Never Forget

As this weekend grinds to a close, your national media has already told me a thousand times that we must “never forget.” As if. Can't you do better America? Your marketing skills are world class and “never forget” is the best you can do?

“Dude, do you remember what happened on September 11th?”
“Wasn't it something about some planes? I was high all summer.”
“Wikipedia, man.”

In all the “never forgetting” that we're supposed to be doing there's one thing we aren't supposed to be remembering so well. We're supposed to remember it in an abstract sort of way. I'm talking about the group of 200 or so that leapt out of the WTC and landed on the plaza a thousand feet below, or in a pile on the roof of the Marriott, or wherever gravity sought to deposit them.

They've been written out of the screenplay. They've been left out of the final-cut due to America's avoidance of reality, and an already too-long running-time due to the epic nature of the story. Besides, we don't want to remember them too well. Suicides aren't talked about in polite company or the next thing you know, everybody will start doing it – like smoking – and we've made such progress over last couple decades. Incidentally, it's not very well known that the Marlboro man died from gun-in-mouth disease after learning from his doctor that he had terminal lung cancer. Anyway, it's best that we leave the suicide topic to the dark corners of the web, or the peep shows on Youtube.

These people didn't kill themselves, after all, the terrorists murdered them. It's not like they planned to kill themselves that day, we presume. Why such semantics? Is it because suicide is considered an offense to God? A loving God would give them a pass, right? Given all that had transpired that day, he surely wouldn't send them to Hell on a technicality?

What if they pushed each other out of the building? Then, only the last one would have the suicide stain on their resume. Whoops, then each one but the first in line could be classified as a murderer. But that can be forgiven too since they immediately paid for the crime with their lives. As Jesus mumbled to his biographer, while waving one hand dismissively and tossing grapes into his mouth with the other, “An eye for an eye and shit like that.” I can go on heretical, morbid flights of fancy until your vertical scrollbar is a tiny sliver of pixels, but it serves no purpose.

So, I suppose then, that they should have waited for fate to kill them? That's silly too. Given the exigent circumstances of that day, we've collectively decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least on paper, that they really had no other choice but to jump, and we've blessed their decision. In this rare example of understanding, we've decided to use ridiculous theological word-play, in the hopes that in an equally ridiculous court date with God, they'll be found not guilty.

What we can be certain of is that we'll never know what horrors they faced and what it was like to walk in their shoes. As suicides go then, that part is fairly standard. But outside of this rare example, we refer to suicides as cowards, or say, “they took the easy way out.” I have an challenge for you:

Let's get ourselves a gun, maybe a Glock or a Ruger, we'll chamber a round, do whatever cocking may be necessary, and flick the safety off. You have to Linda Lovelace the barrel, and hold your finger, or both your thumbs, on the hair trigger for thirty seconds while you evaluate your viewpoint. If you can keep the gun in your pie hole for the entire half minute then I'll write you a check for $500. Or, if you don't like guns, stand on a ledge fifty stories up, look down for that same thirty seconds, and evaluate your viewpoint that way instead. Admittedly, I don't know you very well, but I don't think you'd make it to thirty seconds.

Coward.

I remember September 11th not because I've been told to do so, but because it was the backdrop to an otherwise ordinary night of getting wasted. My girlfriend, Abigail, was at the end of the process of becoming my ex-girlfriend, and most of her stuff was packed away in boxes, ready to be moved out of my house. I ventured out and discovered that all the gas stations were plugged up with fearful idiots, apparently hoping to save ten cents a gallon before the next day's inevitable price hike. I was discouraged to see this, as my tank was all but empty, so I bought a liter of quality vodka and some orange juice. There was no run on liquor stores. Once again, America had it's priorities all fucked up.

We got very drunk that night. I threw up some of my screwdrivers at the foot of an Oak tree in the backyard. Abigail was laying on a hammock on the back porch a few feet away, laughing hysterically as I puked my guts out under that tree. I felt better after puking, went inside, and mixed myself another screwdriver. We talked about the jumpers. We both agreed that there was something beautiful and romantic about the couples that held hands and jumped into the void together.

Abigail died of a self-inflicted gunshot a few years later.