grlocation: Broadway and Reade, Manhattan
Tuesday has been my favorite day since childhood so it was natural I picked Tuesdays for volunteering at the Rever Road branch of the Durham County Public Library in Durham, North Carolina. The children's section was my specialty. In June of 2001, the extra bonus was I could tell all about my discoveries in Easy Readers by e-mail. I had been encouraged to learn computer for grief therapy's sake. The advice was providential because in September of the same year, my Indigo Mac sustained me. You see, on 9/11 I had started sorting the Young Adults series when the head librarian came and asked me in her soft Southern drawl, "Is your brother in New York City?" She knew my brother was often in Ireland and Germany for art exhibits but when he was at home, home was NYC. From Duane Street, he liked a morning walk past the Twin Towers. I answered, "Yes, as a matter of fact he is." She took my hand and speaking gently said, "There has been a disaster. Stop your work. Come back on Friday. See if you can reach your brother." I couldn't register what she was saying at first. I told her my brother would want me to stay put, possibly providing calm for the people in the library, being useful. When I returned to my apartment, there were lots of e-mails but nothing from my brother. A friend at Research Triangle Park was horrified. "Do you know how close Duane Street is??" He thought I might be in shock but I wrote back. "I'm not worried. My brother and I have a soul-deep connection. I would feel it if he has been harmed." That didn't go over well with the engineering science mind and at the end of the day he wanted to know what the latest was. I wrote, "No latest yet." I shifted my worries to what the catastrophe would do to our already xenophobic nation. I was right to worry. Not In Our Name was eclipsed by Operation Iraqi. CODEPINK's brave little band demonstrating in front of Dianne Feinstein's office in San Francisco was trampled by airport security, flag pins on lapels, and assorted superficial show-your-patriotism outward symbolic gestures indicating the sudden polarization of the "United" States. Instead of judicial measures, we chose the surreal solutions of revenge (on those not involved) and a vociferous escalation of knee-jerk reactions. America the Beautiful became America the Locked Down Don't Want to Hear It.
Sure enough. When I heard from my RC brother (the family referred to him as our Roving Correspondent) he was shaken but fine. When He came to Raleigh for a show, he was the same "Roberto" looking good. No cough, cracking wise. Tuesday remains my lucky day. Despite wars and rumors of wars, floods, earthquakes, and doomsday dates on the calendar, my brother is out on the streets in his festive scarecrow way, graffiti-ing his optimistic message; my enduring starving artist bro' has grown wiser, younger, recognizable still as the hero of my youth.
...from Gillian in France:
ReplyDeleteHey......WONDERFUL account and WONDERFUL to read it.
That day was one of
those days when Satan comes. Horrific. My mother told me to turn on
the television as I was talking to her on the phone and had only recently
moved to France. I turned it on and couldn't believe what I was witnessing.
After I finished speaking to her the phone rang again and the then
Leftenant Colonel de Boudemange rang me up ( I was working
for the French Army at the time) and I told him to do the same....
I was never quite able to establish exactly why he had phoned me
it was the first and last time he ever did!