and raped during the night.
Two hours after Mrs. Edwards’ body was found, police searching her apartment discovered a black celluloid rung with a black “R” against a white background. It was a cheap ring of a type commonly found at the state prison in Eddyville.
The investigation showed the robber had climbed onto a coal shed roof and then onto a servants house and onto the roof of a covered walkway and finally onto the kitchen roof and into Mrs. Edward’s apartment.
Within hours, police were looking for Bethea, a Roanoke, Virginia native who had moved to Owensboro five years earlier.
Bethea had worked as a house servant for several Owensboro families and had been employed at the apartment house where Mrs. Edwards lived. A year before he had been sent to Eddyville for burglary. In January, after serving six months he was released on parole.
The celloloid ring was identified as belonging to Bethea.
On June 16, a warrant was taken charging Bethea with murder and rape. Shortly before 2 p.m., a worker at Owensboro River Sand & Gravel spotted Bethea beneath some bushes along the Ohio River bank.
At 2:00, Patrolmen Dayton Hicks and Frate Auston arrested Bethea at the foot of Daviess Street.
Twenty-five minutes later, Bethea was arraigned before Police Judge F.A. Roby who ordered his case sent to the grand jury. At 2:50 p.m., he was in the police car speeding toward Louisville.
It was one of the hottest summers on record in Owensboro. Little rain had failed for the past months. Temperatures were short and local officials wanted to prevent a lynching.
In route to Louisville Bethea confessed to Patrolman Raleigh Bristow and Deputies Dishman and Reisz. In the Louisville jail he signed a confession saying the diamond rings, necklace and earrings stolen from Mrs. Edwards’ apartment were hidden behind curtains in his room near 11th and Fredrica Streets.
A search of Bethea’s room, however, revealed nothing.
The next day, Nethea denied his guilt, saying he “must have been drunk” when he confessed.
The next day he confessed again - this time with W.E. Crady, a jail custodian. In this confession, he said the jewelry was in a barn across from Mrs. Edwards’ apartment. The jewelry and the dress belonging to Mrs. Edwards were later found there.
On June 22, 1936, Circuit Court Judge George S. Wilton ordered a special session of the grand jury to convene.
Although Bethea was charged with rape, robbery and murder, Commonwealth Attorney Herman Birdhead sought indictment on the charge of only - rape. In 1911, Kentucky had established death by electrocution for all capital offenses except rape. The penalty for rape remained death by hanging.
“I expect to prosecute the defendant for rape and if he is convicted, he will be hanged in Daviess County,” Birkhead promised the grand jury.
At 10:00 a.m., the grand jury began its deliberation. At 11:15 a.m., they returned their single rape indictment.
Three days later, the minimum time allowed by Kentucky law, the trial began.
Crowds began to gather downtown at 7:00 a.m. Everyone entering the courthouse was searched for weapons.
At 9:05, Bethea was led into the courtroom.
A pool of 111 men was called for jury duty. The first 12 were called.
Before the trial began, Bethea entered a plea of guilty. The prosecution presented its case anyway. But there was no defense.
After three hours of testimony, the jury retired to consider the sentence,
Four and one-half minutes later, at 12:23 p.m., they returned to the courtroom. The unanimous verdict reached on the first ballot was death by hanging.
Bethea rose to stand before the bench. Wilson ordered him “hanged by the neck with his body suspended so as to cause death” between sunrise and sunset July 31.
On July 10, four black lawyers in Louisville began working on Bethea’s case, hoping to show that he had not received a fair trial because he was a black man charged with raping a white woman.
When they presented a motion for a new trial the following, the deadline for such motions had already expired.
On July 28, Bethea’s new lawyers filed an appeal. It was denied. Then U.S. District Judge Elwood Hamilton in Louisville delayed the execution until he could decide. Then on August 3rd he ruled that it could proceed.
On August 6, Govermor A.B. Chandler signed a new death warrant ordering Bethea to hang at sunrise on August 14.
Bethea’s lawyers said there would be no further appeals. Now, the end was only hours away.
At 6:00 p.m., August 13, Bethea had his last meal of fried chicken, pork chops, cornbread, pickles, mashed potatoes, lemon pie and ice cream.
After finishing his meal, Bethea asked for a pencil and paper. On five sheets, each of a different color, he wrote to his sister, Ora Fledge of Nichols, South Carolina:
“Dear Sister: This is my last letter and I have told them to send you my body and I want you to put it beside my father and I am saved an don’t you worry about me because I am going to meet my maker and don’t you worry at all because I am saved looking to meet you someday in the other world so goodby and pray that we will meet again some day.”
Now, at 4:00 a.m., Bethea’s long ride in the patrol car was almost over.
Hash train was pulling into Union Station. Sheriff Thompson was there to meet him. At 4:25, she went to the gallows to wait for her deputies and Bethea.
The crowd grew steadily and dawn was approaching as I walked with dad to the gallows site. There were children, many of them babies.
There were “hanging parties” and “necktie parties.” Hot dogs, popcorn, soft drinks, tamales, fish and fruit were hawked on the streets. Confession stands were set up on the courthouse lawn and near the gallows.
People stood on the roofs of downtown buildings, clung to the tops to telephone poles and stood on automobiles. The limbs of nearby trees were thick with people. A few even stood on the top of the hearse that waited for Bethea’s body. Some who had staked out front row seats began selling them to late comers.
At 4:20, activity began to pick up. The new gallows were tested for the first time. George Phil Hanna, a White County, Indiana farmer, had knotted the ropes on 80 necks on 40 years as a hangman. But he had never pulled the lever to drop the men to their deaths.
Now, at 5:12, the crowd began shifting, looking for Bethea. At 5:29, a patrol car stopped near the jail and Bethea was led through the crowd, handcuffed between two deputies.
“I will die happy,” he said. “I have made my peace with God.”
Bethea stopped at the foot of the gallows. “Let me take off my shoes. I want to put on a clean pair of socks,” Bethea said. He left his shoes and dirty socks at the foot of the scaffold.
Bethea prayed with Rev. Herman J. Lammers the Catholic priest who had baptized him in jail. As he climbed the steps, Bethea said, “I want to see the priest again.” Lammers patted his shoulder.
At the top, tested the trap with his left foot to see if it would support his body standing on it. He made his religious confession to Lammers and received last rites.
The black hood was then slipped over Bethea’s head. Sheriff Lester Pyle, of Carmi, Illinois, who had come to assist Hanna, bound his hands with a strap.
Hannas’ professionalism demanded decorum at hangings. There was always a prearranged signal for the trap to be sprung. He didn’t want the condemned man to know it was coming.
But when Hanna was ready, Arthur Hash was looking the other way. He failed to see the signal. “Do it now!” Hanna commanded sharply.
“I forgot to pull a bolt out of the trigger,” Hash recalled later. “But somebody pulled it for me. Then Bethea’s body fell. It was the most horrific sound I ever heard.”
Bethea’s body fell straight 8 1/2 feet to the end of the rope. His head jerked sharply to the right. There was no movement in his body as he hung there. Death appeared to be instant - aneous though it would be eight minutes before the doctors pronounced him dead of a broken neck.
Despite his request to be buried next to his father, Bathea’s body was taken to Potter’s Field behind Clmwood cemetery to rest in an unmarked grave at a horse barn.
Meanwhile, back at town, Hash told reporters: “I’m drunk as hell. I am getting away from this town as fast as I can. Well, anyhow it’s over.”

