I’ve been diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. The psychologist told me this today. She read the symptoms from a worn paperback copy of the DSM guide to mental illness. “The patient has difficulty focusing…persistent thoughts of the event…physically stressful episodes provoked by internal and external stimuli” She read the passage in a low, even tone. A psychiatric tone – soothing yet authoritative.
My short-term shrink, whose name I got from Deloitte’s EAP, is Mary Rose Paster. She charges $135 per hour for her empathy and Ph.D. credentials. I think she is also trained to help people just like me. Those traumatized by events that are simply too horrible to comprehend. She’s good at what she does.
I received my diagnosis exactly one month, one hour and twenty-two minutes to the day of that horrible event. The weather today is very similar. A bright sun rose, burning off the chill of an early fall night. The air is clean. A day you remember; a day you savor.
September 11th, 2001 was such a day. I woke at six to the sounds of NPR. I quickly shut off the radio and made my way quietly to the bathroom hoping not to wake my little guys. As I got into the hall, I tried to assess where everyone was sleeping. At our house we roam through the night searching for nocturnal bliss. For Ian it is his Mama’s elbow. Griffin seeks a warm body, especially Mama’s. Mama seeks peace and some space. I seek solitude. By morning, it’s anyone’s guess as to who is where.
I showered and dressed quietly and felt my way downstairs through the darkness like a blind man. I attempted to avert the creak in the seventh step only to alert the one in the sixth. The morning was dawning and the day looked beautiful. The day’s schedule was ordinary. I had several proposals to work on but nothing that was pulling me in the direction of my office. Sometimes I fly out the door with the anticipation of a great project. Most proposal work is less exciting.
As I walked through my quiet neighborhood to the train I hoped that I would see Jeff or Carolyn or someone I could talk with to avoid reading my work. I was disappointed on the platform. No one arrived as the 6:50 a.m. Oyster Bay train pulled into the station. I sat up front and bypassed my proposal notes for a new novel I’d just picked up on vacation. I settled into the opening of Preston Falls by David Gates as the double-decker diesel made its way toward Manhattan.
When you commute daily your time on board the train feels like a suspended state; you are neither home nor at work. You’re encapsulated in a stainless steel and plastic cocoon. You pass the time rapt in conversation or a book or a view of a slice of suburbia. The chrysalis breaks at Jamaica station, when the muffled sounds of conversation and snoring are overtaken by the clamor of riders making their way to other trains…Penn Station, Flatbush, and Hunters Point. As we stepped into the arriving trains, from places like Ronkonkoma, passengers greeted us as invaders. Their temporary nests had been breached. Such is life in the public space.
We hurled ourselves to Manhattan. That guys a Wall Streeter you can tell by the cuff links. That guy in the Local 3 tee shirt is an electrician and always greets his buddy as “brother”. The women are secretaries and executives and the one sitting next to me is working on a memo on her laptop. She is the Executive Director of a directorate of the United Nations. God, I love this town!
When you commute everyday and almost always on the same train you see the same people. You don’t necessarily acknowledge each other with a hello but a sense of recognition is apparent. It feels a like ritual. A ritual of hard working people who leave their pleasant homes before dawn and head to offices that are linked into the electronic heartbeat of the global economy. As the train pulls into Penn, the conductor announces the track number. People who do this everyday know which side of the train will exit and cue near those doors. It is simply Pavlovian.
I walked to the E. In twelve minutes I am at my destination, World Trade Center/Chambers Street. I stumbled out of the train with thousands of others. The mix of the city has diversified the mainly white middle-class commuter crowd from Penn. At WTC we’ve got a mix of people that make New York the greatest town. An Asian girl dressed like she belongs in a GAP ad. A black woman in a business suit and a Goldman Sach’s brief case is headed to the gilded offices of the financial district. A white guy with a bright yellow blazer is headed to the trading floor of the mercantile exchange. We all dance a ballet of twenty-first century commerce. We are the corpuscles pumping through the veins of the great global financial behemoth.
