Very Little of Note (One Extraordinary Time, Chapter 9) · 9:41pm Jun 20th, 2019
More of the same, folks. More of the same.
Previously, on One Extraordinary Time:
FEEL. SAD.
And now:
Thursday, September 20
Freddy walked passed a newsstand on his way to the bank; the City Gazette headline caught his attention—’More magic envelopes drop from the sky’. He read a little of the article and continued to the bank. He waited for his favorite teller and gave him another list of names. Thirty-seven names and another $18 million in bank checks. He went by Harris’s Midtown office and invited him over to his parents’ house. Freddy asked him not to say anything about him being at the World Trade Center on 9/11. At 6:00 they took the train out of Penn Station to Mineola.
That's now $83,500,000 Freddy's given away, about a tenth of what his bank error got him.
Norm (the guy who watches C-SPAN) and his wife are also at Freddy's parents' house. The president is giving a speech. Norm, for whatever reason, has a printed list of the emails and phone numbers of every congressional member. Because of course he does.
Freddy and Harris walked in. Freddy was greeted with hugs and kisses all around.
Ew. Norm kisses. Gross.
“Frank, did you hear that someone is going around mailing out money to families of the terrorist victims?” Norm asked.
Frank’s eyebrows went up. “No, Norm, I haven’t heard about that.”
Freddy smiled at Harris. Norm continued, “It’s an unbelievable story. The Gazette reported over one hundred families of 9/11 victims have received what they are calling ‘magic envelopes’. Today CNN reported the amounts range from $400,000 to over $600,000 dollars.”
“Magic envelopes!” Frank said with a smile. “Well, if somebody sent me a check for over a half million bucks, that would be magical.”
We're doing this now, by the way.
Norm leaned over and said to Frank, “You’ve got to admit, whoever this fellow is, he’s doing a great thing.”
“Oh, no doubt about it, Norm, as New Yorkers we may be a little rough around the edges, but no city helps out each other in a crisis like New York. This person is obviously very generous and values his privacy,” Frank replied.
“He also must be very rich,” Norm said with a smile and they all agreed.
The President's speech begins. It's copied from the actual presidential address given on Sept. 20th, 2001, before a joint session of Congress. You can actually watch it, ironically enough, on C-SPAN's website, here. Even as someone who wasn't ever a fan of President Bush... it's one hell of a speech.
Mr. Kaplan, however, can't even get this right.
“Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans, in the normal course of events, presidents come to this chamber to report to the state of the union. Tonight, no such report is needed; it has already been delivered by the American people. We have seen it in the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. Passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me welcome his wife, Lisa Beamer, here tonight.” He thanked foreign nations for their support, such as the American national anthem being played at Buckingham Palace and on the streets of Paris and Berlin. He reminded Americans that citizens of eighty other nations were killed on that day.
“On September 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at a center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking,
‘Who attacked our country?’
“The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorists or organizations known as Al Qaeda.
This is both a) not how the speech actually goes (large sections of even the quoted sections are missing, and it's also transcribed wrong), and b) yet another excuse for Kaplan to turn what should be a powerful moment into a font of exposition.
A particularly glaring omission is this one:
Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money. Its goal is remaking the world, and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere. The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics. A fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinctions between military and civillians... including women, and children.
Funny how so many people tend to forget that part. Historical fiction, everyone.
Everybody at the Wills’ household stood up and applauded. Frank’s eyes watered. “That’s the best speech since President Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress after the Yalta conference at the end of World War II.”
Julia nodded her head in agreement and said, “That’s the best I have ever heard George Bush sound. I agreed with everything he said tonight.”
Frank smiled. It was rare that he and Julia agreed on anything political. It was one of those unique times when Republicans and Democrats came together as Americans.
Freddy was quiet during the short car ride to the train station. He did feel inspired as he watched one car after another on the road pass by with an American flag attached to it.
I do not feel inspired, Mr. Kaplan. I do not.
Next day.
Friday, September 21
Harry called Freddy in the morning and said, “I’ll tell you what, all these terrorists have me bugging out!”
Holy shit, an actual emotion. I was beginning to forget what those felt like.
Harry tells Freddy about some Arabs he had in his cab that spooked him. Freddy tells him to chill.
And then, finally, two plot threads come together:
After the call, he read the papers, as he did every morning, looking for more 9/11 victims to send money to. One article caught his attention.
“Antonio Spadolini, a maintenance worker at the World Trade Center, was killed in last week’s terrorists attacks. The news devastated his cancer-stricken wife Nastascia and their daughter Monica, who live off Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. Nastascia has been suffering from a rare but deadly cancer for the past five years. Prior to 9/11, the cancer seemed to be in remission; however the acute stress of losing her husband appears to have reinitiated it. She has been back and forth to the hospital several times during the past week and half. With her husband’s death, her health coverage is now gone, but the large hospital and doctors’ bills are piling up. Her daughter Monica, a recent graduate from Brooklyn Law School, now works at the prestigious Wall Street firm Felt, Shaw, and Holt. She vows to pay all her mom’s bills, but worries that her mom won’t be able to get all the medical treatment she needs. Some of the more elaborate health care could boost the cost more than quarter million dollars.
“The city estimates the death of as many as 5,000 New Yorkers on September 11th. Indeed there are far more victims. The murder of Antonio Spadolini crippled his entire family; they face a very uncertain future.”
Who is writing these articles? And more importantly, who hired them? And when the hell did they interview Monica? How did they even find her? I have so many questions.
Freddy adds the Spadolinis (I'm sorry, I really can't type that with a straight face) to his list.
We swap to Julia. Guess whose idea it was to introduce the sunset provisions into the Patriot Act? Julia's.
Historical fiction.
Next day.
Harris came over to Freddy’s apartment in the morning. He looked at his walls, the pictures of Yankee greats Mantle and DiMaggio. He started smiling and daydreaming about better times. Would the country ever be the same again? He updated Freddy on the buzz from his office.
Oh good, the Yankees. I was beginning to think I'd accidentally picked up the wrong book.
They watch the news and then Freddy goes to work. Nothing important happens.
Next day. Frank and Julia go out to Yankee Stadium for a prayer service. The narrative tries to convey the emotions of such an event. It fails.
Next day. Monica's POV. Guess what just arrived in the mail.
Then she noticed one odd piece of mail in a security envelope. She opened the envelope and saw a bank check made out to her mom for $500,000. Monica never saw a check so large and couldn’t believe it. She had heard reports of some victims getting these so-called magic envelopes, but never took it seriously. Now she was holding one of those envelopes in her hand.
Man, the New York postal service must be really good at their jobs. Freddy only sent that envelope out two days ago.
Monica began to race with ideas.
This is like running with scissors, but more dangerous for other people.
She resolves to get her mother a stay-in nurse and the chapter ends.
Nothing more to add. See you tomorrow, folks.
Whenever I'm writing dialogue, or thinking about writing dialogue, I say it to myself and consider whether a person might actually phrase it like that.
Even imagining the above quote as a strait-laced college lecturer or particularly stolid newscaster couldn't make it seem plausible.
Ha!
Since Kaplin is probably a jew I want to give a special Fuck You to Mr.Kaplin for forgetting the part about Islam is a religion of peace. Jews and Muslims have a long history of friendship and I hate how some Jews think all Muslims are Antisemitic and how some Muslims think all Jews are Islamaphobic.
5089978
Also he's a sexist pig