Where Were You?

The year was 2001. I can see it vividly. My back doesn’t hurt the way it does now. I know because I was slinging pallets and cases of Coca-Cola back then like the young man I once was. Hell, I might have even had a little bit of hair on the top of my head.

Tuesday morning, and I was in the backroom at the Kroger’s grocery store in Piqua, Ohio receiving area which was buzzing with activity.  You know where I mean; that mysterious veil of retail some of us know all too well. The place marked by those dual swinging doors with tiny square windows no one can see out of, or thick flaps of industrial grade plastic that turn yellow and brittle with age. The immediate area smelled of overripe vegetables and a trash compactor that had been used to dispose of them daily since the seventies.  

 Vendors stood impatiently next to their stacked deliveries, while salespeople ran here and there punching in orders on electronic devices, long before anyone ever thought of an iPad. It was the sweet hymn of organized chaos.

I was right in the middle of it. I had recently taken over a new merchandising (for those not ‘in the know’ that means glorified stockboy) route. My goal was twofold: correct the stuff the lazy guy before me hadn’t done right, and to start doing the stuff he wasn’t doing at all- you know important stuff like rotating product.[1]

At any rate, I was absorbed by my work. But not too absorbed to notice a majority of the vendors shuffling quickly outside. I wasn’t invited, but had to bring those empty pallets and shells outside to rot in the Ohio weather, so I decided to join them.

When I exited the oversized garage door that led to the back of the dock, I saw a strange site. Gathered around the Wonder-Bread vendor’s truck was every food vendor you could imagine in the Midwest. They were all huddled around the Wonder-Bread truck, leaning in as close as they could to the cab.

As I approached a UPS guy, drove up, hopped from his van with a couple boxes and hollered, “Boy look at this, a real meeting of the minds.”

“Jerry,” the Wonder Bread driver yelled at UPS, “You gotta hear this; they are saying some lunatic flew a plane into one of the twin towers.”

Jerry from UPS didn’t even slow his walk, “Whatever, you’re full of shit.” He continued inside with his delivery.

I approached Wonder-Bread van, and everyone else, trying to figure out if it was an insanely stupid joke or something else entirely. My mind immediately flashed to the original War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938, wherein people were supposedly whipped into mass hysteria because the production was interpreted as a newscast.

I got in as close as I could to the cab. I recoiled almost as eagerly.

I remember going from a 21 year old newlywed, who had lost his dad early that year, but still had everything figured out, to a speck, who knew nothing.  “Why?” marched through my head, and all its friends followed, rattling me in a way that I never have been, before or since. The world no longer worked the way I thought it had. And that was just the beginning, because my phone rang.  No wait, I didn’t have a cell phone. I had a pager. So…

My pager vibrated, I walked to the phone at the front desk and dialed my wife[2].

“Oh my God baby where are you?”

“Kroger Piqua.”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Ya I just heard over a radio outside here.”

“Are you coming home?”

“No, I have a delivery to work.” Realizing how ridiculous that sounded I tried to shore it up, “Besides they aren’t going to let us come home.”

“Ok, get home as soon as you can, and you call me at every store!”

I didn’t and in fact, I worked my full shift that day, just as all my peers did. Perhaps, if I would’ve had more of the wisdom age has bestowed upon me, and less of the unquestioning desire to “get-ahead” that would’ve been different.

*

Fact is; I did get home to see my wife, as you all know I was lucky, because many Americans didn’t get home at all that day.

It was a day that shaped the world we lived in more than we’d like to admit. Or perhaps we’ve forgotten over time, even though we promised we wouldn’t. Even today, the aftereffects of its tragedy ring in our ears.  

That is not to say those responsible “won”, or even gained any ground- assuming there was ground to gain.

It could be said that single act did more to define American zeitgeist than the Kennedy assassination, the Great Depression, or the World Wars.  Of course, every generation has its defining moment.

They also managed to spread a consuming flame of hatred and confusion related to anyone that wears a turban, prays to Mecca, or has a beard longer than Chris Hemsworth (and a number of other details, accurate or not). Unfortunately, that might be the legacy that 9/11 offers to us most glaringly; cultural assumptions that lead to chaos. This maladaptive thinking proves dangerous to both sides, as it does nothing more than raise awareness for the things we can judge the other against.

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[1] By the way, fuck you Bill you lazy bastard!

[2] “At the time”

Upgrade: Part II of II

Days passed and Kenny counted them down with glee. Each hour that fell brought him closer to his full potential, to his destiny.  

            He was in the break room at work eating a bologna sandwich and playing a game on his phone that required the matching of like-colored jewels to score points. Kenny liked seeing the shapes and colors line up. He liked seeing order triumph over chaos.  

            “Kenny, Kenny look!”