For months after witnessing Bethea’s death on the gallows, I was a child with a tortured soul. At school I frequently skipped play times on the premise that I was behind in my studies. At night I would lie in bed and try to imagine what was going through Bethea’s mind during his last moments of life.
Gradually, as I grew older, I managed to put that hot August morning in 1936 into the deepest, darkest vaults of my mind.
I can relate to the words of William Shakespeare:
“ ‘Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.”
Or more succinctly, in the words of Arthur Hash, the man that dropped Bethea to his death.
“Well, anyhow, it’s over.”

Wipeout

Jason Stahl

Racing through the night,
forging ahead,
I know now what for,
or where I’m going,
I punch the gas,
hit the powder,
and spin,
into a delirious whirl,
through space and time,
until I rest,
in the sobering hug,
of mud and stone.

Afternoons and Coffee Spoons

Jason Scroggins

If anyone could be considered “The Queen” of Worthington-Killbourne High School, it was Erin Smith. She was the stereotypical rich, snooty, popular bitch and although I hated her, she was worshipped by the masses. Every school has their Erin and I suppose ours was no different than any other. You know the type so I won’t waste your time with the details. Bottom line, she was just a pushy-loud-mouth-keg-sucking-know-it-all-bitch who made every afternoon in English a living hell for me, and I had finally had enough. Simple.
Whenever we had a classroom discussion, every comment she made seemed to start with “when I was in IB...” I wanted to scream. Yeah we get it bitch. You were in the International Baccalaureate program, and we’re all inferiors. Why aren’t you there now brillo head? But of course, I kept this to myself. What good would it do? She would remain unscathed, and I would end up in the principal’s office. As annoying as this was, it could have been endured, but no matter what the discussion, Erin Smith or “Smitty” as her letter jacket read, would do her best to crush any idea that didn’t agree with her own.

