I remember leaving for work and as I was crossing to catch my bus a neighbor, walking toward me kept pointing across the river and saying something in Spanish which I didn't understand. Me, being half asleep just smiled and when the bus came I got on. It was only once I was sitting that I looked out the window and saw the smoke coming from the Twin Towers.
I thought maybe a small plane had had an accident and hit the tower. The guy sitting across from me was on his phone and his buddy on the other end had a radio on and was just telling him what he was hearing.
As we approached the Lincoln Tunnel entrance we were watching the skyline of New York City and ........... that is when we saw the second plane approach and hit the other tower. Deep down I thought this was no accident but the whole truth of everything didn't really hit me on a conscious level.
I mean, things like what I was thinking just didn't happen, not in my country. It just was too unthinkable and altho something said get off the bus, I sat almost numb because I knew basically I was paranoid and this really couldn't be what I thought it was.
Once across the river and in the Port Athority Bus Terminal I saw people huddled around a tv set and when I walked over a lady asked me what happened. Seems they saw the tv but evidently just the pictures, no dialogue. Why I didn't turn and try to get home, I have no idea.
Two buses more, one crosstown, one downtown, to the office and I was staring at the smoke, smelling it, almost tasting it and yet it was still unreal.
I went into the grocery store, bagel and coffee. Some guy says they just got the Pentagon .....
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO I tell him, stop spreading these rumors. The guy behind the counter asks me what he said and I shrugged, "ah, just some idiot, who doesn't know what he is saying".
My country, this doesn't happen here my heart cried silently in complete denial.
Then, waiting for the elevator to get to my floor ... Barbara, me, and some stranger. What happened, who knows ...... the stranger tells us he works at the Twin Towers but is here for a meeting. I laugh, boy are you lucky, something is going on over there. Later, much later, I remember him and know how thankful he was to have had an appointment at that time on that day.
After coffee I took my break. Went outside, people all over the streets, an unusual amount for that time of day and sirens, so many sirens. When I came back up everyone huddled around the boss's tv. Of course, I went in, sat on the couch and watched in a daze as the Towers fell, just a few blocks from where I sat and I looked into the eyes of a coworker, and said this is like a dream, I can't believe its happening. I mean, like we're in a movie.
I started phoning my friends .......
Wendy who worked for a big corporation said they were letting everyone leave but the tunnels and bridges were closed. How would we get home ........
Irene .......... her office workers were going to stay right where they were and sleep there.
At this point, as I think back, there was no panic that there would be more of this or that my building would be next. The only panic in me, to be honest, was how was I going to get home, get my insulin and other medication.
I was angry at those who did this, who put my life in jeopardy, who kept me from going home. I called my pharmacist and he assured me he would give me what he had and then reminded me that my doctor was only a few blocks away.
And then Cassie came out of her office, told me the ferry was taking people across the river. I called Wendy over and over, but her phones were dead. I called Irene and we made plans to meet on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. She said she would go home with me and not sleep over in her office. Weeks later she told me she knew I needed her.
And so I grabbed Peter, a temp worker at the time and we started the walk ........ joining hundreds of others trying to flee the city. Smoke in the air. Walking, walking .......... yet a strange calmness all around.
The same look on everyone's face ... disbelief. And an incredible silence except for the sirens of the police and fire engines. Later, much later, after talking to people who lived in the area ....... I found out that when the sirens stopped they cried, thinking no more were able to be saved.
Irene and I hugged each other when we finally got together. There were no tears. We even stopped for lunch to get a second wind. Exchanged pleasantries with others in the little restaurant who were stranded.
No buses out of the city .......
And we began walking toward the pier, a long walk on a very hot day with sirens and police all over. Even the police seemed stranded in some way, trying to keep everyone calm.
The lines were incredibly long at the pier. Without shame I saw a lady who had been in the restaurant with us and I said hello as I so nicely snuck in the line ahead of her, eliminating around ten more blocks of the line. No one said anything.
It was sooooooooo hot that day, this I remember. I also remember a girl reaching in her bag and giving me a baret to hold my hair up.
I remember a water hose somewhere and a man wetting paper towels and passing them along so we could cool ourselves.
I remember a young guy shaking, telling us he worked right next to the towers and that the guards in his building wouldn't let them out of the building and they pushed the guards aside and ran out. He told of seeing people jumping out of the windows at the two towers. And he was shaking, and his wife was pregnant, and he just wanted to get home.
And the line moved slowly as the ferry went back and forth across the river. After six hours it was our turn. Sitting on the ferry finally, gazing into the smoke of what was once the Twin Towers as we sped across the river ..... then and only then did the tears come, did my mind finally accept what had happened.
Even now, just writing this is bringing tears to my eyes. NOT HERE, NOT IN MY COUNTRY. THINGS LIKE THIS JUST DON'T HAPPEN.
But it did happen and to this day, each morning when I leave for work I look across the river before I step on the bus and I wonder if I will make it home. To this day, when I am in New York City and hear a plane overhead, I shake. To this day, when I hear a siren, I wonder if it's happening again.
We have all been touched, and all our lives have changed in many ways, whether one is from New York City or not. IT CAN HAPPEN, IT HAS HAPPENED, DEAR GOD, PLEASE DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.
© June 2002 Joyce Mascolino
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©Joyce Mascolino 9/11/02