Popcorn, Cash Bar, Loose Change

My brother-in-law pressed a button on his laptop. The screen faded to black. My sister and I sat cross-legged on the hotel bed as the screen flickered to life, spat shadows of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty against our bare legs. Rain hit the window beside us, hit it hard, but I didn’t notice the thunder. My eyes were riveted to the screen, to the video images of airplanes out of control, and my ears grabbed the narrator’s nonchalant recital of alleged secret documents. The rest of my extended family rested from a huge reunion dinner.

“Birdie, this is Loose Change.”

Scott’s voice cut into the movie. He pressed the pause button and looked at me under a shock of blond hair.

“This documentary asks questions about 9-11. The people who put it together think it was an inside job, you know, White House sanctioned.”

I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to say what my mind thought. That’s nuts. You’re crazy. Crazy. I remembered the moment I first heard the planes struck the towers, remembered the frantic attempts to call Angela, call Scott, make sure they weren’t near the World Trade Center. My calls went unanswered, dial tone dead. It took hours to find out they were safe, still at home a few miles from Ground Zero. No wonder Scott was obsessed now, a man trying to defend his New York family.

The movie resumed. Jagged music kept time to jagged photographs while a man kept beat with stark words, unloading fact after strange fact. My mind reeled as the film showed evidence of hijackers still alive, of airplanes that couldn’t possibly have hit the Pentagon, of missing people, missing metal, buildings that collapsed in ballet perfection. I left the family reunion with a deep distrust of everything. Everything. Even the walls seemed to sprout agency eyes.

A week later I fired up my computer. My internet search handed me one rational explanation for the 9-11 events. Then another, quite different. My mind couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t stitch the pieces into a quilt that kept my brain warm. The truth must sit in the middle, sit on the fence the way it always does, a turtle with a hidden head, withdrawn legs, I thought. This country was built on truth, on the ideals of freedom and justice. We’ll discover the details, hold someone’s feet to the fire. Maybe we already do with our nation’s actions in Afghanistan.

This Sunday the New Mexico Green Party holds its monthly progressive movie matinee. Loose Change. 3 pm. Plaza Hotel. I spotted the flier at the entrance to the health food store, Semilla and recalled the first Green Party movie afternoon I attended, a couple months earlier, when I sat in a front row and munched salty popcorn, a frosty margarita in one hand. The lights dimmed, and the projector spun a disjointed tale of oil and waste. The Green Party spokesman didn’t ask for donations or blind faith.

“Just watch the movie and decide for yourself,” he said.

This Sunday I’ll be a Rough Rider at the Plaza Hotel, a woman in a movie seat with popcorn and a stiff drink. I still don’t know what to make of Loose Change, but in this weekend before the anniversary of 9-11 I want to be somewhere. I want to know the truth.

This story was published in the Las Vegas Times on October 1st, 2006.