Prologue
I once told my therapist that, when I was in college, I wrote poetry (I later realized) as a way of processing and understanding my feelings. When my father died, I was having difficulty dealing with my feelings about it; I felt trapped in a stubborn numbness. My therapist encouraged me to write then. Several poems came out of it, and writing them helped unlock me.
So when I found myself stranded in Chicago on September 11, 2001, my instinct was to write. I did so, almost compulsively, as if my survival depended on it. The resultant memoir was long, rambling, repetitive and horribly written. And yet, I felt I needed to share it with the family and friends I’d been so far away from at such a horrible moment in our history and in our lives. I sent it out by email to those closest to me.
Less than two weeks after 9/11, I was on a plane again, bound for the Grand Canyon for a vacation my friends Howard and Bill and I had scheduled months before. Against the backdrop of that natural wonder, I continued to process my feelings about 9/11 in what became the first set of “Postcards from Don” that I sent out by email.
Eventually, after that email distribution grew to almost 75 (and after “blogging” came into being), I transferred the Postcards to this blog. So it was really 9/11 and my compulsive, rambling memoir of it that returned me to writing – a passion I’d only dabbled in since college.
It seemed appropriate to revisit that memoir on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I’ve edited it rigorously, correcting inaccuracies, righting the chronology, eliminating redundancy. It’s a tighter narrative with a clearer storyline. But, although it details my thoughts, feeling and actions on 9/11/01 and the five days following it before I returned to New York, it’s not really about 9/11.
After my return, 9/11 would take on a terrible and poignant tangibility for me. In the posters for missing persons that plastered every surface from 14th Street down to the Battery. In what smelled like formaldehyde, when I walked out of my apartment every morning. In the impromptu candle vigils that assembled every night in Union Square, one block from where I lived. In the uncommon kindness and courtesy New Yorkers displayed to each other – so much salve for our communal suffering.
Sometimes, when I’m troubled, I just go out and walk. And I did that one night after 9/11. Without even intending to or even realizing what I was doing, I made a circuit around midtown Manhattan, stopping at the landmark buildings — the Chrysler Building, MetLife, Citicorp Center, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, New York Life on Madison Square – as if I needed to reassure myself they were still there, that everything in the city that is my home was not falling down around me. My 9/11 memoir is really about the nature of “home” – both the place and the feeling; at least what “home” is for me.
In these days of texts and tweets, I have to warn you: it exceeds 140 characters. It runs, in fact, to fourteen typewritten pages. It will take you approximately thirty minutes to read, should you choose to. It’s a bit of a global tragedy in itself that that seems long, even to the author.
POSTCARD FROM 9/11: HOME
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
9:00 a.m. Omni Chicago Hotel
I’m in Chicago for consumer research with my Evian clients. I flew in late last night on American out of LaGuardia. I had an earlier flight, but it was cancelled as a big thunderstorm blew through New York. Luckily, I got the last flight out. Otherwise, I would have had to go back home to Manhattan and re-book for first thing in the morning. With groups starting at noon, I could have made it; but they’re scheduled well into the evening. It would have made for a very long day.
I go down to breakfast a bit after 9:00 a.m. Chicago time. There’s a TV above the bar at the entrance to the restaurant, and a handful of customers and staff are watching. On the screen, I see a building being demolished, collapsing on itself. A title above the image says “Moments ago in New York City.”
I don’t recognize the building. I’m curious which it is, and why its demolition is on the news. Nothing’s visible around it, so it must be a notable skyscraper. But unlike the old buildings that are demolished from time to time in New York to make room for new development, this one seems unadorned and modern. I don’t get it.
As I’m seated for breakfast, I overhear people talking at neighboring tables: a plane has crashed into the World Trade Towers. I’m imagining a small private plane, the pilot losing control in strong winds, slamming into the building. What else would be flying that low in the vicinity of downtown Manhattan?
But then I hear otherwise: two commercial jets have been hijacked and flown into the sides of each of the towers. The Federal Aviation Administration is pulling every airplane in flight out of the sky. The entire U.S. airspace is being shut down. One of the towers has collapsed. Now I understand the image on the screen – moments ago in New York City. My home.
I eat my breakfast mechanically. I think about being on an airplane (as I so often am) while it flies into the side of a skyscraper. Or being in an office in a high-rise building in New York (as I so often am) as an airplane crashes through your window. I stare out the restaurant window at the skyscrapers on Michigan Avenue. The image from the television screen – moments ago in New York City, the building collapsing on itself like an accordion – replays over and over in my mind. As if my mind is trying to comprehend something it cannot.