While she did this to nearly everyone, I seemed to be her favorite target. I could see the utter disdain she felt towards me radiating from those cruel eyes, cooking me from the inside out. She made such cutting, ruthlessly sarcastic comments, that even though I am not a violent person, I often fantasized about smashing her face repeatedly into the desk.
If the classroom was the only place I had to deal with her, it might have tolerable, but it was in the halls too.
“There he goes. Look at his pants. Helloooo the eighties are over. What a fricken geek. Shhhhh here he comes.”
I knew she was talking about me, laughing at me, but I pretended not to hear. If I confronted her she would just lie and say she wasn’t talking about me. I really had no proof. And that is the most difficult thing about dealing with the Erin’s of the world. They know how to bully and humiliate without getting caught. It got to the point that I hated coming to school because of her. Everyday was an inner struggle just to get myself to walk through those doors. I couldn’t walk down the hall without feeling that any laughter was at my expense. I was sure she had something to do with putting the sign on my back, but of course I couldn’t prove it. That was the one and only time I was foolish enough to go to the Dean of Students. I tried to explain her behavior to him, but it came out sounding paranoid. The coup de grate came as I told him about the sign. It was obvious he could barely keep a straight face. He nodded at the appropriate times, and asked a few follow up questions.
“Did she ever say anything inappropriate to you Alfred?”
“Well no, but...” I stammered.
“Did she threaten you with physical violence?”
“No but...”
“Did you see her put the sign on your back that said...What did it say?”
“It said Alfred Hits Cock.” I knew he remembered what it said. He was just getting his kicks by making me say it again.
“Like the movie director? I remember that movie The Birds. As a young kid that really freaked me out. I remember that scene when the lady...”
“Thank you for your time” I said. I could tell he too, was laughing at my expense. What did I expect from that idiot? He was one of them. I could tell. He could bully whomever he wanted, and he was getting paid to do it.
“I’ll have a talk with her” he assured me as I walked out the door. Bullshit, I thought. He wouldn’t talk to her, and if he did, it would be that standard I-don’t-think-this-is-a-big-deal-but-I’m-covering-my-ass speech.
From then on when he passed me in the hall, I could tell he was holding back a smirk. I should have expected this reaction. Her type always gets out of jail free. They’re bullet proof. They rule the school and always get the last word. Winter ball proved that. Erin was with a group who was clearly drunk when they got to the door. She managed to get out of it, as usual. Some poor sap in her group took the blame.
By the middle of the year I had reached my breaking point. We were having a class discussion on “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and I brought up how Prufrock’s inner struggle to face his overwhelming, soul crushing fear was on some level, admirable. Erin was quick to open her keg hole. “Please. That guy is a wimp. Talk about a pathetic loser. All he does is sit there in fear, afraid to act while his life passes him by. Coward. You know something else? He will never act. His kind never does. Good old Alfred is just waiting to die. Measuring out his life with coffee spoons. The really pathetic part about old Alfred is that he is aware of the fact that he is wasting his life, and yet he does it anyway because he is too afraid to act.”
She kept emphasizing Alfred, clearly meant as another jab at me. That afternoon in sixth period English I came as close as ever that day to acting out my fantasy. The smug, contemptuous look on her face nearly blinded me with rage. At the same time I knew that some of what she said was right, and I hated her for it. Students and teachers alike mock me because I am timid and afraid, and it is obvious that Alfred and I share more than the same name. At least the teachers mock me when Iâm not there, or they think I can’t hear. Of course, because of what I am, I let her comment go without rebuttal. I could here the Eternal Footman snickering. That was it. The simple analysis of a poem during an in class discussion was what ultimately led me to act out my revenge.
As I stood in front of the mirror that night, I looked at myself, glasses, fat, not a very stylish dresser. I was a prime target. I was Prufrock.
I waited, and thought, and watched. I had to come up with something that would really hurt her where she lived. People get away with so much because their reputation and position in society allows it. For them, image is everything. It seemed to me, the best plan would be to attack her image.
Erin, like most human beings, was a creature of habit. Everyday she brought her Worthington-Killbourne Knights water bottle to class, filled with water. Because she was such a big time athlete, she was constantly drinking water to “stay hydrated”, and Friday was no different. She had only taken a few swallows when the evacuation drill announcement came over the loud speaker, as I knew it would. My eyes were riveted on the bottle. If she took it with her, I would have to strike some other time. Meanwhile, I pulled my “special” water bottle out of my bag. The night before, I put several spoonfuls of Visine into my own Worthington-Killbourne High bottle. Clear, odorless, and great to hide hangovers, Visine is also a potent laxative. Since she was queen, let her sit on her throne all day. The thought of her doubled over, in a most undignified manner on top of the toilet bowl made be laugh so hard I spilled nearly half the Visine before I was able to get control of myself.
My heart skipped as she reached for the water bottle. All of my planning had been for nothing; I would have to try again. Then she put down the bottle to put on her coat. Her friends were already on their way out the door and in her rush to catch up with them, she left her bottle on the desk. I was filled with giddiness and my heart started pounding. For a moment I nearly changed my mind, then they looked at me. The look was so smug I wanted to slap her. I knew I was going through with it. To hell with the consequences.
Making sure I was the last one out of the room, I switched her bottle with my “special brew”. It only took a second and nobody noticed. When we returned from the drill, I could barely keep a straight face as she sipped away. That’s it bitch, keep sipping on it. I thought.
Now this may not seem like a terribly clever plan so far, but Worthington-Killbourne High School has very strict rules about players missing school on the day of a game. She had to stay in class all day or she couldn’t play. She must have just kept on sipping right up until game time because, apparently there was an “accident” in the second half of the soccer game. I overheard Jenny Hanoian, one of her inner circle, telling someone else about it before class started the next day.
“OH. MY. GOD! Did you here what happened to Erin at the game? She went to kick the ball and totally shit her pants. It was running down her shorts and onto her socks and everything. It was totally gross. You could totally see it from the stands.”
“No way. EEEWWW”.
“I know. Melissa told me she smelled so bad on the bus, they had to open all the windows, and they nearly froze to death on the ride back! I think some scouts were there too. Yeah. Like hi we saw you shit your pants. Come to our college.”
This was too good to be true. As I pretended not to hear, I bit my lip so hard I nearly drew blood. As Erin entered the classroom, I could hear the snickers and whispering behind her back. “Dude, there she is. She’s the one I was telling you about.”
As she passed me, I noticed a sign taped to her back that read “Shitty Smitty”. As much as I wanted to leave the sign on her back for the next class to enjoy, I could not resist the urge let her know that I had seen the sign. “Erin, there seems to be something taped on your back. It looks like some sort of sign.” In utter horror, she removed the sign from her back. The look on her face was priceless. For the first time all year, “Shitty Smitty” was silent for the entire period.
Let me tell you one last thing. True it was petty and as an adult I should have been above this, but in 20 years of teaching, that was the most satisfying lesson I have ever taught.

