Two days in Manhattan, two years later
by Jeff Black
"Did you feel that?"
"Feel what? What's your problem, Chris? Can't you see I'm on the phone?"
"Hang up now. I'm serious, Jeff. Something exploded out there. People are running all over the place. Let's get out of here!"
I grab my cell and wallet and join the scurry down the emergency stairs.
"What's going on?"
"A plane, I think. Someone said it crashed outside."
The door swings open as we approach the trading floor. "Go back to your desks, all of you. A small plane has hit the Trade Center. You're better off here." I hesitate for an instant. Maybe she's right. I have no idea.
"You go back," counters someone. "We're going down."
Two minutes later, I spill out onto the West Side Highway. We're 14 floors below my perch at Lehman Brothers, where I work as a stock analyst, and directly across the street from Tower One.
Man, this was no small plane. A sludgy, black smoke rushes from a winged, cookie-cutter gash. Paper shreds spiral down in a confetti dusting. It's silent save for a loud hissing sound. I turn to speak to Anthony when a muffled crash splinters red shards of metal and glass in the opposite direction.
"Terrorists," he mutters. "It's fucking terrorists."
The crowd backs away from the street and we go with it, making our way to an open field in front of the Amex building.
"Oh my God, no!" I strain to see what the woman is screaming about and can just make it out: a lifeless figure plunging from the tower, tie fluttering behind him. No twisting—no resistance—resignation. The woman drops to her knees sobbing, and I see a second guy jump. This one's still in his jacket. Several others follow. Thankfully, I can't see them hit. I'm dizzy. Wait. I'm gonna be sick.
New York. Lou Reed brought me here—the Velvet's Lou Reed, that is. Ditto for Tom Waits, Bob Dylan or any of the other guys I envisioned myself as when trekking into Chinatown or the Village. It started with a visit during college with my mom, who was a buyer for Miller's department store. I expected graffiti and muggings and got Woody's Manhattan—I was blown away by the whole experience.
A trip during grad school sealed the deal. I was biding time at UT law school, going to class (OK, occasionally) with the insurance defense wannabes, terminally depressed at the prospects of such an unimpressive career. So when a friend who worked at W magazine in NYC suggested the waters were fine, it took me about two minutes to jump in. I was "Sweet Jane"personified: "standin' on a corner, suitcase in my hand." That's how I saw it, anyway. I never thought of New York as a threatening place, not even after the first trade center bombing.
"C'mon, Anth. We have to get away from all this glass. There could be another explosion."
"Where's Chris and Randy?"
"Don't know. Can't see 'em anywhere. Let's go!"
"OK. Up the highway, by the river."
I am scared shitless. I try to run but my legs are shaking. Damn! Please, God, let me make it past all this before it happens again.
We reach a clearing and turn to look back. My cell isn't working. Madh (my wife) is gonna be worried sick.
"What are you gonna do?"
"I'm staying. I've got friends on the 68th floor."
"Just don't go down there, bro. There's nothing you can do. Look at that. It's chaos."
Fire trucks are screaming down the West Side Highway. Hundreds of people are out in the streets, talking in groups. Some just sit there, dazed. I decide to make my way up the highway and cross over the West Village on my way to Bleeker park. Maybe Madh's there with Maya.
It's 2 a.m. and Madh and I are huddled in bed with our daughter. She turns one in six days. Air force jets streak across Manhattan, and it's hard to sleep. I look at my precious girls and can't hold back the tears. "What have I gotten us into? What happens to you, little Maya, if something happens to me?"
We get up and slip into the comfort of friends. I keep telling myself it's OK, just a freak, once-in-a-lifetime thing. Yet, like an advancing shadow, the air keeps drawing in around me.
The city is haunted. Lunch is cut short when the wind turns, blowing a foul stench through Union Square. A white semi heads north through the roadblock at 14th street—full of charred remains, we suspect, but who knows?
And the faces. Christ, the faces! The bus stops are papered with them. Wedding photos, vacation shots. "Carla is 5' 6" with blond hair and a gold pendant—call us if you've seen her." Work crews are digging through the rubble, and we decide to go give blood.
When we arrive, we're told, "We're sorry. We don't need any."
All those faces, vanished. Not injured, just gone.
Union Square: ground zero for lost souls. It's a collective funeral for all those years spent slouching in the soft, yellow lights of lower Manhattan restaurants. The sing-ins are overtly '60s but the messages are straight forward and all too original: "John, we love you. You're the best dad, the most loving husband we could have asked for." A family photo of John sits on a little patch of grass, lit by a half-burned candle. Little pyres like this one stretch into every corner of the park. "We love you Kerry. Please find your way home soon." "Tony, you filled our lives with laughter." Tony's with his girl at graduation, all smiles and confidence. Not a shred of pretense, just the raw scribblings of families who know their Tonys aren't coming home.
Two years later I'm slowly moving on. I start my day like any actuary. Let's see, 50 buses in Manhattan, 65 trains, a couple hundred cabs and a few thousand pedestrians. The chances of my particular subway car getting attacked at 7 a.m. are nil, right? Still, I hail a cab.
Cancer. Disfiguring accidents. People have been through much worse than what I endured that day. No doubt I will too someday. Yet for now, the urgent desire to flee has been replaced by a series of half-hatched plans to "make a long-term change."
New York is moving on. I remember walking home from our failed trip to give blood. A cab stuffed with passengers was lumbering its way up 6th Avenue, the only one we'd seen. A guy sheepishly stuck out his arm, and the cab stopped. "Uptown?" The guy nodded his head, and the trunk popped open. "Hop in."
You can still sense the loss but it's less discernible, hovering just out of reach like a phantom pain, a transit station we all passed through, if only for a few minutes.
The hatred in this world fills me with sadness, but I'm trying to latch hold of the beauty. My kid's smile, my wife's soft black hair. I even blow off the occasional workday. And Knoxville? I'm finally crossing the chasm that separated me from her. All that green now fills me with the same sense of possibility as my first day in Manhattan once did.
On a recent visit I drifted back to a sunny, crisp afternoon in 1986. I'm driving down Chapman Highway with my college roommate. It's our last semester and we're headed to the Chimneys—the good side of Abbey Road cranked.
"So where do you think we'll end up?" I ask.
"I don't know," answered my friend. "But wherever it is, it'll be cool."
"Yeah," I remember thinking. "How could it not be cool?"
Jeff Black still lives in Manhattan and keeps promising friends that he's "outta here soon"—and he's serious this time.
September 11, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 37
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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