Chapter 18: Living in the Aftermath

Cleveland, Ohio
September 15, 2001

Since snobbery and the desire for luxury had saved their lives on September 11, Jake, Laura, Celia, and Pauline felt it quite appropriate to follow the trend while they were stranded in Cleveland following the emergency landing and the closure of United States airspace in response to the attacks. The four of them had been put up in one of the airport hotels courtesy of Delta Airlines; two to a room in standard hotel rooms, not the suites they were accustomed to. Though Delta representatives had assured them that they could stay for free for as long as was necessary, they only spent the first night there. A phone call made by Jake the next morning secured them two suites at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Cleveland—the cost: $3000 per night per suite. It was money Jake was happy to pay, even though he knew Jill was going to give him all manner of shit about it when she found out. A limousine picked them up just after breakfast and took them there, where they were allowed to check in very early.

United States airspace was opened back up to commercial aviation only on September 13, with priority given to the flights that had been forced down on unscheduled landings immediately after the attacks. The problem was, there were so many of them. No one seemed to know the exact number, but it was reported that somewhere between three and five thousand commercial airliners carrying passengers had been ordered down at United States airports that had not been their destination of choice. Getting all of them back on track was a nightmare of scheduling and logistics. Many airports—Cleveland among them—had been overwhelmed by diverted aircraft, overrunning their capacities. There was not enough fuel and ground personnel to get them all back in the air in a timely manner. As such, it was not until the morning of September 15—Saturday—that Jake received a phone call from a Delta Airlines representative telling him to bring himself and his group back to the airport at 1:30 PM for a scheduled resumption of Flight 1989 at 4:05 PM.

“Two and a half hours early?” Jake asked. “Really?”

“Security prior to boarding has been considerably increased,” the agent said. “I’m sure you understand that.”

“I do understand,” Jake said, and he did, “but two and a half hours?”

“At a minimum,” the agent said.

It turned out the agent was not exaggerating. When the hotel shuttle service dropped them and their baggage off at their assigned terminal at 1:15 PM, there was a line just to get into the building. There were dozens of police officers and uniformed airport security personnel circulating around. There were new signs everywhere, all of them in bright, bold text, some ordering not to leave any bags unattended under any circumstance, others warning not to accept anything from someone you did not know, others advising that all persons and baggage entering the terminal were subject to search, yet others advising that identification would be required to check any baggage, no exceptions. The atmosphere was chaotic, fearful, and hectic.

It took them ten minutes just to get into the terminal building, another twenty to work their way up to the baggage check counter (which was fully staffed, every section with a harried agent on duty). More signs reiterated that identification was required to check any bag and that passengers MUST have said identification in hand when approaching the counter. More Cleveland cops and airport security officers circulated about, their eyes watchful. No one even noticed that Jake Kingsley and Celia Valdez were among them. The quartet finally made it to the counter and, one by one, showed their identification, had their bags put on the belts, and then were given their boarding passes. They were advised to keep their identification cards available as they would need them at the security checkpoint.

A huge sign was posted at the top of the escalators that led to the security checkpoint.

TICKETED PASSENGERS ONLY

BEYOND THIS POINT

NO EXCEPTIONS

HAVE BOARDING PASSES

AND IDENTIFICATION IN HAND

This was something that had been on the news since the attacks when the subject had turned to the coming increase in airport security measures. Until further notice, the practice of family members and friends accompanying passengers to the gate for departure or passing through the security checkpoints to meet them at the gate upon arrival had come to an end. It was already being suggested that this new rule would become permanent, changing forever the way that people boarded and exited aircraft at airports.

The line leading up to the checkpoint was long and extremely slow moving. It moved back and forth through roped-in areas, crawling along at a snail’s pace. Tempers were short and Jake heard several arguments among people in the line. When things started to get a little loud, one of the cops would come over and bark at them to knock that shit off immediately. Everyone did so when told. The cops did not seem like they were in a mood for playing around.

