Saturday, September 12, 2009

 

The Day After

On September 12th, the second day of our honeymoon, Jayne and I went downstairs to the inn's dining room. We had signed up for the early breakfast, wanting to have a full day in Healdsburg and some of the nearby vineyards.

The two couples from Augusta had signed up for the same breakfast time. The wives were pleasant enough, and the man who was not in the lobby complaining about his stocks had little to say. The prick, however, had no idea when to shut the fuck up. His wife finally got him to change the subject.

With breakfast ruined we went out to the pool and met some of the other guests. We did go on a couple of tours that day. The setting was beautiful, but we couldn't enjoy it. We were able to reach someone in New York that had spoken to our friend Katie, the one who worked in Tower One.

She didn't have to be at work that day until 10:00am and was in the health club across the street. After spending some time on the treadmill she went to the locker room and got in the shower. While in the shower someone ran in and yelled that the building was being evacuated and she had to get out 'now!' Katie hurriedly dried off and pulled on her clothes as fast as she could, grabbed her purse and ran out of the building to see the chaos. Paper and metal shards were everywhere. She ran north and had safely gotten away.

Jayne called Mark, her co-worker, again, who still hadn't heard from his father. Mark's father would eventually resurface a couple of days later. We knew no one who died.

My sister worked for a time at Marsh & McLennen in Chicago and one of her closest friends had been transferred to New York and was still with the company. Marsh was one of the companies hardest hit, over 300 employees killed, their offices on an impact floor. Those in the Trade Center offices didn't have a chance. The survivors were either people who happened to call in sick, ran late, or dallied at a coffee shop, putting off going in to enjoy the beautiful weather of that morning for five more minutes.

My sister's friend worked at Marsh's mid-town office, but the thirteen people from her department that reported to her were all killed, if lucky, instantly.

We called another close friend of Jayne's who's brother was a crane operator. We found out that he had gone down at sunrise on the 12th to offer his services to help in the rescue and recovery.

At around dinner time we were asked by the innkeeper to sign up for breakfast. I looked at the sign up sheet and chose the later time, seeing that the four from Georgia were again signed up for the early time. We had decided to avoid this guy for the rest of our time there. We were only in that in for two days, but I can remember every detail of the building, the koi pond, the pool, the lobby with the television.

Everywhere we went on our honeymoon people would ask us where we were from. When we said New York their faces fell, and offered sympathy and support. Playing the honeymoon card got us a lot of free coffee and desserts.

Jayne was terrified to fly now. We couldn't enjoy ourselves all that much. After a week of inn hopping and two lane scenic highway driving we decided to cut our trip short. We returned to San Francisco, on schedule. We were originally supposed to go to Monterey for another three days, but we had enough of worrying about New York and felt separated from home. Our return flight kept getting canceled. The car rental company told us that they'd waive the drop fee if we drove back. We thanked them and said we'd check in with them daily.

We would eventually drive the whole way, five days on Interstate 80, the worst way to go. We do want to return to wine country so that we can enjoy it, and we would like to drive across the country again, but not on interstates and not under any such circumstances. The trip on I-80 was an odyssey in itself.

When we drove across the George Washington Bridge late morning of the fifth day of driving, it was Sunday the 23rd. Ground Zero was smoking, as it would for months. We live an hour's walk from it. When the wind was right we could smell a smoke that had many layers of different smells, none of them good.

Pulling up to the rental car place there were six people sitting on the sidewalk outside the office door. When I drove up a couple waiting for a car jumped up. One of the rental car workers helped me get the bags out of the car. We had been practically living in it for nearly two weeks. Jayne took out two plastic shopping bags of trash, coffee cups, empty bags of chips, apple cores, the remains of road food. I told the car rental guy that I had driven the car over 3000 miles and that it would need an oil change. He grunted an affirmative and before I was two feet away from the trunk the couple was loading their stuff in. There were no rental cars to be found anywhere in New York. People just wanted to get out in any way they could.

Jayne wanted to go to the Trade Center, and it was the first day that anyone would be let anywhere near it. We walked down to City Hall among a throng of people, all walking in silence. There was a road block at Broadway and Ann, the closest we could get. We walked around to Vescey and looked south at the devastation. The pile of rubble was at least ten stories high. The scene on television could not possibly relate the scope of the atrocity.

We walked back in silence to Union Square, where we heard that an impromptu memorial was taking place. There were fliers everywhere with pictures of missing people, all likely dead. In the plaza just above fourteenth street people were gathered, a string quartet played funeral music. I was suddenly overcome with grief at the sound of the music.

A woman that I never saw before or since came to me with a puppy.
"Do you want to pet him?"
All I could do was nod. I held the puppy while I cried for the lost, still thought to be over 5000 at that point.
"I named him Rudy," she continued.

I held the puppy for several minutes. He licked my face, which made me cry some more. Once I was able to collect myself I gave him back to his owner and thanked her.

Jayne and I walked around and read the fliers and looked at the pictures of the missing. The pictures were all of smiling, happy moments from vacations, family dinners, graduations and weddings. Moments of beauty without a trace of care. The way these people should be remembered. Not for a sudden, senseless, brutal ending.
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?