Thick White Crust - DIA de LOS RASCACIELOS
September 11th, 2008by N.L. Belardes
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
It’s time for a breakdown.
The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.
Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11
D I A d e L O S R A S C A C I E L O S Just after the attacks occurred I was sitting with my ex-girlfriend in a Las Vegas bar watching four television channels unfold the horror of destruction.
The buildings had already fallen apart. I didn’t even hear about their collapse or the attacks until a few hours after the skyscrapers had come down. By the time I knew, countless ordinary people had already faced extraordinary circumstances. Thousands had already been torn away from life, from the planet, their spirits soaring into the stars. I thought: People will memorialize this event on Earth. But in the distant heavens, there is a place fixed in time and space that we will soon be far from.
I imagined a certain universal crossroads at a point on a planetary ellipse circling the heavens. That was ground zero on the grid of universality. That point would soon be lost from the ellipse, fallen into an interstellar abyss: the blackness—a void of space with the occasional atomic particles zooming through faster than the speed of light. They would jet through in beams, split into towers of energy and explode into showers of sub-atomic dust. That point swung around the curve of our solar system for now. It was a dot hidden in a vacuum, and would soon be left among Milky Way’s 100 billion stars, and so on, until finally the galaxy itself would drift away, thousands of suns burning through the point, leaving it in silence.
This was the day of the towers, the day of the dead. The borders would close and Vincente Fox would not be the only Mexican crying in his sleep. The world was changing before our eyes. And people far from the disaster? Americans across the country could not believe their eyes that towers could crumble, that jets and people could be hurtled like rockets, and ideas such as ‘closed borders’ could burst like boils on our American landscape.
The bartender thought it was the end of the world. I could see it in his eyes. He cleaned a few glasses. He stood quietly. I just sat there with the woman I would say goodbye to in a few hours and stared at the televisions.
It was the day of the towers and there would be many goodbyes. I knew about goodbyes. Families had said farewell all morning—final goodbyes—the goodbyes of death that sneak up, unaware, until they happen¬. Perhaps, never before in the history of man had there been so many farewells at once. Imagine a city. Phone lines jam with goodbyes. What do you do? Who do you say goodbye to? But this was the day of the towers, the skyscrapers. And there I sat, already knowing I was going to say goodbye to this woman. I wondered if I would ever see her again. We both sat silent. Occasionally, one of us would point to a television screen. There was an angle of death that we had not yet seen. A tower fell apart. This time it appeared on an even grander scale, because this time it was closer, right upon us. I could almost crane my neck and look upwards. Another replay: we could not see the horrors of individual death except for the jumpers. And then that was enough. Telemundo showed me enough. CNN showed me enough. NBC showed me enough. I had to go. It was my turn to say goodbye.
I spent the next few hours in a Laundromat washing clothes while my ex-girlfriend slept in her bed with a horrible cold. Her lips were full and red and so were her cheeks. Her green eyes fell into slumber as I went off to wash her clothes before I left. When I came back I ironed two shirts for her and then poured her some ginger ale. She was a waitress at a fine dining establishment. I had scrubbed the stains from her shirts and aprons. I cried every moment the iron shot steam into her clothes. I cried for her and America. I cried for goodbyes, because goodbye means people come and go, and that life eventually ends, and that there are little deaths and great deaths, and they abound and create holy terror at the moments leading up to farewell: the moment of goodbye itself.
There were stains I could not get out of her shirts. And that made me feel horrible. I had scrubbed until the ends of my fingers were red. I looked out of her window down Eighth Street. I saw taxis pass and a roaring ambulance. I could smell the palm tree standing out front and the dates that hung from it like prayer beads. I knew the woman I loved slumbered, and I could smell her too, in the room, in the air, in each moment as I stared at the casinos of downtown Las Vegas and the hard asphalt below. It seemed like such a short jump. But how could anybody when they took time to think about it?
Like the people in the towers I didn’t want to say goodbye. Though I expected perhaps like some, there could be something more, something after the fall. After all, I could tumble through infinity, clothes smoldering into a new life. I imagined clouds, birds, paper, computer desks, time clocks, desktop radios, molten structures bending outward like the petals of a blossoming sun, blackness, even stars boiling and bursting in a galactic cauldron center. I wondered: could there be a suddenness to such transcendence? I was full of anxiety and terror in a house I could not live in because love is a strong feeling, and I had wronged her too many times, and for a time, was not even happy with her. I had refused to work things out. It was too late. And so only a goodbye could have any healing, or any hint of salvation. Only a goodbye would do.
