tavie.com

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
At 8:45, I got out of the subway on Rector Street. I was listening to "Midnight Radio" from Hedwig on my headphones, and the paper raining down from the sky looked like a ticker-tape parade. Businessmen and women were stopping on the street and staring at the sky; we didn't have a clear view of the World Trade Center. All we saw was that some of the paper was burning.

On Wall Street, at the cart where I bought my coffee, the woman next to me said that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Everyone within hearing was shocked. I rode the elevator up to the 35th floor on 60 Wall Street and found my entire office gathered at the big windows with the unobstructed view of the Twin Towers right across the way.

I didn't see the black hole and the flames at first. I was shaking, I had my hands over my mouth. I tried to call home but Kirsten was still asleep. I went back to the window and that's when the second plane came crashing into the second tower. I saw it.

It was unreal. I thought I was watching it on television. I thought the glass window in front of me was a television screen.

A woman screamed. Everyone ran for the elevators. We were scared to be so high up. "I didn't just see that, I didn't just see that," I kept saying. I felt actually scared for my life. I'd never felt that before. We didn't know what was happening; planes were crashing into tall buildings and we were on a high floor.

We crowded into the elevator, rode down into the lobby. People were milling around looking terrified. I didn't know where to go or what to do. A woman in my office, Alex-- the woman for whom I did computer graveyard inventory the first day-- saw me crying and told me to come home with her. She lived in Hoboken. We didn't know then that everything was closed down. I followed her down to the river because I didn't know what to do. I didn't feel awake. There were people on the streets just standing, staring, crying. We started walking uptown, away from the buildings, next to the river.

I really wish I had worn socks today.

After the first hour or so the pain of my mostly unused leg muscles went away and I could walk without feeling it. Everyone was walking uptown, just trying to get away. We started picking up people like the fucking Wizard of Oz. A man named Richard joined our party. His cell phone seemed to work sporadically and Alex and I managed to get in touch with enough people so that there wouldn't be heart attacks. Richard lived in Queens and wanted to get home to the baby he was helping raise. He was extremely comforting. I'm glad he was with us.

We stopped at a park to rest and met a scared young man from Japan who was fruitlessly asking people for their cell phones so he could try and call Tokyo. He was unsuccessful and was sitting on a park bench a few blocks from us staring into space. We asked him to join us. We wanted to get somewhere safe. We didn't know what to think, were afraid of things in the air and wanted to stay by the river where the air was fresher. I was thirsty but Alex suggested I not drink the water in the park fountain. We didn't know what to be afraid of, so we were afraid of everything. When military planes flew overhead we all froze and stared up until they were gone. We decided to head for the 59th street bridge and walk across, being sure to get enough inward so that we wouldn't be walking too close to the United Nations.

I've never seen anything like the mass of people walking through the streets, all in the same direction. We passed by a hospital and saw an enormous line. We bought enormous bottles of water to drink. We passed through the neighbourhood of Goose and Matt's school and I hoped they were together and okay.

Alex finally reached her sister on the phone. We all exchanged phone numbers, and she and the Japanese businessman went to meet her at 34th street. Richard and I walked the rest of the way. The scene at the 59 St. Bridge was like something out of a movie about WW II. There was an unbelievable mass of people moving across the bridge. We had to climb over cement guardrails to get to the path. We walked next to slow-moving cars and trucks. I began to feel my feet. And it was really, really stupid of me to wear a skirt today. (Any woman with big thighs knows what I mean about that. It began to hurt worse than my feet.)

Queens was a mess. Richard and I picked through the crowd and moved down Crescent Avenue. There were people standing outside their buildings passing out cups of ice water to the walkers.

Richard and I hugged goodbye with promises to call tonight and make sure everyone was okay. The walk from 36th avenue to Roosevelt Island to my building was the longest walk of my life. It was more of a limp, actually.

We started walking away from Wall Street at 9:15. I got home shortly after 1.

You don't want to see my feet right now. Why didn't I wear SOCKS today?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 5:13 PM | shower me with attention (or not)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:17 AM | shower me with attention