Gaze of a September Hero Abraham Tumwine   © Copyright 2024 by Abraham Tumwine

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The New York Police Department has had seen worse days and controversial ones but none equaled the controversy on that day. This was confirmed by the widowed Ms. Grace the chubby computer analyst who had lost a husband to one of the NYPD raids and was the oldest at the station. 2011 is the year in question and John Perry is the man where all the controversy stems. The place where it started is not controversial, all the force present proves beyond doubt that he was at the east end of the office handling his resignation that had taken excruciatingly long. Amelia, the rotund cheeked secretary who had shown him the door argues that the resignation was going smoothly while the know everything cleaner who claims to have been in the office on the day swears being an unfortunate witness to some word thrashing while the sheriff who handled the resignation prefers to ignore the fact that the man was even resigning.

‘The badge’ is the name the second incident is referred to in the force. This too stemmed from the rotund Amelia who still sits as a secretary faithful at her desk and the know everything cleaner who started a business shortly after the incident. Providence had added to the badge team Anthony, a well-built black man currently the occupant of the office where the incident started.

‘He snatched the badge from the sheriff,’ alleges the cleaner when usually asked about the Perry incident. The rotund secretary who claimed to have popped by the door the moment she heard the blast claimed to have seen the resigning man ask for the badge from the sheriff though this is countered by Chissel a fellow secretary and sworn enemy who swears the rotund cheeked lady was taking a call on her phone at the time of the incident in question. As for Anthony, there wasn’t any argument about being in the room except from the cleaner who to this day insists they were only three people in the room. The Anthony theory is that the black man neither snatched nor asked for the badge but simply picked one from the table and showed himself out. Most people choose to believe Anthony’s theory on the badge but don’t on the stairs story where he asserts that the controversial man jumped from the landing to the fifth stair. The woman who the complaints deskman proved was taking a call in tears at the time says the man landed like a cat on the sixth stair as she landed butt first on the fifth stair phone still clinging to the ear despite the deskman’s assertion that the phone was now miraculously in the left hand.

How he reached the burning south tower too was argued by three people and a couple each one of them claiming to have encountered the hero. The police officer at the station says he requested the keys and rode all sirens blaring though this is countered by his bestfriend and partner who says only the lights were flickering. A beggar on the street claims he hailed a taxi and actually boarded one despite being proven beyond doubt by sixteen witnesses who could testify that all cars were skidding in the opposite direction and not in an orderly fashion. Few people chose to believe the beggar as misfortune landed her in Bedford hills the only female maximum security prison in the state. The most believed is Denzel. Also known as the motorist, he assures people that he handed his Kawasaki bike to Perry though his brother who is coincidentally Anthony the police officer is convinced he didn’t get a bike until months after the attacks.

‘He was panting like a drunk, honey.’ argues Felix one of the young couple who are certain the panting black man who passed them was Perry though his wife now an unfortunate victim of cancer through ragged breaths argues that the man was as fit as an athlete who hasn’t started a race a statement that makes Felix an unfit glutton jealous.

No controversy surrounds the hero’s entry into the burning tower as any person who still had eyes was making for the door. Only one person who was then a kid in his father’s arms claims to have seen Perry and he remembers him thanks to the death look which he claims was in the man’s eyes as he urged people towards the doorway.

It’s surprising that his end is controversial too as people sane enough to witness the unfolding of such a scene were either making their way into heaven or making for the door with rapid rhythm. The argument stemmed from a middle aged Native American who says the hero stopped at his side to tell him that unless he could gather himself up he was about to follow his dying father to the spirit world. And contrary to the death look described by the boy, the Native American claims to have seen in his eyes the same look of a deer before it was shot, the look that could convince a person that it was about to die. The Native American goes on to describe how the hero continued towards a girl who in his tears and anguish of listening to his father’s death moans hadn’t noticed. The girl was struggling to untangle herself from some blocks that had landed on her leg though she claims herself that she could feel her soul slipping away. The Native American’s and the girl’s controversies are the only stories that people accept simultaneously. Leaving the hero in his bid to save more people disregarding his life, the Native American and the injured girl stumbled out of the building one thing etched on their minds: John Perry’s eyes. The eyes that refused to say goodbye, forever etched on the hearts of the people he gave his life to save on that September morning.