When Jake and company finally made it to the area where the x-ray machines were, they had to show their identification and their boarding passes to one of the security officers. Both were examined very carefully. Again, no one asked if Jake was the Jake Kingsley or if Celia was the Celia Valdez. They were told to remove their belts and everything from their pockets, including their wallets and cell phones. Their carry-on bags and the trays with their wallets and phones were run through the scanner and spit out the other end. They were then told to go through the metal detector one by one. None of the four set off the machine. Nevertheless, they were all directed to another line that was almost as deep as the line to get to the security checkpoint. They made their way through it and soon discovered that every single passenger was getting a pat-down by security personnel. Some (anyone with darker than white skin, Jake could not help but notice) were given a second pat-down by Cleveland PD officers.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jake said to his companions. “I agree that increasing security is necessary, but isn’t this a little bit of overkill here?”

“I don’t want someone touching me like that,” Laura said, watching as a male security officer patted down a female passenger at the end of the line. His hands went up and down both of her legs, around her waist, and all the way up to the bottom of her breasts, feeling, palpating, sometimes squeezing.

“We have to go through this if we want to get home,” Jake said sadly.

“How about we just fly private from here on out?” Celia suggested.

“That sounds like a good idea if this is going to be the new thing,” Jake agreed.

They were all groped and squeezed and palpated. Celia, at least, got a female security officer, but Laura did not. She gritted her teeth in frustration and discomfort as an overweight, mid-thirties male with pizza breath and hair sticking out of his nose put his large hands all over her. Finally, they were all allowed to enter the actual gate area. It was now 3:40 PM. Their flight would begin boarding in only five minutes.

Their gate was, of course, all the way on the other side of the building. They hurried over there and arrived just as the first class passengers began to board the aircraft. It was the same plane they had been on before.

They got in line to board. Their boarding passes and identification were once again examined very closely, both by the boarding agent and an airport security person. A Cleveland police officer was standing nearby, keeping an eye on things. Finally, at long last, they were allowed to walk down the jetway and enter the aircraft. They sat in the same seats they had sat in a few days before.

No beverages for the first class passengers were offered. Jake was really in the mood for an alcoholic beverage about now and, since he knew that when they arrived in LA he would be unable to fly them home to SLO, there was no reason not to have one (or two, or maybe three). The three ladies were all ready for a drink as well. But no one offered. When Jake asked the harried looking first-class flight attendant—the same one who had taken care of them from Boston to Cleveland, though she looked about ten years older now—he was told that there would be no drink or meal service of any kind on the flight.

“None at all?” Jake asked. “Not even once we’re in the air?”

“None at all,” she said firmly, and then walked away.

The passengers continued to board. Jake saw the middle-eastern man who had caused the ruckus on the initial flight and had been the first to be escorted off the plane (in handcuffs no less). He slowly made his way to his seat, his eyes down, pretending not to notice the hostile glares of his fellow passengers.

He’s got to be pretty brave or pretty stupid to step back onto this plane, Jake thought. By this point in the investigation into the attacks of September 11, it was known that Middle Eastern terrorists—most likely linked to Osama Bin Laden—had been responsible. There were chain email stories and even some news reports about people walking into American convenience stores run by Middle Eastern men and finding the clerks celebrating and cheering as they watched the news coverage of the attacks (none of these stories had actually been validated and never would be). There had been physical attacks and tons of verbal harassment against men and women who looked even vaguely Middle Eastern, including the poor Sikhs, who did wear turbans as part of their culture but were not Arabs or Muslims and did not come from the Middle East at all, but from the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent.