Usually, the last outdoor moment of morning that I enjoy is on the platform in Glen Head and Jamaica. I could walk from the World Trade Center subway station through an aging 1970’s era mall underneath the twin towers to an enclosed bridge that crosses West Street into the World Financial Center, every step through canned air that’s brimming with the smell of bacon, espresso and fine Italian leather. Because of the beautiful morning in Glen Head, I decided to get outside. I emerged from the subterranean world onto the great plaza of the World Trade Center. I was teased by one of the most beautiful late summer days.
When I first began working at the World Financial Center, I thought this plaza and the twin towers were just simply out of scale with human life. I had difficulty relating to them. But as time went on they became more familiar, like giant redwoods. Instead of making me feel isolated and insignificant, the towers provided security. I liked the towers, especially during windy weather when the authorities would have to close the plaza because the wind vortices would wreak havoc on us insignificant humans. The damn buildings created their own weather.
On that Tuesday, the wind was mild. It blew along the north side of One World Trade. I walked directly into the wind and along the base of that tower. I looked up and lingered, mesmerized by the cool blue sky. I thought to myself I don’t want to go inside. Instead, I walked into the North Bridge and made my way across West Street. The bridge was being converted into a showplace for Quebec. The Canadian Province was kicking-off a month of entertainment and business in the World Financial Center to highlight its achievements.
I walked through the Winter Garden. I always gaze out through the garden’s atrium toward the Hudson. It’s a beautiful view. I work in Two World Financial Center, known to many as the Merrill Lynch building. The building is opulent with green and gray marble covering the floor and walls of the lobby. Within this vaulted space reside mundane food carts that dispense hot coffee and bagels. I got my bagel and headed for an elevator. As I got to my floor I began to think about the issues I had listed on a ‘To Do’ list. Nothing pressing to deal with except the nagging concern about the security of my job. Recently four of our group’s senior managers were laid off. Some of them had it coming but I was deeply troubled by Andy’s departure. It made me question my career at Deloitte and within the consulting field. An economic slowdown is probably not the best time to re-evaluate your career options without developing an ulcer.
I got coffee from our pantry and settled into my space. I was in a private cubicle, number 2465S. It has a glass door and a large floor-to-ceiling window. The space looked out onto an open area with windows facing West Street and the World Trade Center.
The office is called Smart Space. It is hoteling. Your only territory here is a locker and a small set of drawers on wheels. You reserve office space on a first-come-first-served basis. I liked 2465S because it got natural light and it was close to the printers. I made an effort to keep the reservation.
I settled in at 8:20 a.m. and hooked up my lap top computer. I buttered my bagel and the laptop went through its boot up cycle. I checked e-mail and found nothing too exciting. I read through some New York Times articles on-line. I had not seen any of my colleagues yet. The office was still. It usually doesn’t develop that workday buzz until 9:15 or so.
I pulled up my proposal and began to review it. My bagel was down to its last two bites. At about 8:45 a.m. a rumble shot through my seat. I thought that maybe it was the construction equipment working at the foot of our building. No way, it was too loud to be construction equipment. I leaned back in my chair until I caught a glimpse of the window. Smoke billowed around World Trade One. I shot up from the desk and bounded to the window. I scanned the front of the building looking for the reason for the smoke. The traffic on West Street was moving in fits and starts to avoid falling debris. I heard several crashes but the cars did not stop. The usual bumper-to-bumper traffic on West Street cleared out within a minute.
Several large pieces of falling debris caused me to look up. I’m on the fourth floor and, although West Street is wide, I had to lean close to the window glass to gain a clear view up at the North Tower. Smoke was pouring from a large hole on the southern exposure. The windows along the west side of the building at the same height as the hole were blown out and streaming smoke. Debris and glass were falling everywhere. Papers drifted slowly toward the street looking like some strange confetti.
