Remembering 9/11, Part II

This is a post that I wrote on the second anniversary of 9/11. Somehow, in the waning days of the Bush Administration, it felt right to bring it out again.

September 11, 2001 was about the swirling and crawling and stopping of time. Only two points are fixed in my memory: 8:48 a.m., when I heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center; and 10:03, when I experienced the South Tower collapsing three blocks away, and ducked into a sandwich shop to escape the dust. How long I spent waiting for the black cloud to pass, I couldn't tell you. Did Tower 1 collapse while I was holed up or after I had started my escape uptown? I don't know. How long did it take to get home? Same answer. What did I do the rest of my day? No clue.

September 11, 2002 was about defiant normalcy. I came to work and lived as normal a life as I could. It was the best way to show that no, the terrorists hadn't won.

Today, it was about sounds. As I walked down Church Street toward the site of the former WTC, I could hear the monotone naming of the dead. A bell tolled in slow measured beats on Barclay Street, [DONG] rung by a firefighter in polyester dress blues, [DONG] white gloves that were too small [DONG], and a white hat perched precariously on his head. [DONG] The uniform looked slightly tattered, [DONG] like it had been used far too many times this year and last year. [DONG] The man inside the uniform looked slightly tattered too. [DONG]

Though he was strong, though his hands were big and manly, he looked tired, [DONG] as though pulling the rope that led to the clapper that rang the bell to commemorate the dead [DONG] was draining whatever reserves he had left.

We made eye contact as I walked by [DONG], and he held out his hand to me.

"Ring the bell, brother?"

I stopped and looked at him and then at the huge, silvery bell, which was hung from a black scaffold sitting on the ground. I hadn't paid much attention to it as it was ringing but I now saw that it had been polished recently, and whoever had done it had made small sweeping circles on the last pass with the cloth. It would have taken hours at that rate. "Yes," I said.

I took the rope from him. It was thick and scratchy, and heavier than I expected. I gave it a quick tug, self-conscious that I had broken the gonging rhythm. DONG. The clapper moved easily. Satisfied, I raised my right hand to shake the fireman's hand.

"Again," he said.

So I pulled it again. DONG.

"Again." DONG.

I pulled the rope four more times, until my pulls had reset the rhythm of the bell. It was time for me to go.

"Thank you, brother."

The fireman had reclaimed the rope and had made the bell clang again, but was looking me straight in the eye. He looked haunted.

I took his hand, and mumbled, "Thank you." I wished I had something more profound to say. There was something about that look, about the sound of the bell, about the magnitude of the day that seemed to call for it, but I couldn't think of anything.

But I think that the fireman understood, and maybe that was why he had invited me to ring the bell -- after all the memorials and prayers and funerals, he too had run out of things to say. All that was left was to toll the bell, slowly and mournfully and over and over again, for all the world to hear.