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It really was a bad habit. Teaching Gen Z must have had some permanent effect on Grace’s brain. He tried to kick it. He really did, but it kept coming out.
“Well, that went down like the World Trade Center,” he would remark after some of their fishing chain broke. Or, when 9 out of 11 Taumeoba samples developed nitrogen resistance, he’d go “nine eleven where my planes at?!!” and laugh hysterically for about a minute. Rocky, of course, asked for clarification, and Grace told the alien not to worry about it.
But as they were traveling towards Erid, it started to slip into Grace’s speech patterns more and more.
“Sir, a second plane has struck the towers!”
Or, when he started choking down taumeoba to supplement the coma slurry, “Sir, a second terrible meal has hit my diet!”
Or when they finally crossed into Rocky’s solar system, “Sir, a second alien has struck the 40 Eridani system!”
Maybe he was being insensitive. Maybe he was just getting loopy and turning to dark humor. Honestly, they still had over a month to go before reaching Erid, and he wished every 9/11 victim and their families the best trying to sue him for defamation after he was dead of malnutrition in space.
But Rocky was the problem. After days of Rocky pleading for Grace to explain, Grace just tossed him the laptop. “Look up September eleventh, Rocky. It’s all on the internet. I can even find you a documentary or something.”
“Thank thank,” said Rocky. “But will not work today. Am fixing camera sensor device. Cannot hear screen until done fixing tool.”
“Well, shucks,” Grace said, as Rocky asked “puppet show??”
Grace sighed and pulled out the necessary supplies.
—----------------------
“So these are the twin towers,” he said, holding up two test tubes. “And this is an airplane,” he held up a paper airplane folded from an index card. “And on September eleventh, the plane,” he mimed a collision, “flew into the towers.”
“Bad bad bad! Why didn’t pilot notice it was flying too low, question?”
“It was hijacked by terrorists, Rocky. They flew it on purpose. To y’know… cause terror."
Rocky was shaking with rage. “But how did they take down both towers with just one plane question?”
“Ah,” Grace said, and pulled out another plane.
“No!” Rocky said.
“Yes,” Grace said sadly. “It was a tragedy. Thousands died.”
Rocky didn’t speak for about a minute. He seemed unable to form words. “Why Grace always say ‘second plane has struck towers’ question?” he finally eked out, his tone uneasy.
“Ah, well. Uh.”
“Grace says it when happy. Grace laugh after saying it.” Rocky started slowly backing away from Grace.
“Uh. Well,” Grace didn’t know how to explain this. “I’m a middle school teacher, Rocky, and my kids were all born after September eleventh, so they don’t have the trauma associated with it. They kind of missed the uh. The cultural impact. So 9/11 has become somewhat of a meme for them.”
Rocky was silent.
“You know what a meme is, right?”
“Yes. I learn last week. Like Richard Roll. Or six seven. Memes are jokes for young humans. Grace spend all his time with young humans. Young humans inspire Grace to make JOKES about 9/11! Grace is mean mean mean!”
“Rock, it’s seriously not all that bad, okay? It was a long time ago. I mean, not that long, but—”
But Rocky was cringing away from Grace in disgust. He threw himself into fixing his device and didn’t speak to Grace the rest of the day. When it was time for Grace to sleep, Rocky perched at an arm’s length and didn’t speak a word.
Then, in the middle of the night, Grace woke up to the Eridian shrieking with horror. “Wait!” yelled Rocky. “Six Seven! Six Seven!”
“Nope,” Grace said. “I’m not doing this,” and tried to turn over and go to sleep again, but Rocky was relentless. “Six seven! Six seven!”
“Is this supposed to be my divine punishment for the jokes? Because it’s not not working–”
“No!” Rocky said. “What happened on six seven, question?” A realization slowly dawned on Grace. “What terror attack happened on date six seven of human calender year, question?”
Grace laughed and laughed. “Not funny!” Rocky said. “I knew six seven was meme like nine eleven! How many must die, question? How many must die for Grace to grow a soul, question?”
“Rocky, six seven isn’t a day nine eleven! There were no terrorists. It’s just a funny number.” Grace rolled over, already half asleep. “Jeez, you’re sensitive. I didn’t even tell you what happened to the pentagon.”
“THEY HIT THE FUCKING PENTAGON, QUESTION?”