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It's a beautiful Saturday morning: birds are chirping outside, the sun has risen, casting natural, warm light into their bedroom, and neither of them have any obligations for hours. They're enjoying their time together, lazing about, mostly in silence, but sometimes with a comment or two.
Goffredo, notably, has some things to say on this fine morning.
“Did you see the Twin Towers fall in 2001?” he asks, completely out of nowhere. Nothing in their previous conversation was even tangentially related.
Despite this, Aldo takes it in stride—he supposes that anyone of a certain age is asked this every now and again. “I did. Why do you ask?”
Goffredo unabashedly lights up upon hearing this. It’s remarkable. Aldo has only ever seen him so happy a few other times in the few years or so they’ve been together. “You did?” he exclaims. “You did?”
“I did, indeed,” he says. “I was there. Saw it with my own eyes.” It’s not the happiest memory for him, but he isn’t traumatized by it, so he doesn’t mind telling friends every once in a while.
Goffredo sits up in bed, back plank-straight. “Aldo. How did you not tell me this earlier,” he says. “Caro mio, you wound me.” He seems entirely serious, somehow.
“I thought you knew,” Aldo says. “Besides, how was I supposed to know you were interested in 9/11? It’s sort of gruesome. One doesn’t usually bring such things up in polite company.”
He gets a scathing glare. “How could you have not known!” The man puts his head in his hands, exasperated. “Aldo. Aldo.” Goffredo stands up from the bed, and beckons Aldo forth. Reluctantly, he dislodges himself from the covers, and follows.
Goffredo takes him down the hallway, to a closet Aldo hasn’t really ever spared a glance to. He opens it in a sweeping motion; it’s full to bursting.
“Behold!” he exclaims.
Aldo chuckles, seeing this display. “What in the world is this?” Peering inside, he sees… September 11th themed goods, perhaps. For lack of a better descriptor. Postcards of the intact Twin Towers pinned to corkboards. Little plane magnets, sitting on top of cardboard boxes. A framed picture of the smoldering towers. Insanely, a model of the Pentagon in its smashed, destroyed state, airplane in the side and all. He starts laughing in earnest, and finds he can’t stop.
“Goffredo,” he says, struggling to fit words in between laughs. “Goffredo. Explain this to me. What is this?”
“My collection,” he declares simply, as if he finds it quite normal for a man to have such a collection.
“Your collection,” he wheezes out. He has to take a moment to gather himself. “I did not know you had this. You should have told me.”
“I’ve told you now. All’s well that ends well, hm? Now tell me. You saw the towers collapse on 9/11?” he asks.
Aldo snorts, again. The man is stubborn when he wants to be. Apparently, this is a thing he wants to be immovable about. It's surreal. “I did. And I gather you would like to hear about it?”
“Aldo. Look at me.” He does. “What do you think? Yes, I want to hear about it.” His voice drops and he starts muttering; to himself, probably, but Aldo can still pick it up. “Saw it on the ground with his own eyes and won’t tell me about it. Unbelievable!”
Aldo leads them over to the couch, and flops down. Goffredo sits down in turn. “Alright,” he starts. “So, as you know, I was in the city when the towers collapsed.”
He interrupts immediately. “New York?”
Aldo sighs, making a show of rolling his eyes. “Yes. New York City. Yes, I saw it in person with my own eyes. Please hold all questions until the end of the presentation.”
Goffredo quiets, chastened. He nods, his eyes fixed intently on Aldo.
He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, and develop a narrative from his memories. “Alright. So I was quite a bit away from the towers when it happened. In another borough, in fact.” He realizes his mistake as soon as it comes out of his mouth. “Another neighborhood, essentially. So I wasn't too badly hit by it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Goffredo straining to stay silent. He takes pity on him. “And what did you want to ask?”
“How did you notice it when it happened?”
“I was outside at the time, on my way to buy some breakfast before work. It was a few miles away, but I saw this billowing, gray cloud against the clear blue sky, and I knew it wasn't right.”
“Can you remind me what a mile is, again?”
Aldo huffs out a sigh, exasperated. “It doesn't matter. A kilometer and a half? Maybe? I digress. But people didn't quite know what to do. They came running through the streets, away from it. But we didn't think much of it until the second plane came. For the first fifteen minutes or so, nobody really worried. It was just a run-of-the-mill tragedy. And then the second plane hit.”
He looks back at Goffredo—the other man is more transfixed than he has any right to be. Aldo smiles; he finds this a little too entertaining. “But where were you exactly?” he asks.
“When the first plane hit? It was the Upper East Side, so maybe…” He stops, trying to think. “Maybe four or five miles.” To head the obvious question off at the start, he adds onto this. “Nine kilometers, maybe.”
His eyes go even wider, impossibly. “Nine kilometers!” he exclaims loudly. “Only nine kilometers? Porca miseria, Aldo!”
“You act like I was in danger, somehow! Goffredo! It wasn't that big of a deal!”
The man sputters, searching for words. His hands land on Aldo’s shoulders, shaking them. “Aldo. Cazzo! Do you know what this means to me? Yes, it's a big deal!” He makes quotes in the air with his fingers as he talks.
Aldo gives him a sharp look. “Do you want to hear about it or not? Anyway. People started filling the streets, coming out to gawk. It was a bit of a disaster, in fact. I had my clericals on, and people kept coming to me for some kind of direction, shocked and asking what they should do. Eventually, I led them all down into the nearby church, and managed to set up an impromptu vigil with the priest who was already there. Nothing special, really. I guess that's about it.” He leans back on the couch, and stretches his arms out wide, yawning.
“Nothing special?” His jaw drops. “I cannot believe that you just said that. I would have killed—killed—to be there. That is the most incredible story.”
Aldo can't help it. He laughs, again. “I can't believe that this is what you choose to obsess over. You are a mystery to me still, sometimes. September 11th, of all things. I’m going to have to take you to the gift shop down at the World Trade Center next time we're in the city.”
Goffredo looks on him with the same reverence a starved man has for manna. “Amore mio, I would like nothing more.” They latch onto each other in a flurry of arms, and Aldo notes, with some amusement, that he has not often seen the man this passionate.