You’ve been spiraling ever since 9/11, drinking yourself into a blind mess. Tonight, a prostitute who drinks at the same bar as you will invite you back to her apartment to look at pictures of the daughter she hopes to reconnect with one day, and you’ll decide she’s just broken enough to hear your confession.
“I sold sneakers to Mohamed Atta and three of the other hijackers,” you’ll tell her. “Two weeks before 9/11.”
Tell her that you spent forty minutes with them, pressing on their big toes to feel if they needed more wiggle room, watching them walking around in one shoe to get a feel for the insole. You even talked one of them out of a more expensive shoe because he mentioned he had arch issues and you knew the more expensive one offered crap support.
“So what are you saying?” she’ll ask. “Do you think you had a hand in 9/11 because you sold the hijackers sneakers?”
Tell her, “No. But I made 9/11 a little more comfortable for them, didn’t I?”
The prostitute will tell you that you couldn’t have known. If the CIA couldn’t apprehend them with all the red flags they were raising in the months leading up to 9/11, how were you supposed to know that you shouldn’t have sold them sneakers, or at least that you should have sold them sneakers that might inflame their sensitive tissue areas? She’ll tell you that you need to accept that you were just doing your job, and that maybe you’re just hanging on to the guilt because you’re too scared to live your life.
You and she will make love that night and then you’ll hang yourself by your belt in her bathroom.
Happy You Sold Sneakers To Al Qaida Day!