As the nature of what has happened reverberates inside me, a vast pit begins to open up and expand around me: at a moment of national emergency, the likes of which my generation has never known, I am by myself in a city I hardly know and where I know no one – eight hundred miles from home. Right now, all I wish is that I were home, and that I didn’t have to now somehow get there.
9:45 a.m. Omni Chicago Hotel
Back in my room, I frantically begin trying to call New York. On my cell phone, on the hotel’s landline, I am trying to reach people I know. Whether it is more to know they’re alive or to comfort myself with familiar voices, I can’t say. Nothing goes through. “At the moment, we are unable to complete your call. Please hang up and try again later.” I can’t get a dial-up internet connection on my laptop to get to email either.
I realize that, except for a few people in my office, neither my family in suburban Washington D.C. nor any of my friends in New York know I’m in Chicago. I travel for work so often, it’s never occurred to me to tell anyone other than my assistant of my whereabouts. I need to contact my sister Jan to tell her I’m all right, but I can’t complete a phone call to her either.
Suddenly, one of my attempts to dial into the LAN at the office succeeds. I log into our email and quickly shoot a note off to my sister with the hotel’s phone number, saying, “I’m fine, I’m in Chicago.” I’m extremely careful to get her new e-mail address right and to not accidentally send the e-mail before it’s finished – something that happens frequently due to an over-sensitive touch pad I don’t know how to adjust. I do everything deliberately, while hurrying to finish; I’m fearful the network will disconnect me unexpectedly, and I won’t be able to reconnect.
My Evian client calls me on the hotel phone. She says, “Are you watching the news?” In my haste to reach my family and friends in New York, I have yet to turn on the television. She tells me our work today is cancelled. Our focus groups were to be held in the Hancock Center, one of the tallest buildings in Chicago, and the building has been evacuated and closed for the day, fearing it, too, might be a target. We agree we will meet later at her hotel for lunch.
I turn on CNN and learn about the airplane flying into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. My sister lives ten minutes from Dulles Airport in suburban Virginia, and my brother-in-law works in downtown D.C. Now I know why my calls to the Washington area aren’t going through.
Bizarre bits of news strike me. Tourists in midtown Manhattan are snapping up postcards of the Trade Towers barely minutes after the attacks. There were e-mail exchanges and phone calls, suddenly cut off, between people trapped on the upper floors of the towers and their families. Phone calls from the hijacked planes were received. A family in Seattle gets a call made on a cellphone from a survivor trapped in the basement after the tower’s collapse.
In my mind, I begin a triage of people I must reach. I keep dialing numbers on my cell phone and on the hotel’s landline, hoping that something will randomly go through. I try again to get an email connection on my laptop. Nothing.
The hotel has high-speed WebTV; something I’ve never used before, but I give it a try. It’s clunky and strange, with a wireless keyboard and directional keys like those on a remote to jump from field to field on the television monitor. After navigating through several screens, amazingly, within seconds I’m into my personal email, looking at a list of mails. My friend Christine in Florida writes, “Are you all right? Will you please respond.” There’s an email from my friend Corey in Manhattan to his friends and family – subject: I’m fine. I dash off emails with similar subjects: I’m fine; I’m in Chicago.
Periodically, I check in again on the news. I hear that the second tower has collapsed. I’m thinking of my friends Carin and Larry, parents to my 6-year-old god-daughter Nora. I can’t remember if both or one of them or either is working in the Trade Towers now. I remember visiting Carin there once on the 90-something-th floor. I stood in the stairwell, feeling the swaying at the top of the tower, hearing the steel of the staircases groan like whales at sea.
The hotel phone rings. My sister, having gotten my e-mail, gets through. I’m sure that all I do at the sound of her voice is sob and babble incoherently. She says, thank god you were in Chicago. I understand what she means, but I’m not thankful to be in Chicago. I wish I were home.
A couple of responses to my emails have come in when I check in on the WebTV. Some of my friends are accounted for now. Bill is in Philadelphia for work; Howard is in New York, but safe and sound.
12:00 Noon, Michigan Avenue, Chicago
As I walk up Michigan Avenue to meet my clients at their hotel, I keep trying to make calls on my cell phone. I alternate between people’s cell phones, their office numbers, and their home phones. It is a beautiful fall day, warm and breezy.
