Source: https://www.drmarilyngaull.org/911thelostessay
the lost essay:This narrative, written in April, 2002, describes what I recall from September 11, 2001, in part to get it out of my head and in part to express gratitude to friends, NYU, and a profession where I have found refuge and healing. Love, Marilyn Battery Park City, September 9, 2001: sitting on my balcony, the river and sunset, the World Trade Center above me, blessed with unexpected pleasures— writing in progress, wonderful friends, a clean and safe neighborhood, my home, just right for me, finally, at peace. Preparing lectures for a new semester at Temple University (Greek classical thought now, then the Bible, the Koran, all the good, rich, interesting things that are important for us, for our students to know), admiring the flowers, the trees grown to just the right height, boats on the river, children playing in the street, light off the Twin Towers, the whole neighborhood (built on landfill from the World Trade Center) nearly settled, even a bicycle path at the end of the street along a new highway that took a decade to build, Victorian lamp posts, street trees, synchronized, orderly and complete. On Monday evening, the 10th, I walked back from NYU, mailed a manuscript to the printer, walked through the busy world under the Towers, workers rushing to ferries and subways, meeting friends, shopping: the Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Duane Reade, Barnes and Noble, The Sunglass Hut, all the busy shops in the mall; bars in World Financial Center; young people running, skating, on the Promenade as the sun was setting, assessing each other as they passed by, planning their return the next morning and the next. By the supermarket on South End Avenue, among the working parents and tired children, Helene Nelson, my neighbor, and her grand-daughter, two years old at the most, on their way to the ice-cream shop. I envied them, shamelessly, for coming through, for Helene’s collective family, for the accommodations they had made with one another, with life itself, that everyone made every day, to be here or there, to do this or that, the accidental meetings they brought about, the thoughtless, precious, lost minutes. Later, running along the promenade, on my headset, I listened to Ethel Merman’s manic “Gypsy,” and, while she sang about dreams, egg rolls, and good times, I savored the Towers at twilight, the neighborhood, sunflowers in the gardens, friends and neighbors on benches watching the tide turn, the party boats on the river, the dog walkers, children chasing each other while their parents watched, and watched, so favored, alert, and serene. The 11th started sunny, intensely blue skies, the air so clear. I was eager to get started, to be at school for the new semester, new students, fresh courses. I wore a black silk suit, one more time before the season was over. Chose it, while thousands of others in the city going to work in the World Trade Center chose summer suits, blue shirts, red dresses for this perfect late summer day, groomed and packed, all the personal things that make us who we are, the jewelry, the change in our pockets; keys, mail, subway card with, maybe, ten rides left, a headache or stomach remedy, just in case, shaping and protecting ourselves as the day began. In the lobby of Hudson Tower where I lived, Nick, the Concierge, greeted me with the New York Times, then out the door onto Albany Street where Jay was already washing down the sidewalk, then toward South End Avenue, where the office workers waited at the coffee truck before going to their cubicles in the Towers. Instead of going directly to the 1-train under the WTC, I turned to walk along the river and enjoy the morning. And that made all the difference, as Frost says. Truly, it was the road not taken that saved any of us. By turning one way instead of another, I was not in WTC I, but in its shadow, on the promenade by the river, while those who had just breathed the same air, rushed by me, or ahead of me, edgy, restless, eager to get to their desks, turn on their computers, open their coffee, think about lunch, check e-mail, call home, the ones who were early, or just on time, were in the right place at the right time to be hit by a plane crashing through their windows, some incinerated immediately, others blown apart, and others who escaped the initial collision to face another hideous alternative. On the promenade by the boat basin, workers from the World Financial Center, gathered around signs for their companies, American Express, Chase Bank, Wall Street Journal. They watched the smoke, sometimes white, and then black again, flames spreading through the tower, the debris and bits of paper fluttering down like a parade, while fire and police boats waited. There were no