Within seconds my colleagues were around me. I think Greg got there first. I ran back into my office and called 911. The message said that all circuits were busy. Nothing goes unseen in Manhattan. I raced back to the window and one of our secretaries began to scream. A woman was on fire in the street below. At first I wasn’t sure if she fell. But then we quickly realized that if she fell from 90 floors she would not have been intact. A person ran up and threw a blanket over her and smothered the flame. We speculated as to whether she was dead.
My blood was pumping. It would be great to be as cognizant as this everyday. We were all guessing what could have happened. We thought it was an explosion because the hole on the south side of the tower was bulging out. Someone said that maybe it was a plane. That sounded plausible to me. I had just attended a luncheon at Windows On The World that past Thursday. The lunch crowd commented on several occasions as to how close the planes were passing. I remember seeing several small private jets, maybe Lears or Gulfstreams, and a number of Cessnas. In my mind I thought that yes, in fact, a small jet or prop plane must have flown off course and hit the tower.
I walked into my partner’s office and called the disaster hotline phone number that is on the back of our ID cards. I had always gotten a kick out of the sticker. “In case of disaster call blah, blah, blah.” When I was hired I read the sticker and laughed. Someone said that they instituted it after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing when Deloitte & Touche were in the Twin Towers. I stopped laughing. The hotline’s canned message said that there was no disaster to report. I thought just how useful that number turned out to be and hung up the phone.
I went back to the window to look and the windows that had blown out on the west side of Tower One were now ablaze. A string of orange burned across the entire side of the tower like a flaming barricade. People were scrambling in the street and trying to dodge the gauntlet of burning debris and glass that kept falling. I glanced across at the Marriott hotels entrance and people were hunkered under the overhang looking terrified. I ran back to my office and called my Mom. I knew Paula had dropped Ian at school and was out. I told my Mom that something had happened at the World Trade Center and that it was on fire and that she should turn on the news. She began to cry. I checked CNN.com and a picture of the burning tower was already on the site. The caption just said that the building was burning. Stay tuned for more news as it comes in.
I ran back to the windows. Our group was all there. Steve, Christian, Allison and Greg. Other consultants were also around as were some of the administrative staff. Overall, there were few other D&T employees around. Everyone looked stunned. In shock. I was wondering if I should go out and try to help. I said to Greg, “Do you think we should go and help?” He was thinking the same thing. Neither one of us moved toward the door. Thoughts of Paula and my little guys caused me to rethink my moment of misguided heroism.
Fire trucks approached and stopped in front of the West Street entrance to One World Trade. The firemen scrambled off the trucks and dodged the falling debris. They grabbed their tools and shouldered oxygen tanks and clamored into the lobby and disappeared. Before we left that day, I watched twenty or thirty fire trucks pull up and eject their occupants through the smoke and debris and into the towering inferno.
I was back at the window when we began to see people fall. Several bodies joined the debris and glass falling to the street. It took those bodies some time to fall. It was horrible. The women began to cry. I felt like crying. As I watched the top of the North Tower and the expanding fire, I noticed from the corner of my eye a large jetliner. In an instant, I knew that couldn’t be plausible. What is that plane doing here? I focused for a second and the shaded underbelly of the large jet disappeared behind the west side of the South Tower. The jet engines revved as the plane focused on the South Tower. The plane hit the tower. The explosion sound was loud and quick, like the final beat of a thousand hearts. Nothing like the on-going maelstrom of a Hollywood blast. But the fireball was incredible. It was so intense and powerful that I thought I could feel the heat from it. I was hundreds of feet away and behind glass. It was terrible. Within an instant, we went from being observers of a terrible accident to targets in a war we didn’t know had started that day. I screamed, “A fuckin’ plane hit the other tower! A fuckin’ plane hit the other fuckin’ tower!” Everyone began to shuffle around not knowing what to do. We all knew that this was the work of terrorists and the mood along the windows intensified. I looked up and noticed that Allison had this unbelievably frightened look on her face and her eyes were full of tears. I turned and saw our Managing Director, Bill Fisher, approach the windows. I said, “Bill, a plane hit the other tower, its terrorists, we have to get everyone out.” I can’t remember if he replied but I remember the look of intense shock on his face. I was told days later that several consultants and managers decided that they should get the hell out of the World Financial Center after looking at my face. Ken Meyer said, “when I saw the look on Peter Genet’s face I knew it was time to evacuate.”
