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The sun has set, the temperature has unexpectedly dropped almost thirty degrees, and I can’t get out of my towel and into some warm clothes fast enough. The sudden chill has caught us all by surprise. I can tell from the knocking sound rising from the baseboard heaters that Uncle Clint has just turned up the thermostat. Outside, there’s a strong wind blowing in from the mountains and it’s beating at my window, making the glass rattle in its frame. At times, the rattling gets so violent that I’m positive the glass is about to shatter into a million shards and fly across my room, tearing everything in its path to pieces. For now, though, the window holds.
I sit on the bed and pull the comforter tight around my shoulders as I wait for the room to heat up. The banging is joined by a few clunks and a complimentary clicking noise. There is almost a rhythm to it. When I allow the rattling of the window to join in with the other sounds, it all reminds me of the sound of a train rumbling along the tracks - just like the train that I used to take to and from work every day.
This time, I almost realize that the flashback is coming on. I have a brief moment to panic, but then I’m sitting on a brown vinyl seat staring out through an oblong window, watching buildings and trees speed past. The window rattles slightly as the train car sways from side to side. Everything on the other side of the window is gray – stone-cold gray.
The train is not empty by any means, but it’s sparsely occupied compared to the one I used to take. That one leaves the city about an hour later, right in the middle of rush hour. I’m not a morning person, but I make the effort to get out of the house by four o’clock in order to get to Penn Station to catch the second train into Jersey. If a train is going to be a target of terrorism, I would imagine that it’s going to be one that has a lot of people on board.
Eventually, I find that I’m no longer looking through the window, but rather at the window and studying the reflections in the glass. It’s still kind of dark outside, so the image of the lit-up car is crisp. I can see most of the other passengers without turning my head: three white males in business suits and one in what appears to be workout clothes, another four African-American males in various types of dress, ranging in age from their early twenties to about sixty, about a half-dozen women both black and white primarily in their thirties. There is nobody of Mid-Eastern descent. There isn’t a single turban. Well, at least not in this car.
Outside, the silhouettes of bare trees stretch into the sky like fingers of reanimated skeletons reaching out from their graves in an attempt to rejoin the living. The color of the sky is that of an old, worn headstone. Everywhere I look I see death. I decide that it’s time to turn away from the window before I make myself sick to my stomach.
On the seat to my left is a copy of today’s Newark Star Ledger. I put it there, unopened, when I sat down. I’ve found it necessary to make some rules in my life, one of which is that I don’t read the newspaper before I board the train, otherwise I may never get on. If I never boarded, my job would be gone and, while I could still pay my rent on part time wages somewhere, I couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to give Rebecca money to buy things for Andrew.
I still talk to Rebecca every week and to Andrew two or three times that. Each call is supervised, and the moment I head down the path of discussing terrorism, or anthrax, or homeland security, Rebecca interrupts and the call is over. I do my best to stay away from those topics, but it’s amazing just how many things lead there.
I pick the newspaper up and unfold it on my lap so that I’m looking at the top half of the front page. I know what I’m going to see. It’s December 23rd. Just yesterday they caught a man trying to board a plane with a bomb in his shoe. Unbelievable. Just three days before Christmas and they’re still trying to blow things up. Don’t these people have any shame? I want to be angrier about this than I am, but I think of Washington’s Christmas Eve attack on the British and the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam and I think that maybe surprise attacks on holidays are just an everyday part of warfare. Then I remind myself that this isn’t war, this is terrorism: the slaughter of innocents.
I tear the paper open with ferocity as I attempt to get to the meat of the story about the bomber. Richard Reid, blah, blah, blah. British citizen, blah, blah, blah. Claims allegiance to bin Laden. There it is. Not some crazy, homicidal homegrown maniac, but rather a foreign national fighting for bin Laden’s cause. Suddenly, I’m looking around the train again and realizing that while I was so concerned about turbans, somebody may have sneaked onto the train with a bomb in their shoe. Of course they wouldn’t be wearing a turban. How could I be so stupid? In this day and age, that would just draw attention to them.
I’m nervous. I can’t see everybody’s shoes. Casually, I try to look around the seats, under the seats, over the seats. It’s all I can do to keep from climbing from row to row. I don’t know if I expect to see TNT wired in a bundle to the bottom of somebody’s foot, but I’m convinced that if there’s a bomb in a shoe, I’ll see it. My hands are shaking and a cold sweat breaks out in beads on my brow. I know that if I don’t get control soon, I’ll end up hurting somebody, so I force my butt back into my seat and close my eyes. I inhale through my nose and out through my mouth, repeatedly, trying to focus on something other than the fear. Chinese food. The New York Giants. My favorite television show. Kittens. Hell, anything not terrorist related. After a few moments, my breathing slows and I know it’s beginning to work.
I open my eyes and I see that the other people on the train are just commuters like me. Nobody’s got a bomb. Nobody’s going to kill me. It’s all just my paranoid brain, making up stories to scare me. I am safe.
Luckily, though, we’re at Newark Penn Station, just in case I’m wrong.
My hands are pawing at the doors, trying to tear them open before the train comes to a stop. When they finally part of their own accord, I’m through them and across the platform before I can even take a breath. I might have knocked somebody over in the process, but I’m not sure. I’m running, dodging, and weaving like a pro running back, except I’m not conditioned quite as well. Before I can break out into the open air, a fire ignites in my lungs and I’m forced to stop. My legs begin to fail me, so I lean against the wall and try to take deep breaths.
I remind myself that I am in Newark, not New York. I counter that that doesn’t matter: they’ll strike anywhere, anytime. I argue that there isn’t an Arab as far as the eye can see, but then I tell myself that I’m a fool if I think they’re not creative enough to blend in. This internal debate continues on at such a brisk pace that it seems to be keeping step with my heartbeat. I know that I need to calm my thinking in order to calm my heartbeat, so I focus my attention on that.
Chinese food. The New York Giants. My favorite television show. Kittens. I need some new distractions. These never seem to work. I look around the train station and start to read things: signs, newspaper or magazine headlines, arrival and departure times, pretty much anything that will hold my attention for one or two seconds. Luckily, this seems to work. I start reading logos on sweatshirts and jackets and within a few minutes my breathing and heart rate seem to return to normal. I take one final deep breath, and even though it feels shallow, like when you try to take a deep breath after being in the ocean all day, it is still relieving.
I gasp for one more and when I get it, it comes much easier. Too easy, in fact. Something doesn’t feel right. I look around, then let out a sigh that’s a mix of relief and frustration as I realize that I’m in Aunt Beverly’s house. I was worried I’d had another panic attack, but instead it was another flashback. I close my eyes. There is nothing I want to do more, right now, than sleep, but my overactive brain isn’t going to let that happen.