Finally a call goes through. I’ve gotten through to Ben, a young British guy who works for me; it’s his voicemail. I leave a message, and shortly he calls me back. The office is fine, they’re going home, but he sounds frazzled and distraught. I reach the hotel; my clients are waiting in the lobby. I break into tears, as I talk about being unable to reach people in New York. Later, one of my Evian clients tells an agency colleague that I seemed to be “taking it pretty hard.”
In the middle of lunch, Corey reaches me on my cellphone. He’s gone downtown, walking amidst the chaos, taking photos on his digital camera. I tell him he’s out of his fucking mind. The police are making him board a ferry that’s taking people away from downtown Manhattan to New Jersey. They won’t let him go back the way he came. He thinks he’ll get a bus back into Manhattan.
After lunch, I walk back toward my hotel along Lake Shore Drive. I want the open space of the lake, the endless expanse of water to calm me. But I barely notice it. I keep trying to reach Carin and Larry, fearing the worst. Every time I dial their home in Brooklyn, I get a recorded message: “Due to the tornado in the area you are calling, your call cannot be completed. Please try again later.’ Now is one second later. I dial again for the umpteenth time, and this time it rings.
I expect to get their answering machine and step off the noisy sidewalk into the entrance of a building to leave a message. Larry answers the phone. He and Carin and Nora are at home. Larry is working in Jersey City now. Carin works in the World Financial Center across the street from the Trade Center. She walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and picked up Nora at daycare. A great relief. I am sobbing into the phone, telling Larry how worried I was about them. Two women leaving the building give me the “is that person all right or not” look.
Then I think of Anthony. Is he working at the Trade Towers these days? He’s always changing offices; I can’t remember. Finally I reach him at home. He tells a harrowing tale of watching the towers fall from an office two and a half blocks away. He and two others decided to make a run for it as the dust cloud approached them.
Another call from my sister. She asks me about my friend Marisa, who she’s met. I don’t know; I haven’t heard from her. I start calling her, and soon I reach her. She says that Randy walked into the chaos coming up from the subway on his way to the studio where he works on Thomas Street, just blocks away from the Trade Center. They’re home now; the baby is fine.
Back at the hotel, I e-mail my friends Marsha and Kay. I speak with Marsha at home; she’s fine. Kay calls me. She’s at the New York Times where normally she works in advertising sales. Today, she’s in the newsroom, taking down reporters’ stories as they phone them in. I talk with Christine and Patrick in Florida. They didn’t get my e-mail, the very first I sent. But now they know I’m OK. We talk until the President comes on the television.
There’s no one left to contact. Among those who are closest to me, everyone is accounted for. All fine; everyone safely at home. Everyone told I’m OK.
I turn down an invitation to have dinner with my clients. I don’t feel up to sitting in a restaurant, talking to people I don’t really know that well. I order room service and watch the news until I can’t listen to it anymore. I am exhausted, zombie-like. And yet my mind is spinning in overdrive. I drink the two tiny bottles of Jack Daniels in the mini-bar. I have a couple of Ambien with me that I keep for sleeping on cross-country flights. I take one.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Chicago
I go to the hotel gym in the morning, do thirty minutes of cardio, and stretch. Michael who works with me on Evian calls from the office on my cell phone; he walked home across the Brooklyn Bridge as well. I talk with my sister again. I have breakfast in the hotel dining room.
We are actually proceeding as scheduled with the second day of our three days of focus groups. We’ve moved to another facility – one that’s not in one of the city’s landmark skyscrapers. I walk there. It’s another beautiful day in Chicago, sunny and warm. It seems like a normal day, though the traffic is light, both the cars and pedestrians. But stores are open, and people are walking around.
Over half the respondents show up. They debate the usual stuff about “the brand.” Routine and anything familiar are good. They make me feel as though life might actually return to normal. It’s even good to sit and listen to people talk about bottled water. It takes my mind off what has happened and what might happen, briefly.
In between our midday and evening groups, I walk out onto North Michigan Avenue. I buy t-shirts on sale at the Gap. Look at electronics in the Sony Store. Eat some popcorn. It’s a great relief to be doing normal, everyday things.
But throughout the day, periodically, my anxiety focuses my attention on the airport situation. I’m not scheduled to leave until Friday morning, but I follow developments closely. There is talk in the media that the airports might reopen at noon today, and if not at noon, then in the evening. They do not. Then the word is maybe tomorrow, Thursday, but still not before noon.