Crushed

Linda L. Bielowski, Ph.D.

Heart of ice
Crushed in the winepress of callous caresses
Candlelight low, mood high
On matchsticks igniting firestorms of feeling
Melting defenses, striking down reason
With words that writhe and coil and beguile
Brilliant, bewitched coral snakes
Curling in ears, captivating senses
Drunken idols of self-indulgent meaning,
Graven images of the moment
Quench wicks of refining wisdom
The sober future flat lining

Box

Kevin P. Keating

-1-
Michael O’Reilly paced back and forth on the loading dock of Burning River Brewery. He sipped his scalding coffee and waited for Cloggy Collins to emerge from the small windowless office with a clipboard containing that day’s delivery routes. The other drivers, their faces pale and sallow and somehow shrunken by the arctic gales whipping off Lake Erie, crowded around a barrel and warmed their hands above the weak flames. They stomped their heavy black boots and pulled the collars of their coats close to their necks. Most of them smoked, and whenever the wind picked up they unleashed a torrent of coughs and vulgarities. Their moods were icy and brittle from the long winter imprisonment with nagging wives, drunken girlfriends, unappreciative children, rotten stepchildren, disobedient dogs. Cabin fever swept through the streets of Cleveland like an unchecked epidemic, and the men, perhaps in a feeble attempt to ward off the creeping sensation of insanity, kept themselves busy in different ways. One man hummed a half-remembered melody, his voice accompanied by the sharp percussion of industry—forklifts and conveyor belts and a hundred machines whirring to life. Another roasted a sausage over the rusty barrel and complained about yesterday’s football game—the quarterback had thrown five interceptions and the Browns lost in overtime. Their voices became fierce and impassioned, and Michael O’Reilly, who listened to it all, as he did every morning, was reminded of a boisterous mob of derelicts. He wondered what strange apparitions emerged from their minds. Their expressions, twisted with turmoil, cold and rigid as the icicles dangling from the top of the warehouse, suggested that sanity was a useless thing long since discarded on the rubbish heap of life. This worried Michael O’Reilly who spent a great of his time trying to convince himself that he was not like them, that he cared about very different things. If only he could put his finger on what those things might be.
From out of the blustery air, a voice cried out: “Shut it!”
The men came to attention.
Already chewing his first cigar of the day and perspiring profusely through his white collar shirt, Cloggy Collins appeared on the loading dock, hoisting a large box stuffed with what looked liked human body parts—arms and legs and fingers all jumbled together inside a cardboard sarcophagus. He dropped the box on the platform and, like the rest of the men who wearily looked on, let out a spasm of wet coughs.
“Now then,” he said, wiping the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. Cloggy was an aggressive man and this gesture was meant to show his disgust and impatience with his sorry crew of drivers. “Here’s a little surprise. New marketing strategy. The company is going to clean up with this ad campaign.” With a wave of his hand and the word “Abracadabra!” he pulled a life-sized cardboard model out of the box.
The men whistled, they ogled, they adjusted themselves with frostbitten fingers, they discussed obscure and vulgar sexual techniques, a Kama Sutra for the workingman—the Cleveland Steamer, the Tennessee Snow Plow, the Dirty Sanchez.
“I could stand here all day long and just stare at those tits,” someone quipped.
The model towered above them like some colossus of coitus, her long legs planted in a deliberate and provocative pose, her smooth bronze thighs parted and inviting, her tight tummy and delectable navel partially concealed by the tattered remnants of a wet T-shirt, her blue eyes burning with uninhibited and exuberant lust, her lascivious and dazzling smile encouraging all present to come hither and pay homage to her unique majesty. Michael O’Reilly was impressed. Here was an effective decoy used during football season to persuade working class men to drink inordinate amounts of ale. A cruel deception, yes, but one that did not deter even his cock—that vindictive prick!—from briefly nodding its otherwise somnolent head.
Cloggy fondled the model, his hands sliding around her waist and along a bare shoulder. “This is what every man needs, eh? This is what we deserve as men, American men. Yessir, this is what it’s all about.” He pressed his face against the cold, rigid cardboard, his lips speckled with tobacco. Then, as if snapping out of a daze, he passed around a set of models to each driver. “Get these out right away!” he shouted. “Set them up with every display. Now move it, all of yous!” With a leer he added, “And no monkey business. Don’t feel any of ‘em up. We don’t want any damaged goods.”

-2-