When boarding was complete and the aircraft sealed shut, they were pushed back from the gate and the engines were started. After a few minutes, they began to taxi. There was a long line of other aircraft waiting to take off and it took them considerably longer than usual to make it to the runway. As they taxied, the lead flight attendant went into her spiel. It was not the robotic speech one normally heard from such a person, but a commanding and almost angry set of instructions. Before going over the intricacies of the seatbelts, the emergency exits, the oxygen masks, and the life jackets, she told everyone that the seatbelt light would remain lit for the entire flight. There would be no movement about the cabin allowed. If one needed to use the restroom in flight, one would push the button that summoned a flight attendant and would be escorted to the restroom. There were six restrooms on the aircraft but no more than three passengers would be allowed to use them at any given time. Furthermore, there would be no drink service, no meal service, not even complimentary peanuts. Any argument, harassment, or disagreement with one of the flight attendants would result in the captain contacting the FBI, the plane being diverted to the nearest airport, and the passenger being removed from the plane and interrogated. She asked if there were any questions. There were none.

“This atmosphere is quite uncomfortable,” Laura told Jake quietly. “Normally, I enjoy flying. I’m not enjoying this.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed. “I know what you’re saying.”

They took off at 4:50 PM, more than an hour after boarding had begun. They climbed out and headed southwest, chasing the sun (but falling further and further behind it as they went). They leveled off and entered cruise flight. The plane was eerily quiet as they traveled along. There was hardly any conversation among passengers and what conversations did occur was quiet and whispered. Everyone seemed to be looking around, watchful, tense. The flight attendants patrolled the aisles, their eyes watchful as well. They asked no one if they needed anything. Every once in a while, they would respond to a call light and escort someone to the restroom then wait outside the door until the person finished their business and then escort them back to their seat.

All three ladies and Jake had to use the restroom at some point during the flight. For Jake, it was about halfway through, as they were passing over Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was escorted by the first class attendant to the lavatory just behind in the cockpit door. He went inside, took care of his business, washed his hands, and then stepped back out. The attendant was still standing there.

“Thanks,” Jake said.

She nodded. “I’ll escort you back to your seat now,” she said.

“Listen,” Jake said, “I know we can’t have alcoholic drinks, but I am absolutely parched right now. My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth. Is there any hope of scoring a bottle of water?”

“No,” she said simply. “If you will walk in front of me back to your seat.” It was not a question. It was a command.

Jake walked back to his seat. He sat back down and buckled in.

They landed at 6:55 Pacific Time, after more than five hours of flight time. The roll out and taxi to the terminal was fairly normal. Jake, looking out the window, saw a constant stream of incoming and outgoing aircraft, which, again, was fairly normal for LAX. The process of leaving the aircraft was pretty much normal as well, with first class passengers deplaning first. The only exception was the cockpit door remained closed and the flight attendant did not thank them for flying Delta airlines or welcome them to Los Angeles.

In the terminal building itself, there was a lot of human activity and the atmosphere was similar to what they had experienced in Cleveland. There were a lot more LAXPD cops than normal circulating around, watching everything, all of them were wearing tactical gear and helmets and carrying AR-15 rifles. None of them were smiling. They looked extremely serious. None of the businesses that sold food, drinks, and trinkets were open. The four of them were, however, able to score some water at one of the drinking fountains, relieving their parched mouths and allowing them to rehydrate a bit.

They made their way to baggage claim and, after waiting nearly thirty minutes, were able to collect their bags from the carousel. While they waited, they called the Nerdlys, Obie, Meghan, Tom, Kim, and Steph Zool to let them all know they had made it back to LA safely.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jake said once they had suitcases in hand.

“Fuckin’ A,” Laura agreed.

They had not been able to arrange for a limousine so they climbed into one of the minivan taxies instead (Jake was okay getting into this type of minivan since it was public transportation). They went first to Pauline’s house in Silver Lake and dropped her off. The driver then took the rest of them to Whiteman Airport and dropped them there. All they could do there, however, was pick up Jake’s truck from the parking lot. There was no word yet when private aviation would be allowed to resume and under what restrictions it would be allowed. Instead of heading back to SLO and their daughter, they drove to Granada Hills and stayed there.

