Sunday journal: Sojourn in a good place to live

They lived two presidents over from me, on Jackson Street, across U.S. 1 from Hollywood Central Elementary, by the nameless pink motel with the pay phone. None of us suspected while they were here. They could have been anybody.

Money magazine calls Hollywood, Fla., the "City of the Future" because of our racial and ethnic diversity. Everyone looks as if they belong here. Or we all look as if we don't, which is the same thing. Jackson Street rises from the sea, rolls past pricey Art Deco homes, crosses U.S. 1 and becomes a block of walking surprises. It is where the killers wanted to live. No other street would do.

After the planes hit, the towers crumbled, the Pentagon burned and the tears fell, I really wanted to know my neighbors. Especially the ones in the 1800 block across the boulevard. I wondered what it would be like to live at 1818 Jackson, in the upper-story apartment, behind a towering paradise palm. I wondered what America Mohammed Atta and his fellow killer Marwan al-Shehhi had seen when they looked past the paradise palm to life on our street.

I sat on their old front porch, in an old black wooden chair, lulled by the growl and whoosh of cars, the mad flickering of the street light, the sprinklers raining on the lawn.

How could you not blend in with the innocents on this street? My neighbors were from Trinidad, Haiti, Poland, Korea, Romania, Hawaii, Colombia. And -- why not -- a native Miamian. A token redneck. A World War II vet. A crack cocaine addict. A restaurant owner, a lawn-care guy, a computer technician, a nurse, a photographer. And a preacher and clock repairman, Jason, from Puerto Rico. Lives right across from 1818. Head of the neighborhood crime watch.

He talked to Mohammed Atta and his lady companion at 1 a.m., when they were looking for a place on the street to rent. Not just any street. They wanted to live on this street.

Seemed nice and quiet, with good neighbors. "Lot of police on this street?" was among the questions Atta asked. Didn't raise Jason's suspicions.

"Atta was a nice guy," Jason said. "Very intelligent. Polite. More than I could say about some of the other renters."

They made him realize, he said, he didn't know who his neighbors were.

I saw Kome pedaling past on his bike, the 50-ish Hawaiian man who used to live on the property and now lives downtown at Kelly's Pub. He swore, after swearing the FBI had told him not to talk, that they were the ordinariest of guys. Nice, average Joes, introducing themselves as "two brothers from Ecuador." Nice, friendly, paid cash, $600 for a month in Apartment 3A.

Later, Kome fixed their sink while they plotted and planned in an Arabic tongue, maybe which restaurant to hit for dinner. Why not? They smiled, and they paid him. What more do you ask of your employer?

To hear their old neighbors tell it, they were no bother. Came out only at night. Maybe spent the day writing letters, as tourists do. At night, they came down the staircase and plotted under the palms, with pals who pulled up in taxis, keeping Jason's daughter awake.

I asked to see a room for rent, and a tenant showed it to me. She and her husband moved here last June, she said.

Kirsten and Robert changed buildings; they live in the lower back now. "Robert worked at the World Trade Center until we pulled up stakes and moved into the building June 1," Kirsten said. "We just wanted a fresh start in Florida. He leaves the World Trade Center, and we move right to the spot the killers live. Are you believing that?"

Suddenly she looked at me closer, with supreme suspicion. "They only came out at 2 and 3 in the morning," she said. "They kept to themselves. They weren't friendly. There's nothing more to tell."

I compliment the apartment. Then she said, "That morning, when the FBI was at the door and yellow crime scene tape was wrapped across the front lawn, that's when I got to know my neighbors."

Thanks to Atta and his cousin al-Shehhi, who flew the United jet into the south tower, everyone at their old apartment building gets together often now for barbecues.

"It's a good place to live," a tall, swarthy tenant named Alberto assured me. His neighbor Roseann nodded gravely. "Good barbecues," she said.

They seemed to like me. Seemed to want me to join them around the big, round, stone table in the yard. I could have meant them harm. I could have been anyone. Writing something harmful.

There's a godawful flowered lamp up in that apartment, one of my neighbors claimed. Maybe it was by this discriminated-against light that Atta wrote the letter found in his luggage, preparing his fellow warriors for the sacrifice required to meet their 72 black-eyed virgins in paradise. "Know that paradise has been decorated for you . . . and the most beautiful women are calling upon you . . . dressed in the best of their attire."

Remember this, he urged, "when you step foot in the plane . . ."

A guy in a white Daytona Beach T-shirt stood there, looking up at my apartment window. Or maybe the coconuts up in the tree were about to fall. He just stood there, on the street, looking up. I wondered what he really was up to.

-- Ran Henry is a freelance writer who lives in Hollywood, Fla.

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