A Day In September by JD Hessinger June 2004
As on every weekday Tom Tuckett was
awakened by his annoying, buzzing alarm clock at 5:30. He got out
of bed and proceeded to his bathroom for his daily cold shower to
wake him up. He turned the knob all the way to the right to make
sure the water would be as cold as it could be. He had started
this ritual when he moved to New York to take a teaching job at
PS 181 in Manhattan. He HAD to be awake in the mornings for
that job. Not just for school but he had to be mindful of people
as he walked to his job which was twelve blocks away. His
mornings were full of rituals that he had started to do down to
the very second. After a fifteen minute shower, he got out, dried
off and shaved, Tom’s apartment wasn’t big, just enough
for him. He never replaced any of the amenities from when it was
built in the 1980s so most of the things were now considered
antiques. As he walked out of his bathroom he looked at the
clock, 5:45am, September 11, 2025. Today would be the
toughest day of the year for him. As he thought about the
significance of the date he finished getting dressed and walked
out of the door precisely at 6:00am. As he started his walk down
the hall to the street he made sure not to step the cracks in the
stone.
Ismad Monshiquid awoke across town in his bed
as his mother tickled his feet. “Wake up Ismad, it is
a new day!” she said, in the loving tone whose pitch only a
mother can know. Ismad didn’t live in the best part of town
and he got into a lot of mischief. But inside, his mother knew he
was a good fifteen-year old kid. He was a solid B student and was
the school’s basketball star. He couldn’t stand most of
his classes as his favorite time was in which he chatted with his
friends at lunch. He found most of them pointless with no
“real life” value. He knew that today was
September 11th but he really did not see what the big
deal was.
“You will never understand how it changed
our life,” his grandmother said when the topic of 9/11 came
up every year, after he grabbed a Pot Tart and gave his mother a
loving peck on the cheek he started off for school. He turned his
Walkman on to his usual music to drone out the street sounds as
he walked to school.
Mr. Tuckett walked into school with his
steaming hot coffee thirty-three minutes before his first class.
He used the time to situate himself and re-arrange his room the
way he liked it after the janitor had moved everything. A
true history buff, Mr. Tuckett’s walls were lined with
artifacts ranging from Indian arrowheads to a model of the
Declaration of Independence. Of course, his students could care
less about history. As he reflected on this fact, he began to
write the notes for the day and that he knew would just be a
waste of chalk because no one would take the notes down. When he
wrote the date he stopped, turned around, found a seat and sat
down. All of his movements were involuntary. He began to think
about when he was twelve, the day he saw the buildings fall. He
remembered the chaos at his school. Everyone was crying. Even the
most rock solid teachers crumbled as if they were dried clay in
the hands of a young child. He began to feel the hole in his soul
that he had stowed away for so many years under his many
obsessive ways and habits.
The starting bell for school awoke him from
his trance and he found his cheeks to be moistened from a salty
rain he hadn’t felt in a long time. He quickly plugged up
the tears and straightened himself out before the students came
in like raging bulls hurrying into class for the sole reason that
if they were caught late they would only have to stay at the
“prison” for an hour more than they were required to.
Mr. Tuckett turned around just as the late bell rang to signal to
take attendance. Halfway through the roll call Mr. Tuckett
noticed Ismad slinking in, trying to stay unnoticed. “Nice
of you to join us, Ismad,” Mr. Tuckett called out.
“I’m sorry man; the bus was late at
44th street.” The class turned around and laughed
at the “man” comment.
‘That’s ok, just don’t do it
again.” Mr. Tuckett didn’t want to fight with his
students. The students looked stunned that Mr. Tuckett did not
begin one of his infamous, “school is your job and if you
are late you will never receive a raise,” speeches.
After the roll call, Mr. Tuckett started his lecture, “Does
anyone know why today is an important day?”
“Yea, some people died, right?” someone said. Mr.
Tuckett was expecting the first answer from the back of the room
to be one of the lower intellect and he was not
disappointed.
“Not just SOME, Raul – more then
2,000 people died!”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,”
retorted someone from the back of the room.
“Then let me try and put it into
perspective to you,” a sense of distaste resonated in his
voice. “Picture everyone on your street laying outside their
doors dead and then multiply that by two and you can start to
picture how many people it was. I watched a man on TV jump off
the top of the first tower because he was burning alive. Do you
understand how horrible it must have been to have made that man
commit suicide?”
“That still doesn’t seem like that
big of a deal.”
Exasperated, Mr. Tuckett turned around and
rested his head on the board for a second. These kids just
wouldn’t understand, he thought to himself. He began to
dwell for a microsecond on the pain he felt that day and the hole
that had formed after the first building collapsed. He turned
around teary eyed and looked straight at Ismad.
“Who means the most to you, Ismad?”
said Mr. Tuckett’s weak voice.
“Well, my mother – she is all I
have,” said Ismad trying to show no emotion.
“And how would you feel if she were taken
away from you?”
“Horrible,” letting his emotions
leak from behind his mask.
“See class – these are not just
numbers,” Mr. Tuckett started to choke on the air.
“These were brothers, sisters, parents. Each number in the
death toll has a story behind it. My father’s story and life
is represented by one of those numbers. Before you say September
11, 2001 was just about some people dying, think about the
stories and lives of those people, The one man that jumped, my
father, had a story. Remember him.” With that, Mr. Tuckett
sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands and wept. The
high shrill of the bell notified the students that the class was
over. Only after everyone had left, Ismad stood up and walked
towards Mr. Tuckett’s groveling body.
“Mr. Tuckett?”
“Yea?” came the weeping response.
“Thanks.” And with that single
word both of the men had a complete understanding of each other.
Ismad felt the hole in the teacher’s soul. Nothing more was
said. They didn’t need to say more to understand one
another. Ismad left Mr. Tuckett’s room that day feeling
wiser, more understanding of the world. He felt he had grown so
much in such a small amount of time
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