The quiver in my lips seemed to come from the shaking center of the Earth. The giant was in there. He had descended from the valley, his arms now around the core. He shook and shook. His great beard burned. Its knots shot fire like catastrophic oil wells spraying liquid fire across the landscape of his jaw. It was dia de los rascacielos. My country ripped apart. People fell. No one knew what would be constructed from such bloodied earth, but there would be a re-building at least in New York. That, America was sure of even as the buildings fell.
Read More of “Thick White Crust”:
Part One: H A U N T
Part Two: B O N I F A C I O
Part Three: S E P T E M B E R
Part Four: L E G A C Y
Part Five: G R E A T G R A N D M O T H E R ‘ S B U L L E T
Part Six: N O N - M I G R A N T S
Part Seven: D I A d e L O S R A S C A C I E L O S
Part Eight: T H E G A T H E R I N G
Part Nine: W H I T E F L I E S A N D W I D O W S
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N.L. BELARDES is a journalist, blogger and videographer. He writes several media blogs, including Noveltown’s Paperback Writer and Nick 2.0 (Formerly on ABC23). His work has appeared on the homepage of CNN.com and other news sites all over America. You can purchase Lords: Part One, which describes the infamous Lords of Bakersfield. They still creep the city long after they and a 1977 Central California dust storm ravaged the area. N.L. welcomes humorous notes and news tips to his MySpace or Twitter.
Tags: 9/11, author, California Writer, Chicano fiction, day of the dead, Death, dia de los muertos, George Bush Devil, Las Vegas, Latino, magic realism, N.L. Belardes, September 11, September conspiracy, sugar skulls
Wow.
Oh, NL, you bring this day back to me as if it were happening again.
Sometimes the stains just won’t come out. Ever.
You sure can write, kiddo.
I think you’re right. The stains don’t come out. But there’s a whole lot of new shirts out there for my beat-up closet. Thanks Irene. I always lover your comments.
This was the day of the towers, the day of the dead.
It’s appropriate that you post this one today. In my mind, this is more a day of the dead than the actual coming up next month. The artwork you created is amazing, too. The shadow, the skulls, the smoke, the fire… and the sky so blue. Such a dark day in history.
Did you become emotional while drawing that? What was going through your head?
And so only a goodbye could have any healing, or any hint of salvation. Only a goodbye would do.
I love this statement. Sometimes goodbyes are taken for granted. I wonder if after this day (and after reading this entry) if people understand that sometimes a goodbye can be forever…
I wasn’t emotional when working on that drawing. I pretty much just drew and it was done in about 20 minutes. All that was in my head was to just capture a feeling.
I think what did it for me was that during my edit I suddenly saw burning metal and thought how love is kind of like that. When you think about it, the love for people inside the towers far outweighs the burning of the towers themselves.
Only a goodbye would do.
Echoing Chingpea here - but this small sentence holds an enormous world in it.
I’m going to hold that world in my heart today.
xo
Thank you, Kimberly. And thanks for explaining to me about stages.