planes, no river traffic, no noise other than the sirens, and the occasional gasping. Men, mostly, said knowing things like “Cantor Fitzgerald, that’s them,” and “hopeless,” “no, they have sprinklers,” and then someone in a blue shirt and gray trousers came down head first from an inconceivably high place, jumped, pushed, fell, arms spread in a long slow dive, his feet on fire, then another, a red dress this time, and another in black, all on fire, one after another. Gasps, screams, “my god, my god,” many more turning, running away. I pushed past a sudden and pointless police barrier to run south on the promenade, about fifty yards to Hudson Towers. In the lobby, confusion, questions, the TV blaring, the staff trying to make sense of being here in this special and protected place and “under attack.” “Evacuate the building,” someone said. But no one knew where to go, where the danger was or the safety. “I need to change my shoes,” I said, so pointless given the moment, but another accidental choice that kept me from being in World Trade Center II, on Liberty Street, five minutes later. Another road not taken. Instead, I was sitting on my sofa by the window on the third floor, tying my running shoes when a labored, thick, whining, roar, a plane, nearly over my head, banked, tipped its wings, raced the engines, dear God, no, crashed, cracked into the building, exploded in black smoke and fire shooting out, bubbling out, falling into the street. Out the door, along the terrace, the corridor, down the stairs, back to the lobby—neighbors, bewildered, grim, hushed, black smoke and burning debris, a wall outside the door. What should we do? Tell us what to do? Robert, “The Super” for less than a month, the Porter Jay and Concierge Nick, an ex-Marine, took charge. Go to the basement—it filled with smoke. Go through this apartment and climb over the wall— still black smoke filling the promenade, hiding the river. “Be very still-- try not to breathe.” Desperate people, covered with soot, pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby. The smoke they were escaping followed them. Someone handed out wet paper towels. As the smoke outside seemed to lift, we went, about twenty-five of us, one by one, through the revolving door, hurry, hurry, single file, one at a time, to head south along the river to the ferry. Would we be safer outside? Would they shoot us? Where was it coming from? What was it? Who were they, and why were they trying to get us? And they did: a whirlwind, a dragon, Nick called it, the south tower collapsing, a force beyond wind driving up Albany Street toward the river, smashed into us. Swept up, knocked down, debris, ashes, paper, lots of paper, and pieces of things, burning things, pieces of people, a purse, a hair ornament, a shoe, pushed by the wind, blinded, choking, falling, crawling along—the ashes, a thick gray and yellow snow. Something landed near me, in sight, covered with ashes, a thud, blood or juices seeping through, a melon with hair, a cat, a head. I tried not to see it, but I couldn’t stop looking, and still can’t, still question whose head, whose child, what person, was it a head at all? So many running from the boat basin, running away---but from where to what? Smoke, ashes, people, too choked with ashes to scream or cry, all crowding into a space no larger than a small city street, with no way out, piled up against the railings, benches, trees, everyone, everything coated in ashes, heavy ashes, as if dipped in plaster. Pressed against the railing, I was lifted up and over, I thought into the river where I would willingly drown. I believed that I was dead, how or from what I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. Instead, I landed, with five others, in a small boat—the driver pointlessly shouting, “hurry up, hurry up, this is illegal.” We sat, covered with white ashes, choking, terrified, amazed, silently moving across the river. Surely, I was dead now—that’s how it looks in the movies. In the middle of the river, another great gasping noise: the north tower exploded, flashes of fire, shooting in all directions, girders like spears, flying off and smashing into other buildings, the tower collapsing, consuming itself, smoke and debris spilling down, wrapping it, like lava. Softly curling, gathering debris, momentum, as if there were no lives in it, no bodies, no pain, no men and women, mothers, husbands, sweethearts, children. Both towers were gone—so quickly, terror, fire, debris, smoke everywhere. Aside from our own breathing, silence. We were like good children, keeping quiet so nothing else would happen. On Liberty Island, someone pulled us out of the boat, cleaned our eyes, hosed us down and laid us out on the grass to dry. Were we dead? No one treats living people that way. Were they still