Back at the hotel, the network connection to my office is down; no internet from my laptop. I do the WebTV thing again. I decide I should check on Amtrak and see what’s running on Friday morning from Chicago to New York, just in case. It couldn’t hurt to have a reservation. I enter the information for September 14th, requesting schedules; a screen pops up to tell me they can’t book more than 340 days in advance. I check all the fields. There is no place to indicate a year. I try again several times; I get the same response. I give up in exasperation.
Throughout my efforts, I’ve sipped the two tiny Jack Daniels replacement bottles from the mini-bar. I have two Ambien left. One tonight. One tomorrow, if I need it. After that, I should be headed home.
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Chicago
Back in the gym again. Airplanes not moving yet. They say maybe they will move the planes stranded at airports other than their intended destination today and start actual passenger flights this evening. Friday morning is looking more and more iffy to me.
I have no fear about getting back on an airplane. Maybe I don’t think terrorists will strike twice in the same way. Maybe I’m in denial. Maybe I’m just that anxious to get home. But I do start thinking about what it will be like when I do fly.
Undoubtedly there will be increased security measures. I have an Exacto knife in my carry-on. I brought it with me to slice pictures out of magazines as remodeling ideas for my apartment. The hijackers used box cutters as weapons. I guess I’ll be leaving that behind.
Then there’s the multi-tool Swiss Army knife I always carry in my toiletry kit, just in case. It’s been handy while traveling numerous times and was a birthday present from someone; I don’t want to leave it behind. Perhaps if it’s buried in my toiletry kit in my checked baggage, it will be fine.
I also have a tiny amount of pot in my toiletries case. What if my luggage is completely searched? They’re looking for potential hijackers, not recreational drug users, but wouldn’t it be stupid to risk it? I decide I’ll have to flush it before I leave.
Then there’s the possibility of leaving my Chicago hotel only to end up stranded at an airport for days. Who knows what could happen? I should take a large amount of cash with me. Maybe $1000, just in case I can’t use a credit card somewhere. I might have to pay someone to drive me some distance, if I can’t get all the way to New York. I make a mental note to stop at an ATM today. I have nothing with me to read. I could be standing in lines, waiting in terminals forever. I’ll buy several books on our afternoon break.
I find I have a harder time this morning getting calls through than I did yesterday. E-mail over our LAN only operates within the agency; our external connection is down. I can’t get into my personal e-mail with Verizon; that network seems to be down as well. This worries me; things are supposed to be returning to normal, not deteriorating.
I decide to extend my Chicago hotel reservation through Friday night, checking out on Saturday, just in case.
We have morning groups at the facility. The area sales manager takes us to lunch. Afterwards, I stop in Borders and buy three books. I hit the first ATM I see — Banco Popular. I withdraw $500 from checking and $500 from savings. I return to the facility for our evening groups.
Between sessions, I hear the bad news. All New York and Washington airports remain closed. They opened briefly, but because some guys tried to board planes at JFK with phony pilots’ ID’s, they’re closed again now. I check with the airline; my morning flight is still scheduled. But I don’t believe the phone reps have reliable information.
I leave my colleagues around 10:30 p.m. and return to my hotel. I stop at the front desk and extend my reservation one night more through Sunday morning, just in case.
I’m holding a reservation from Chicago to LaGuardia for tomorrow morning. I’m thinking the chances are slim to none I’ll be on that plane or on any plane into any New York airport in the morning. I begin to consider alternatives.
If I could fly to Philadelphia, I could rent a car and drive to New York or take a cab there. I actually did that once in Philly when I’d missed the last train back. The guy charged me a couple hundred bucks.
I call American and make a reservation on the first available flight from Chicago to Philly. It’s late tomorrow night and arrives in Philly at 11:30 p.m. I could get stuck there overnight, unable to get out of Philly until Saturday morning. That’s September 15th, my birthday. There’s got to be something better.
I could try to get to my sister’s outside of Washington. Even though Dulles and Reagan National are still closed, there are smaller airports within driving distance. Maybe I could get to Charlottesville, VA. Fortunately, the internet connection through work is back. I go to Expedia. No direct flights to Charlottesville from Chicago. I revise the search to include any number of stops. Bingo! There are flights to Charlottesville connecting through Baltimore/Washington International Airport.
I’d totally forgotten about BWI. The eastern end of the Orange Line for the Washington Metro is at New Carrollton, a couple of train stops away from BWI. My sister’s Metro stop is at the western end of the Orange Line.
