Nothing was as Usual
The radio spoke of 300 firefighters missing, all of whom went into the building after the plane incidents but then were covered with the whole skyscraper going down on them — as my son, Tom, witnessed while walking to the Trade Center for a meeting at Deutsche Bank next door at 130 Liberty. So, in effect, he saw the deaths of hundreds of firefighters — probably mostly Catholics since in NYC, Irish and Spanish Catholics probably constitute the vast majority of firefighters.
I let the music distract me and continued south on the New Jersey Turnpike and found that the roads were eerily empty for our area, except for a tremendous blockage at the exit leading to the Long Island bridge which firmed up my decision to head to south Jersey.
When I got off the turnpike, the tollkeepers wanted no money — nothing was as usual — and indeed when I passed Newark airport there was not a plane moving. So on I went to Spring Lake's ocean beach, spacious and natural, without even a store across the avenue as with Belmar's beach. Only large, affluent homes and a free beach, since it was after Labor Day.
I forgot everything of Tuesday day at the sight of big water and surfers catching waves eight feet high and the sun and blue sky, and soon I had my bazooka of a 400 mm lens catching surfers in action as I listened to Johnny Lang blues songs on my tiny Sony walkman. Later, I switched to a wide angle and got some waves in panorama mode, ratcheting up the exposure dial when I faced the sun and gleaming waves.
A Wall Crumbles
Then I did some white surf swimming, but with the recent shark attacks in other states, I started to get queazy. Then thought of Christ asking Peter to trust amidst the waves, but then I was overwhelmed by the thought that those Catholic firefighters trusted in God and now many have left a trail of widows and orphans in their wake.
Somehow I got past it, in effect saying, “Well, Lord, I trust you, even if your will is that I now be attacked by a shark. I knew the small probability statistically, but that means zilch a day after the WTC attack. And had not Job said, “Even if He kills me, even then will I trust Him.” I let go and got into the swim and forgot the issues and stayed in the experience for quite a while. Then I lay on the beach and thought about my wife working as
a nurse and feeling I was not sharing the burden, but there are many such moments in the jangled schedules of the modern couple.
Later a woman and I talked about the incident, and cameras, and she was elderly and knew of two people killed in one of the planes and spoke to me of how Israeli and Arab planes are so strict they rarely have such incidents. I told her of Tom and his narrow escape, and then added, “I'd never again get on a plane with an Arab”.
Was what I said wrong? Not in terms of truth and reality, but the emotion that went along with it. Was I missing a piece of the will to bond with any Arab neighbor?
Two hours later, way up north, I found myself funneling into a narrow road near the George Washington Bridge. All the traffic is pouring into one lane ahead, and my hood begins emitting copious smoke. A tow truck sees me and makes the same decision I do: to avoid entering the one-lane situation ahead, because I may break down and delay literally thousands behind me.
We talk. He diagnoses the problem, and though he was on his way home himself, he insisted on flatbed towing me north half an hour's distance. I climb into the cab beside him and his uncle, and I sense they are Arabs. I can see that the driver is bringing up the attack with a nervousness that tells me he feels afraid of what I really think of him and his Arab brethren.
I guide the conversation whenever it's my turn and slowly both of us heal. As a Syrian and a Christian, he had actually left his homeland to get away from a 90% Muslim population. “Two hundred years ago,” he explained, “they kill all the Christians but a few, and I am descended from those that survived. But in Syria, if I disagree out loud with the Koran or say as I'm saying to you that they are fanatical, I will be chopped up and disappear. So first I move to Australia and then California and then here.”
I begin asking him question after question about things like the houri. He says, “Oh yes, the Muslims think they get the key to paradise and houri — beautiful women — for killing the unbeliever.”
I say, “So they are being unfaithful to their wives while they are here if they are looking forward to the houri,” and both he and his uncle laugh loudly as though this had never occurred to them. I continued, “So they cover their women but think about the houri gyrating up there in heaven.” They laugh again till I was beginning to think I could do stand up comedy in very small parts of Syria if I had ever taken that much less traveled road.
But as they laughed at my analysis of the houri situation, I slipped in how my mom's best friends were Jordanians and they asked a lot of questions about that and one could see them being healed of their walled-out feeling by whites and blacks and Hispanics in our area. And I was being healed — not of my choice to refuse to board a plane with an Arab, but of something that two hours earlier lay latent in that choice.
We drove on, time and the road flowing and little comments and little laughs punctuating the peaceful air. A wall was crumbling between us and it felt very good.
He told of recent experiences he's had with Muslim customers: “The first thing out of their mouth is, 'Are you Muslim?,' and when you say, 'No, Christian,' they are silent and this one last week, he throws the money at me and storms away.”
An Arab to Heal Me
Flatbed tows are not cheap, but on this occasion I was getting much more than a tow. I was getting a purgation of something evil, and an education on the Mideast. The man said that when we see rock-throwing Palestinians we should know that these are Muslim, not Christian. “The Christian Palestinians stay in the house when these things are going on.”
He said something else very interesting. He said that on our planes, we must be willing to pay for educated security people who can read gestures, looks, movements and are trained in the martial arts and are incognito on each plane. “Here in this country, you don't have that, and you need that,” he said. Then I said, “We have to be willing to rush four men with 30 people and, yes, several may die, but that's better than all dying plus thousands more. We need the TV to offer lessons for all Americans on such community necessities, funded by our tax dollars, along with lessons on CPR, first aid, etc.”
Later we said goodbye. It was moving. God broke down my car but made it easy by having an Arab ten feet away to heal me. Now that's father care, big time.
(Editor's Note: After not being able to get thru by phone that day to his son, the author finally received this dramatic e-mail: “Dad, I'm here and I'm okay. I think someone above was with me today. I had a meeting at 130 Liberty this morning (right next to WTC), but for some reason I didn't take the Path train all the way down to WTC — I took it to 9th St./City Hall instead. I got out of the subway, started walking towards WTC, and saw the first building fall about 10 blocks in front of me. I think grandma called, please let her know I'm okay.” Tom is a 23 year-old graduate of Carnegie Mellon and works for Deutshce Bank.