after us? Was it over? Would they find us here? Who were they? Would they try to save us, or kill us? Liberty Island was across the river, next to Ellis Island, an old terminal for trains, a hall for weddings, fireworks, hot-air balloons, all festive — now the place to be when you are neither dead nor alive. Boats arrived, fishing boats, ferries, house boats, a sudden navy rescuing people, old ones with canes and walkers, babies in strollers, workers in business suits, all looking as if they had been thrown from a volcano. Someone named Jerry, a wiry little man, the caretaker/handyman at Liberty Island, took charge, without training or authority. He knew what was required, inexplicably finding cots and chairs, he opened toilets, connected a phone line, offered trash bags of Hershey Bars, M&M’s, Kit-Kats and cookies from the vending machines. Cases of Tropicana orange juice, Poland Springs water with the scenic mountain view on the label, diapers for the babies arrived from somewhere… Nothing to say, nothing to do, just watch the smoke, white, yellow, sometimes black, curl around everything south of where the towers had been— except for the Holocaust Memorial in the mid-day sun, as if, unlike the rest of us, it was already tragic enough. We listened to the sirens, waited for the next bomb to drop, for more boats to arrive, the cheerful little party boats, the damaged people, all waiting for information, advice, comfort, change. We were locked in: unable to connect, cell phones, radios, even computers were down, all down. They came in waves from the boats, dusty, confused, with stories of escape, or not. How police watched them from their boats but wouldn’t take them on. Finally, the babysitters came with the children left in their care, jumped on the police boats, and demanded to be saved. They knew what was expected of them; they knew what to do. They came to Liberty Island too, along with the elderly, some sick with terror, or some, like my colleague, Ross, clean and cool, his perfectly white poodle waiting at attention at the end of his leash. A recent widower, whom had nursed his wife through terminal cancer before moving to New York with his eleven-year-old daughter, standing alert, holding himself together, as he must have done many times before. The collapse of the WTC antenna left us without transmission, useless cellphones, and no idea what had happened, would happen, or what to do. Then, around two o’clock, under a canvas awning protecting us from the blistering sun, a radio was connected, and through the partial sentences, the muddle and static, we heard Mayor Giuliani explaining the plane crashes, the collapses, who we were and where we were: the 1500 “walking wounded” on Liberty Island, he said. The casualties, would be more than many of us could bear. According to the President, we were at war—which, we later discovered, canceled all our homeowners insurance. We were covered for flood, vandalism, fire, even storm damage, yes, but war? Not likely in Battery Park City. But who was attacking, and why, and how did they manage to do it? Why didn’t anyone warn us? Why didn’t anyone protect us? For the first time in my life, I felt totally helpless, keenly aware that, although I succeeded at functions I knew how to perform, I was in the wrong place to do them, the wrong time. What could an English Professor, a pacifist and Quaker do in a war? What was expected of me? Why didn’t I know what to do, the way the babysitters knew? I sat with Michele, my beautiful young neighbor, and we talked about normal things: we would be home by evening, go out to dinner, drink lovely glasses of red wine, and admire ourselves for our courage. A young man from Australia sat with us: staying at the Marriott, he had gone out rollerblading (still in his skates), and just escaped being hit by landing gear. He had no passport, no money, no friends, and his hotel was burning. What was he going to do? What was normal for him now? Ambulances arrived, medics, rescue workers, triage. Instead of dinner with Michelle, I went with Robert, an elderly, fragile neighbor, to a hospital to help him find his partner. The ambulance went through odd neighborhoods in Newark, police at every corner stopping traffic, while a cluster of young men wearing white shirts cheered and waved banners in Arabic. They were not celebrating our survival. The driver told us not to look. At the hospital, oxygen, eyes washed again, the solicitous but helpless staff didn’t ask our names—no charge, no charge, they assured us. By oversight or accident, or because no one knew what they were doing or supposed to do, I was piled into a van with injured rescue workers, huge men dressed in hospital gowns, bandaged, burned, still marked with soot, empty and silent faces, unbelieving eyes, ready to