09/12/07
A day late
I had jury duty yesterday. Endless mind numbing waiting, and nothing else. This would have gone up yesterday, but I couldn't think so it didn't get written until today.
So this was it, the moment everyone waits impatiently for from the first time they took the car out for a spin. That singularly defining moment of one’s life – taking the great plunge, jumping beyond the reach of the safety net. Make it or break it, you know with absolute certainty that this is your life.
It was like a movie – the ending of a movie, a gripping drama where everything turned out swell. Clear skies and an empty road – blue over black with a single car slicing between them heading north on I-75 away from Detroit, away from everything old, towards Saginaw and everything new. In the passenger seat laid the letter of employment that would secure my new apartment – a sort of passport between the past and the future. A decent job making deliveries for Federal Express - great benefits, pay, the works.
The day began around 9 am with a shower, then coffee and a cigarette smoked outside of my parent’s smoke-free home. Then a collection of things – keys, the letter, a lighter, cigarettes, cold caffeine for the two-hour drive, and music – I couldn’t drive without music. I’d have liked to work while listening to music as well, but the boombox at the warehouse couldn’t compete with the noise of the airport. That would change soon enough.
Halfway into the trip, somewhere around Flint, Cobain’s screeching angst had become tedious. Cigarette in one hand, the windows open on this odd September morning, the CD case holding down the letter so it wouldn’t be blown out of the window, hit the eject button. The eject button didn’t exactly work. The CD would stop playing, yes, but it wouldn’t come out and the system wouldn’t switch over to the radio because of it. Smash the eject button then. Repeatedly. Finally, the player grudgingly gave up the disc, and the radio switched on.
There, somewhere around Flint, Orson Wells was reborn.
The voice was shaky, but recognizable – the disc jockey who is always on air at that time on 89X. But it wasn’t him – couldn’t be. He wasn’t making any sense, and he wasn’t playing music. It was as if the Detroit-Windsor “New Rock Alternative†station had suddenly, inexplicably reverted to doing hysterical radio dramas. Two planes had flown into the World Trade Center and one had flown into the Pentagon. Button-mashing then – changing stations to find the punch-line, but there were no creatures from outer space. Orson Wells was still quite dead. The World Trade Center was gone.
Speed then, across the empty asphalt, the clear blue sky had become a menace. Raced through Flint, enough to warrant a reckless driving citation, but there were no cops to be seen, through the quiet countryside up to Saginaw and the apartment complex – and a television.
I handed the leasing agent my letter and wrote the check for the deposit. Filled out some paperwork, went over the lease, and received my keys. In the background CNN was on the big screen television. No television or picture could have done the Tower’s justice. I had seen them twice – once from New Jersey while out with my dad in his truck and once up close when I had decided to take a Memorial Day drive out to New York City. They were mountains of steel and glass, manmade structures that tried to mock or emulate Nature.
Now they were on a television, standing tall against the sky. Now they were being struck by passenger planes. Now they were shrouded in smoke. Now they were collapsing. Over and over again. The commentary quickly became an annoying buzz in the background – a fly on the back of what was happening.
I had to work that night – that’s where it became clear. It was the trucking facility, a Federal Express warehouse next to Detroit Metro Airport. No planes were flying so all the freight had to go through us onto trucks. Instead of one or two fifty-three foot trailers to Memphis, we did around fourteen – fit whatever we could wherever we could to get it on its way to somewhere, anywhere. Memphis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Boston, and elsewhere.
We could have heard that once puny boombox those three days, but it was kept silent. In place of the jets there were birds interrupted every now and then by fighter planes patrolling high overhead.
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So this was it, the moment everyone waits impatiently for from the first time they took the car out for a spin. That singularly defining moment of one’s life – taking the great plunge, jumping beyond the reach of the safety net. Make it or break it, you know with absolute certainty that this is your life.
It was like a movie – the ending of a movie, a gripping drama where everything turned out swell. Clear skies and an empty road – blue over black with a single car slicing between them heading north on I-75 away from Detroit, away from everything old, towards Saginaw and everything new. In the passenger seat laid the letter of employment that would secure my new apartment – a sort of passport between the past and the future. A decent job making deliveries for Federal Express - great benefits, pay, the works.
The day began around 9 am with a shower, then coffee and a cigarette smoked outside of my parent’s smoke-free home. Then a collection of things – keys, the letter, a lighter, cigarettes, cold caffeine for the two-hour drive, and music – I couldn’t drive without music. I’d have liked to work while listening to music as well, but the boombox at the warehouse couldn’t compete with the noise of the airport. That would change soon enough.
Halfway into the trip, somewhere around Flint, Cobain’s screeching angst had become tedious. Cigarette in one hand, the windows open on this odd September morning, the CD case holding down the letter so it wouldn’t be blown out of the window, hit the eject button. The eject button didn’t exactly work. The CD would stop playing, yes, but it wouldn’t come out and the system wouldn’t switch over to the radio because of it. Smash the eject button then. Repeatedly. Finally, the player grudgingly gave up the disc, and the radio switched on.
There, somewhere around Flint, Orson Wells was reborn.
The voice was shaky, but recognizable – the disc jockey who is always on air at that time on 89X. But it wasn’t him – couldn’t be. He wasn’t making any sense, and he wasn’t playing music. It was as if the Detroit-Windsor “New Rock Alternative†station had suddenly, inexplicably reverted to doing hysterical radio dramas. Two planes had flown into the World Trade Center and one had flown into the Pentagon. Button-mashing then – changing stations to find the punch-line, but there were no creatures from outer space. Orson Wells was still quite dead. The World Trade Center was gone.
Speed then, across the empty asphalt, the clear blue sky had become a menace. Raced through Flint, enough to warrant a reckless driving citation, but there were no cops to be seen, through the quiet countryside up to Saginaw and the apartment complex – and a television.
I handed the leasing agent my letter and wrote the check for the deposit. Filled out some paperwork, went over the lease, and received my keys. In the background CNN was on the big screen television. No television or picture could have done the Tower’s justice. I had seen them twice – once from New Jersey while out with my dad in his truck and once up close when I had decided to take a Memorial Day drive out to New York City. They were mountains of steel and glass, manmade structures that tried to mock or emulate Nature.
Now they were on a television, standing tall against the sky. Now they were being struck by passenger planes. Now they were shrouded in smoke. Now they were collapsing. Over and over again. The commentary quickly became an annoying buzz in the background – a fly on the back of what was happening.
I had to work that night – that’s where it became clear. It was the trucking facility, a Federal Express warehouse next to Detroit Metro Airport. No planes were flying so all the freight had to go through us onto trucks. Instead of one or two fifty-three foot trailers to Memphis, we did around fourteen – fit whatever we could wherever we could to get it on its way to somewhere, anywhere. Memphis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Boston, and elsewhere.
We could have heard that once puny boombox those three days, but it was kept silent. In place of the jets there were birds interrupted every now and then by fighter planes patrolling high overhead.
Posted by: Jason at
05:03 PM in Signs of Life
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