The PA was activated and the official voice asked everyone to please evacuate the building. We had already figured that out. I went back to my desk. As I shutdown my computer, I left a message on my home phone for Paula. I was about to unlock the computer from its security cable when Bill came by and said you better get the hell out of here. I decided that a computer wasn’t worth dying for and jumped up. I grabbed my bag and walked out of the office. As I left I thought that the computer would be o.k. overnight and that I’d get it the next morning.
I circled the Rotunda area looking for Greg, Steve and Allison. They had gone. I walked back toward the elevators and saw Christian Michel. He and I took the emergency stairs. We got onto the landing at the fourth floor and noticed a column of people coming down the stairs. We lead the charge to safety. At the first level the staircase opened onto a large concrete room with a large double door. I walked to it and opened it only to find that we were on West Street, directly across the street from the World Trade Center. We stood there looking out. Debris and paper and fire and people were falling from the towers. I said, “I’m not going out there.” We closed the door and proceeded to walk down a hall that lead to several doors. They turned out to be janitor’s closets. We scrambled back up the stairs and at the third floor we walked into Deloitte & Touche’s main entry area. We knew where we were and how to get out. We took a route that we took nearly everyday to get to the cafeteria. We had no appetite on this particular day. The group passed the waiting tables at the cafeteria and headed down a set of escalators into the Winter Garden. There were security personnel directing everyone toward the Marina. There was no access back toward the North Bridge and my way home.
As we descended another escalator in the Winter Garden, I told Christian that I felt like I had a bullseye on my head. I was afraid that another plane could be heading our way. The Winter Garden atrium stands out like a sore thumb from the air and could be a potential target. They came in with two planes. So why not three? All I wanted to do was get out of that area. We got to the exterior doors where we mixed into another stream of people coming from another direction. I came upon the outside doors at the same time as Bill Freda and Jim Quigley, who manage the entire Tri-State practice of Deloitte & Touche. I had met Bill before but I did not know Jim. As we exited the building I spoke. “Bill, I saw the plane go into the second tower. It was unbelievable, definitely terrorists.” He looked at me sympathetically and patted my back. He asked if everyone from my floor got out and I said that I thought they had. He turned back to a young woman that he had been with walking. Christian and I kept walking.
In the marina area, in front of Moran’s bar, a huge group of people was gathered. They were just standing around. I even saw several people joking around. I said to Christian, “I’m not stopping.” I wanted to get the hell out of that area. I remembered hearing about terrorist attacks in Israel where after the initial blast another bomber would detonate himself in the midst of the rescue operation. I didn’t want to be anywhere near the Twin Towers.
We walked up North End Ave. past the Hudson River Grill. The streets were crowded with people escaping the madness. People were standing on corners craning their necks to take in the scene. The towers were burning. The smoke scarred the bluest of skies. It moved on a southeasterly breeze toward Brooklyn.
A helicopter came past and I actually began to duck for cover. The fear was more real then I’d ever remembered. We kept on walking. Occasionally we’d stop and turn around to view the burning towers. It was like a magnet both attracting and repelling us. We crossed over to West Street and began to head uptown. Our cell phones were useless but we kept on trying.
The walk up along the Hudson was strange. People gathered everywhere. We realized that the buildings in the area decided to evacuate their tenants. Dazed people poured into the streets to watch the catastrophe.
As we fled lower Manhattan, fire trucks raced toward the blaze. I can remember every face from inside those trucks. The mustachioed firefighter in the passenger seat. A thin guy with glasses hung out of his side window to get a better view of the towers and the work at hand. Every type of emergency vehicle passed us. Emergency squad trucks, rescue trucks, cop cars and a long line of dark and ominous, official vehicles. I gave a thumbs up to one of the trucks. The firemen must have been preoccupied for they didn’t respond.
