September 11, 2001

You know, growing up I always heard people say "I remember EXACTLY what I was doing when John Kennedy was killed.", and I used to think..."Yeah, whatever...I'm sure you remember exactly what you were doing , asshat."
Hey, I've told you before, I'm a bit of an asshole.
BUT, I'm no where near the asshole that I USED to be, AND, I tell you that I'm an asshole.
Other people just act like they're friendly and such, then pull the rug out from under you.

Guess what?
I remember EXACTLY what I was doing on September 11, 2001.

I was working in Greenville, DE. My employee Ryan and I were listening to the radio, and installing 4 inch by 3/4 select red oak in the upstairs bedroom of a customer of mine, whom I had done work for over the years. This was the last room for me to install wood in, as I had already done the rest of her house.
Ryan and I were discussing another guy we know who just the day before returned to work at the company that we both previously worked for.

Then Howard Stern cut from his banter to mention that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Almost in unison with Stern, Ryan and I laughingly wondered how someone could be such a dumb ass and hit something so huge. And also in unison with Stern, we said..."Must have been a small commuter plane".

Along with the rest of America....the rest of the World, we soon realized that it was something much, much more.

The hour that followed was filled with panic, as false reports were coming in of bombs going off all over Washington D.C., AND some douche shooting something off near the jobsite we were on.
At that moment, we were under the impression that an all out attack was going down.

I called my wife at the time, and she seemed to not fully grasp the gravity of the situation, even though she told me that someone at the Capital Management firm she worked at, was on the phone with someone at Cantor Fitzgerald when he heard yelling and then silence as the phone went dead.
THAT, is something that would haunt me forever....hell, it sticks with ME as it is, and I didn't even hear it.

For all of us who were alive that day, the feeling was indescribable. I remember just being numb, not able to process what I was seeing. Somehow feeling like it was footage from a Michael Bay film, but knowing that it was incredibly, and horribly real.

I don't think I've ever viewed life the same way again.
What I mean is, I know that I was never the same person again after that day...that September 10, 2001, was the last time I was the carefree moron that viewed the World with such a sense of levity and frivolity.

I remember my only, albeit smallest bit of comfort that day, was the knowledge that I personally didn't know anyone in the Towers.
Or so I thought.

Following my divorce, I learned through the person I was dating that I indeed did know someone who died there that day.
Now, I don't mean to claim that I knew him well at all...just that I knew WHO he was, which is why it took years for me to ever even realize he was gone.
I had ONE interaction with him, but for some reason I always remembered it. Not because it was anything out of the ordinary, but it just stuck with me.

Probably around 1990 or so, I went to a party in the townhouse where the friend of the girl I was now dating lived. Or so I *think*....I'm a little fuzzy on that part....but hey, it was a long time ago...how many specifics about a house party that you went to do YOU remember, junior???

Anyway, at the time I was playing guitar a bit, and this was after "Goodfellas" was released. I was so impressed with the scene that used the outro to "Layla", that I was attempting to learn the guitar part at the time.
When I got into the party, there was no where left to sit, so I ended up sitting on the end of a piano seat, where this other guy was sitting. As I sat there with my back to him, I barely clung to the edge so as to not look like Edith to his Archie, I began to hear the outro from Layla coming from the piano.
It wasn't perfect or anything, but it was really solid, so I turned to him and said "Hey man, I've been trying to get the guitar part down for this....but I kinda suck." I remember he laughed, and we began to talk a bit about music.

His name was David Marc Sullins....but everyone I ever knew called him Marc.
He was a paramedic for Cabrini Medical Center and died trying to save others lives in the South Tower of The World Trade Center.

That was my one and only interaction with him...but like I said, for some reason, I always remembered it.

Upon being told that he perished in the World Trade Center, I recanted this very story to my girlfriend at the time. It was more or less a simple anecdotal note when answering the question "Did you know Marc?"

Months later, when going through old pictures of hers, there was one single photograph from that party.....it was of me, sitting barely on the edge of that piano seat, and Marc Sullins...back to the camera, tapping away at the keys.
What a weird thing.

Now, I'm not trying to attach myself to Marc for your pity, because as I said, I had one interaction with him in my entire life, and the thought of doing so is perverse and appalling to me.
I'm simply conveying my personal remembrance of one person who died that horrendous day, because for years, I simply felt terrible for faces and names that I saw flash across my television screen, but I had no personal attachment to any of them.

But now, I can't think of that day without remembering the outro to Layla.

Marc Sullins Memorial Site