Letters from the Inside, Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, #15

Dear Kelly,

Very powerful set of blogs on the Sept. 11th events. Maybe some of the most powerful think I have read on the subject. I bought this large coffee table book in 02 put together by...hell, I forget, but it was over 500 pages of photos from that day and the following weeks. There were the violent ones--the planes actually hitting, the Falling Man- and then there were the ones that spoke volumes in silence, like this little accountanty looking guy in a suit, covered in dust, his glasses fogged up, with literally thousands of pieces of partially burnt paper falling around him. He was looking down at one of these pieces of paper, which he had picked up, reading it. Like, he was in such a state of shock that reading that paper was the most imporant thing in the world. It was my favorite photo. My Sept. 11th story is nowhere near as dramatic as yours, obviously. I was in Waco at Baylor. I was supposed to be at my apartment, but I was really at a girlfriends. (please don't post this, as I was technically going out with the woman who was to come my fiancee at the time, and we are getting along very well right now and I don't want her reminded of my...ah, failings) I had worked late the night before at the bar, and didn't have class until 10, so I planned to sleep until 915ish. Alexis woke me up at just before 9, screaming to come look at the tv. It was totally surreal. We watched the second plane hit, just standing there in her living room, not a thread of clothes on, now really knowing what to do. I left pretty quickly, went to my apartment and packed a jump bag (survival shit, mostly) and set out for Houston, a trip of about 3.5 hours. I thought the possibility of any attacks in Houston were slim, as there are not too many serious militarily valuable targets there, unless you count the fact taht most of the companies which own the power grid are based there. But I knew that if something did happen in Texas, it was likely in Houston, probably via the Port. So I drove to my girlfriend's work , and then went to her house. She had just graduated and was living alone for the first time ever, and we just watched television all day. Her college roomate from UT eventually called us from NYC to tell us she was fine. We were glad to hear from her, because her cell wouldn't work, and she only lived like 20-30 blocks from the WTC. Maybe I'm wrong on that, how far is Tribeca from WTC? I know its not far, like on the other side of Chinatown from there, right? It's been a few years since I was there. It is odd that we both had the same thoughts about Bush being our president. Maybe not odd. Accurate.

8 years later, the violence of that initial act has compounded exponentially, though of course most americans don't care, as the thousands of dead muslims in the Iraq/Afghan wars are not really important to them. We could have cemented our place as a moral nation by a systematic disemboweling of the terrorist networks, but no, we went for the american option, mainly bombing the fuck out of everyone. And how look at us. Massive debts from the war, a truly impossible task of national building in Afghanistan, and maybe even larger task of having to make up for our mistake on the glogal stage. Sure would have been nice to have that 1 trillion dollars we spent in Iraqz in the national coffers right about now, huh?

Anyways, sorry Reid turned out to be a wussy. Ensure, huh? There was a guy with AIDS who lived next to me in the country jail who was given that shit. I guess he needed it. Besides vitamins, what's the point? There was a time my freshman year when I was lifting weights a lot, and I made these whey protein shakes. That is the only supplement that I have ever tried personally, but it does work, IF you really push yourself.

Thanks again for the article on Willingham. I ended up getting about 20 copies of that sent to me, but you were first. Very disturbing story. Rick Perry has a tough primary battle coming next year...he is tied up on the polls with Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of our senators. We all need him to lose, and lose badly. I'm not thinking that a democrat has much of a chance here in Texas, but if that primary battle gets real ugly, it might give a leftist candidate some ammunition.

It's cooled off there? Not here. Still hot as fuck. You know, you could use your India story for transformation, with a little tweaking. You could pretend that the experience transformed you into a vegetarian. :) Even the brujeria story could be a transformation from a believer in the occult into a skeptic, or vice versa. I mean, that is the point of stories, isn't it? The selective re-imagining of history? However you do it, I'm sure that you will do well.

Ugh, the Tyra show. I'm glad to hear you aren't participating. That has got to be the worst excuse for a television program currently on the air. That's not fair. I am sure there are worse. There is a television peace program in most of the jails I was in, which balanced the desires of the whites, mexicans and blacks. The Tyra show was always on, every day for the blacks. Why these hard-core gangsters gave a shit about the perils of menstruation (one of the shows, I'm serious) is beyond me. Maybe she has gotten better since 05/06 . None of those shows are worth anything to me. They are the softest of the news programs, to the extend that I don't even classify them as news. Pop-culture nonsense. Ha, now who sounds like your grandfather? Pass me an Ensure, please.

I'm trying to imagine what saffron pears would taste like. I've made a saffron risotto before, many times. Pears. I can see that, sure. As you can imagine, we don't see saffron too often on the trays there. Hell, around here, ketchup is considered a delicacy on par with white truffles.

It's about 2am right now. They were supposed to execute a guy I knew at 6pm yesterday, but we still have not hear anything about it. We are on lockdown, and they cut the radio feed 7 days ago, so only those of us who know how to build AM radio antennae are able to pick up the news, but none of them have reported anything. It's just not news down here. I'm guessing they got him. His "homies" all believed he would get a stay, but I don't see it. His last issue was technically valid, but his application of the issue was pretty tenous, and we all know the CCA could care less about such things. I just don't see it. I guess we will find out tomorrow.

Glad to hear work has picked up. I finally got to meet my new stepmom last week. She seems very nice and pretty quick. Good memory, which is vital because my dad has the tendency to forget stuff. Kind of cute, too. I guess that is a sign (another one) that I am getting to be an old fart, if I can say that about a 50-something. That, or I am just really, really deprived. Maybe both. They decided to stay an extra month in CO, so they won't be back until OCT now, but they did come back for a few days to look at a house they want to buy in Sugar Land and come to see me. She was pretty easy to talk to, which is good. She seems to make him happy, which is all that is important. I'm not sure if I mentioned that they are writing some christian book together or not. Something about hope. Yay, more hope. Just what we need. I am sure it will sell well.

Have you much experience with Craigslist? You mentioned it in your last entry, but it was not in existence when I was out there. How much does an ad cost? Is it free? Would a listing for my website profit from putting an ad up? I heard you have to pick a single city for the ad...I would probably pick NYC for a variety of reasons: largest media concentration in the US, reliably blue city/state, higher amount of liberal activist types, etc. etc. What do you think?

I got to see the season finale of Breaking Bad in the hospital. The last few minutes of the most recent season were...powerful, to say the least. I won't ruin it for you, but its a good example of how evil acts multiply exponentionally. It will affect you, I think, due to 9/11.

So Reid was too wimpy: What does Mr. Perfect look like to you? You have had a pretty varied life, so I'm curious to hear what your ideal mate would look like.

All right, I'm off. I hope that you are doing well, and that the warm weather lasts as long as possible for you. I would trade you any day. Be safe.

T

Just received your Sept 15th letter tonight...I will answer that soon! Thanks for the web address!