This is an excerpt from my Poem, ROADKILL. I was 1300 miles from home when the shit/towers came down:
For the next twenty four hours
Whenever I close my eyes the image of
Tower number two collapsing is what I see
First followed by other images of the horror
All screaming in my ear like a chorus of
Ghosts haunting my eyes-wide-open world
Take me home to my own sand box where
I can hide in relative if not naïve security
Take me away from this I don’t wanna
Study war no more what is it good for
I’m tired of trying to absorb these images
And numbers tired of this catechism of
Death and destruction this sermon on the
Mound of rubble this trinity of terrorism
There’s a new perspective in town we are a
Nation recovering from the collective
Jaw drop the six thousand soul Sunday
Punch and nothing can change that
We have to get up that’s what the mayor
Of NYC is saying that’s what the president
Is saying up up that’s what the ministers
Are saying everyone is saying we have to get
Up and get with the program get right with the
New program make sacrifices only instead of
The old sacrifices like rationing or going
Without a few creature comforts this new
Program could include a pogrom or two
Not to mention the serious collapse of an
Economy or two and even the suspension
Of the first and fourth amendments but
Few seem to notice these cracks in the
Façade of lady liberty even after that
Beautiful perfect layer of wonderful–
Don’t bother me I’m making a killing in
The stock market– purposeful ignorance
Was also vaporized that morning for the next
Week or so each night as I closed my eyes
To sleep each night as I entered the lobby of
The theater of sleep I had to pass through a
Gallery of images and sounds that had gotten
Stuck in my head from watching and listening to
Cnn msnbc npr and from seeing and scanning
Newspapers in PA and Seattle each and every
Night numbly stumbling towards night-night
A fireman grimacing with pain and disbelief
A face in the smoking ruin of tower one
The words oh my god screamed off camera
An imploding mushroom cloud of gray dust
A president struggling to keep his game face
A smug adversary holding a rifle drinking tea
Grim-faced men who lived and died here for him
The NY skyline with its two front teeth knocked
Out (even twenty billion dollars from the federal
Tooth fairy won’t be enough to ease these post-
Partum blues) leaving one with an odd feeling
Whenever it reappears in the backdrop of TV reruns
A mayor who rises from the ashes to redefine
His fate in the waning days of his term of office
And a good god that’s a tall building suddenly
Sporting an orangy-red chrysanthemum
Dispassionately I wander past these walls of
Shame to get to sleep to sleep per chance to
Dream ah that is indeed the rub and
Remarkably I do sleep with nary a dream
To scare me awake though I don’t sleep for
More than five hours most nights anyway
Maybe there isn’t time to process or dream
Maybe I’m not even awake but merely sleep
Walking a zombie in a strange land a land of
Ballet lessons and ice cream sandwiches and
Live jazz and oatmeal and salmon stew and
Croquet one day and silent skies and all this
The next day the new day the day the singing
Cash registers held their breath where a market
Went from bullish to bearish in a heartbeat
Where our forward rush came to a screeching
Halt
RD, this poem sucked me in like a tornado and spit me back out into the day-to-day maelstrom called reality. The line “The NY skyline with its two front teeth knocked
Out” was a kick in the guts… I’m glad I’m sitting down.
Nick, thanks. There’s more but I wasn’t sure how much I could add in. I just published that poem (along with two other “road” poems) in a book called On/Off the Beaten Path. If you are interested to read more from Road Kill, I suggest you get a copy. Visit my website http://www.lummoxpress.com for ordering info.
I’m really happy to have found this blog. Keep up the good wor(k)ds.
Raindog
I stumbledupon you while doing a research paper, for my intro to psy class. (I am not19, or non-trad student-by the way). I was trying to find someone, some group-anything that could relate to me, besides being emotionally unstable-besides a padded room. Today, I wanted to find a place for me-a person, or people like me-who look at loss the way a 7 year old does, which is me. I ended up in a mental hospital over the trauma of 911 and Katrina both. I live in Salt Lake City, far from the tragedies. I am doing OK about fires in Australia, the plane dive ouside of Newark. I am getting more stable, and understanding that these things to happen, but I would rather end up in a Hospital than to become neutral or callous of these events that have happened, and will continue to happen…..forever.
So, the onlly place for me-just for being fragile, compassionate, and unable to cope with those who experienced loss and families having to experience the final goodbyes without knowing it.
what I do not quite understand yet- is why I have chosen to pursue a Bachelors of Arts in ‘Homeland Security’. What the hell am I thinking?
i love this poem!
It’s great. I half expected Rich Ferguson to bust one out too… His spoken word piece, “Bones” sort of rings of such a Day of the Dead.
Thanks. It wasn’t easy to write but it was a rewarding experience…under the circumstances. I’m not a New Yorker nor do I have much in common with them, but 9-11 pretty much devastated me and left me messed up. And the subsequent events that followed, this 7 year trail of tears that the govt. has embarked upon in our name, hasn’t changed my state of mind at all.
RD
Beautiful poem full of great images…
Thanks. The rest of the poem is also filled with great images.
RD
The pen is mightier than the sword, brother.
Mightier even than those bombadeering airplanes.
Much peace and love.
Amen. Pens and people, Rich. It’s about pens and people…
This was heart-wrenchingly beautiful, especially today, 9/11. Very appropriate story. I cried for those lost in the 9/11 tragedy while reading this and for the sense of hopelessness felt by the characters and still felt today.
