CringeHumor

I’ll spare you the deluge of that day. We all know it. We saw it happen right before our eyes. But yes, I was there.

Yes I saw people die.

Yes I stood on mounds of rubble that were once the World Trade Center.

Yes I lost friends.

Yes I can still smell it even as I type these words.

And yes the yells and the cries are still there every time I close my eyes.

But this isn’t about that day. This is about what happened after. No one really talks about the people that live with it now—Those poor bastards that had to pick up what was left of themselves and try to live some kind of normal life.

It hasn’t been easy. They still go to sleep at night knowing what’s ahead. Some of the worst recurring nightmares you can imagine. The same shit over and over and over again. So with sleep not being enjoyable anymore somehow you had to tolerate being awake.

The first year after Sept. 11, 2001 I was a zombie. Who knows what I was on and how much of it I was taking. But at some point when the booze wasn’t working anymore and the only thing left in your prescription bottle was the bitter dust left by whatever pills occupied it … insomnia, isolation and survivor’s guilt set in.

It wasn’t until after all the drugs, the alcohol and the therapy sessions failed that I turned to the only medicine I hoped would make me feel again: Comedy. There I was holed up in my bedroom every night after work, armed with a CD player and some of the best albums ever recorded.

Each night I replayed some of my favorites until I worked up enough courage to fall asleep.
Richard Pryor’s Live From the Sunset Strip

Dice’s The Day The Laughter Died 1 & 2

Rodney Dangerfield’s No Respect

Leary’s No Cure for Cancer

Chris Rock’s Bring The Pain
Carlin’s Class Clown and A Place For My Stuff

Chappelle’s Killin’ Them Softly

I started to laugh again. I mean really laugh. Not the type of laughter I forced out when a co-worker made a quirky remark or a friend made in reference to whatever the fuck he was talking about.

Eventually I made it to comedy clubs, The Strip, Cellar and Carolines. I’d go alone most of the time and on the best nights I got to see Attell, Quinn, Norton, Burr, Kelly, Kilmartin and Vos. 9/11 jokes were made, I laughed. And I kept laughing until I realized it was okay to enjoy myself again. The laughing made me miss my friends, made me miss their laughter. It also made me realize they were really gone. But most of all it allowed me to recover some semblance of myself.

10 years later it still creeps in. The smells, the sounds, the visuals are never really far away. I wonder what life would be like without the people we lost—probably a lot fucking better.

Every year this day rolls around and it never gets easier and it never will. But you know that’s okay as long as I take my medicine: Comedy.

To all those that I knew, I never forget. Mike Marti, Jennifer Mazzotta, Lucy Crifasi, Sean Powell, Dominique Pandolfo, Volunteer EMT Richard Pearlman and firefighters Lt. John Moran, Joe Hunter, Adam Rand and John Giordano.

Share This: Tweet This  |  Digg  |  Facebook