Sound Unheard Is Echoing Still

Where were you, one year ago?

I know exactly where I was, a year ago Sunday. I was with three women at a Hyatt hotel, in a coffee shop, off the lobby. I remember many tiny details, such as one of the women ordering chili. Any woman who orders chili after 1 o’clock in the morning is a woman after my own heartburn.

What I also remember is, she never got to eat it.

My beeper went off. I cursed, because it was late and I was beat. I figured to be off-duty at that hour. Trouble is, nobody beeps me for pleasure, only for business.

It had to be work. I was in Atlanta, but the time was only 10-something in Los Angeles, so somebody back home obviously had reason to reach me. I doubted anyone in the East would try me so late, even those who know me to have the sleeping habits of Count Dracula.

I checked the number on my beeper.

It was local.

I called and got a colleague on the first ring. I asked something reasonably intelligent for that hour, like, “What’s up?”

“A bomb went off,” he said.

Your ears don’t always register certain information, at certain times.

A what did what?

He repeated it.

“Where?” I asked.

“Where are you?” he asked back.

I told him, and he said, “A few blocks from you. You didn’t hear anything?”

No, just the sound of a waiter saying, “Chili? Yes, ma’am.”

Hanging up the phone, I returned to the table. The women were curious.

“Hot date?” one asked.

As I said, I remember the details.

No, a bomb went off.

The women swung into action. One of them grabbed her pocketbook. One of them grabbed her notebook. One of them grabbed the waiter and said she would take care of the check. As I said, these are women worth knowing.

We ran outside. Four reporters, leaping into action, like Kent and Lane from the Daily Planet.

Information came in, little by little. An explosive device of some kind had gone off in Centennial Olympic Park, the gate of which was roughly four blocks from where we stood. The streets of downtown Atlanta were teeming. Barricades were going up fast, put there by the cops.

We stopped pedestrians. “What happened?” one asked.

“I wanted to ask you,” I answered.

She was in her teens, or early 20s.

She said, “I don’t know, but I heard somebody got killed.”

The lump in my throat was so large, you could have driven it down a fairway. My mind raced. Somebody killed. Somebody who? How many somebodies? Killed by whom? Fresh in my memory was the TWA plane incident, which had just happened. I thought the worst.

And I thought of one word:

Munich.

Oh, no. We’ve got another Munich, I said to myself. The terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympics. . . . I had just been speaking about it with Bruce Jenner, who was there. I had just put in a call to my old school classmate, Jan Johnson, the pole vaulter, who was there. On the 25th anniversary of Munich, terrorists had struck again.

But why? To what end?

The atmosphere had been festive. Friday night spilled over into Saturday morning. A band played on.

I had just called it a night, having witnessed a spectacular performance by a sprinter, a Canadian who broke the world record for the 100-meter dash.

Some food, something to drink, some sleep, that’s all I required.

Next thing I know, I am in a room, watching Tom Brokaw on television, taking about “an act of terror.” Jim Gray is interviewing people on the street. Paul Moyer is anchoring a segment for NBC near the crime scene, wearing a coat, a tie . . . and no pants.

In the hours ahead, a woman brought to Grady Memorial Hospital lies dead. President Clinton is saying of the culprits, “We will track them down. We will see that they are punished.”

In the days ahead, the FBI is still trying to track “them” down. An investigation comes to focus on a security guard. I feel a lynch-mob mentality growing, even though there is no arrest.

In the months ahead, the guard is cleared. The FBI arrests nobody. The culprits are not tracked down, not punished.

In the year that passes, I forget the horror of that night. I rarely give it a thought, until suddenly it is July 27 again, and I remember.

Somebody set off a bomb.

And whoever the murdering creep was, he’s still out there.