We turned east onto Canal Street and headed toward Broadway. I needed a cup of coffee. I was hoping we could find a Starbucks. We approached Varick and noticed a homeless couple under a blanket and asleep. Christian commented that you had to be pretty out of it to be sleeping during this tragedy. I was in shock. I remember thinking that it sure was a beautiful morning and that it had been a long time since I’d walked through this neighborhood.
In Chinatown and TriBeCa the Twin Towers appear often. They’re at every cross street and peak out of the low-rise horizon. The burning towers were never far from our site and they consumed our thoughts. It was dreamlike, we were at ground zero witnessing complete horror and now we were blocks away and the only thing out of place were the smoking towers and the gathered crowds. I said this to Christian. How strange it is that as you get away from something terrible it becomes less threatening. Yet you know that back at that place people are suffering. People are dying. It’s true from the perspective of both distance and time. Time heals all wounds. God damn it! It’s gonna take a long while before this fades away.
At West Broadway we headed north again. There were almost no cars on the road. The suits and wingtips of downtown mixed with the artists and models of TriBeCa. Everyone had the same look of shock etched on their faces. Everyone looked at each other in stunned disbelief. I have to say that I was comforted by this sense of togetherness but felt guilty because of why it was happening. We got coffee at a small shop and I ran upstairs to the third floor restroom. It was so strange dealing with mundane, everyday needs when the entire world seemed to have changed. I felt so completely awake yet stunned. It was bizarre. I left the bathroom and a pretty girl with hair colored jet black smiled and walked in. I clamored down the stairs and found Christian outside. We sat in front of the place on a park bench. I sat next to a homeless guy. He was discussing international affairs with a middle aged Wall Streeter. Christian and I got up and began walking when two women came upon us and told us that the Pentagon and White House were also attacked. We looked at each other and could say nothing.
Half way up the block (I can’t remember which cross street we were on) I heard a strange clicking sound. We turned toward the Twin Towers. The South Tower above where the plane had impacted began to lean. The lower part exploded at the crease and began to implode toward the street. Everyone around me was staring at the destruction. The Tower crashed in slow motion toward the street. The clouds of smoke and dust climbed through the sky looking beautiful and evil. My visual memory remains strong while the thunder of the collapse has slowly faded over time. It was simply incomprehensible. I never, ever thought the tower would fall. I recall commenting that it sure was going to be hard to get anyone to lease space in the Towers after this. That was after the first tower was struck. Now one of the towers was a compact pile of burning rumble, flesh and bone.
People wept openly in the street. The look of shock turned to deepening sadness. A beautiful young woman cried with her friends. Several tough Latino guys had tears in their eyes. The sound of emergency vehicles had quieted. I broke down and cried but only for a minute. The tears just don’t come. I want them to come but they remain elusive. That is how I’ve felt for most of this month.
We gathered around a white Dodge van with all of its’ doors opened and listened to the news. The newscaster was describing what we had just seen. Then I heard her say that Manhattan had been sealed off. All the bridges and tunnels were closed and mass transit had stopped running. The entire city was shut down. The magnitude of what happened was just starting to set in. Our cell phones would not work and all of the pay phones had huge lines. We began to wait on one line. I wanted to call Paula and Christian was going to call Germany. The person at the phone kept redialing and finally gave up. The next caller looked confused. The landline phones were out. We were cut off completely from the outside world.
We moved on toward NYU. I figured we could call from the Wagner School office. I thought that they’d allow an alumnus to use the phone. The exodus from lower Manhattan was intense. People were walking everywhere. Few cars were around and those that were had to yield to the crowds. Somewhere in SoHo, a fat guy with a disheveled haircut and wearing a red tee-shirt with a Russian phrase sang, “We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1999.” He was the only person that I saw since this whole nightmare began that appeared callous and almost happy. I walked past him and couldn’t help but say, “FUCK YOU.” I’m fed up by shit-heads like that.
