On the Other Side (22 page)

Damita didn't want the driver to see her when she left from the
front of the building, so she decided she would ride down to the laundry room. She believed there was an exit there that led out to the back. She picked up her suitcase and got on the elevator and pushed the button to head down to the laundry room. Once inside the laundry room, she found the door to the street. As she opened the door, her cell phone began to ring. She didn't immediately recognize the number and then remembered she had seen the same number once before. One night she was meeting Neal for dinner and she was still at work and running late. Neal had sent the driver to pick her up and given him her number. Very often drivers were unable to park near the busy World Trade Center location where she worked.

She looked at the phone, nervously, wondering if she should answer it or not. She decided it was an ideal opportunity to buy her some time to get to work and eventually contact the police, before Neal had an opportunity to interfere. She answered the phone.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Mrs. Westman, this is the driver. Mr. Westman asked me to pick him up this morning. I've been calling both his cell and the home phone number and there's no answer.”

“He must have forgotten to let you know. He decided to do a conference call from home rather than go into the office for his meeting. He's not feeling very well.”

“Oh. Okay. Did he mention whether either of you would need me this afternoon? I have some other jobs I need to do, if he's all set for now.”

“I doubt he'll need you to drive him anywhere today. And I certainly won't. I'm pretty sure he's going to be in bed all day.”

“Great,” he said.

Damita hoped her voice didn't give her away. She tried her very best to remain as nonchalant as possible, but it was difficult under the circumstances.

She arrived at work sometime around eight-twenty a.m., in the hopes that she would have an opportunity to decompress before everyone else started filtering in. She saw Mr. Underhill immediately and noted the look of shock on his face. She realized she was usually so impeccably dressed. However, today, her clothing was bordering on disheveled, her face was bruised, yet again, and this time she hadn't even taken the time to cover it with makeup. Instead of the tastefully coordinated pumps she typically wore on her feet, she was wearing a pair of running shoes.

“Damita, once you get settled, could you stop by my office?” Mr. Underhill said, before walking away.

Throughout her entire ordeal, Damita kept anticipating the moment when Mr. Underhill became fed up with her personal drama filtering into the office. She was sure today would be that moment.

Emotionless, she went into the closet in her office and retrieved a suit and a pair of shoes that she kept there in case of emergency. She shut the door and changed. She used her compact mirror and applied some makeup to the multiple bruises on her face.

She considered calling her mother to let her know she would be coming to stay with her as soon as she left work, but didn't want to keep Mr. Underhill waiting.

As soon as she left her office to head to Mr. Underhill's, there was a loud noise. She stopped at Wendy's office first.

Wendy looked shocked. “Did you hear that? What the hell was it?” Wendy asked.

“I don't know. It sounded like an explosion,” Damita responded.

Wendy's face seemed to drain of color as she pointed out the
window. “Oh my God! That was an explosion. Look at that hole. There's a huge hole on the side of North Tower.”

Everyone at the firm began to gather and Wendy and Damita joined them near the break room. They were all discussing the fact that a plane had hit North Tower.

“What kind of a plane?” Wendy asked.

“It must have been a private plane. It can't possibly be a commercial jet. Can they even fly that low?” an employee from the mailroom mentioned.

“Maybe it crashed,” someone else speculated.

“Do you see all that smoke?” Damita said.

As they all watched, helpless from South Tower, they could see that people inside North Tower, desperate to escape the fire and smoke, were jumping to their deaths.

Damita looked over at a woman from their Legal Department. She suddenly went deathly pale, right before she started screaming. “Did you see that, they're jumping? They're all dying!”

“What should we do?” someone asked.

“We should stay put,” Damita said.

“Where is Mr. Underhill?” someone else asked.

“I don't think he's in yet. It's still early,” said another.

“He's here. I saw him this morning when I arrived,” Damita said.

Suddenly, Damita's cell phone rang. She was surprised. Everyone had been attempting to use their cell phones and they all had gotten the same message that
all circuits were busy.
When she answered, the connection was weak, but it was clearly her mother.

