Turn on your Television

Once again, we hear from our playwright Mel. In a second installment he recalls where he was on September 11th.

My first blog, I must admit, was a rather painless affair. There are many memories of being up there with my artistic family during my generation’s darkest moment. There were good times and amazing memories.

I mean for a theatre artist like myself, what better way is there to share a three hour drive out to the country than having the one and only John Patrick Shanley as your driver? I kid you not. But I don’t really feel like writing about the details of that trip nor my conversations with the generous Mr. Shanley.

But rather the morning of… yes, that morning. I was living in New Jersey at the time, very, very far from my beloved New York City. I am a native born-and-bred, Upper-West-Side-projects-raised, splashing-around-the-fire-hydrant-during-the summer-time city kid. But on the morning of 9/11, I was a Jersey Boy.

I received a phone call that morning from my Cousin Ray. He simply said, “Turn on your television.” I did. Those images weren’t real for me. I thought I was watching some action adventure film, but I was not. My girlfriend at the time and I stood there in silence. We both suddenly awoke with a cold splash of water and reached for our cell phones – no connection. “But I was just talking to…”

We decided to run down to the Chase bank to withdraw some of our funds. There was only one person ahead of us, a young African American woman. When she finished, she turned to face me. Her face looked bloodless, her eyes had no life in them and in a slow but steady voice she said: “I work on one of the top floors of the North Tower. My alarm clock didn’t go off this morning.” And she walked away. I never saw her again.

23 June 2011 ·

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• theater
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• new york city
• new york
• september 11
• 9/11
• By the Dawn's Early Light