I look up direct flights from Chicago to BWI. US Airways has the first from Midway at 7:45 a.m. But Expedia won’t accept a next-day booking. I call US Air, and they make a reservation for that flight. I get on Amtrak’s website, and now I’m able to make a train reservation for Sunday from Washington D.C. to New York. Trains into the city should be running by then.
I’m now holding three plane reservations – to NY, Philadelphia and BWI. If, when I wake in the morning, New York is open, I’ll go there. If not, it’s BWI. Philly is a last resort.
I check e-mails one last time. Communications are better now, and I’ve been receiving messages and calls of love and concern. My friend Roger calls me from LA, as does my friend David. I get a message from Fran, my first boss back in 1982, now in Arizona; she is worried about me. Jeremy calls me from Paris. I get an e-mail from Marianne, a colleague from our agency in Paris who’s worked with me on Evian, expressing her shock and best wishes for my safety. There is an e-mail from another colleague in Germany. The British company from which we rented a villa in Tuscany last October sends an e-mail to all its American customers, expressing their sorrow. A friend from my freshman year in college, whom I’ve not seen, spoken to or heard from in over 25 years, e-mails to tell me how concerned he’s been about me. He got my e-mail address off the alumni website. I reply, thanking everyone for their kind, caring thoughts. Alone in my hotel room, these thoughts from far-flung people in my life make me weep.
I schedule a wake-up call for 3:30 a.m. My plan is to leave the hotel at 5:00 to get to Midway at least by 5:45, two hours before my flight. Just in case. Who knows what kind of scene it will be. It’s now 1:30 a.m. I’ve drunk one of the tiny replacement Jack Daniels from the mini-bar. I won’t take the last Ambien. I get up in two hours; I won’t really sleep anyway.
Friday, September 14, 2001
3:30 a.m. Chicago Omni Hotel
The wake-up call comes on time. I turn on the TV and hear what I knew would be the case – New York airports will still be closed today. BWI it is. I shower and order room service. I try to call US Airways to confirm the flight but am put on hold interminably. I put them on speaker-phone, while I dress and pack. I flush the pot. I leave the Exacto knife in the desk drawer. I pack the Swiss Army knife in my checked bag. I raid the mini-bar for snacks and water, just in case.
At 4:57 a.m., room service has not arrived, and there’s no response at US Air.
I decide to leave anyway and take my chances at Midway; I can’t stay here waiting anymore. I cancel room service. At the front desk, I cancel the remaining nights on my hotel reservation and check out. The porter gets me a cab. He asks me where I’m from. When I say “New York,” he gets a look of pained sympathy on his face and makes a muffled sigh. He wishes me a safe trip home.
5:18 a.m. Chicago Midway Airport
When my cab pulls up, a police car pulls up directly behind us and remains there with his headlights trained on us as I pay, until the cab takes off. I join four others already in line at the US Airways ticket counter. Another 15 people soon line up behind me. I’m feeling some comfort in numbers. But no one is behind the counter yet.
Other carriers are busy checking folks in. At 6:15 a.m., a woman in uniform emerges from a door behind the counter and starts to talk with the people at the front of the line. I elbow in and overhear “cancelled.” She makes no announcement. I tell the people in the rest of the line behind me.
Two ticket agents show up and begin re-ticketing us. We’re all booked on a 7:45 p.m. We’re sort of on a stand-by list for a 2:45 p.m. that’s already sold out. They say they can’t actually put people on stand-by more than 4 hours in advance. We’re told to come back to the ticket counter at 10:45 a.m. to be officially listed on stand-by and to check in our luggage.
Hauling my luggage behind me, I go check with the agents at American. There’s something from O’Hare to BWI at 9:55 a.m., but I’ve barely time to change airports; it takes an hour by cab. And if I go there and it cancels, then I might miss the 10:45 stand-by sign-up at Midway; and who knows, maybe I’d get on it. It seems foolish to run back and forth between O’Hare and Midway, chasing flights that are likely to cancel. If worse comes to worse, I’m on a 7:45pm. If it leaves.
I decide to wait it out at Midway. There’s nowhere to sit in the ticketing area. I sit on the floor with my luggage, leaning against a wall. I feel utterly defeated. I’ve used my best judgment at every turn, but I cannot seem to catch a break.
Then a woman who was behind me in line at US Air comes over and tells me there is a flight to BWI at 11:20 a.m. on Southwest Airlines with seats. And they are actually checking people in.
