![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\" "\\"colin08\\"")
<\/a>On a dazzling fall day, it\u2019s hard not to be thoughtful about the evil that flew out of Portland Jetport 10 years ago, on September 11, 2001.<\/p>\nThe bizarre tidbit that we slept with the enemy the Night Before is something Maine may never live down.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
This eerie prelude has been turned into a disquieting short story by London novelist Martin Amis for The New Yorker <\/em>(April 24, 2006). <\/em>It\u2019s called \u201cThe Last Days of Muhammad Atta\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was the scene of this awakening?\u00a0 A room in a hotel of the type designated as \u2018budget\u2019 in his guidebook\u2013one step up from Basic\u2026part of a chain\u2026and 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…\u201d Still more remarkable unremarkability<\/em>: \u201cHe 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\u2013question mark, infinity symbol\u2013but stayed in place…\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cOur world just changed,\u201d she told reporters at the time.<\/p>\n According to a September 9, 2003 article by the Portland Press Herald<\/em>, \u201cWale said little help came from corporate headquarters\u2026it upset her that she needed to be tested for anthrax because she had been one of the first people to enter the terrorists\u2019 hotel room after the attacks. \u2018\u2026Wale suffered a nervous breakdown and checked herself into Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health Adventist Healthcare in Rockville, Md., on Nov. 11,\u2019 said Ralph Tucker, her workers\u2019 compensation lawyer\u2026. After an 11-day stay, Wale emerged with a diagnosis that included depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder\u2013and no job.\u201d<\/p>\n Amazingly, Room 233 is still open for business for any who might desire it. For all we know, they\u2019re using the same mattresses. What\u2019s wondrous about this decision is that many high-rise buildings refuse to have a 13th floor because it\u2019s bad luck. Couldn\u2019t Room 233 at least have been made into a vending room with an ice machine? No, they couldn\u2019t keep ice in there. Too cold.<\/p>\n Assistant professor Philip Brou of the Maine College of Art has had the artistic courage to risk staying overnight in Room 233. His installation \u201cBlack Box\u201d recreates the unencompassable loneliness of the unit for viewers; after his work\u2019s high impact at the 2011 Maine Biennial, Portland Museum of Art snapped it up as part of its permanent collection.<\/p>\n September 2011 On a dazzling fall day, it\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-4565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-september-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14491,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions\/14491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"