I don’t usually suffer from the post-9/11 jumpiness that afflicts so many Americans. I don’t freak out whenever Homeland Security spins the Big Color Wheel, I don’t compulsively imagine horrific scenarios of doom a la James Lileks, and, aside from the hour a week when I’m watching 24, I don’t fret about sleeper cells executing their nefarious plans within our borders. Generally, I’m more worried about other people’s road-rage than I am about swarthy militants setting off a dirty bomb in the quiet little backwater I call home. It’s not that I think another attack is impossible or even unlikely; I just don’t see the usefulness of living in a state of constant anxiety, and I also don’t think Salt Lake City is much of a target compared to other places around the country. We’re a smallish city, we don’t command much national attention, and we don’t have any globally recognizable landmarks whose loss would demoralize the entire country. (Well, I guess the main LDS Temple is pretty well known, but it’s not the same kind of high-profile target as, say, the Empire State Building or the Golden Gate.) Yep, I feel pretty safe living here in dull ol’ Deseret.
And that’s why my reaction to the incident this morning was so… unexpected. What incident, you ask? Well, kids, let me tell you a story…
First, the background: I’m currently working a temporary gig in downtown Salt Lake, at a job site that’s a little over twenty miles from my house. It’s been long enough since I had to do any significant commuting that driving so far every day has been a real drag. Fortunately, however, Salt Lake’s light-rail system stops conveniently near to the office, so this morning I decided to save the wear-and-tear on my Mustang and use public transport. I had a relaxed, stress-free ride into town, just like the commercials promise; I sat quietly in the sun and read a Newsweek article about Deep Throat and tried to not to think about that silly old Sheena Easton song about taking the morning train.
I was feeling pretty good when I stepped off the train. The station is in the middle of the block, just a short stroll away from my building, so I had to wait for the “Don’t Walk” light to change before I could get on with my day. That was fine, though. The air temperature was pleasant, neither chilly nor oppressively warm, and the wait gave me time to try and switch off my mental iPod, or at least get it off the “repeat ad nauseum an ancient pop tune that I didn’t really like when it was new” setting. The possibility of an overpriced coffee beverage occurred to me, and I wondered where I might find one in this neighborhood…
And then I was startled out of my reverie by a piercing shriek of jet engines, very close. They seemed to come out of nowhere; one second, I was listening to the background urban hum of car traffic and my own inner Sheena, the next I found myself involuntarily ducking because the plane was so freakin’ loud it could only be coming down the street. There wasn’t any out-of-control juggernaut skidding down Main Street, though, so I looked up, and there it was, a military refueling tanker, streaking through the crystal-blue sky at what looked like rooftop level. The plane was low enough that I could clearly see the boom hanging from its tail, and the hose attachment that plugs into the gas tanks of thirsty little F-16 fighters. The plane was in the middle of the block between State and Main, heading directly towards the cluster of modest skyscrapers that comprise Salt Lake’s downtown core.
Five years ago, seeing something like that might have caused me to think, “Cool! A tanker!” Or I might have thought, “Huh, that’s interesting,” or maybe even, “Now that’s weird, what the hell is that doing there?” (The usual air-traffic lanes are some distance to the west of where I was, so seeing a plane in this part of the city is about as odd as a hippo in a tutu.)
This morning, however, my first thought was, “Oh God… so this is what it was like in New York…”
For a few, stomach-wrenching seconds, I was certain that the next sound I heard would be a roar of impact. The Wells Fargo Center, the tallest building in Salt Lake, was just at the other end of the block, a nice, big target for a kamikaze pilot. The infamous video of that awful day three years ago replaced Sheena Easton in my mind, and I braced myself for the sight of a fireball erupting from the side of the tower I affectionately refer to as “Big Blue…”
But nothing happened. Traffic continued to flow, people went about their business, and the plane stayed in the air, confidently bound for wherever it was going. And even though it was definitely weird to have a military plane flying on that vector and that low an altitude, there apparently wasn’t any sort of crisis going on, because I haven’t found a peep about it on any of the local newsfeeds. As far as I can tell, I’ve been feeling shaky and irritable all day because some pilot thought he’d play “Top Gun” and buzz the tower.
Sometimes I really hate living in the 21st Century.