go back if someone could find some pants for them, or a pair of shoes. The bus emptied at Liberty Island, which had become a staging area for the rescue workers. But, by now, those who had been rescued, my neighbors and friends, had all been sent to shelters. To keep out of the way, I found a bench, dark, sheltered, removed from the panic, the frenzy of confused and helpless rescuers. “Over here,” they shouted, “More boats,” “More Lights,” “More men.” I planned to spend the warm night sitting quietly across the river from the fires and smoke, take the ferry home in the morning and start over. I had no purse, no keys, money, shoes, covered in ash, and no one knew where or who I was, but I believed I would get home and everything would be intact. A passing EMS worker asked me what I was doing. When I explained my plan, so sensible and appropriate to me, she tied a triage ticket around my wrist, my name misspelled, and sent me to a trauma center in Newark, a city I had always considered dangerous. Outside the emergency room, doctors, nurses, empty wheelchairs, empty cots, waited for the injured who never arrived. Lines of people, factory workers, truck drivers, teachers, a man in a shirt with an Exxon logo, all came to give blood, some with their tired children in tow, as if they were afraid to let go. Shaking, unwilling to enter any building, I asked to stay in the parking lot. A psychiatrist, a young man, as bewildered as I was, came outside to talk, conceded that no one knew what to do, gave me a sedative and predicted wearily that I would probably feel a lot worse in the morning. He told me to sit in his car; if he could get back to Manhattan, he would take me. For an hour or two, outside the emergency room, frantic people looking for their loved ones pushed past the blood donors. I wondered if anyone were looking for me—and how they could find me since no one had taken my name. I thought about calling someone—no phone, no money, no numbers, no connections, now not even a memory of how phones work. Not a problem, I thought. No one outside New York knew what had happened anyway. It was, I believed, a purely local event, an anecdote on the evening news in Connecticut, perhaps, or New Jersey. I was worried about who would cover my classes at Temple in Philadelphia, but making contact could wait. I would be the first to tell them. No one would believe me anyway. A social worker, a beautiful blonde woman with the comforting name of Sharon, stopped on her way home from a shelter and offered to take me home with her. How improvisational life had become. Here I was, at 2 AM, filthy, shaking, unknown, huddled in a stranger’s car in a dark hospital parking lot, invited home by a trusting stranger, in a city I had always been afraid of. We watched tv, drank tea, shared stories, improvised some fresh clothes, for shoes multiple pairs of heavy socks that felt like animal paws, and, when I felt safe and clear, she walked me to the PATH train where the rescue workers were going back to Manhattan. Everyone looked empty, blasted, stoned. No one collected fares. Manhattan was deserted, hot, sunny, smoke hanging in the air, and, except for the sirens, silent. I walked from the Christopher Street station to the NYU English Department, temporarily housed at 726 Broadway. John Guillory, who had just become chair only days before, was behind his desk, and Phil Harper, the graduate chair, was beside him— as if it were a normal day. While I worried about what needed saying, Phil said what I needed to hear: “Marilyn, thank god you are all right! We have been looking for you. The Dean is so worried!” Imagine, looking for me, for me— John had been on the other side of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. He had just voted in the Primary Elections, came out on to Broadway, sat on the curb, he said, and wept. Another colleague, Bryan Waterman, new to New York City, had just dropped off his two children at the school closest to the Towers. Racing back, he rescued them and many others. Such stories tied us all in new ways, created a new community of traumatized faculty— many had watched helplessly as the plane screamed over their heads, down Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, and into the Towers. It mattered to be part of any community again, connected with familiar and caring friends. I also discovered that the whole world did know: on my computer messages from all over the world. Charlie Robinson, Chair at Delaware, among the first. Karl, my dear friend from Columbia University, on his own initiative called the Chair at Temple to explain why I wouldn’t be back to teach for awhile; something I did not know and could not have understood myself. And he needed to know. His message on my answering machine on 9/11: “Marilyn, your students