Dear God,

What next? Seriously. I’d like to know. What’s going to happen next? What could possibly happen now? What else can You dump on New York City that You haven’t already? What is going through Your head right now? “‘New York’s bravest,’ eh — well, we’ll just see about that”? It’s not enough that hundreds of firefighters died in the World Trade Center, that thousands more had the hardest job of their lives digging through the rubble, at great danger to themselves and in the face of incomprehensible grief and horror — now a plane has to land in a neighborhood where many of them LIVE, and the men and women of the NYFD have to truck out there and wade through MORE bodies and destruction? What’s next — the entire Empire State Building gets doused in gasoline and lit up like a giant Roman candle? An eighteen-wheeler loaded with fireworks and smallpox spores drives into the lobby of the UN building? Every elephant on earth, dosed with lethal levels of anabolic steroids and crack cocaine, converges on the island and rampages through the streets of Manhattan, trampling the innocent and buckling the city’s infrastructure under tons of unanticipated elephant poo? Lightning hits every single building taller than three stories? Locusts? Frogs? A tidal wave originating in the Harlem River? A rash of cyanide-laced Frappuccinos? Because I think You’ve proved Your point. I read the Book of Job. I saw the Yankees lose the World Series. It’s a test of our faith; I get it.

And yet, I don’t get it. I don’t know what You want from me. What do You want from me — fear? Do You want fear? Because You’ve got it. To paraphrase Etta James, You can write me in care of the fear. I fear travel. I fear the mail. I fear going home; I fear staying here. I can’t throw a pinch of spilled salt over my shoulder for luck without fifteen guys in hazmat suits showing up ten minutes later to quarantine my kitchen and put teeny tiny little asbestos masks on the cats, and You don’t have a true understanding of what “fear” means until you have tried to affix headgear to these particular cats, I assure you. I can’t hear a plane flying overhead without stopping to watch it, willing it to keep going, muttering at it to stay in one piece. And it’s not working. I keep having to call home to see if my only sibling SURVIVED THE MORNING! I keep having to post bulletins on the Tomato Nation homepage to reassure kind and concerned readers whom I have never met that I didn’t DIE — that, despite Your deciding to kill off another couple of hundred people, I REMAIN ALIVE! I have tried to feel grateful, thankful, appreciative. I have tried to make more of my time on earth. I have tried to draw my friends close around me. I have tried to tell myself that in every tragedy dwells a larger purpose. Now it’s Your turn. Help me out here. What do You want? What’s the grand design? Where’s it all heading? Because if it’s not heading anywhere in particular, You need to KNOCK IT OFF.

And don’t tell me that Your mysteries aren’t mine to know — not now. It’s too late for that. Almighty or not, You owe me an explanation. You owe all of us an explanation. We want to know why. Rudy Giuliani wants to know why he’s got another hundred funerals to attend, why he’s once again in the position of trying to calm twenty million people. American Airlines wants to know why You’ve got it in for the company. The friends and family of American servicemen want to know why You’ve let things get this far. New York City wants to know why it can’t trust an airplane to get from Point A to Point B without taking out hundreds of people in the process. The United States of America wants to know why we’ve bowed our heads in silence dozens and dozens of times to honor our dead that You took from us, why we’ve stood and sung, sobbing, asking You to bless our country, if it’s not going to work. It’s kind of a cheesy song, “God Bless America” — perhaps You got sick of hearing it? Want us to switch to “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”? No problem! We’ll sing whatever You want! But if we sing about You, the Mighty Fortress, You owe it to us to cover the “a bulwark never failing” action. We’ve earned it. We’ve prayed to You for strength, and in response, You’ve shrugged, “That which does not kill you will make you stronger.” Yes, that’s true. But You keep killing us anyway. Tell us what You want. Give us an idea. Explain Yourself. And quit it with the disasters and the catastrophes, at least for a week or two. We mortals can’t understand what’s happening, and we want to. We want to know why. If it’s a punishment, we’ll take it. If it’s karma, we’ll own it. If it’s a test, we’ll study. But if it’s caprice, if You just rolled out of bed a couple of months ago and decided to toy with us for fun — well, yeah, I’ve asked You for a lot of trivial favors over the years, “please let me pass today’s pre-calc test” this, “please let me not get pregnant” that, “please let my credit card have enough room on it for another pair of shoes” the other thing, and I don’t go to church anymore except for once a year at Christmas, and I sin all over the place and take Your name in vain like breathing. But I’ve believed in You. I’ve trusted You. I have to assume that You’ve got a plan. If You have a plan, let us in on it. If You don’t, then for fuck’s sake get a hobby. Pick on Jupiter for a change. We’ve had it down here.

We just want to know what to do, what to expect. Maybe we should learn to stay down, to take a bunch of blows and just lie on the ground and feign death until it’s over and not get all Rocky about it and try to fight back. Maybe it’s a long-overdue rude awakening about truth and justice and the American way; maybe none of those things exist, or maybe they do but not together. Maybe everything I believe about my country — that, for all the massive mistakes we’ve made and the arrogance we’ve often perpetrated, we usually try our best to do the right thing in our own lumbering overweight John-Wayne-y kind of way — is wrong. Maybe You hate us now. Maybe You just don’t care much what becomes of us one way or the other. I don’t know, and You don’t seem inclined to share. And that’s bugging the hell out of me, I don’t mind telling You.

In one week, I move back to New York City. The Empire State Building could fall on my building and kill me and my asbestos-mask-wearing cats. I could inhale a scary germ and die. A plane could drop out of the sky and land on my head. I could get hit by a bus, I could fall down a hole, I could get mugged or shot or stood up on a blind date or eaten by a bear — nothing would surprise me. But if You want to talk me out of coming back, You’ll have to try something else. If You want me to give up on everything I know, stop believing in good things, lose my faith, live in a concrete bunker underground with no cable TV and only cans of corn for company, You’ll have to come down here and tell me to my face. But until I hear otherwise, I’ll just continue to assume that You have a strategy, that everything will turn out okay. I’ll continue to drink yummy margaritas at El Parador, go shopping with Gustave, tool around on the subway, and take my bagel with too much lox spread until the point of the Chrysler Building falls off and pins me to the sidewalk like that photographer in The Omen, because You’ve got the omnipotence and whatnot, but I’ve got the bargain-hunting gene, and if You think You can run me off of the island of Manhattan when I’ve got errands to run at Pearl River Mart, think again. It’s bad enough that meeting a decent straight man in New York is akin to winning the lottery odds-wise — now You want me to skulk off to a cave in the Appalachians and hide out there until You get that bug out of Your ass? I don’t think so. I just found a decent tailor after five years in the city. You’ll have to send me out feet first. I ain’t leaving.

Listen up. I like my cute doormen. I like the Knicks. I like Macy’s and yellow cabs and St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Brooklyn Lager. I have a corner deli where I go for coffee every morning and the ladies say, “Hey doll where you been, everything okay? Coffee milk two sugars?” You can do what You want, but I am angry, and I am stubborn, so bring it on. The end of days? Fine. Let’s see it. You know where to find me.

I don’t know why You’d want to break my spirit, or anyone else’s down here. But it’s not going to work. Just thought You should know.

Love, Sarah

PS You know how, seventeen years ago, I said I’d cheerfully join a convent if You’d get me a pony for my birthday? Well, I don’t want Your damn pony, and I don’t want to marry Your damn son either, so FORGET IT.

November 12, 2001

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