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afar we see New York's skyline with its two front teeth missing,
and its people shaken and staggering, and we are shaken but also
inspired. And, increasingly, very pissed off. People are crying,
praying, and wearing patriotic ribbons. Some are buying guns and
ammunition. Teenage boys, including one of my sons, are calling
military recruiters and asking if 16 is old enough to join the Marines.
They watch the replay of the towers crumbling, and in their minds
they are fixing bayonets. They cuss out loud.
This radical
Islamic sucker punch, everyone understands, was aimed at all of
us. It knocked down part of the Pentagon and killed fellow citizens
in Northern Virginia. But the foremost target was New York because
the enemy knows that New York is the Big Guy, and if the Big Guy
is staggered, so are we all. Had the strikes been against Miami
or Los Angeles the impact on the national psyche would have been
profound, but not the same. This is not merely because of the symbolic
nature of the World Trade Center — the heart of "democratic
capitalism," as one CNN blowhard insisted. The city is about
much bigger things.
It is the Awesome
City. When you think of New York you think of many things, but central
is the fact that it is probably the Most Alive place on earth. And
so it remains. New York took the brunt of the beating but is very
much on its feet, showing how all must act under fire. There is
surely more fire to come.
Back in the Old World, which is to say just prior to 9 A.M. Tuesday
morning, many of us, especially hacks such as myself, had occasional
fun razzing New York — or, to be precise, that small clique
of self-absorbed, perennial adolescents that cancels Mother's Day,
praises ugly art, and otherwise practices a very odd version of
sophistication.
We now see
Greater New York. The stars are not media celebrities, book publishers,
gossip-mag editors, real-estate tycoons, actors, curators, and similar
preeners. The glitter has been burned off; the frivolous legion
has been replaced by firefighters, cops, steel workers, secretaries,
messengers, priests, rabbis, and countless working people —
all led by the mayor, who seems to have been born for this moment.
Rudy Giuliani should be named Honorary Hangman at Bin Laden's execution.
Let him pull the lever, if that is his desire.
Meanwhile,
looking at the gap-toothed skyline is hard even for outsiders. I
made a point of not taking a map when business took me to New York,
preferring to ask directions from strangers on the street. I should
point out that I have a southern accent that Gomer Pyle might envy,
and while perhaps there was some amusement in this for the natives
my requests were always met with warmth and directions were delivered
with a sort of pride. I had touched down in a great place, and my
guides wanted me to know.
They used buildings
and museums as landmarks to help me along the way, and clearly had
a feeling toward those buildings like Coloradans have for their
mountains. Now the two greatest peaks in the Manhattan Range have
disappeared, as if Mt. Evans or Pike's Peak had sunk into the Earth.
Combined with the human toll, the sense of loss is beyond an outsider's
ability to imagine.
But we do know
there are serious scores to settle. When my 16-year-old heard of
the strikes, he called in on his cell phone (let us now praise cell
phones and, one hates to add, cable television) and asked how old
he had to be to enlist. A friend two years his senior — while
waiting on us at dinner Thursday night — told of plans to visit
a recruitment center Friday morning. He hopes to get into an intelligence
unit. Their parent's generation, meanwhile, which has often been
self-conscious about its lack of a defining experience such as a
war, now has one. Every family member is a target, and thus a combatant
as well. A new world indeed.
The bad guys
celebrate, crowing that they have crossed the Rubicon and brought
their war to us. This is true. They have crossed the Rubicon. Now
they are on our side of the river. We are better and stronger than
they are, and our ranks include a large number of very pissed off
New Yorkers. As someone else has pointed out, we are all New Yorkers
now.
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