As those ahead of me stated: Some stains never come out. However, I love the image of you rubbing your hands raw trying to get out the stains in the shirts, the stains of the broken relationship and the stains of the 9/11 tragedy. So many stains, not enough tears in the world for them.
I also love how you’ve used laundry and stains twice in this Thick White Crust story to tell a much larger story of broken and dysfunctional relationships. First you as a boy watch your mother leave stains on your father’s work shirts to remind him of what he had done to the family and now here you are trying desperately to scrub away stains from your ex-girlfriend’s shirts to erase the wrong in your relationship, all while the world as we know it was literally crashing down around you on 9/11. So vivid is the loss…
“And so only a goodbye could have any healing, or any hint of salvation. Only a goodbye would do.”
I too love this line. There is so much truth and hurt in this line…
Is goodbye the hardest word to say when you know its real?
I think it might be… I still hate goodbyes. Who could ever like them? Thanks for catching the symbolism about the shirts. I don’t know what the connection to what I saw as a boy and what I did as an adult means… maybe just our connectedness with our own past.
What am I here, chopped liver?
What you talkin’ bout Irene? I wouldn’t chop up your liver!
Wow. I love your words and thoughts. Life is so precious. Sometimes goodbyes are inevitable. Most everyone I talk with knows exactly where, when and what they were doing when this tragic event in our history happened. I love how you were able to capture these moments in your life and put them into words. Made me really think when you wrote… “Phone lines jam with goodbyes. What do you do? Who do you say goodbye to?” Who would I call first? If only given minutes, if that. I too don’t like goodbyes. Today being 9/11 or any day. I hate them….“I cried for goodbyes, because goodbye means people come and go, and that life eventually ends”.
Today is hard day for myself and I would venture to say most of the nation. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for reading this. I know it was hard for you to do that. So thank you thank you!
what beautiful writing. it really does feel quite recent sometimes.
I want to comment, but I’m at such a loss for words. How did you do that?
I don’t know. Why are you at a loss for words?
Weird, huh?
Yes, you’re the sage with many words. Hmmph. Strange. Was there a certain part of this chapter that disturbed you? Should I re-write?
I cried for goodbyes, because goodbye means people come and go, and that life eventually ends, and that there are little deaths and great deaths, and they abound and create holy terror at the moments leading up to farewell: the moment of goodbye itself.
B, your words are beautiful. I’ve felt the holy terror of goodbye, I think many of us probably have if you live long enough but I can’t imagine the suddeness of the goodbye’s on 9/11.
I remember once leaving my kids for a summer to go write in Ohio. There was a holy terror of goodbye that I hate to remember…
You left your kids to summer in Ohio? Jesus, NL, bad tourist agency?
That’s a long story, Irene. Not one for TNB. And without getting too deep into it, I didn’t have custody of my kids then. I do now.
NL, I have foot-in-mouth disease. Go ahead and erase it. Sorry to bring up more pain on a painful-enough post.
Oh we don’t have to erase nuttin’. While parts of that I won’t discuss publicly, there’s also an entire other unfinished novel/memoir (can’t decide which) in there called, “Peninsula.” It was an interesting time…
. . .some really vivid stuff, here, nick . . .
I know I’m days late on this one, but thats what happens when you lead my life, and I can’t go without commenting.
This pulled at my emotional side, which you know is hard to do at times. This was so much more than just that day, this was about goodbyes on levels that some of us will never understand. Maybe it affected me so much because I’ve experienced too many of those goodbye situations…..you pulled some strings here, kid.
Gah, I’m such a girl sometimes.
You’re such a wah wah… kidding…thanks for your comment K-Dawgy. Goodbyes do suck.
Funny that I read this today as I was talking with a friend tonight about the day I plan to say goodbye and put a part of my life behind me and start over–move forward to a new beginning for myself and my children. What will that day be like and do I look forward to my life after goodbye. You gave me a lot to ponder.
And I admit that I cried reading about you crying.
Beautiful and painful read Nick. I can’t help, but feel grateful for the goodbyes that we choose to make. They can be excruciating, but in times like 9/11 it seems like more of gift to be able to say our goodbyes in person. There is always that hope for one last “hello” down the road.
I remember watching the television all day seeing the towers come down over and over again. It deadened me. All the while I was unknowingly pregnant with my first child. Life was starting, just when I thought it was all coming to an end.