Michael O’Reilly’s first stop was the Select ‘n’ Save located near his home on Fulton Avenue. As he drove past the two-bedroom frame house—a claustrophobic, cluttered place on a busy corner—he shifted his truck into low gear. The walls were thin as cardboard and for a moment he thought he heard his wife’s voice, a sharp, high-pitched, nerve-rattling squawk, carried along by the wind only to reverberate in the cab of the truck. Her duty in life was to make an endless list of repairs and to remind him of his utter ineptitude. The hinges needed to be oiled, the faucets needed to be tightened, the hardwood floors needed to be sanded, the ceilings needed to be patched, the storm windows needed to be cleaned, and there was also the small matter of his obnoxious farting and snoring, his tossing and turning in his sleep, all of which drove her nuts. Her complaints even reached him in the basement, his only refuge, where he spent entire evenings smoking cigarettes on the sagging sofa and watching television. In the basement he could at least pretend to be busy, could at least pretend to be changing the filter on the furnace and setting mousetraps and sorting through boxes of nails and screws and rusty pliers.
With a groan of exasperation, he continued along his route and parked the truck behind the grocery store. He hurried inside and pushed a squeaky dolly loaded with cases of the company ale. With great care and precision he stacked the beer into a neat little pyramid at the end of Aisle 8 and then placed, almost reverentially, the cardboard woman on top. He stepped away from his work with a proud smile, but when he looked up he sensed something odd. He blinked five times in rapid succession before cautiously approaching this alien being staring back at him. His face went flush. His hands, rough and covered in calluses, trembled and for a fraction of a second his fingertips tingled as he began to message the breasts. In that ephemeral moment his timid and subdued sex stirred once again in the pathetic void of his trousers.
If he hadn’t heard the sharp buzz of a meat grinder coming from the deli, he might have stood there for a long time, might have made a complete fool of himself. He concentrated, forced his member go limp, then he marched toward the exit with the cardboard model under his arm.
The woman at the register, an old crone with blue hair, squinted from behind her horn-rimmed spectacles.
“This one is damaged,” he told her.
The woman let out a derisive cackle. He shot her a look that was both angry and embarrassed and then he hurried out to his truck.
Although the rest of his route was a familiar one, Michael O’Reilly felt lost as he drove through the streets of Cleveland. Everything looked peculiar. He made all the usual stops, the grocery stores and convenient marts, but as the afternoon dragged on and the white lines in the road hypnotized him into mind-numbing oblivion, he happened to glance over at the model propped up on the passenger seat, his co-pilot, and he thought, just briefly, about pulling off the road at a lonely truck stop. He let the thought go.
That afternoon he didn’t bother to stop at the bar.
“Friggin-a, Michael!” his wife said as he came in the back door. Snow swirled around his head and blew into the kitchen. Maggie stood at the stove stirring a pot of chili, the sleeves of her Cleveland Brown’s jersey covered in tomato paste. Stale crumbs and hardened sauce speckled her white slippers. Tufts of gray lint clung to her shoulders. Michael O’Reilly regarded her with scorn. Was it part of the marriage contract, he wondered, something in the fine print, wherein a married woman had the option, if she so pleased, to put on a pair of slippers every night and treat her husband like an imbecile? He sometimes envied his co-workers. Most of them were divorced.
“If you’re going out later I want you to stop at the hardware store. Buy some extra fuses. And get plenty of light bulbs. 100 watts. And there’s some exposed wiring beside the washing machine. You’d let this place burn to the ground. I hope you paid the electric bill. It was due yesterday.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeahÉ”
He raced down the basement stairs, the cardboard model concealed beneath his jacket.
Maggie called, “And close that basement door! Smells like a wolf’s den down there.”
“Bitch,” he muttered under his breath and did as he was told.
He sat on the couch and listened to the floor creaking above his head. When he was certain that his wife had gone to some distant corner of the house to flip through a magazine or watch TV, he placed the model on the coffee table and vowed to understand her inexplicable beauty and to unravel her mysterious hold on him. For one frustrating hour he contemplated those thighs and moist lips and chestnut hair and the small mole on her right cheek and that dark hint of areola under her t-shirt. He marveled at the lifelike color of her flesh, her statuesque physique, her curvaceous wonderment. Then, when he could no longer stand it, he let his hand drift down to his rigid and almost painful erection. A natural phenomenon that needs no further explanation.