Though there had been reports that private aviation would resume on Monday morning, September 17, this did not actually happen. The FAA, the FBI, and NORAD—all of whom were under extreme scrutiny at this point for allowing the attacks to happen—feared that more Muslim terrorists might be planning a second wave attack by crashing private aircraft into various targets. No one could decide how they could prevent such an attack if it manifested. Jake, Laura, and Celia would have simply driven home and returned to pick up the Avanti later if the authorities had just said that private aviation was grounded indefinitely, but every evening they announced it would resume in the morning, giving them hope to get the plane home, but every morning they would then announce that the decision had been delayed again.

Finally, on Tuesday, September 18, after the latest announcement that private aviation was still grounded, Meghan volunteered to at least drive Caydee down to LA so she could be with her parents and See-Ya, who she missed terribly. Meghan’s motives were not entirely altruistic in nature. She had missed her Massa weekend and missed her boyfriend incredibly. She arrived Tuesday afternoon, just after 2:00 PM. She watched with a smile as Caydee furiously hugged and kissed all three of them. The little girl was nearly crying in her excitement to see them. Though she had no real concept of what had just happened in the world, would retain no long-term memories of seeing endless footage of the planes crashing into the big buildings, of seeing the big buildings on fire and then coming down, and had never picked up on the dread that her parents might be dead, she could sense that something terrible had happened and that her Mommy, Daddy, and See-Ya had somehow been caught up in it.

Meghan delivered heartfelt hugs of her own to the trio, clearly remembering how she had been absolutely convinced that the three of them had been dead for several hours a week before. It was so good to see them alive and well and behaving mostly like their old selves.

They went inside and talked to each other for a bit while Caydee clung almost obsessively to Laura and then Jake and then See-Ya. All four adults shared their 9/11 stories in greater detail than they had been able to go into on the phone calls that had been made. Meghan listened, fascinated, as she heard of their ordeal aboard Flight 1989. They listened, saddened and touched by her tale of thinking they were all dead, disintegrated when their plane was deliberately crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center by terrorists, horrified that she was watching their deaths over and over again on television reports.

“How are you guys dealing with it?” Meghan asked them. “I mean ... you almost died that day. It’s only because you wanted to fly first class that you weren’t on that plane.”

“It’s really hard to get that out of my head,” Jake admitted with a shudder. “It’s all so random. We’re alive and hundreds of other passengers are dead just because of a few casually made decisions. First, I tell the concierge to book us all on Flight 175 because it’s the latest flight out to LA that morning—by only ten minutes. Ten fucking minutes. And, as it turned out, Flight 175 took off before us anyway! And then it just so happens that United Airlines decides to upgrade passengers the night before, taking all the first class seats, instead of waiting until the morning to do it like usually happens. And because of that, we ended up on the Delta flight. The only Boston to LA that did not get hijacked.”

“It’s a mind blow,” Laura said, shaking her head a little. “I still haven’t put it into perspective.”

“I’m just glad that fate worked out that way,” Meghan said. “I’m horrified by all the death and destruction those planes caused, but I’m so glad that none of you were on any of them.”

Meghan left a few minutes later, heading over to Massa’s place. He was still at work, but she had a key. And she desperately wanted some schlong as soon as he returned home. It had been more than a week now!

Caydee, now that she knew Mommy, Daddy, and See-Ya were all safe and sane, immediately asked if she could swim in the pool. It was a nice day so Jake allowed it. He even changed into his own swim suit and paddled around with her for a bit.

They ended up staying for three more days in the Granada Hills house before the FAA gave the okay for private aviation to resume. There were added restrictions on where private planes could fly. Jake carefully studied the NOTAMs for the southern and central California regions. Flyovers of downtown Los Angeles were now off-limits to planes flying below 7500 feet, as were flyovers of Disneyland in Anaheim and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant thirty miles northwest of Oceano. Jake thought he could live with this.

