The Birth of a New World Order
September 11th…
I woke up in my dorm room with a raging hangover, still wearing the clothes I had put on 2 days before, trying to figure out why the hell I was being shaken awake by my friend Maggie when I didn’t have class for another three hours.
“Cody…CODY! Wake up dude, someone just blew up the World Trade Center in New York,” she pleaded in a voice unusually solemn for her bubbly demeanor.
“Sweet,” I responded, “You got a cigarette?”
I sat up, sending a new jolt of pain through my already throbbing head, and grunted at my roommate Adam, who had just come in with Maggie. He looked pale, but who doesn’t after a three day whiskey and painkillers binge. He handed me a USA Gold (smoke of choice for broke-ass college kids), passed one to Maggie and lit one himself. We smoked in silence for a while, until I asked:
“Fuck man, did we eat Percs again last…”
Before I could finish, Maggie interrupted me, “Cody seriously, someone blew up the WTC and tried to blow up the White House. It’s all over the news.”
“I know, I heard you,” I grinned, blowing a plume of cheap smoke up at the dirty cinderblock ceiling, “Did they get Bush?”
Maggie gave me a look like I’d just decapitated her pet dog, threw up her hands in disgust, slammed her half-finished cigarette in an empty 40 bottle and stormed out of the room. “Jeez,” I giggled, still half-drunk, “I knew her parents were Republican, but what’s her problem?”
“Its serious shit dude,” Adam sighed, “Just come to the student center. C’mon, I’m late for class.”
“You go to class?” I quipped, and he just shook his head and headed for the door. I threw on my running shoes (sans socks), grabbed a dirty t-shirt of the floor and threw it over my head, muttering, “Hang on fucknuts, I’m fucking coming”
The dorms were oddly quiet, no music blaring from open doors, no meathead ruckus coming from the communal bathroom. The people we passed were like zombies, staring blankly straight ahead or down at the tips of their shoes. Now granted, this zombie look is not uncommon on college campuses, especially among freshmen exploring their newfound freedom from authority (a.k.a. engaging in hardcore partying and promiscuous sex), but this felt damn peculiar.
We walked out of the dorms, across to the student center which housed our cafeteria, computer lab and bookstore, when the door flew open and Jackie, a little hottie from Long Island with whom I shared a few classes, burst out with both hands covering her face, sobbing hysterically.
“Jackie, you ok girl?” I asked, confused as all hell, trying to put on a reassuring smile.
“Th..they…they got the other one…” She stammered, then broke into a fresh spasm of sobs and ran toward the dorms.
“What the fuck is going on he…” I cut myself off mid-word, looking at the scene in the student center. The place was packed, but completely silent, with the exception of a few stifled sobs and nervous foot shifting. All eyes were riveted to the TV’s in each corner of the dining area. They were all tuned to CNN, but it wouldn’t have mattered what channel, because all the networks were tuned to the same image, an image that within less than a day became the most played image in media history: the second plane flying into the towers.
I couldn’t tell you what my initial reaction to the footage was, but within a few seconds I had hundreds of questions zipping around my now completely sober head. Thoughts like: Is the country under attack? Who did it? Are there more targets; are there more planes in the air? Should we get ready for chaos and anarchy? Is this the collapse of western civilization?
It took about 3-4 times to actually register that this was indeed real, it was happening right now. I shook myself from the daze, left Adam staring transfixed at the tube and headed straight for the computer lab. Sat down, logged on and took a deep breath. Then I started typing and feverishly clicking the mouse, and didn’t stop for a long time.
I sat on that computer for the better part of three hours, checking every newspaper I could think of, every international news outlet, every database I had access to for my journalism classes, trying to get the real story, or at least a well-rounded picture of what was happening.
See, the shit they were showing on TV wasn’t the real deal. That became obvious when CNN stuck in some footage of Palestinians celebrating the destruction, which was actually tape of a New Year’s celebration in ‘96. There was much more than what was being reported in the major outlets. I knew this. I also knew I was witnessing the biggest spectacle in media history.
What I didn’t know was that I was also witnessing the birth of a new era, not just for the American people, not just for the Bush administration, but for myself as well.
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