-3-
That evening as they occupied their separate territories of the bed and watched the little TV on the nightstand, Maggie tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and saw her curls, bleached white and wiry, protruding from behind her head and over the pillow. The smell of chili powder and spices wafted around her throat. The lacy nightgown he’d gotten her for Christmas looked like a flannel sheet tossed over a box—square, squat, rigidly geometric. Five years ago, Maggie had aroused him in ways he’d long since forgotten.
She said, “Why don’t we try something kinky tonight.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you couldÉ”
“What?”
“Maybe you could spank me.”
“Hmmm?”
“Slap me. Hard.”
“Huh?”
“Do something rough. Something really dirty.”
He thought about this for a moment, considered it carefully, but in the end he had neither the strength nor the desire for a big production. Maggie rolled toward him, caressed his thigh. There wasn’t much time. He racked his brain for an excuse, thought of a hundred implausible things to tell her, but it was too late. She’d sensed his reluctance, his aversion.
“I know, Michael, I know.”
“Know what?”
“I’m ugly. I’m a mess. You can’t stand the sight of me any more.”
“No.”
“Yes. I’m disgusting and fat.”
“No.”
“Then make love to me. “
He couldn’t move, couldn’t lift a finger.
“Fine!” she huffed. “At this rate we’ll never have kids.”
He tried to reason with her. “Kids are nothing but a pain in the ass. They grow up to be teenagers. They steal money. They smash up cars.”
She sighed with exasperation, said he was probably right, he would make a terrible father anyway. Michael O’Reilly rolled his eyes.
In silence they watched the news. Then she said, “Look Michael. It’s the new ad campaign.”
A collage of nonsensical images flickered across the screen. Continuous quick cuts of boys and girls splashing in a pool, arms and legs tangled in the crystalline waters, bright blinding sunlight, dancing, grinding, flat stomachs slapping, limbs interlocking. Long silky legs came into focus. The camera panned up to reveal a tall woman—the woman!—sauntering through the palatial gardens outside a mansion, her full red lips drawn back in a smile most seductive. A warm breeze swept through her shiny hair. She radiated sex with every improbable and exaggerated curve of her surgically altered body. Another flash of light. Those sweating, soaking, sopping girls and boys struggling in the pool. With libidinous and curious fingers the woman fondled a longneck bottle of Burning River Beer. Then she raised the glistening bottle to her lips, moaned, and poured a fountain of frothy ale into her mouth.
Michael O’Reilly’s legs trembled. This woman, while certainly no more attractive than any one of a hundred anonymous models that paraded across the idiot box on a minute by minute basis, nevertheless reminded him that he was, like all men, a prisoner of his cock, condemned by a cruel and powerful dictator, sentenced to a lifetime of captivity with little hope for parole. He reached into the darkness, squeezed his wife’s plump breasts. He thought of the beautiful model, God how he thought of her, and in a moment he was panting and thrusting his hips like he meant it.