They piled into the Avanti on Friday afternoon and made the flight home. Elsa was extremely happy to see them, hugging all of them tightly and for an extended amount of time. Jake was touched to see tears in her eyes as she greeted them. She made them her famous chicken parmesan for dinner that night and it almost began to feel like everything was normal.

They spent the weekend watching a lot of television coverage of the historical tragedy and the aftermath. President Bush, who Jake and many others had perceived as a bumbling former frat boy prior to the attacks, rose to become a national hero. The United States had issued an ultimatum to Afghanistan: Hand over Osama Bin Laden or risk attack with everything the US armed forces had at its disposal. Afghanistan basically told the US to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, that they would never hand over Bin Laden as he was under their protection. Whether the Taliban who ruled the country thought the US was bluffing or if they were just confident in their country’s ability to stave off yet another invasion from a superpower was unclear. It was plain to see, however, that the US was not bluffing and was getting ready to start kicking some serious ass over there (or at least try to). There were even some rumblings from W that Iraq might have been involved in the attacks. He warned Saddam Hussein that if they found evidence of this, his country would be next.

“We’re not really dumb enough to invade Afghanistan, are we, sweetie?” Laura asked Jake. “I mean, look what happened to Russia when they tried that, or Britain before them.”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “If we do invade, I hope we have a better plan than those two countries did or a lot of American kids are going to come home in body bags.”

Celia sighed, shaking her head. “I just want to go back to how things were two weeks ago,” she said.

“I think everyone does,” Jake said, “but I think those days are gone for good.”

Meghan returned from Massa’s place on Sunday night (looking considerably more relaxed and happy). She would be technically on duty the next morning as Jake and Laura would be heading to The Campus to resume recording duties for Never Say Never. Life did have to go on, after all. Celia, however, would remain home (she now thought of the Kingsley’s clifftop house as home and her house as “my Malibu place”) and would be Caydee’s primary caregiver, leaving little for Meghan to do.

One good that had come out of the tragedy of 9/11 and the buildup to war in Afghanistan was that the media had pretty much completely forgotten about the Jake Kingsley and Laura Kingsley divorce story and the fact that the two of them were still living together. There were no reports in the newspapers or on the news about the subject these days. No paparazzi stalked them, no reporters tried to get statements from them, no videographers popped up while they were in the grocery store or taking Caydee to the beach to play. Congressman Gary Condit, who had been involved in a media shitshow of his own regarding the disappearance of an intern he had been having an affair with, enjoyed a similar respite from attention. Meanwhile, the wheels of that divorce kept slowly turning. Anwara was still working on a complete documentation of the Kingsley assets, when they had been acquired, and how much they were worth. Even though the divorce was completely uncontested in any way, they were still at least four months away from the official dissolution.

On Monday morning, as Intemperance got together in the studio to carry on with their project, Jake heard the first joke about 9/11, although the joke’s teller, Coop, did not realize it was a joke. Coop—since long before the events of 9/11—was always telling them wild ass stories he got from chain emails, which, no matter how outrageous, he always believed as if he had been reading a properly sourced and verified news story. “Dudes,” he told them all now, “I got this email from a friend of mine about this dude who got caught cheating on his fuckin’ wife because of 9/11.”

“How the fuck did that shit happen?” Matt asked, already not believing the tale, story unheard, but hoping it was at least amusing. It was.

“The dude worked in the World Trade Center,” Coop said. “Some fuckin’ bean counter or some shit like that, way the fuck up on the ninetieth floor. Only, on that day, he took the day off so he could spend it with this bitch he’s boning on the side. He didn’t tell his wife he took the day off. So, he locks himself in his piece on the side’s apartment and they spend all day playing hide the salami. They don’t have the TV on so they have no fuckin’ idea what’s going on. After he spends all day there laying some pipe, he showers up, puts his suit back on, and starts heading home. He turns on his phone and sees he’s got all these missed calls and they’re all from his old lady; like fuckin’ thirty of them. So, he calls her to see what’s going on and she goes, ‘oh my God, where are you? Where have you been?’ And he’s like, ‘what the fuck you talking about? I’ve been at work all day, just like always.’”

