In 1984, I was working on a show so far off Broadway that the best seats were on the Staten Island Ferry. It closed early, as grad student theater projects tend to do, and we were at loose ends for the rest of the summer. There were seven of us, ten on weekends, subletting a one room studio a block or two from Seward Park. It was hot and while the sun was still up it made more sense to stay inside, lay around on the futon mattresses we had scattered about, smoking weed and drinking whiskey while we figured out what we would get into after the sun went down.
We were discussing the tall buildings we could see from our windows and our comparative bravery or lack thereof when it came to heights. I swore on some dead relative that I could actually feel the motion of the uppermost floors. I was told that it was my imagination, that there was no movement. I bet him $20 that I could prove it.
Five or six of us proceeded to carry two of the futon mattresses the twenty blocks or so to the World Trade Center Plaza. After a quick dip in the fountain, we flopped on our mattresses under the Twin Towers. Flat on our backs with a single finger pointed off the tips of our noses, we watched as the top of the building gently swayed one way, then the other, past our fingertips.
A cop came along and asked what the hell. We explained the experiment and didn’t he lay right down next to us and give it a try? After a few “Well, I’ll be damned!”s and a couple of “Holy shit!”s, he left us to it, too surprised by what he’d experienced to roust us.
Whenever I do what passes for prayer, I think of that officer. I hope that he is safe and well and that his memory of the WTC still holds some of the wonder and laughter of that night.
(Originally posted on #crosstalk on September 11, 2010)