“Baby, are you okay?” she asked.

“I'm fine, Mom. I'm okay.”

“I heard a report that a plane hit the World Trade Center.”

“It did, but it's not our building. I'm in the South Tower. The plane hit the North Tower.”

“Is it bad?” her mother asked.

“It's pretty bad.”

“You need to get out of there, now.”

“Maybe you're right.”

“Damita, please get out of there.”

“I will, Mom. I promise I will.”

“Damita, I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom. Don't worry. I'm going to be fine.”

Within minutes of Damita hanging up, there was an announcement over the PA system.

“May I have your attention, please? This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test. There has been an incident in The North Tower. The incident has been isolated in Building 1. There is no fire danger to Building 2. Building 2 is secure. I repeat Building 2 is secure. Please return to your offices. We will continue to keep you updated with any further instructions.”

Wendy's expression was one of utter terror. “Return to our offices? They have got to be fucking kidding me. We need to evacuate now,” Wendy said.

“Are you telling me we have to walk down seventy-seven flights of stairs? I'm sure the elevators aren't working. They immediately disable them in an emergency situation. Isn't this building secure?” one young woman asked.

“Maybe we should go up to the roof,” suggested another woman.

Suddenly, there was a violent jolt and Damita felt like she was in an elevator that was quickly plummeting. The building began to sway heavily and then almost as quickly, stopped. Above them the ceiling was gone and the windows were blown out.

Damita looked around to find everyone was covered in dust and particles and the air was full of debris and smoke, and a strong chemical odor filled the air. Just as everyone was approaching full panic mode, Mr. Underhill entered, covered in dirt and soot from head to foot. He was bleeding from a wound to his head and he appeared to be in shock. His stark paleness could be seen, even beneath the dirt that covered his face.

“Mr. Underhill, are you okay?” Damita asked.

“I got out just in time. One minute longer and I would be gone. They're all dead,” he said.

“Who?”

“Everyone on the seventy-eighth floor is dead.”

“Well, we won't be going up,” someone said.

“What do you think happened? Were they wrong? Has the plane that flew into the North Tower caused damage to this building as well?” someone else asked.

“That sounded like we lost the top floors. Do you think the whole building will come down?” said another.

Everyone had questions. Ruled by fear, no one considered the fact that they all had the same information and therefore no one could be sure about what was indeed happening.

One man in particular seemed much calmer than everyone else.

“Something tells me that first plane may not have been an accident. What happened to this building may have been as a result of structural damage to the North Tower, but more than likely it was another plane. At this point, we all need to start down the stairs and continue until we get to the bottom,” he said.

“But, she's pregnant,” someone said, pointing at their pregnant coworker.

“I'll help her,” the man said.

Damita was terrified, like everyone else, but somehow this man made her feel safer; like everything was going to be okay. She didn't recognize him as an Underhill employee, but she figured he was a visitor or maybe a new member of the staff that she had yet to meet. Either way, she was glad he was there.

He helped the pregnant woman, as he said he would and even stopped every now and then to make sure others were doing okay. He would encounter someone who had fallen or been hit by a piece of falling debris and try his best to assist. At one point during their descent, Damita noticed an older man slumped in a corner, his leg oddly twisted. His face was contorted in agony and she stopped to see if she could help. She tried to help him to his feet, but his leg was obviously broken.

“You can't get him down more than seventy flights of stairs. You'll have to leave him. Rescue personnel will be along. They will need to help him.”

“Maybe if we all—,” she continued.

“We can't. You have to keep going. Rescue personnel are here. Anyone who has been left behind will get help.”

Damita looked around at her coworkers and others she didn't recognize and wondered if in addition to working together, they would die together.

He saw the frightened look on her face and tried to reassure her.

“You know, we're actually in good shape, under the circumstances. Judging from the smoke and fire that seemed to be coming from North Tower, we're good. There's barely any fire and if we move quickly we can get to safety before the smoke becomes life-threatening. Everything is going to be okay; really.”

