Sep 11, 2021
Triggers
20 years later the events of September 11, 2001 now leads to mixed emotions.
BANG! CRASH!
Light dims with each bang. Tom Testa stops driving suddenly. There’s at least 18 people in our truck, trying to survive just like us.
“We’re sitting ducks here,” yells Joe Magnus, a 64 year old Czech immigrant turned first responder.
Still holding the steering wheel tight, Tom quietly responds, “can’t see… can’t risk hitting anyone.”
BANG! CRASH!
Whatever is left of sunlight is now a small sliver beam that seeps in from cracks through the doors. Even though it’s a white ploom that has completely engulfed us it still feels as though we might never see the sun again.
Tom begins whispering to himself. You can’t tell what he’s saying at first, but with each muttered word you get the feeling this is a conversation he’s having with himself or with God. With each clang against the truck his body jolts, His eyes remain squeezed shut but he continues to whisper.
BANG! CRASH!
Debris seems to be hitting the blue and white ambulance with more frequency. Soot pushing its way through the doors has taken over most of the breathable air. Each breath feels like a selfish act. A breath someone else could have had.
BANG! CRASH!
With each pounce there are gasps and attempts to suck up tears. No one says a word. What’s there to say other than to keep repeating “stay calm, take short breaths.”
BANG! CRASH!
This time the sirens smashed. The windshield begins to crack open allowing more soot to rush in. This is the first time anyone is alone with their thoughts. Some think about how to get out of this, others think of loved ones. Images of Brothers, sisters, parents, husbands, wives, kids, flash through our minds. Will I see them again? Is this it?
For a minute there’s a stillness and eventually the sounds of objects scraping the medal exterior of the truck, in a distance faint calls for help and the whipping winds that feel like a passing hurricane. The truck continues to shake. Those who were holding back tears can no longer fight it. Despair begins to set in. Some attempt to leave the truck but are talked out of it. We don’t know what’s out there. We don’t know what’s waiting for us.
Our surroundings begin to clear. From afar we can finally see shapes and silhouettes. Tom starts up the truck. Joe opens the compartment door and tells everyone to wait inside. Joe has needed a knee operation for 2 years but refuses to get one. He limps around the truck to try and assess the damage, but all he could really surmise is that it was hit a few times with debris.
Joe comes back through the compartment door and grabs a some bottles of water, wets down some towels and passes them around. “Clear your faces. Drink and clear your throats. Don’t swallow.” He does to himself what he’s just instructed. Joe looks at Tom and asks him if he’s ok. Tom nods.
Joe had always told stories of escaping communist Soviet Union as a child in his native Czech Republic, but nothing like this. He’s not even sure what this is.
He takes a step back and opens the door wide. Joe takes out a pack of cigarettes and shakes one loose, he taps the cigarette against his lighter before putting it in his mouth and igniting a flame. He takes one long satisfying drag. “C’mon,” he says. “You and you we’re on foot from here. Tom follow us out.”
— — — -
That was September 11, 2001. Four vollies who until that tragic day were responding to calls for car accidents and servicing oxygen tanks. It was a crash course into terrorists attacks. But we still didn’t know that. Before we knew how many were dead, before we could see what was left of the World Trade Center, we survived a massive debris storm that swallowed up most of lower Manhattan. Middle Village Volunteer Ambulance Corp EMTs took as much of the supplies as they could out of the truck and began walking, treating anyone along the way out.
20 years later it’s still fresh in my mind. As it usually is around this time. Every year there are triggers everywhere. Photos, videos, new studies, special television reports, I’m guilty of it myself. Two years ago I was asked for help from producer Caroline Mardsen who was working on a 20th anniversary project for National Geographic. She had heard about me through podcasts and had read some of my published columns and articles after 9/11.
Over the course of a few months we talked about the project that would eventually be called “9/11: One Day In America.” A six part series which she said would cover every angle from the attacks to the aftermath and even to what has transpired since. The last detail was very important to me. If I was going to be part of anything I wanted to make sure that the story of 9/11 since the day of devastation was told. I wanted to make sure people understand that the death toll is not over and that it’s still claiming lives.
The phone calls and the visits began and with each time we spoke I could feel myself pulling back. In an effort to remove the strain I shared my contacts with Caroline and led her to some of the people I knew would be able to talk about it. Some had become extremely useful while others became sources on other parts of that day and aftermath.
Just a few months after beginning work with Caroline, my partner David Kimowitz was murdered in a home invasion. Over the next few days I felt like I had been asked a thousand times how David died? What were the details? What could I tell anyone? Each time we spoke about someone dying there were these long moments of silence. I thought of the people I watched die on 9/11. I thought of my cousin Anna dying of cancer and her final days. I thought of my grandfather taking his last breath. I thought of my friend David. A lot.
