DANIEL ZIMMERMAN

from I WANT, THEREFORE: a series of voices for stage and page

DANIEL ZIMMERMAN.

i overcame my fear of elevators because i had to.
you couldn't walk 90 stories.
you couldn't even live 90 stories.
but you could get in the elevator and after only a few minutes
a few stops
a few people do the on and off dance
but eventually
eventually you could step out and be half way to the sky.

i don’t know what i expected.
probably that i’d just go to sleep.
or maybe everything would just get real quiet
silent like
because they don’t teach you or
prepare
you for this sort of a thing.
my parents were always more
much more religious than i was
and of course i went to hebrew school when i was what twelve or thirteen sitting in shul trying to ignore the fact that Rebecca Stein’s tits are starting to come in
trying to focus on rabbi gelman because pretty soon i’m going to be up there reading from the Big Book of Judaism and
if i’m being completely honest
i couldn’t remember a thing
years later
i can’t remember a thing
not one word besides “shalom” and when my mother died a few years ago
cancer
i wanted to say something in hebrew at the funeral
something quiet
maybe a prayer
but i couldn’t remember much and i sat on the plane trying to recite it over and over again trying so hard but when i got there
when i got to the cemetery
i just got quiet
silent like
everybody was because these people
My People
they cry but only in solitary and they yell but only in private and when the rabbi didn’t say anything about
when rabbi gelman didn’t say “here lies Irene Zimmeran may she find peace in heaven” i was furious and i had to remind myself that my mother wouldn’t have wanted any sentimentalities like that
that she would’ve preferred to just sleep.

so when i got here
when the doors opened
the sunlight was so bright and everything had been grey and i had to shield my eyes so i could look for her so i could look for my mother.

is she here?
i shouldn’t have come so soon.
but this.
it isn’t so bad.
it’s almost familiar.

because when the elevators door open you can see straight
straight to the windows and out
and Mitch
The Big Man On Campus
Mitch loved being able to see the city
so we never closed the blinds
always left them open
Mitch called it "letting the sky in"
and this morning
oh this morning the sky was blue.

up here the clouds are big
they hug the building sometimes
but this morning
no
not one
not one hug
but no one complained
because you could see the bronx
you could probably see china from up there if you squinted hard enough

and you know when
when the first plane hit
the sky
the sky went from blue to grey in seconds
and you could feel it
you could feel the force of it
the building buckling
and all that grey sky hugging you
all that ash and power and fire just hugged you right there whether you wanted it to or not
and mitch
Mitch tried so hard to stay calm
he said
you know
the standard
"it's okay
remain calm
everyone
everyone to the stairs
and we were okay for a while
we were counting the stories
mine and hundreds others
and someone told a joke
and we were remaining calm
but at a certain point
at this point
the staircase
it
stopped
the stairs the steps below this point were all on fire or already ash and mitch
he started to cry right there
he was crying and i remember
or what you Up Here call remembering
i remember thinking i should hold him or give him my handkerchief but i was too frozen
or
maybe i don't remember this and it's all just hindsight
but Mitch he cried and cried and he said
"does someone have a phone
i need a phone to call my daughters
a phone
a phone"
and someone gave it to him and it was messy and ugly
but only for a moment
because pretty soon everyone decided to move
that we'd try another staircase
go up one floor and back across
and Mitch kept screaming and crying and i don't know if he moved because i lost him in the crowd i don't know if he ever got up and tried and that
not knowing
that'll kill me.
but when we got upstairs you could see
you could see the other building
the other plane
if you somehow kept your eyes open through all the smoke you could see it was all pretty hopeless
and the guy
the guy who worked in the cubicle next to mine
i never learned his name
i never bothered
that guy was standing at a window
it must've blown completely open
shattered
and there he was just looking out
not down but out
straight out
and
then
just
j
u
m
p
e
d
right there and maybe people screamed they probably screamed but I don't remember this part too well because that's when the floor got tired and the smoke and the ash just reached up and hugged us all caught us in its net.

and then
as fast as the smoke was there
it left and we were here.
the only calamity there was happened before.
everything after was fine.
almost easy.

is my mother here?
i don’t want her to know i’ve come so soon.