are in my office complaining that you did not show up for class. Is there something I should know?” I called my mother, aged ninety-two, in Florida. Her priorities, as always, were absolutely in order: “Thank God you are all right,” she said. “If He had taken you before me, I would have lost all respect for Him.” I can’t remember a time in life when the name of God has been invoked so often for so many different reasons and with so little effect. What did He have to do with it? I really needed to know. I wanted to ask her how to have respect at all. I wanted to know how to believe, what to believe. I wanted to know if she thought I was on the right side? I needed her so much, but she was already drifting. And although I was accounted for at the University, I was still listed among the missing on the Battery Park City emergency web-site, which grew up immediately. I was still lost to me, missing in profound ways, clinging to a triage ticket with my name misspelled. I spent two nights in the Coles Gym with the NYU students evacuated from the dorms on Water Street. The counselors thought I would be a comfort to them. Strangers, with only a disaster in common, we were, like some bizarre athletic team, dressed alike in sweat clothes, team uniforms, soccer, tennis, track and field, whatever was available, all saying “Property of New York University.” We had lots of socks—and licorice whips, purple gum drops, commemorative lollipops, cases of soda left over from a canceled street fair. Except for a sudden and explosive thunder storm, we sat in Washington Square Park, mostly calm through the warm night of September 12, breathing the smoke from unknown burning things, listening to the planes circling overhead, waiting to find out what would happen next, wishing it were over, or that it had not happened at all. The students looked for the familiar, told stories, talked about their dogs, room-mates, boyfriends, birthdays, teachers, and promised to be good to their parents. Mothers, fathers, children, connecting, counting losses we did not know we had. Exhausted rescue workers, soon to be called First Responders, hard hats, muddy boots, covered in sweat and dirt, staggered up to Washington Square Park, outlined by the lights and the smoke they had left behind, collapsed in tears or stood paralyzed with the horror. We gave them pizza, lollipops, hugged them, shared their tears, and tried to find something to say. Some gave us their cards, police from New Jersey, an accountant from Staten Island, a postal worker from Queens, a painter, teachers, cabdrivers, nurses, fire-fighters from everywhere. Flowers, photos, signs, messages, candles, enough to light the world, surrounded the arch in Washington Square. We stood alert, frozen, cringing when the endlessly circling planes flew over, touched hands, prayed, sang, guitars, drums, a lonely saxophone—some wept, sobbed, others silent, lost, waiting for something to do, for someone to explain where to go, how to feel better, how to understand. Singing was to help: old folk songs from the 60’s and so many versions of God Bless America. And then the flags, everywhere. But why flags? Why God Bless America? What did it mean? What is an “evil doer,” the phrase President Bush kept using to describe these maniacs, who in killing themselves in some deranged religious ritual, had killed three thousand people who were just going about their day? What did patriotism, freedom, all the abstractions have to do with anything that had happened in the past thirty-six hours? Small groups of desperate looking people, Indian, Hispanic, Korean, looking for friends, relatives, for themselves, wearing sign boards with photos, hanging photos on every lamp post, under windshields, on fences and walls. We prayed with them, lit candles, helped hang their photos, faces smiling, captured in happy moments, at weddings, graduations, parties, young and old, executives, secretaries, waiters, each with a name, a company, weight and height perhaps, identifying scars, jewelry, last seen on the 84th or the 92nd, the 78th or 102nd floor of Tower I or II, a phone number to call, a prayer perhaps. We studied them, touched them gently, stroking their photos as if to comfort or revive them. How do people, such happy people, connected people, just disappear? Were they blown away in the ashes, the smoke, the light? Were my friends blown away, gone? Was it sudden and did they know? Would they have jumped if they knew the building would fall anyway? How did they make a choice to jump or die in the fire? Did they know what had happened? Benumbed, detached, no pain or sleep for many nights and months, losses “too deep for tears,” a phrase from Wordsworth I finally understood. I had lost my language, like my colleagues, stumbled and searched for simple