            Kenny looked up to see a few of his coworkers gawking at the television screen mounted in the corner. One of his colleagues, Vern; a fat man with only a thin wisp of hair smattered over his noggin was hollering his name.

            “Are you seeing this? This nutjob who just got upgraded last week is going on a rampage downtown!”

            On the screen he saw a woman with robotic legs repeatedly kicking an ATM. One kick, two and then three, before she had punched through the ATMs exterior and knocked it from its base. The machine toppled over and crashed to the ground with a thud as its display went dim. The fair-haired woman had a dark green blouse and was red with anger. She had on a tight black skirt that seemed to accentuate the robotic contours of her legs. Peeking out from the skirt were two shiny steel “feet” covered in flimsy matching green pumps. If you listened closely, and could separate the sounds around her you could hear the electronic whir of gears and mechanisms operating within her legs.

            “Insufficient funds! I’ll show you insufficient funds! You piece of shit!”

            In front of the bank, police parted the crowd the woman had attracted and leveled their service weapons. “Stand down ma’am.”

            The woman paid no attention and front kicked the bank’s brick wall with her robotic left foot. As she pulled it away the gears in her leg whined, but the brick bore a noticeable mark as chunks of rubble fell to the sidewalk.

             “Ma’am we need you to calm down!” an officer yelled.

            The woman turned now, finally facing the officers. “Calm down! Don’t you tell me to calm down! You’re just afraid of me!” She walked towards the police, in spite of the fact that their guns were trained on her. As she did this her left foot rolled under her. Machinery somewhere inside snapped, but the woman kept coming, only this time with a severe limp. “No, not afraid of what I am, but afraid of what you aren’t.

            Another warning from the police, “Ma’am if you do not yield we will open fire.”

            The woman didn’t slow in the least.

            “Ma’am this is your final warning!” On the screen the camera’s view pivoted from the police to the woman and quickly back again. Shots rang out as the muzzles of the officer’s weapons lit up.

            The camera feed was terminated and the view was back to the station’s newsroom where a blushing reporter nervously searched for words. “Ladies and gentlemen as you can see this upgraded individual has seemingly…umm…she has been…umm…halted by law enforcement. We will continue to collaborate with authorities to determine if her…umm…mental faculties were at all affected by her upgrade.”

            “Did you see her eyes?” one of the women in front of Kenny asked the room.

            Vern called out, “Definitely bat-shit. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts like a lot.”

            “That’s some scary stuff right there man,” offered an older gentleman sitting at the table opposite Kenny.

            “Kenny did I see one of those Astir pamphlets on your desk the other day?” Vern asked, and suddenly the entire room’s eyes were on Kenny.

            Kenny, finally managing to take his eyes from the screen, didn’t seem to notice a large blob of partially chewed bologna leaving his mouth to fall on the table before him.

* * *

            A few hours later, Kenny found himself in a bar near work, in a half-assed attempt to relax. The establishment was decorated in the late 70’s and hadn’t seen much in the way of upgrades since then. High back leather-bound bar stools matched the padded leather elbow guard that ran along the bar. Plastic plants and dull orange paint were smattered in every conceivable part of the room. Kenny thought the barroom’s look matched its smell; that of self-loathing.

            As Kenny drank he continued to mull over one idea. He had found it strange that between he and his co-workers had viewed the news broadcast as if they were watching two completely different programs.

            Even as Kenny took a long pull on the beer before him, the news replayed the incident with the woman and the ATM. Following the tape a newscaster addressed the viewers. With a critical look straight into camera the newscaster spoke solemnly. “It seems regarding recipients of Astir upgrades it is not a matter of if they will descend into rage and violence, but when.”

            “Insane, right? If you woulda asked me 20 years ago whether or not I would ever live to see the day when people were walking around with Terminator legs, I woulda said ‘hell no’.” A few stools down from Kenny, the man who had spoke the unsolicited statement did so over an empty rocks glass, and was now looking expectantly to Kenny for commentary.

            Kenny took a breath, his eyes flicked from the television set mounted above the bar to the man a few feet from him. “Have you ever seen Godzilla?”

            The man nodded and simultaneously shook his empty glass at the bartender.

            “You know how the people in those movies are always running around, frantically screaming as they stare up at the monster?” Kenny asked.

            Again, the man nodded.

            “So you can understand what it’s like to be vulnerable, to feel afraid. Something you’ve never seen before just set your whole world view on fire. Something powerful, something you have no control over. But tell me friend, how would you feel if you were Godzilla?”

            Kenny took more than a tiny bit of pleasure from the dumbfounded look on the man’s face, and then rose to leave. He set a few dollars down on the bar, leaving his half finished beer to sweat along with the man.

THE END?