A block south of Houston Street a rumble began. We turned toward the remaining North Tower which rose from the lingering dust of its’ sister. Its’ upper floors began a slow eerie descent from the point of impact of the plane. The huge antenna in the middle of the roof seemed to fall directly into the tower. It fell straight like an arrow into the crumbling floors below. The entire tower began to implode. I can see it in my minds’ eye in every detail. As the building imploded the exoskeleton of ironwork fell away. A huge section fell toward our building. And as the lower floors toppled a huge wave of debris fell toward the World Financial Center. I said to Christian, “I think our building’s history.” Again, people started to cry. An older black man who was walking quickly toward us began to wail. His sorrowful cry was incredibly loud and triggered the cries of others. People just fell apart. A photographer scrambled to get a shot of the mourner as he stormed past. The Twin Towers were gone. Smoke and ash filled the sky. It reminded me of scenes from Mount St. Helens. A man-made volcano. The heat and pressure of the radical Muslim world spewed from cracks in our prosperous veneer. We all knew it was Arab terrorists.
There is no way to describe what it felt like to watch the Twin Towers crumble. My middle-class American eyes have witnessed atrocities from afar, on TV or in movies. Nothing prepares you for the real thing on a warm, sunny morning in your hometown.
Just beyond Houston, on LaGuardia Place, I felt a vibration on my side. My cell phone? I picked it up and saw an unrecognized area code and phone number. It was my cousin Jimmy from Monroe, Michigan. He asked how I was doing. I told him in several words what I’d witnessed. As I spoke, I turned and looked down LaGuardia Place at the plume where the great Twin Towers once stood. I began to cry. It was a view that I knew so well. For three and one-half years, I studied urban planning at NYU and passed this way often. The Twin Towers dominated the skyline. Now they were gone. I couldn’t believe it. Jimmy and I reminisced about my Uncle Frank who had worked as a bricklayer on the Towers in the early 70’s. The Twin Towers were a part of our lives. Now they’re destroyed. It’s unbelievable. Jimmy asked if I wouldn’t mind talking to a reporter at the paper where he works. I said o.k. though I felt that what we had seen was somehow sacred and that reporting it would be a desecration. The reporter sounded like a young guy who spoke in a hushed tone as if he were paying respects to my dead relative. In brief, I told him most of what I saw. I broke down when I described seeing the plane hit the South Tower. He thanked me for the story and Jimmy got back on the phone. I asked him to call Paula and my Mom and to let them know that I was trying to get home. After I had hung up, I realized that I should have had Jimmy patch me through directly so I could have spoken to them.
We walked toward Washington Square Park. Next to the Bobst Library I saw a shocking site. Two middle-aged women covered in gray soot and ash from the towers. They looked shocked and somewhat disoriented. People went out of their way to help them maneuver. These were the first of many soot-clad people we saw that day and in TV reports on subsequent days. The crowd around Washington Square Park appeared far removed from the catastrophe less than twenty blocks south. Students were out of class and alive with youthful energy.
I hadn’t been in this area for a long time. I thought of the day when Stella Machek drove her car into the park and killed a bunch of pedestrians relaxing in the park. Boy, today’s event blew that away. Comparing tragedies. How weird is that. I also thought about all the friends that I had in the city at one time but had moved on. Gerry in the Education Building, Sarah in the Dean’s Office, and classmates and my old professors.
We walked into the stately townhouse where the Wagner School office is located. The longhaired and studious receptionist was sitting in a dim vestibule over a bank of phones, reading his college text. I thought, “God damn it man, the whole world is falling apart outside and you’re in here reading!!” But I only asked politely to use the phone. I explained that I was an alumnus and that we were down at the World Trade Center and needed to get calls to our families. He did all he could to get an open line but the phone system was down. No luck. We thanked him and left.
