DAY THIRTEEN:Sunday, Sept. 23
Sunday, day for church-going, even inside Yankee Stadium. The House of Ruth became the house of redemption. All over New York there was religion, of one kind or another, in the air. It was on television, on the radio, in the streets, in-escapable. In a single Brooklyn block this morning I heard these snatches of conversation: "I know the Lord will deliver us. Amen."
"I am having trouble reconciling what happened with my faith in the Lord as my protector."
"Didn't I tell you that you would feel better after church?" "...and Bush said God is on our side and I told..."
The shrines that a week ago were spontaneous and secular are taking on distinctly Christian overtones. Carvings of the crucifix, bibles, pamphlets from various Christian denominations and rosaries now festoon the Brooklyn Promenade, alongside the non-religious memorials that appeared a week ago. In Yankee Stadium every imaginable faith was represented, and there was no separation of church and state. It's hard to absorb this: New York City, Home of the Tough, became --- at least for one day --- Home of the Devout.
And the patriotic. I took count today in various neighborhoods of Brooklyn, rich and poor, on a long bike ride. Hardly an exterior portal in the entire borough lacks an Old Glory. There seems to be a run on stars-and-stripes shirts, as well, especially in the working class parts of town.
This morning on "Meet the Press" Colin Powell exhorted the nation to show its defiance by "behaving normally", which he described as watching baseball, going to church, being with family and doing our jobs. Apparently much of Brooklyn decided to follow the Secretary of State's advice. In the gritty working class neighborhoods of Red Hook and Gowanus --- made famous half a century ago in Marlon Brando's "On The Waterfront" --- every inch of park was being used for a soccer match or baseball game. Along the Gowanus Canal and NY Harbor Latino families were fishing, salsa music or Spanish language baseball broadcasts blasting from their radios. It almost seemed 'normal', except that nearly every car's antenna had an American flag attached to it, and many parents seemed to be forcing themselves, pushing to please the kids but not feeling engaged.
At the bottom end of Red Hook is the NYPD compound for large evidence. The gates were, incredibly, unlocked, so I rode my bike on in to take a look. The parking lot was filled with cars pulled out of the World Trade Center catastrophe. A new Mercedes sedan, covered in cement powder, sat unclaimed. A Volvo diesel sedan had been bisected lengthwise, apparently by a falling steel beam. What seemed to be a brand new Honda Accord was smashed down into a thin layer of steel resting on four tires. Some cars seemed undamaged, save layers of concrete dust, and I realized they had probably gone unclaimed because the owners had perished inside the buildings. I looked at the sad sedans and Explorers and trucks and thought each might represent a lost life, or lives, and it hit me the same way all those Missing Person posters taped to walls all over the city make me feel.
It seems as though New Yorkers want all of this to JUST BE OVER WITH. Just make it go away. Make it stop. It's hard being sad all of the time. It's impossible to live the Blues day in and day out. They say there are five stages of grief. New York has finished shock, denial and rage. Now it's depressed, and wants to forget. But this one is WAY too big to forget. This is an in-your-face, all out SLAM of pain and loss. From the Red Hook pier, which is across the harbor from the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan can be seen from its battery tip, upwards. The World Trade Center used to loom large from that vantage point, seemingly saying to anybody approaching New York City from the harbor, "Welcome to the Center of the Universe". Now from that viewing point Manhattan looks remarkably like Minneapolis, as seen from across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. Lose the Twin Towers and you get the Twin Cities.
What's the next stage of grieving? Acceptance, as I recall. Whoa, I don't know if New Yorkers are constitutionally capable of "accepting" anything.
On Tuesday it will have been two weeks. And it will be Election Day. Accept that, Gotham.
Be well. Be safe. Stand defiant.
Laurie Garrett