I run to the Southwest counter and buy a ticket. The ticket agent, wearing latex surgeon’s gloves, thoroughly searches both my checked and carry-on luggage. She rummages through everything, including my dirty laundry bag. She asks if I have a pocket knife anywhere. I mention the Swiss Army knife in the toiletry kit. She’s goes through the kit but doesn’t remove the knife. I get my ticket and head to the gate. I am asked to show my ticket and ID to security guards at several different points. There’s hardly anyone in the airport.
9:04 a.m. Chicago Midway Airport, Gate A71
I’m the first person at the gate. I write. I wait.
At some point, my phone rings. It’s Gabriela, my Columbian housekeeper, who’s been cleaning my apartment for years. I almost never see her: she has her own keys; she comes to the apartment after I’ve left for the day; I leave money for her in a bowl in the pantry. She’s been to the apartment and can tell I haven’t been home; she was worried. I hadn’t thought of calling her; I’m not sure I even have her phone number. She doesn’t speak much English at all, but I talk with her in my broken Spanish, assuring her I’m fine and learning that she and her family are all OK. A woman, waiting for the flight as well, overhears the conversation and smiles sympathetically at me.
Eventually, an earnest young man exchanges our tickets for yellow plastic boarding cards. It’s all-coach, open seating on Southwest. We’re about to board Flight #124 to Baltimore/Washington International, with a stop in Cleveland. We’re told the pilots are on board; now we’re just waiting for two flight attendants to arrive. Someone jokes and volunteers to serve the peanuts, if that’s all holding us up. Everyone is trying to get home, wherever that is. On the television, there’s a prayer service going on at the National Cathedral.
Finally the flight attendants arrive to huge applause, and we board.
11:30 a.m. Soutwest Flight #124 Chicago to BWI
We take off without delay. It’s another beautiful, sunny day. We rise to 27,000 feet above little puffy clouds. The flight to Cleveland is short. It’s like the New York-Dulles trip I’ve made so often to visit my sister and family. This is what flying should be; take off and land, with less than an hour in the air. Recently for work, I’ve been flying cross-country almost weekly to San Francisco or Los Angeles. I can’t help feeling I’ve dodged a bullet this week.
We land in Cleveland briefly; let some people off; take some people on. The flight from Cleveland to BWI is a carbon copy of the first leg – up and down in less than an hour. On the ground, I take an airport courtesy bus to the train station at BWI. I buy a four-dollar ticket on MARC, the Maryland commuter railroad, to take me 3 stops to New Carrollton.
I buy a pre-made, refrigerated egg salad sandwich and some Doritos. I’ve had nothing to eat since I woke up at 3:30am except hotel courtesy apples, pilfered mini-bar snacks, and airline peanuts and ginger ale.
The trip to New Carrollton takes 15 minutes; then I get on the Metro, the Orange Line to Vienna, Virginia. It takes about an hour; my sister will be waiting for me at the other end. I take in the usual international mix of Washington Metro passengers. Two Filipino boys are eyeing me and giggling, talking to each other in Tagalog. I hear the word ‘cute’ as part of a string of words that sounds like an English-Asian-Spanish linguistic ménage-a-trois. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotations. It’s a statement made by a character in a Kurt Vonnegut novel, speaking about his deceased wife. “In everything she did there was something flirtatious. And what is flirtatiousness, if not an argument that life must go on and on?”
Arriving in Vienna, I exit the Metro station on the south side, our agreed-upon meeting place. I look around for my sister’s minivan but don’t see it at first. Then I spot her sitting look-out for me on top of the van. We wave to each other as though from across an ocean.
She scrambles down and meets me at the back of the van. We stand there holding each other for a very long time. My throat clutches, and the tears well up. My 84-year old mother is in the car. I don’t think she quite gets what’s happened. She seems to think I’m just visiting and asks how long I’ll be staying this time. Probably better this way. We drive to the house.
My brother-in-law gets home from work. We all sit in the kitchen, as Jan makes curried pork for dinner, talking. It’s the kind of talk people everywhere have to do now. Around kitchen tables. On the telephone and via e-mail. Sitting in offices and cubicles. Waiting in lines in public places. Standing on the curb with one other stranger, waiting for a bus. The nightmare images. The amazing survivor stories. The accounts from people who were there. The nefarious methodology of the act that seems like it will have changed our lives forever. My brother-in-law wonders how I will react when I finally see Manhattan again.
New York, New York. “So good, we say it twice.” My home for the past 25 years.