On the walk up Waverly, Christian said he had a friend who worked at Astor Place. We headed for his sales office. Christian described the building where Scott worked. I said it sounded like the old Wanamaker’s building; the first department store in New York, perhaps, the world. We got to the building but security wouldn’t let us in. No one was getting into any buildings. Every landlord in Manhattan was operating in disaster mode. We left the lobby and, nearly, walked into a tall black women covered from head to toe in gray ash. She seemed rather matter of fact about it. She just kept on walking in stiletto heals like it was any other day.
Next Christian thought that we could get into his old employers office. He still had the ID card. We headed for the offices of the Regional Planning Association in the Con Edison Building. Security there wouldn’t let us in even though he flashed the ID card. They’ve evacuated the building. We headed north up Irving Place.
We stopped into an Irish bar on 15th Street to use the restroom. We got two spots at the bar near the front door. A TV was just overhead blaring the news. Everyone was staring at the taped scenes of the burning Towers. I came back from the bathroom and Christian and I ordered two Harps. It was 11:00 in the morning. A young Irish woman was sitting next to me and I pointed out our building on the TV. For some reason, I wanted her to know that I had been down there. She seemed very empathetic. Everyone in New York City that day seemed very empathetic. It was very strange.
We finished the beers and declined another because we decided to give blood. Both of us wanted to get hammered in the worst way but we felt the least we could do was give some alcohol free blood. We headed west toward St. Vincent’s. The sound of emergency vehicles cut through the air. Christian’s friend from the sales office lived nearby so we decided to see if he was home.
Scott lives in a walk-up on 16th Street. We rang the buzzer and he answered through the squawk box. We ascended the four flights of stairs to his place. Scott and his wife share a tiny, old apartment. I hadn’t been in an apartment like this in a long time, but it made me remember why I never wanted to get an apartment in the city. Scott was watching CNN on his computer monitor. We tried the phone and I got a call out to Paula. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy to hear her voice. I was o.k. and I was trying to get home. I remember thinking that the idea of getting home alive was somehow strange. I felt very vulnerable. I hung up with Paula. Christian called Germany. Scott told me that he was at his kitchen sink shaving in front of an open window when he saw a plane fly very low overhead. He knew the plane was way off course. Then he heard a faint explosion. That plane was American Flight 11 that hit the North Tower at 8:48 a.m. We sat on the small couch watching the Taliban ambassador lie about Osama bin Laden’s participation in the attack. I noticed that they were talking about the terrorist attack as an act of war. I agreed totally with that assessment.
Christian and I left Scott at his apartment where he waited for his wife to return. We headed east toward Seventh Avenue. I had decided in the apartment that I was not going to give blood at St. Vincent’s. I had remembered the last time I gave blood and how sick I felt. I didn’t want to be hampered during my quest to get home. Christian and I split up at the corner of Seventh Avenue. We both said that we couldn’t believe what we’d seen that morning. We exchanged phone numbers and said good-bye.
I felt alone when I started my walk toward Penn Station. I had no idea if the trains would resume service. I felt hungry yet I couldn’t eat. I stopped in four sandwich and pizza places but became agitated when the lines seemed too long. One place only had slices with mushrooms. I yelled at the guy for not being ready for lunchtime. I felt such irritation and unease. I knew I was hungry but just couldn’t manage to eat.
Near the Fashion Institute of Technology I heard a jet fly overhead. It was an F-16 or F-18. New York was under siege. Life during wartime. I never thought that I would be in battle. It was more horrible than I’d imagined. I felt sick and shocked. I was exhausted.
The crowd in front of Penn Station was huge. Police were barking information over bullhorns. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I put my bag down and waited. I began to talk with two guys near me. One of them worked for Empire Blue Cross/ Blue Shield in the WTC. I think he was in the North Tower but, luckily, on a low floor. He managed to escape. We shared war stories and our desire to get home.
Finally, word came back saying that Long Island Railroad passengers should proceed to the 34th Street entrance. We rushed forward and moved in a large herd toward 34th Street. While we were queuing toward the escalators. I couldn’t help but feel paranoid about being in such a large crowd. A perfect target for a suicide bomber. I finally got into the station and asked an attendant for the next train to Oyster Bay. He pointed me to track 21. I scrambled onto the train and got a seat. Everyone looked nervous or exhausted or traumatized. Several passengers talked about what they had seen. Several of us had been at the scene. The train was packed. An older woman got on and stood near me. She knew an older man across from me so I got up and gave her the seat.
