The True Knot Feeds on Steam After the September 11 Attacks

The True Knot’s vigil in Hoboken after the September 11 attacks turns a public scene of mourning into an act of predation. The group watches the destruction from across the Hudson River, then joins the crowds at Sinatra Park, where solemn faces and Rose the Hat’s gesture of respect conceal the reason they have come: to take in the aftermath’s good steam. Their eventual departure is not an ending but a pause in a cycle of feeding, and Grampa Flick’s visible rejuvenation makes that cycle tangible.

Arrival and Concealment

The True Knot arrives in Hoboken on September 8, three days before the attacks, and settles in a private parking lot it has secured for ten days. Crow Daddy arranges the deal. His public manner is tailored to ordinary expectations: although his favorite T-shirt proclaims a people-person identity, he wears a suit and tie when negotiating for the group. His respectable appearance and straight name, Henry Rothman, belong to the same practiced disguise.

The group’s handling of money reinforces its preference for remaining difficult to trace. It has more than a billion dollars spread across accounts and valuable holdings around the world, yet it does not pay by check or credit card. Even the members who look like children carry cash. Jimmy Numbers, the group’s accountant, sums up the arrangement with a joke about paying cash and making the rubes carry them. In a scene soon dominated by public catastrophe, these details establish the True Knot’s ordinary operating habits: wealth, mobility, and concealment precede the attack and shape how it can exploit its aftermath.

Watching the Attacks

On the morning of September 11, the True Knot watches the attacks on the Twin Towers from its parking lot, sharing four pairs of binoculars. Sinatra Park would offer a better view, but the group does not go there early. Rose the Hat understands that arriving before the crowds could attract suspicion; in a country about to become markedly more watchful, being seen too soon would be a risk. The decision to wait is both tactical and revealing: the group’s feeding depends not only on finding steam, but on blending into the human response to disaster.

Around ten, once people have gathered along the riverbank, the True Knot moves to the park. Pea and Pod push Grampa Flick in his wheelchair. His cap identifies him as a veteran, while his long white hair escapes around its edges. His account of his military service changes over time—from the Spanish-American War to World War I and then World War II—and he expects eventually to claim service in Vietnam. The shifting story is presented alongside his genuine command of military history, making his invented longevity part of the scene’s unsettling background rather than a distraction from the group’s immediate purpose.

A Public Performance of Mourning

Sinatra Park is crowded. Many spectators remain silent; some weep. Apron Annie and Black-Eyed Sue can produce tears on demand, while the other members arrange their expressions into suitable displays of sorrow, solemnity, and amazement. The True Knot does not need to stand apart to hide its difference. It can imitate the behavior around it, turning the crowd’s authentic grief into cover for its own appetite.

The group stays for most of the day, standing at the iron rail without speaking among themselves. Their stillness contrasts with the spectators who come and go, while the clear, beautiful day contrasts sharply with the thick billows rising over Lower Manhattan. The narration compares their deep, slow breathing to Midwestern tourists taking in sea air at Pemaquid Point or Quoddy Head. That comparison gives their behavior the harmless appearance of sightseeing, even as the context makes each breath part of the harvest. Rose the Hat removes her top hat and holds it at her side as a sign of respect. The gesture reads as conventional mourning, but its placement beside the group’s breathing leaves the sincerity of the public display in tension with its predatory purpose.

The Harvest and Its Consequences

At four o’clock, the True Knot returns to its encampment, invigorated. The day’s vigil is not described as a single completed taking: the group plans to return the next day, and the day after, continuing until the good steam is exhausted. Only then will it move on. The repeated visits turn the aftermath into a resource to be consumed over time, while the group’s patient attendance lets it remain within the ordinary flow of public mourning.

The consequence is registered in Grampa Flick’s body. By the time the feeding has run its course, his white hair will have become iron gray and he will no longer need his wheelchair. The change links the group’s stolen sustenance to an apparent reversal of age and frailty; it also gives the scene a disturbing measure of what its members gain from remaining at the park. The True Knot leaves at the end of each day, but the planned returns and Flick’s transformation make clear that departure is only temporary. The crowd sees people witnessing a tragedy. The group sees a supply that will last until it is spent.