Sounding the Alarm

New York is an alarm that works in reverse. You know something is very wrong when the city gets quiet. Today on the subway, although the car I was riding in was chock full of people, it was eerily quiet. No one was talking, or shouting or laughing. No one was threatening to kick somebody's teeth in for looking at them the wrong way. You know, those everyday sounds that let a New Yorker know all is right with the world. Today there was near silence.

Across from me a woman was reading The New York Times. On its cover was a picture of the dead body of a woman floating face down in the floodwaters. You don't see that kind of cover very often. In fact, American papers have shown a shameful discretion in the face of the tragic death and destruction in Iraq. We rarely hear, and never see, the worst of it, but Iraq is far away. Most of the suffering afflicts Iraqis, not Americans. New Orleans is different. It's not them; it's us. Something terrible has happened to us, and maybe because one great city recognizes another, the people of New York had the same hush fall over them as in the days after 9/11.

The scariest day of my life wasn't 9/11 but two days later. I was on 23rd Street between Park and Broadway headed for the N train. It's a busy block. There are usually thousands of people about, taxis, buses. The noise level rises to a low roar. New Yorkers are oblivious to it, though tourists tend to find it unsettling. I come from one of the quietest towns in the world, but even I eventually acclimated and now, unless someone is screaming bloody murder, the decibel level doesn't bother me. That day was different. It was the first that many New Yorkers went back to work, and something about it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Something was wrong. About halfway down the block it hit me - nobody was talking. Nobody was saying a word. It wasn't quiet; it was SILENT. Even the taxis and buses were hushed. That was when the magnitude of what had happened really hit me. Something so terrible it literally shut New York up.

That's what it sounded like today.