9/13/01: DISPLACED

I slept pretty well at Cary’s that first night there.

In the morning I watched TV, drank coffee and ate a Pop Tart.  Cary’s long distance service was not working at all and my mobile phone had finally died.  Although I didn’t really blame myself for not thinking of taking the phone charger with me when I evacuated, I was still annoyed that I didn’t have it.

I went to the 770 office to check mail and make phone calls.

After an hour or so at the office, I started walking over to Canal and Westside Highway to see if I was going to be able to get to my apartment.

I walked through Greenwich Village.  The whole City was quiet, subdued, stunned.  People stumbling around, not talking at all.  No smiling, no laughing, no shouting.  Dogs weren’t even barking.  No private cars on the road.  Occasional ambulances screamed by, with no survivors in them.

When I reached Westside Highway I found hundreds of other people there, lining the Highway.  Like Close Encounters of The Third Kind, we all seemed compelled to gather at this spot in the City, just up the street from the WTC Site.  Emergency vehicles and workers streamed by us, into and out of the Site.  An official motorcade with the President, Mayor and Governor passed by.  We applauded the officials’ motorcade, we cheered all of the rescue workers, firemen and NYPD who went by.  Attack helicopters and F-16’s patrolled the skies, gun boats patrolled the waters.

There was no way I was getting South of Canal.

It was getting dark.  I took the subway from Canal and Broadway up to Union Square.

On the train, no one spoke.  Even the train conductors were silent. No one announced, “Stand clear of the closing doors, please!”  Sitting next to me, there was a hip looking guy, about 20, wearing a flag shirt and carrying a guitar.  Three Irish guys boarded, mid-20s, dressed as if they had just been playing soccer or rugby or something.  They were very drunk.  They were singing Irish songs. Other passengers glared at them.  They were violating our sense of somber.  Finally, they started singing a sweet, heartfelt version of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.”  Now everyone on the train relaxed, opened up a little, I even saw some faint smiles and teary eyes.  The three Irish guys were, after all, not some invasive, foreign beings sitting here drunk on our train laughing through our pain, but people just like us.  They were singing Beatles songs, for chrissake.  They tried to persuade the hip guy with the guitar to play along with them, but he was embarrassed.

I got off at 14^th Street.  There was an impromptu candlelight vigil at Union Square.   Around 400 people were lighting candles, posting pictures of their missing loved ones.   A drum circle had formed, people were singing and dancing “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”  I stood back and watched them for a long time.  It seemed so odd.  Peace?  This was not like a distant, faceless threat we were dealing with.  We had just been attacked.  Someone just reached in from outside and killed thousands of us.  During the Gulf War, I was in college at UC Santa Cruz, I protested that war.  Now I thought, if they had finished that War right, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.  If they had just taken out Saddam and killed Bin Laden and all these freaks of nature, instead of trying to control them for our own selfish interests, we would not be standing here grieving.  But I was captivated by the singing.  “… give peace a chance.”  I finally stepped up and sang a little with them.  I was glad to see them singing.  I did hope for peace.  I also hoped that we would find whomever did this and stop them.  Dead.  But I was glad to see them singing, give peace a chance, because honestly, I had forgotten that I am against war and assassination.   It disturbs me that in the face of threat, all of my convictions and beliefs vanished, without my even noticing.   Gandhi I am not.

I went over to the largest candle circle.  A woman gave me a candle to hold.  I lit it and stepped through people to place my candle with the hundred of others.  Kneeling, holding my lit candle, surrounded by dozens of grieving people, I looked at all the pictures of people now unaccounted for who were in the Towers.  Spread out among the melting candles and photographs were handwritten poems, expressions of love and grief, of hope, of unity.  It hit me suddenly, I watched these people murdered.  For the first time, I felt tears well up in my eyes.  I said a prayer for the victims and their grieving loved ones.  God, please help all these people in so much pain.  Help us cope.  Give us courage and strength.  I was a little disappointed that I didn’t really cry.  I knew that there was so much happening inside of me and that I was not feeling much of it at all.