Damita forced a smile. There was an overpowering odor. “What is that smell?” she asked.

“That's jet fuel,” the man answered.

Damita saw him try to help Mr. Underhill, who seemed close to being catatonic. She watched as he continued to navigate the stairs despite his head injury and apparent shock. Debris and smoke further impeded everyone's progress. Every now and then the man would stop to remove debris. She wondered what had happened
to Mr. Underhill when he was on the seventy-eighth floor, especially since he reported back that everyone on that floor was dead. She took notice of the scent of fuel and wondered if there was a threat of an explosion. There were gaping holes in some areas of the stairwell and at one point, Damita stepped directly into a hole, twisting her already fragile ankle. The man who was helping everyone stopped to help her as well and reminded her to keep going.

“I don't know how much time we're all going to have to get out of here. With that much jet fuel, we're in a great deal of danger,” he said.

The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her and everyone else even more, but he felt it was important that they understood time was of the essence.

The pain in Damita's ankle was excruciating, but when she considered the alternative, she realized it was imperative that she push through the pain. As she continued on she noticed that others had been injured. Every now and then pieces of debris would fall. She was comforted by the presence of the man who had been by her side throughout her efforts to make it to the bottom. Some fire-fighters passed her on the stairs and she couldn't help but think how frightened they looked. She was happy to see they were there and would be able to help the old man she had to leave.

By the time she exited the stairwell and made her way into the World Trade Center complex mall, there were firefighters screaming and frantically gesturing to get out of the building. Damita did her best to speed up, despite the shooting pain in her ankle. Confident she was out of danger, she turned to thank the man who had helped her just in time to see a huge block of the structure fall, separating the two of them. Yet, she could still make out his voice, even above all the other voices and chaos.

“Keep going, Damita. You've got to get out. The structure is weak
and the building won't remain stabilized for much longer. Keep going. If you don't survive, it will all be for nothing.”

Damita wondered what he meant by that. What would be all for nothing? She realized that under such extreme circumstances anyone was capable of saying things that didn't make much sense. She realized he knew her name and since she hadn't told him what it was, she assumed he had picked it up from someone else.

“What's your name?” she asked.

“Coop. Just call me Coop,” she could vaguely hear him say.

“I don't want to leave you,” Damita said.

“I'm going to be fine now. As long as you're okay. So, go. Don't waste another minute. Get out of here and we'll see each other again. Don't worry about me. I'll meet you on the other side,” he said.

Damita left the mall at the exit near the Millennium Hotel. She stood by watching the nightmare unfold, as debris fell from the building. She began walking north and was only a few blocks away when she heard a loud noise and saw a great cloud of dust. Someone in the crowd said South Tower had fallen. The first thing Damita thought about was whether or not the man who had helped her had gotten out. Along the way, she had gotten separated from the people she had started down the stairs with on the seventy-seventh floor. She had started out along with Mr. Underhill and Wendy. Now, she didn't see either of them. She hoped they had made it out before the building came down. Her mind wandered to the strangest things. She thought of Tina, who had been spared this ordeal, simply because she had lost her job. She also thought of all the good times she had shared with Wendy, and even her boss, Mr. Underhill. She remembered the day she came into the office to interview with him. She was fresh out of college and scared
to death that she wouldn't be good enough. Mr. Underhill's brusque manner did nothing to reassure her. But slowly but surely, she began to prove herself and over the years, her
boss
, had revealed herself to be just as much of a friend. She thought of the pride she saw in her mother's eyes when she came to see her new corner office. In the blink of an eye, all of that had changed and her life, and the lives of those she had spent so much of her time with all these years, was inexplicably altered. She had the feeling of being on autopilot. She walked, ignoring most of what was going on around her. The pain in her ankle was nonexistent. One thing she couldn't help but notice was the massive smoke cloud rising out and above the World Trade Center site. It was all so utterly and completely surreal.