-4-
Something came over him. After work one rainy night, Michael O’Reilly scurried behind the warehouse and crawled inside a cardboard box where he waited for Cloggy Collins to lock up. As the rain intensified and pummeled the roof of his impromptu shelter, Michael O’Reilly saw the last light go off inside the warehouse. He waited a moment and then emerged from his cocoon. He crept toward the loading dock, shaking and biting his nails, and there he paused. It occurred to him that Cloggy might be still be inside, sitting at his desk in the dark, a cardboard woman perched on his lap. The thought made Michael O’Reilly nauseous. He knew he had to act, had to rescue those girls from the clutches of that cigar-chomping ogre.
He fumbled with his keys and opened the heavy, rolling loading dock door. The world seemed like a different place now, a little dangerous and chaotic, but Michael O’Reilly went forward with his plan and refused to dwell on the possibility of getting caught. A horrible scenario played out in his mind, one in which Cloggy suddenly and theatrically appeared under the feeble red light of the exit sign and chased him around the pallets of beer, screaming, “You sick fuck. There ain’t no work, not for crazy people, not for head cases, not for perverts!”
Such a cocky bastard that Cloggy Collins, he thought. “I could do his job, I could do his job,” he whispered over and over again as he opened the office door. Scattered in the corner beside a pile of dirty rags, the cardboard women stared vacantly into space like women who’d been drugged and imprisoned in a brothel. Michael O’Reilly pressed one of them to his face and inhaled her divine aroma, a singular bouquet that could never be fully appreciated by the uninitiated. Oh, he knew that for most people the smell of cardboard reminded them of parcels shipped through the mail, merchandise delivered, gifts received. Most of them cared only about the bits and pieces of junk contained within the cardboard—books and movies and blow-up dolls—but the actual box itself was disposable, forgettable; it lacked even the slightest hint of the exotic, but such people recklessly discarded the details of everyday life.
With a chuckle of glee, Michael O’Reilly grabbed a whole slew of cardboard women and smuggled them out into the rain. Soon he had twenty stashed away in the trunk of his car, all of them awaiting a romantic tryst with the hero who’d saved them from a life of despicable servitude.

