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Poetry & Prose

A New Year’s eve with the dead

by Sarahana | January 2006

If it wasn't for the repeated "What are you going to do for New Year's eve?" leading up to the last day of the year, December 31st would pass without significance. I make a conscious effort to attend a small gathering, tempted to see friends I haven't seen in months. My brother calls at around 10:30 PM to announce his spontaneous plans—he is going to take our visiting mother and his visiting best friend to the South Sea Port, advises that I should leave the party within the next 15 minutes and make myself available somewhere around Rector Street so that I can meet with them before midnight. "It would suck if you're in the train when the clock strikes 12," he says. It's useless to ask why.

As I head out back to the train station, I notice for possibly the 100th time an advertisement for a Showtime television series, Sleeper Cell. The faces of five men plastered on it barely look Arabic, but each could pass for one if it came down to it. The premise is evident in the tagline, "Friends. Neighbors. Husbands. Terrorists." I have never seen the show, so I understand it to imply that terrorists are also friends, neighbors, and husbands—the lives of some suicide terrorists amounting to be surprisingly and "unsatisfyingly" normal. I watch a preview of the show the next morning, and it appears to educate the masses on the difference between Islam and extremists, and perhaps between "friends, neighbors, husbands" and terrorists. Looking up at this advertisement, heading out to an awaiting celebration, I am reminded of the undeniable new American reality. I think, also for possibly the 100th time, The men ought to look blatantly Arabic while we're at it.

A young man of a small frame sits in front of me in the train. He is wearing purple shoes, hugging trousers, dreads, and several piercings on his lips. From behind the book I am reading, I can see that the cover of his passport reads Mexico. He begins to scratch something off from its main page between shooting glances to see if anyone is watching. He bends the page several times and puts the passport back in before getting off. I look out the window to see two MTA (Mass Transit Authority) workers diligently going over some sort of paperwork. I don't know what the Mexican man intended to do with his passport, but I think, I must write a letter to NY1, MTA, TWU (Transport Workers Union), Bloomberg, and Pataki, thanking the MTA staff for keeping the city efficiently running on New Year's eve. It was vile of the city's Mayor and Governor to call the Transport Workers Union members "thugs" and "selfish" while they were on strike. My moment of satisfaction had arrived that week when the union leader Roger Toussaint theatrically reminded the city officials that the thugs had been heroes at Ground Zero on the day of the disaster.

The destination of the meet is ambiguous. It's 11:30 and my party has not arrived as promised. The host has decided to leave an unhelpful message on my phone, in an amusing American accent: "Miss Sarahana Shrestha, this is to inform you that the N does not stop at Rector Street as I had informed, I repeat, the N does not stop at Rector Street. You are advised to transfer to the R on Canal Street." It's completely possible to have a laugh over a phone message by yourself even when lost, or at least disoriented, and cold.

It's about five minutes to midnight, and the party has left me stranded on a deserted Rector Street despite the visiting mother's expert insistence that 11 PM in New York City is late, and that I should put myself around people at all times. The sound of fireworks arrives from the near distance and the show will certainly be over before my party gets here. I walk towards and then away from the cabarets, the peep shows, and the drunks. I begin to wander towards a bright area of construction thinking there might be a train station somewhere there out of which my party will emerge. As the clock strikes midnight, I find myself alone and skin-to-skin, the closest possible for an outsider, with the hole that was once the World Trade Center. I had never seen the towers while they stood, and for ambivalent reasons I had avoided visiting the site after they had fallen. I found myself caught off-guard at having unintentionally stumbled here at the stroke of December 31st's midnight, the closing of a year that is never worthy of a celebration, and the beginning of a coming year that is always worthy of hope.

A timeline has been put up at the site, describing the sequence of events as they unfolded on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Complete with images, including that of Giuliani, and a description of how people were evacuated, it feels like nothing short of a celebration. As if this piece of unfortunate history must be kept emboldened here for the sake of tourists. Looking up at the sky, and surrounded by towering but unarguably shorter buildings, it's hard to imagine what tall structures stood here before the planes struck, and it's equally hard to stop imagining human beings jumping off from a point somewhere towards the sky and into this hole. To make matters worse, an encounter with something as monumental as this site, or the location of a President's assasination, for example, has a warp effect of geocentric nature: the universe revolves around the earth, the earth around you, and the monumentalism of the monument rests heavily for that brief moment on its one-to-one relationship with you.

Though understandably business-as-usual, a sign inadequately apologizes for the site's appearance while it's under construction. I'm not very co-operative with the spirit of a celebration in this defining moment of New Year's eve, the moment when absolutely nothing changes as we go from one year into the other, as I think: And who apologizes for the thousands of death that occurred here, then thousands more of soldiers, civilians, and rebels, terrorists that followed and continue to follow? I did not ask to be brought here at this moment, so the lack of positivity will have to be excused.

There is also a list of the Heroes of 911. In a moment of absurd sense of humor, my eyes immediately look for the A's, and I think, What? No Mohammed Atta? The Egyptian engineer who refused to join a basketball team as a boy because it was organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, and who while working in Germany started growing a beard after having made his haj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia? Who is believed to have led the attack of September 11th, and whose dust is probably still lingering somewhere here in front of me?

My party arrives, 35 minutes late. Having forgotten the occasion by now, I am somewhat confused as it comes dashing for a group hug. We describe what the site is, and our mother tells us of cousins who managed to visit the towers while they still stood. She wants to take some pictures here. It is entirely inappropriate and non-sensical to stand outside this hole and smile. But we do.

Comments

January 2nd, 2006

1 | Mystichacker:

Moral to the story, know your subway, unless of course you preferred to be the dust of Atta, whose spirit you may have awaken by your midnite kiss. We will blame you if Maoists end their ceasefire, start hijacking planes and ramming in Dharaharas. Talk about the global implication of a local phenomenon.

January 3rd, 2006

2 | BoxCutter's Friend:

“What? No Mohammed Atta?”

That is a thought isn’t it .. hmmm :)

Weren’t they all carrying Box Cutters ?? hmmm :)

January 3rd, 2006

3 | Bhudai Pundit:

Hey instead of talking about Sarahana’s New Years I propose we talk about the lastest news that the Maoist have not extended the ceasefire. This is really disasterous and disheartening. I don’t know what is happening in Nepal excatly but I guess a large part of the blame has to go to the current govt. for not making any effort whatsoever to reciprocate the truce and further the peace process.

What do you guys think???

January 7th, 2006

4 | ravingmadman:

— -“Friends. Neighbors. Husbands. Terrorists.” I have never seen the show, so I understand it to imply that terrorists are also friends, neighbors, and husbands. — -

Or perhaps that your friends, neighbours and husbands could also be terrorists, so don’t trust any (even vaguely) arabic looking blokes?

Just a cheery thought. Happy new year.

February 2nd, 2006

5 | ashanti:

How bourgeoisie of you!

February 16th, 2006

6 | kaushal:

this recap of your memories of new year eve 2006 reminded mine of the same day and earlier years.
I personally don’t find any reason to celebrate the passed year.
Switching the topic,
alongside ,remaining in same subject around sept 911,
I wonder what will be the situation of Nepal if , someday Maoists start to use Humans as suicide bombors,
If so I don’t think any body is safe whom they target and how worse will be the then situation.
SO hope before something bad happens,
may god pashupatinath help our nation to return in peace and prosperous road. kaushal

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A New Year’s eve with the dead

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