The personal tragedy happened when a good friend of mine, Joe Wood, a book editor from New York, disappeared during an afternoon hiking on Mt. Rainier on Thursday, July 8. I had known Joe for exactly six years. We met during the summer of 1993, when he was 28, writing for the Village Voice, and in Seattle for three reasons: for the hell of it, to hang out with a college buddy, and to write an article about the city for Vibe magazine. That summer, we struck up a friendship and a passionate, thoughtful conversation, which had continued--over the phone and the Internet, and through the mail--ever since. Most recently, he was in town attending the UNITY '99 conference for so-called "minority journalists"--I had been expecting to see him at a party The New York Times threw in the Washington Mutual Building on July 8. He didn't show.
I sent him an e-mail letter, but he didn't reply, and quite frankly, I was getting a little annoyed by his silence and absence. A week later, on July 15, my TV informed me of this incredible thing: Joe Wood had disappeared a few days earlier while hiking on the mountain, and the park was conducting a search for him that involved hound dogs, park rangers, and two helicopters. My God, all of this was so unreal, so unexpected, like something from outer space crashing into my backyard.
The national tragedy happened the day after Joe vanished, on Friday, July 16. I learned of it when I anxiously turned on the TV to see if any new developments had occurred in the search for my friend, but instead was informed that a famous person was now missing! John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane had disappeared near Martha's Vineyard, and a "multi-agency" (every department!) search and rescue was in progress. At this moment, I realized that I had lost Joe Wood forever; his story (which had been covered by The New York Times and CNN) would now be buried beneath this big drama starring America's closest thing to a "royal family." ("They [the British] have kings and queens, while we have families based on power and influence," said one FOX news reporter, pathetically paralleling the deaths of Princess Diana and Prince JFK Jr.)
The whole mad machine was now in motion, and it wanted everyone to "forget their differences" and merge. The TV and press wanted me to put aside my personal concerns and focus on this "national tragedy." We were supposed to "come together as a nation," to "pray," and to feel for this family who "knows the meaning of tragedy." I turned to another channel in search of Joe, but instead found Barbara Walters wearing a look that communicated to me the gravity of this national moment. She wanted me to surrender to the story, to give in, to let go.
A few days later, The Seattle Times had a picture of a seemingly macho man crying like a child before a flourishing floral memorial in front of JFK Jr.'s New York residence. See, they seemed to be saying, even this muscular man is crying his heart out! One TV reporter went so far as to say, "The nation loved him no matter what." The TV wanted me to appreciate the God-like magnitude of the Kennedys' suffering, whose sense of pain was like their sense of pleasure and power: extreme, magnificent, unearthly. Indeed, one FOX news reporter said, "many people felt more for them than people they know personally."
On CNN's website, the headlines ran: "The world's eyes again drawn to Kennedy family drama"; "Caroline only survivor of 'Camelot' Kennedys"; "Adored son joins parents with God." The Washington Times opened one article with this incredible conjecture: "If America had a Shakespeare, he would write the Kennedy story. He would understand immediately that here is the stuff of human life, out-sized and compelling. Ambition, wealth, compassion, power, sex, love, and death." At the heart of these desperate attempts to apotheosize a man whose greatest accomplishment was to be born a Kennedy was a sinister project to replace not only Joe's death, but the deaths of all ordinary folks with this greater death. In a word, I do not die. I do not have the honor to die. I do something else, which is not the "stuff of human life." Princess Di dies. The Kennedys die. Joe and I simply expire.
On Sunday, July 18, the rescue missions for both JFK Jr. and Joe Wood were called off. Any remaining searches were no longer for the living, but for the remains of the dead. Not surprisingly, on Wednesday, July 21, JFK Jr.'s plane and body were found (the incredible search covered almost 9,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean! Isn't that the whole ocean?). Also not surprisingly, to this day, Joe Wood is still missing. The park people now suspect that he suddenly fell into a hole or from a snowbridge into an icy stream, and is now buried, irretrievably, in the snows of Mt. Rainier. At this point, they have placed the search for Joe in the hands of nature; they are waiting for the snow to thaw, which is expected to happen in late August or early September, and reveal the whereabouts of his body. Even stranger is that his is not the only body they hope to find when the snow melts--there is also a climber from Issaquah, a hiker from Wilkerson, and a snowboarder from Georgia. There are, in total, over 50 ordinary souls missing on that mountain.
"There is a 50/50 chance he will show up when the snow melts," said a park representative, who seemed keenly aware that those concerned about the status of Joe's rescue mission were being bombarded with details of the super search for JFK Jr. He even tried to downplay the comparison by explaining that it was easier to find JFK Jr. due to sonar; they can't use sonar to find Joe. "We have to wait. That is all we can do now." Yes, that is all we can do for mere individuals.