The train sat in the station for at least an hour. We finally got underway and then we stopped again in the tunnel. I felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack. My chest tightened and I began to sweat. I kept trying to think of something good and relaxing. Thinking about sex would have helped but those images of the Towers kept coming back to me. Finally the train pulled out of the tunnel and I felt some relief. Every step further from ground zero made me feel a little better.
The train stopped at Jamaica so I got off. On the platform they announced that the Oyster Bay train connection would be at Mineola. I was fuming because they hadn’t said anything on the train. I scrambled back onto the train I had just exited but not before screaming at the conductor who gave me an exacerbated look.
At Mineola I got off and waited for the next train to Oyster Bay. Three trains passed through. I walked up the platform and started talking with two Irish guys and an older American. Everyone was downtown and had a story. I see that the Irish guy’s shoes were coated in the gray dust. They proceeded to tell an interesting tale. They’re college students from Galway spending the summer working as waiters at the North Shore Country Club. They had off on September 11th and decided to go to the observation deck of the World Trade Center. They missed the 7:05 a.m. train and that saved their lives. They caught the next train and weren’t able to get the subway to the Trade Center because the attack had already started. The luck of the Irish.
An announcer said that Oyster Bay travelers should get on the next train to Hicksville and buses would bring us to Glen Head. I asked the guys if they wanted to take a taxi. We got a cab and I was finally closer to home.
I was so happy to see my house and then Paula and my little guys came out. I never felt happier to see them. That night we began to get a sense of how many died in the towers. I thought about all those people who went to work and never came home. And especially to all the policemen, EMTs and firefighters who gave their lives trying to save others. I watched so many of them head into the breach. God it was awful. Spring- steen played “My City in Ruins” on a charity program festooned with candles and for the first time I cried like a baby.

EPILOGUE

I recently found out that my employer, Deloitte & Touche, had been in the World Trade Center. They occupied a portion of Cantor Fitzgerald’s space. After the first bombing in 1993, the Managing Partner decided to move the office. They were one of only two companies to leave the World Trade Center. My life depended on that decision made back in 1993. If that Managing Partner had been persuaded to take the new, low-cost lease the Port Authority was offering I would be dead. My colleagues would be dead.
The wrong place at the wrong time. It can be based on the simplest decisions. Some decided to get to work early or attend a technology conference or start a new job a week early. I heard one story where three people had been terminated on Monday from one firm. Two of the ex-employees slept in on Tuesday while one came in early to clean out his desk. He is dead. How do you make sense of that?
A person got sick on my train on Monday, September 10th. The train was delayed. I reached the World Trade Center and walked through the plaza at 8:45. If it had been Tuesday or if the terrorists decided to carry out their evil deed earlier, I would have been walking directly under where the first plane struck the North Tower (Tower One). Would I have been killed? I don’t know.
I have relived the events of September 11th a million times. I have imagined the last moments of people’s lives in Towers One and Two and on the flights. I remember my therapist telling me to let go of those thoughts. She said that, “those people are gone and at peace. They have been gone since that awful morning and there is no sense in reliving their nightmare.” Well, I can’t help it. The thoughts just come to me. What was it like on the 98th floor of Tower One moments after the crash. A colleague told me of his cousin who was on the 98th floor and worked for Marsh McLennen. Her family had been told that the temperature on that floor climbed to one thousand degrees within ten minutes of the crash. Would you have jumped?
It is now 2002. We have a new beginning with the New Year. We have our hopes and our resolutions to make it a better year. I pray that hopes of peace and prosperity are more resolute then those of death and destruction. I’ve got to believe they are and that our way of life will prevail over the darkness of fanatics.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of
truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers,
and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.
Think of it... always. ----Mahatma Gandhi