-5-
For many months after the exhilarating heist, Michael O’Reilly performed what became for him a serious ritual. Late at night, long after Maggie had fallen asleep, he crept down the stairs to the basement, careful to avoid the creaking step or two. He lit three candles, always three, and placed one model on the coffee table. He listened to the distant, rhythmic dripping of the faucets and the monotonous drone of the furnace, and then, as if by magic, he drifted away, upward and outside of himself, to another plane of existence. Sometimes his mystical visions turned sour and he imagined things, terrible things, truly devilish things. The state hospital, padded rooms filled with frenzied, delirious patients, probing doctors, jabbing needles. Self-doubt troubled him on more than one occasion, but he assured himself that all married men carried on sordid double lives. Some men secretly dressed in women’s clothing, some smoked marijuana and popped pills, some had hidden savings accounts, some fathered a slew of illegitimate children. What difference did it make? No man could ever belong exclusively to one woman. Absolute monogamy was an aberration. And wasn’t it generally understood that married men, when alone at night, did any number of things they pretended to frown upon in the light of day?
But sometimes, in the solitude of the basement, which was still only half finished after almost five years of idle tinkering, a basement that smelled of mildew because he hadn’t sealed the cracks in the cinderblock walls or bothered to lug a dehumidifier down the stairs or steam clean the shag carpeting, yes, in the gray light of the basement he suspected that his wife might be right—maybe he was inept. And maybe he was something even more terrible than that. Once, while preparing for his midnight ceremony, he sniffed something rancid and discovered gnawed chicken bones, a small pile of them, neatly stacked behind a wilting houseplant. How they’d gotten there was a mystery.
None of this mattered. The ritual continued without variation until one evening in April. He had seen his first butterfly and blooming daffodil of the season and felt that something special was needed to celebrate the long anticipated arrival of spring. To prepare for the evening’s festivities, he positioned all twenty cardboard models in various spots around the basement. He draped some of them with costume jewelry, others he doused in perfume. He lit the candles, poured himself a glass of champagne, and as he mingled among the models, whispering his usual incantations, an astounding metamorphosis occurred: no longer was he a daydreaming working class stiff from Cleveland; he was a randy college boy at a sorority house, a sophisticated playboy in a downtown nightclub, a movie mogul auditioning actresses for his next big picture, a vampire summoning his voluptuous succubi from their underground lair. He fondled them one by one, pinching a nonexistent nipple, grabbing a one-dimensional rump, whispering obscene words into deaf ears.
And then he heard the scream.
Confused by the eerie faces flickering in the candlelight, he believed for the briefest instant that one of them had somehow come to life. Dread washed over him then. So! it had finally happened. He had gone stark raving mad. He closed his eyes and whispered, “I can handle this, I can handle thisÉ” Then he heard that all too familiar squawk! When he dared crack open an eye he saw that one model was in fact different from the others, very different. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, panting, rocking back and forth in her high heels, nearly teetering off them, her cheeks pink and plump, her chin doubled with a roll of flesh, her eyes small and dark and red with rage, her buttocks bulbous and bunched together in the black leather miniskirt. A cruel parody, a nasty satire, a clownish and frightening deception.
“Michael!”
Maggie stepped away from the staircase.
“What are you doing?” he croaked. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“What am I doing? What am I doing!”
“Yes. Yes.” Michael O’Reilly felt something horrible building inside of him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Maggie lifted her chin. “I thought I might surprise you by dressing up in this little number.” She adjusted one breast with her right hand. “Oh, I saw the way your eyes lit up every time that juvenile ad came on. I’m not stupid. I wasn’t born yesterday.” With mild amusement she took in the scene around her. “So this is what you do down here. Caught you red-handed, didn’t I?”
“Shut up!” he shouted.
“No, I won’t shut up, Michael. What in god’s name is wrong with you?”
He clutched one of the models and said through barred teeth, “Why don’t you leave. The fact isÉI can’t stand the sight of you.”
She shook her head. “You’re crazy. You need help. We’ll get you some help.”
Then she grabbed one of the cardboard models and thrust it toward the furnace. The smiling face sizzled and burned in the blue flame. Maggie grabbed another model and then another, breaking each one over her knee. Like an enthusiastic Girl Scout at her first bonfire, she roasted them all, dangling them before the flames like marshmallows.
Michael O’Reilly clasped his hands over his ears to silence the pop and hiss of this erotic conflagration. The models curled and turned to ashes like brittle autumn leaves. Unable to comprehend the demise of his darlings, he gathered up their remains, his fingertips singed by red embers. Then he leapt at his wife, a condemned man attacking his inquisitor. Maggie dashed away, dropping a pile of crumpled cardboard. Sparks cascaded over bosoms and thighs and cheekbones. In minutes flames spread across the shag carpet.
“My beautiful babies, my beautiful babies,” Michael O’Reilly bellowed over and over. But as he knelt there and felt the approaching flames singe the hair on his arms, a sudden inner calm came over him and he smiled in an almost beatific way. Even when Maggie raced back into the basement with a small fire extinguisher and squirted a load of white froth over him, that sense of tranquility did not fade away and vanish like it had so many times before because now he understood that there was a future of limitless eroticism in store for him. He need only turn on the TV or go to any one of a thousand stores or drive back to the gigantic warehouse, and there she would be, waiting, omnipotent, indestructible, a goddess, capable of being everywhere and nowhere, standing in Aisle 8 of the Select ‘n’ Save between the produce and dairy sections, pressed flat against a convenient store window or perched beside the cash register at the Fulton Avenue Wine Shop where delirious drunks wandered in to squander their last few dollars on bottles of swill and pimply-faced teenaged boys dared one another to buy packs of cigarettes. Yes, there she would be, resurrected from the ashes, and he would have her, again and again and again he would have her, and this gave him hope and a sense of purpose, and for once in his life he looked forward to work, looked forward to standing there on the loading dock with the other men, and he looked forward to the delectable scent of cardboard wafting from a brand new box of beautiful women.

Listen To What You’re Not Hearing

I feign a smile
as the breeze comes
bouncing off the building
sweeping around
the backs of my legs

When the breeze
took my hair
it licked your face

You were annoyed

I wasn’t surprised

You asked me
what was wrong

I said, “nothing”

And you believed me

I’m not trying to
make any moves
anymore

because I’m afraid
I’ll make the
wrong move

I don’t mean to
annoy you

Listen to
what you’re not
hearing

you will

pieces of the puzzle:
i know how they fit

i’ve had to do this
puzzle thing for years
and I’m good at it

and i know i make you whole

i know it won’t take long
as i said, i’m good at this

you’ll feel good
about it when it’s done

you don’t think
but you will

more whiskey sours

i need more
more money, more orgasms
more clothes, more cigarettes
more whiskey sours, more heroin
more love

In The Room

maybe i’m reading too much into this
maybe you’re unhappy with her
I wonder what you’re like when you are happy
when you’re interested in talking
and you want to smile more
and live more
I want to know you when you’re like that
maybe you act that way with me

---

what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don't consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

---

MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

---

The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST's three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST's SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does "on the road" presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

this page was downloaded to your computer