9/11 Post

As the day is appropriate then here is what I was doing on 9/11. Names have been changed for anonymity.

I was a senior in high school. Because I took several AP courses between 9 and 11, I actually had 2 free periods plus lunch that year. That is about 2 hours of a 7 hour day just doing nothing. I mostly did homework or read. I was notorious for completing assignments early so I could have more time to do fun things like read or watch TV/movies. Play Magic The Gathering, Magi Nation or PS2. HS for me was peak media imbider even before binging or "I can do what I want I'm an adult" time.

One free period had a fair amount of my buddies in it. We were the geek clique. My senior class was small, 45 kids and roughly made up of 6 or so cliques

Puerto Rican Mafia "cool kids who were native islanders"

American Mafia "cool kids who were not from the island"

Stoners/Surfers

Geeks

Weirdos

Too cool for school kids

There were kids who could struggle both. I had/have a good friend named Chen who was a geek. Got me,into Magic and board games. His dad made us our own WW2 inspired tabletop game. But he was also supremely cool and also from PR but ethnically Asian so he was cool in both mafias!

Geeks and weirdos had some cross pollination. Geeks liked talking about Dragon Ball Z. Who would win? Piccolo or RGoku?! Weirdos wore those Drgaon Ball Z polyester button ups short sleeved shirts.

Anyway...this first free period only had 5 other seniors in it. None were my pals. None were enemies mind you. We just left each other alone.

I was reading in the back of the senior gazebo, what was our senior lounge. This was PR so our school did not have hallways. Instead it had a community college vibe with 2 story tall conrete buildings and some ground level double wide type structures around the central quad. The senior gazeborested over the exposed roots of a small glade of trees so it looked always craggy and knotted. Full of mystery and potential.

From the edge of the quad and up from a small slope came a girl in my sensor class, Raquel, who was the Principal's daughter. She told the gathering of us in the gazebo (it was actually 3 small gazebos joined. 3 little hexagons) "I heard in the office, something happend in New York with a plane."

Oh...whatever everyone said or thought. I did. How is that many different from some disaster 2 states over?

The bell then rings and everyone pours out. I had to walk clear across campus (over by the elementary school) for college algebra. I did not have many friends in this class becsuse mt school,had 2 tracks: smart or not smart. I did well in all classes save math. So college algebra was the "normal" math for seniors and "Pre Calculus" or "Calc AP" was the smart track. Because I got Cs in math this jacked up my schedule but I thank my mom for insisting the principal make this happen. Had no interest in failing because of "whats normal." But my friends were in calc AP and I here albeit, again, it wasnt bad. Just sucks to not take classes with close friends.

On the way down I heard people chattering about what they heard. Which is odd since it had happenrd when were in class and this before peoole were mass texting. Everyone had cells but we talked. Or played Snake!
A pair of 7th graders said it was Russian fighter jets. Most people assumed accident. I wad curious but also it was nothing in my world. I was not apathetic. I likked keeping abreast of the news but it was just that. News.

We did math class and then I went to AP English Lit. This had 8 kids in it. A lot were my friends. Neat! However that day all but me and Chen were out on a field trip to the art museum. So it was a gimme class. We told the teacher "Hey, can we go to the library and watch the news. Something big happened." The teachers refused but knowing it was BS to teach Ellison's Invisible Man to 2 kids she said "I'll go to the office and see for myself"
She did and came back 1 minute later (her room was right next door) and said "Oh my God! Go!" And she bolted from the room something I had never seen a teacher do.

We went up the small slope to the library to see a big screen TV rolled out onto the floor and a gathering of varioue teachers and students. And there I saw it.

I dont recall much of what happened the rest of the day. I had a friend, Barry, who had an aunt in NYC who was worried. Just a lot of speculating and "wow, thats life." cartoon network stopped airing the OG Mobile Suit Gundam for some reason after the attack and I remember being "wtf".

We lives thousands of miles from it. PR is part of the US for sure but to me and my family it was just news, horrible news, but just that. That is the thing about PR. Its liie America until it is not. See the Hurricane Maria phenomenon or how "the real America" never seems to be a place anyone lives.

I am not a fan of the "world changed" that day. History is living and fluid. The violence and repercussions of that day were felt before, during and now after. However, neither am I an "armchair woke folk." No one deserved to die that day regardless of what our country has done or how warped an ideology the hijackers had.

On this day I think of that day in HS and the books I was reading at the time (Passage to India, X Wing novels) and the girls I tried to talk to. I think of my mom buying a special edition of the newspaper from the street corner barker, soemthing I had only seen in movies. I think of books I read since then...Ghost Wars, The Bin Ladens, Charlie Wilson's War. My college freshmen roommate who was Muslim and Bangladeshi anf admitted to maybe not coming to the states after that. The volunteer groups I used to manage on the subsequent anniversaries. I think of tales still going on but also etched on people. Tales also lost with the victims.