Professor X by In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic Page A

single plane was flying. I don’t know why I found this so hard to comprehend, but I did. Two days later, an already wild-eyed friend made even crazier-seeming by the attack folded a $20 bill into the shape of an airplane and bid me behold—there were the smoking towers, there was the broken Pentagon. He was very upset, but I found his little origami stunt heartening. The American distraction factory was still operating on three shifts. Our compulsion to focus on the silliest aspect of any news story was intact. America would survive. I watched the news, and grieved, but never quite realized how quickly life, and the world, can change. I experienced the terror of the moment, but it didn’t frighten me to my essence—it didn’t scare me enough to keep me in my little safe house, biding my time. The planes could hit the tower—unthinkable!—just the way markets could drop, General Motors could go bankrupt, Bear Stearns could fail.
    For someone so involved with literature, I missed one of the great themes of September 11: that life does not just churn and pulsate but sometimes tears and cannot be repaired; life can change irrevocably in the blink of an eye. Actions can have consequences. A man was capable of making a mistake that lasted a lifetime.
    In the summer of 2002, our real estate agent, aware that we were ready to leave the Bavarian cottage, told us that she had a house that we really needed to see. It was beautiful. We would appreciate it. It wasn’t even on the market yet. Would we care for a peek before the signs were hammered into the lawn?
    I was flattered by the attention. I felt truly a part of the community. After September 11 I had the feeling shared by virtually every red-blooded male in America: that because I had not been in New York City on that day, that because I had not been called to trudge into the towers on a doomed rescue mission, that because I was not a fireman, that because I was alive and unscathed, I was not truly a man. I had not participated directly in September 11 or its aftermath, and no one was asking my opinion of its implications, either. I was a failed artist, a mute inglorious pundit, the author of one unpublished and several abandoned novels. I had by that time given up on a life in the world of literature. Playing in the field of real estate signaled an alternate form of legitimacy for me. Finally, I was entering the middle class. I found myself thinking a lot about hardwood floors and updated wiring and what went into the selection of a general contractor. General contractor. I liked saying those words. I liked knowing what they meant. I immersed my self in The Field Guide to American Houses. I may not have been able to publish my writing, but it seemed within my grasp to house my family in a half-timbered Arts and Crafts or a spindled Queen Anne. Suddenly, a finished attic seemed the key to personal happiness. I grew rather obsessed with Internet mortgage calculators, which told me always we could afford the houses we were looking at and now seem as rigged as a fairground game: “Swing the Hammer, Ring the Bell, Buy the House!” Our attention focused on a romantic just-stately-enough three-bedroom home a block or so from the center of our village, a symbol of an earlier era of American prosperity. We muted the television so as not to be distracted by the new violent world order and asked our real estate agent, who seemed to be with us all the time, like an unmarried aunt who had come to stay for good, if we should go ahead with the deal. She said yes. We understood her economic interest in the purchase, of course, but in those heady times, everyone’s economic interests seemed miraculously intertwined, and all for the good. Yes, the price was steep, but didn’t we stand to make a nice profit on the Bavarian cottage? This new house seemed to be increasing in value as the three of us stood on the porch jawing about it. Our plan was the