Later that evening, I take the minivan and drive my 15-year-old nephew and one of his buddies to Blockbuster to get videos. My niece, Megan, 13-years-old, comes along. We end up with Fight Club. It’s more of a guy’s movie, so it was the boy’s choice, of course. But Megan goes along with it because it stars Brad Pitt, and he’s cute. I’m good with it for both reasons, even though I’ve seen it before.
I’d forgotten the ending. Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter stand in the window of an office building, watching skyscrapers fall that have been dynamited by Norton’s gang. They collapse exactly as the Trade Towers did on television three days ago – a vertical domino game with the buildings’ floors as the pieces; more like an implosion, into clouds of dust.
As I brush my teeth, I think, this whole event feels like a disaster movie – a science-fiction action film in which mad terrorists drive hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Towers, bringing them down. Frightened city-dwellers run in panic through the canyon streets of downtown Manhattan, a huge ball of smoke, soot and debris pursuing them like Godzilla, King Kong or other monsters from B-grade, black and white horror films I watched on television as a child in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
My sister calls me over to look at newyork.com’s website. She is fascinated by an interactive, 3D, panoramic photo of the Trade Towers. The site says it offers this, so we can “view the World Trade Center in all its beauty before it and many innocent lives were destroyed.” She swirls her viewpoint around within the image. Now it’s as if we were lying on our backs on the ground between the two towers, watching them rise above us to seeming infinity or to heaven.
Saturday, September 15, 2001
Chantilly, Virginia
Today is my birthday. I’m 48 years old. My mother gives me a birthday card with a ten-dollar bill inside – to get a little something for myself. On the front, there’s a charming illustration of people cross-country skiing in a city park in winter. Behind the park, a wall of tall buildings. At first, I don’t notice the detail; then I take a second glance. I realize the park is Central Park and the city, New York.
My Mother doesn’t remember things so well anymore. She says she didn’t know it was New York, though she probably picked it out for that very reason originally. The buildings depicted are recognizable landmarks one might see from the Park looking south: the Chrysler Building, Citicorp, the Empire State Building and other lesser-known ones a New Yorker would recognize. And then I see them. Incongruously, bearing no relationship to their actual location, the Trade Towers, slim and modernly elegant rise above the rest.
It’s a quiet day. I copy childhood photos from my mother’s and sister’s collections at the CVS pharmacy on the Kodak photo machine. Jan shops for fixings for my birthday dinner.
I reconnect with various friends by phone. I talk at length with Carin, who left the World Financial Center with colleagues, despite being told to stay in the building for their safety. It’s one of the buildings that now might have to be brought down because of damage. She describes walking around the tip of Manhattan amidst blinding soot and smoke, to the Brooklyn Bridge. She mentions seeing high-heeled shoes on the bridge, abandoned by women in favor of walking barefoot. I talk again with Anthony, who worked two blocks away and left as the towers fell. He doesn’t remember what he did the day after on Wednesday. He knows he walked around and bought a sandwich somewhere, but he doesn’t remember where. He’s blanked out the entire day.
Judd, my sister’s next-door neighbor brings over leftover pizza from daughter Jill’s thirteenth birthday party, where Megan stayed last night on a birthday sleepover. The neighbors know me from many family visits. Once I interviewed them for a project at work about family vacations. He tells me how glad they all are to see me. After dinner, there is the usual poorly sung chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ with one candle that says ‘Guess Who’s Over the Hill?’ stuck in a piece of apple upside-down pie. One of the best birthdays ever.
Before going to bed, I confirm the Metroliner reservation I’ve made to New York for tomorrow.
Sunday, September 16, 2001
9:00 a.m. Chantilly, Virginia
I wake up and re-confirm my reservation. I retrieve my whites from the dryer and pack for my journey. I make a sandwich from the leftovers of last night’s chicken. I say my good-byes to the family. I’ll see them next at Christmas.
Jan drives me to the Vienna Metro station. Fang, her white American Eskimo and the loyal family dog, accompanies us. Often, in the car, he likes to lie in your lap or rest his head on your leg if you’re sharing the backseat. I will carry reminders of him back to New York on most of my clothing. I always do.
One of my favorite things about the suburban stations on the Washington Metro is particularly meaningful today. When driving in, if you are parking your car and taking the train into the city, you follow the signs marked ‘Park and Ride.’ If you are being dropped off, you follow signs that say ‘Kiss and Ride.’ We do, and now I will.
