Grand Central Station

Most often, I remember that so many cars sat silent and empty on that Tuesday evening in late summer, parked at train stations and commuter lots in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. The planes impossibly cutting through buildings, the gaping wound in the side of the fortress in Arlington, and the scar cut deep into a field in Pennnsylvania are there too, but when I think about the events of nine years ago, which I do every day, the first image that comes to mind are those rows of empty cars.

A dozen of them were left abandoned at the train station in the village where I grew up, and when I went home to visit Mom and Dad two-and-a-half weeks later, many of them still sat in the parking lot, waiting for the owners who would never come home.

My favorite singer and songwriter, Mary Chapin Carpenter, was inspired to write "Grand Central Station" after hearing an interview with an iron worker one year after the 9/11 attacks. The man, one of the first at the scene after the towers fell, worked at Ground Zero for days afterwards, and he said that at the end of each shift, he felt compelled to go to Grand Central Station so that the souls of those who had died on that day could follow him. I wonder whether he carried the souls of those from my hometown with him on his journey to the station?

Today on my walk, I listened to "Grand Central Station" over and over again, as I made my way through the streets of Arlington. While watching flags hanging from buildings and waving at half-staff from flagpoles all along my route, I remembered, once again, the quiet, lonely cars and mourned those who never returned nine years ago today. Here are the lyrics to Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, so that you may also mourn and remember:

"Got my work clothes on, full of sweat and dirt
All this holy dust upon my face and shirt
Heading uptown now, just as the shifts are changing
To Grand Central Station
I got my lunch box, got my hard hat in my hand
I ain't no hero, mister, just a working man
And all these voices keep on asking me to take them
To Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station."

"I want to stand beneath the clock just one more time
Want to wait on the platform for the Hudson Line
I guess you're never really all alone
Or too far from the pull of home
And the stars upon that painted dome still shine."

"I made my way out onto 42nd Street
I lit a cigarette and stared down at my feet
And imagined all the ones that ever stood here waiting
At Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station."

"And now Hercules is staring down at me
Next to him is Minerva and Mercury
I nod to them and start my crawl, flyers covering every wall
Faces of the missing all I see."

"Tomorrow I'll be back there working on the pile
Going in and coming out single file
Before my job is done, there's one more trip I'm making
To Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station."