I found myself becoming angry. I hadn’t been this angry since I was a teenager. Those final moments of someone’s life had become extremely painful to talk about and the more I had to delve into what that looked and felt like the worse it became.
On a drive home one day, I’m sitting in traffic on Houston St, when some drunk idiot in a cab begins to taunt me. I have no idea what he’s saying or why he’s doing it. All I felt was absolute rage. I got out of my car and told the guy to do it again, he did and I began punching him repeatedly until the taxi took off.
There I am in the middle of Houston St. with a bloody fist, breathing heavy, seething and hoping someone else would instigate me. I don’t really remember getting back in the car and driving home. By the time I made it into my neighborhood, I couldn’t drive anymore. I pulled over and began sobbing. I realized in the coming days what triggered my rage was the anguish of telling the story of someone’s death. To have to relive it and to have to share the last moments of someone’s life is just something I don’t want to keep talking about.
What I felt most of all is that I had done something I was trying to avoid. I talk about trying to be tolerant of my surroundings and here I am trying to hurt someone because of these emotions I’ve been going through. It was incredibly disappointing to have gone all those years without an incident like that and to lose control. It was humiliating that I’d resort to a behavior I felt I had long left behind. It’s something I’ll never do again and certainly something I wish I could take back.
Within a few days I told Caroline I couldn’t participate. I continued to advise producers as they had questions about sources, but my involvement would not be more than that. I’m told the limited series is well put together. I hope it is. I hope it gets the message out that there are still people struggling from 9/11 injuries and families that continue to lose loved ones.
In addition to the Nat Geo project, a few years ago journalist and documentarian Julie Seabaugh asked me to participate in a documentary called “Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11” which tackles how the standup comedy world responded after 9/11 and addresses how jokes helped get us back to some sort of normalcy. Julie understood my sensitivity to all of it and while I had some hesitation about participating I’m glad I did it. The documentary is now available on ViceTV and the VICE APP for mass viewing.
— — — — — —
By the time you’re reading this I’ll have my head in the sand somewhere away from the noise and away from the images for as long as it takes the mention of this anniversary to dissipate. Outside of my own contributions to triggers it certainly didn’t help watching the Taliban take over a country that once aided and abetted public enemy number one. It’s mixed emotions for me. We needed to get our soldiers out of there, but to watch it turn ugly makes you wonder what it was all for.
In addition to COVID variances, NYC flooding from Hurricane Ida and dealing with the aftermath of COVID mandates and shutdowns is enough to break down and say “fuck this I’m out.”
And why not? After 20 years we are not better off. We reflect on the months that followed 9/11 and how together we were as a society. There were no race or religious issues. We got along. We survived and most importantly we helped each other. I don’t remember a moment in my lifetime where I felt concerned about where we are as a society like we are now. Racial tensions feel like we are at an all time high. We are living in a time where we are more interested in cancelling each other for something inappropriate, instead of trying to educate and resolve our differences with dialogue. We aren’t interested in listening or helping each other anymore.
Sadly we keep losing people due to 9/11 related injuries. It’s not something that is talked about enough. Outside of the words I’ve written here and Jon Stewart in the news cycle it barely gets mentioned each year. For the thousands of people we lost that day and the thousands we continue to lose, it behooves us to keep moving forward and honoring those sacrifices people made with their lives. We owe it to them and ourselves to find common ground and help each other.
— -
Of the 18 people in the truck that day we didn’t take into account how many of them were Latino or Black, white, asian or middle eastern. We weren’t concerned about whether anyone understood the difference between what pronouns anyone went by. All we cared about were their lives. No matter how different we all were. All that mattered was eventually getting everyone to a safe enough place where they could breathe again.
In years past I dealt with the triggers of the coming week the best way I could. 20 years later I’m questioning whether any of it matters. Are the nightmares, the pain, the loss, the sacrifices all worth it for our current state? I find myself questioning it for the first time and contemplating where we will be in 25 and 30 years from that tragic day.
For the sake of the people we lost and the people we continue to lose, I hope it gets better from here. I’ll keep trying. I hope you’ll join me in doing our very best to honor them.
It’s been 20 years. To the people I knew you are missed every day. Mike Marti, Jennifer Mazzotta, Lucy Crifasi, Volunteer EMT Richie Pearlman, Sean Powell, Dominique Pandolfo, Firefighters John Moran, Adam Rand, Joe Hunter and John Giordano.