I buy my farecard for Union Station. I’ll take the Orange line to Metro Center where I’ll change for the Red line to Union Station. I help a guy at the automated ticket machine who’s headed to Providence, RI and trying to get to the BWI Airport from here. Now I’m an expert, having made the exact same trip in reverse two days ago. I tell him several times exactly what he needs to do. I don’t see him coming down the escalator to the platform. I wonder if he’s gotten confused. Then he shows up.
He sits next me on the train and starts talking to me. He smells of alcohol. He came down to visit his lifelong best friend in Reston, who is dying. His wife didn’t want him to go this weekend, because of everything that’s happened, but he’d made these plans long ago. They had tickets for the Red Sox game, but it was postponed. He’s sure he’ll never see his friend again. He sits on the train and weeps. Probably he drank himself to sleep last night in his grief. Now he’s going home.
At one point, the announcer reminds us that if we’re exiting the Metro at the Pentagon, we must have papers permitting us to be there. I continue to Metro Center, leaving the Rhode island guy, and transfer for the Red line. Three stops later, I get off at Union Station.
1:00pm Washington D.C. Union Station
I slide my credit card into the QuickFare machine. It’s a relief to see the reservation I made over the internet Thursday night in Chicago pop up on the screen here today. I retrieve my ticket and proceed to the gate. Jeremy calls me on my cell phone from Paris to see how I’m doing. Cory calls me from New York to see when I’m getting in. We agree to meet at Mary Ann’s in Chelsea for Mexican and a margarita. He’s checked on my apartment. He can tell that Gabriella was there to clean; she’s already closed the windows I’d asked him to check, that I’d left cracked open before I flew to Chicago. At some point on Tuesday, I’d had a thought that they were still open. The smoke. The dust.
Waiting for the platform announcement, I chat with an older couple returning to New York who live on the Upper East Side. I remark that I’m surprised at how few people are at the gate, for a train that is leaving in ten minutes. They tell me they came down on Thursday on a train that was half empty.
We are called aboard. I choose my seat purposefully, on the right side near the window. I know that as the train glides through New Jersey on the way into Newark, there is a perfect view of the downtown Manhattan skyline from the southwest.
2:00 p.m. Amtrak #216, Washington, D.C. to New York
The train pulls out of Washington, and we begin our scheduled stops along the way. BWI. (Good luck, Rhode Island guy.) Baltimore Penn Station. Wilmington. Philadelphia. At Philly, I am particularly aware of the skyline. There are two boxy glass towers that I’ve always thought completely graceless. Today, lit by the afternoon sun, they seem remarkably solid.
Pulling out of Philly, I become more vigilant. As a child, I knew the name of every cross-street on my bicycle ride from school to home, and I would note my progress ritualistically as I rode. I do the same now with towns, as we cross into New Jersey. I see signs for Princeton Junction. South Brunswick. Edison. Metuchen. Iselin. Rahway. Linden.
On the eastern horizon, there is an odd-colored haze in the sky – brown or orange-ish in the afternoon sun. Could it be? Or is it just the industrial air in this part of New Jersey? I’m sure it’s smog. But then I see the top of a plume of smoke that seems to be its origin. The source appears and instantly disappears behind trees and embankments. I can’t get a fix on it. We turn a bend. The ground level drops. And suddenly, there it is. Downtown Manhattan — smoldering.
As we head up to Elizabeth, the downtown skyline from the west comes into view. I ’ve seen it from this viewpoint a thousand times, yet the scene refuses to click into place with total familiarity. Where were the towers exactly? Could I see that building before, or was it blocked by the towers?
I realize my expectations of my reaction to my first glimpse of New York are influenced by the devastation I’ve seen up close on TV. I expect to weep. But at this distance, there’s no devastation to behold. Except for the smoke, it looks like a perfectly normal city skyline. Just not quite the one I know. I’m a bit disoriented. A vista that was always a “welcome home” is there, at once familiar and yet not so.
We stop momentarily in Newark. Then we continue, moving toward the Lincoln Tunnel and Midtown. The whole lower half of Manhattan is visible to me now. This is my home, and I’m almost there. Within moments, I will be stepping out onto Seventh Avenue and hailing a cab.
At the southern end of Manhattan, there is the rise of the financial district skyscrapers, now notably less distinguished than before, that is Downtown. At the northern end of my view, there is a similar rise of skyscrapers with some notable spires, which is Midtown. Right below Midtown, somewhat isolated – but beautiful, noble and defiant – stands the Empire State Building, once again the tallest building in New York. It’s the final beacon, leading me home.
Postcards from New York