words to explain things—the word “railing,” so crucial in explaining how I escaped was not to be found in my head. I did not yet know where my friends and neighbors were, who was lost and who survived, what I was going to do, how to get home, how to move on. For the next two days, NYU counselors, so many, listened: how long will this last, the confusion, forgetfulness, detachment, indecision, cold? There were no real answers. No one knew. I had money to buy clothes but except for one K-mart, the stores were closed. I couldn’t make a decision anyway, could not choose anything, not a pair of socks, and ended up in a get-up put together by students and friends, including hi-top sneakers from a local shoe store. I wore versions of it for nearly two months—a Ninja Professor look, my friend, Gabi, called it. Friends offered me shelter but nothing seemed to work: my colleague John met me at his perfect home in Brooklyn Heights, where he no longer lived, showed me around, made a key for me, and, in spite of all the reasons I should have found refuge there, I ran out in terror as soon as he left. David offered me his daughter’s room in his home, so I wouldn’t be alone but still have privacy — but I was afraid to cross the bridge. My friend Susan invited me to Princeton, but I was afraid of the tunnel. Afraid to leave and afraid to stay. Paralyzed by so many choices and indecision. I needed to stay near the bad things, the ones that explained why I was deranged, near other people who were equally crazed and who would not expect anything of me. Gabi, at twenty-six, my beloved youngest colleague, herself dazed but resolute in her remarkable way, shared her life with me, and shared an unwelcome history. Ready to take on whatever was required (someone my daughter’s age with whom I felt miraculously in tune) gave me all I needed: a purse, socks, t-shirts, a key, a tv to watch, enough space to hide in, the sofa in her living room to sleep or not sleep on, a door that I could keep going out of, concierges like my own to greet me and remind me who I am, and permission in her open and loving way to be as confused as necessary. I watched tv through the night and read newspapers all day, needing to know how I came to this place, to find out what had happened to all of us, to connect. Although to distinguish us from the victims (those who had died) and the survivors (their widows, children, bereaved parents), we were called “the residents,” but none of us any longer had a residence, and would not for many months. Battery Park City, my neighborhood, was now “Ground Zero” and, wherever we were, if we were alive, we all lived there. I called the building manager every morning to hear a recorded message describing the condition of the building, the neighborhood, to get advice, assurance, to find out where we were, who was safe, how to get into our condos to open the refrigerators, turn off alarms, close any windows still intact. And when I had to go back, to find identification, proof that I lived there. On a Sunday nearly two weeks later, I went to the apartment for a copy of the mortgage that proved I owned it, so the government could declare it a complete loss—then, I could hire someone to empty it. Another hot day, still so dusty, I walked down Broadway, trucks full of debris going the other way, until, nearing the site, crowds filled the streets, babies with balloons, ice cream trucks, a great parade of people who wanted to be a part of it. I was terrified, as much of them as of the site itself. I approached a police officer and he walked me through, all the way down to the Battery. Battery Park City, the model city by the river, the impeccably clean and safe neighborhood was now an encampment, with fully armed and camouflaged National Guard in the September heat, requiring at each corner the identification I didn’t have. The police officer talked our way down to the closest access to the neighborhood—the Ritz Hotel. What to do now? Like magic, John, the building manager, showed up, told the soldiers who I was, walked the only route they had opened, six or seven blocks, inches deep in ashes the rain had turned to clay: cars with broken windshields, melted tires, heaps of squashed and mangled cars, trucks, unrecognizable things, troughs in the street where the burning debris had fallen, wooden mounds covering the electrical cables, windows broken, stores and restaurants invaded by rats. Police, construction workers, soldiers, firemen, everyone angry, shouting at us as is we were the intruders, as if instead of victims, we were the problem—we were clearly in their way. A FEMA man, dressed like Crocodile Dundee, with the unlikely name of Dove, was waiting at the apartment. We went upstairs – the door was still open, thick ashes on the floor, footprints where the