September 2011

On a dazzling fall day, it’s hard not to be thoughtful about the evil that flew out of Portland Jetport 10 years ago, on September 11, 2001.

The bizarre tidbit that we slept with the enemy the Night Before is something Maine may never live down.

Mohammad Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari spent the night with us in Room 233 of the Comfort Inn in South Portland near the Maine Mall before boarding the Colgan Air connection to Logan Airport that put the pair on that fateful flight that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York.

This eerie prelude has been turned into a disquieting short story by London novelist Martin Amis for The New Yorker (April 24, 2006). It’s called “The Last Days of Muhammad Atta”:

“What was the scene of this awakening?  A room in a hotel of the type designated as ‘budget’ in his guidebook–one step up from Basic…part of a chain…and it was cheap. So. The padded nylon bedcover as weighty as a lead vest; the big cuboid television on the dresser opposite; and the dented white fridge…” Still more remarkable unremarkability: “He stepped within [the shower], submitting to the cold and clammy caress of the plastic curtain on his calf and thigh. Then he spent an unbelievably long time trying to remove a hair from the bar of soap. The alien strand kept changing its shape–question mark, infinity symbol–but stayed in place…”

Today, Room 233 at the Comfort Inn is a whispered stop on a dark tour of the United States. Laura R. Wale, the ex-general manager of the hotel, no longer works here, had a nervous collapse, and is working on a book about it.

“Our world just changed,” she told reporters at the time.

According to a September 9, 2003 article by the Portland Press Herald, “Wale said little help came from corporate headquarters…it upset her that she needed to be tested for anthrax because she had been one of the first people to enter the terrorists’ hotel room after the attacks. ‘…Wale suffered a nervous breakdown and checked herself into Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health Adventist Healthcare in Rockville, Md., on Nov. 11,’ said Ralph Tucker, her workers’ compensation lawyer…. After an 11-day stay, Wale emerged with a diagnosis that included depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder–and no job.”

Amazingly, Room 233 is still open for business for any who might desire it. For all we know, they’re using the same mattresses. What’s wondrous about this decision is that many high-rise buildings refuse to have a 13th floor because it’s bad luck. Couldn’t Room 233 at least have been made into a vending room with an ice machine? No, they couldn’t keep ice in there. Too cold.

Assistant professor Philip Brou of the Maine College of Art has had the artistic courage to risk staying overnight in Room 233. His installation “Black Box” recreates the unencompassable loneliness of the unit for viewers; after his work’s high impact at the 2011 Maine Biennial, Portland Museum of Art snapped it up as part of its permanent collection.