Jake laughed when he heard the story, instantly recognizing it for what it was: a lighthearted joke about an extremely serious subject. And it had been pulled off almost tastefully. He gave mental kudos to whoever had come up with that one. The world needed a little humor in it about now.

“All right, guys,” he told them after his chuckle was finished. “Let’s get tuned up and try to see if we still got it.”

It turned out, they still had it.

On Sunday morning, October 7, as Jake, Laura, Celia, and Caydee ate their breakfast at the kitchen nook table, and as Massa and Meghan were “sleeping in” in Meghan’s room prior to Massa making the long drive back to LA, the television news reported that United States forces were now bombing targets in Afghanistan. Grainy pictures of antiaircraft fire and the distant flashes of explosions were shown, all of the shots taken at night. Jake had mixed emotions about this. He was an anti-war proponent at heart—always had been ever since learning about what had happened in Vietnam from his father—but if ever there was a justification for bombing the shit out of another country, 9/11 was it. It was now known that thousands of innocent civilians had been killed in the attacks, including women, children, and elderly. There was no possible justification for such an act. And Afghanistan was harboring the man who was most likely responsible for it.

He watched the coverage until nearly one o’clock in the afternoon—about the time that Massa and Meghan came staggering out of the bedroom, contented looks on their faces—and then Laura sat down on the couch next to him, a little baggie of buds and a pipe in hand. “I think it’s Any Given Sunday time,” she told him. “C said she would watch Caydee.”

He smiled. “Let’s do it,” he said.

They poured glasses of chilled white wine and retreated to the deck to get in the proper mood and feel the sea breeze and watch the trees and the pelicans and the seagulls and listen to the ocean waves crashing against their cliff. Jake watched no more television that day, and virtually none during the weekdays that followed. They were closing in on finishing the mastering process. Nerdly estimated they would have master CDs in hand by the end of the next week.

“It’s time to get my band back together and start practicing up the tunes again,” Celia said when she heard this news. “We’ll hit the rehearsal studio to shake off the dust until it’s time for us to move into the recording studio.”

“I think that is appropriate,” Jake agreed.

Celia made her phone calls and her entire band reported for duty the following Monday, just as news of the Anthrax attacks that had been going on for the past few weeks were being reported. This news worried Jake a little. A few of the mailed anthrax letters had been sent to famous people, people known to have a somewhat left-leaning posture. Jake instructed everyone in the household not to open any mail that came from someone they did not know. He also stopped opening his fan mail, fearful that one of them might be full of anthrax spores.

On Thursday, October 18, Never Say Never was given the official (though reluctant) Nerdly team stamp of approval (they still thought that if they worked for just a few more weeks, they could achieve perfection) and a master CD was produced, the first of hopefully millions that would be churned out and sold this year.

“All right,” Jake said once they had the actual master in hand, “let’s make a few copies of this thing and get it sent out to the suits along with a request for proposal.”

“I’ll have the copies in an hour,” Nerdly promised as the techs were packing up and getting ready to go home.

“I’ll have Paulie contact them all next week and make phone appointments to hear their RFPs,” Jake said. “We’ll start working on Celia’s new CD next Tuesday.”

“What about us?” asked Fran Hardey, the lead studio technician (he had left a position as an instructor of audio engineering at Cal Poly to take the job at The Campus). “Are my guys off until Tuesday morning?”

“Not quite,” Jake said. “I’ll need you and one other tech tomorrow.”

“What the fuck for?” asked Matt. “We’re finished.”

“Not quite,” Jake repeated. “We have one more thing to do.”