staff had come and gone, an abandoned flashlight and screwdriver near the door, the smell of yeast, of things fermenting, things I did not want to know, blown in through the space that had been the balcony door, the whole apartment, even the closets suffused with the ashes we were breathing before we knew they were toxic. So, it was totally lost, everything, and I agreed to have it all discarded—not a great loss at the time; nothing made sense or mattered anyway. While the government and insurance companies (who conceded that what President Bush’s had called an “act of war” was only vandalism) would later demand photos of the damage to reimburse us, my camera was destroyed but, among the many pointless things, we weren’t allowed to take pictures anyway. I still don’t know why. Among the losses, there is one that is to me the sum of all losses: my neighbor Katherine, Helene’s daughter, the most perfect and beautiful woman I have ever known. Did I see her that morning or was it a memory of the many mornings we had gone down together? I know that on 9/11, after leaving her baby daughter at day care, she walked to WTC I, where she had a meeting at Windows on the World, at the very top. She was excited about her day, as always, perfectly groomed, her shoes and brief-case polished, and her impossibly perfect legs in silk hose, like someone out of central casting. She walked with a special energy, a little kick, the wind definitely in her sails. She was everything any woman would want to be, and had arrived at a moment in her life that we all would like to see —“pay-off,” I called it, when everything fell into place and seemed to work. Always prepared, ready, she entered the World Trade Center for a meeting in Windows on the World and was never seen again. A hot Sunday morning in October, back to get mail, the neighborhood “frozen.” One of the many times when dignitaries or bereaved families visited, and everyone on the street had to stand in place until they left. This time it was Giuliani with Oprah. A huge Hispanic officer, sweating in his flawless dress uniform, was supposed to “contain” me and an elderly couple using walkers who lived two blocks away in a retirement home. “No,” I said, pushing at him, determined to get out, afraid to be stuck again. Instead of arresting me, he walked me to the river and talked about his post on 9/11, “directing traffic” on West Street, staying after the first plane hit, ducking the falling bodies, until the tower fell. I felt faint: we sat, he and I, and held hands for a long time. _____________________________9/11 did not belong to me, to us, to those who had been in it, and there was no room for us to mourn: it had become a great public event to which those who survived, were irrelevant. Before we even understood what had happened, before it was even over, if it would ever be over, it belonged to the politicians, the architects, lawyers, insurance companies, who would make careers out of our losses. There were heroes and criminals, codes and icons, interpretations, explanations, ceremonies, fund-raisers tv specials, and even soon a totally irrelevant and pointless war would be fought in retaliation, targeting innocent people in the wrong country. November 11, 2001, Veteran’s day, cold and sunny: briefly stopping by to see if any winter clothes had survived, I met displaced neighbors wandering the dust-filled streets. While we talked, exchanged stories, tried to connect, when sirens, lights, motorcycles and oversized black vans pulled up. Out of them men in suits, political figures with familiar faces, then Senator Hilary (in a turquoise outfit) and her staff, all holding Starbucks cups (where did they get that coffee, we asked each other), another man in religious garb, police in full riot gear, boots, shields, guns, sticks, helmets covering their faces charged at us, yelling “Get off the street”-- as if we had some place to go. I turned to go, obey, and then, something pulled me back, becoming someone I had never been before, literally beyond myself, overtaken, shouting at plastic-covered face with gun : “Why him and not us — where were you, where were you?!!” Others, equally faceless, guns raised, turned toward us. My neighbors pulled me back, tried to explain, then we ran, old enough to be their parents, old enough to remember Kent State, refugees in borrowed clothes, without homes, running away from the “security detail.” I see us again, all the time, in the Palestinians in front of their rubble, the Iraqis by their bombed-out cars, the Syrians huddled among the ruins of their homes, and I still want to know why or what to do. *Photos taken from Dr Gaull’s laptop. Not sure of attribution.
Archived URL: https://www.drmarilyngaull.org/911thelostessay
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