Reluctant Hero: A 9/11 Survivor Speaks Out About That Unthinkable Day, What He's Learned, How He's Struggled, and What No One Should Ever Forget (2 page)

You can’t really plan where you’re going to be on the worst day of your life. And it’s hard to imagine that the worst day of your life might also be one of the worst days in modern history. Long before that day, I had plans. I had goals. But none of them included being in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

I didn’t love my Jersey City studio apartment on 234½ 7th Street. It was small and dumpy, but I got a great deal on it. Joy lived right across Hamilton Square Park. I called her before heading out the door for the train. I’d pick her up after work. We’d get dinner, or maybe see a movie. We had a lot to talk about. Two weeks earlier, after an entire summer of searching, we’d finally found a place to have our wedding. The big event was a year away, but there was plenty to do right away. Life wasn’t simple. Still, I was looking forward to the weekend. Forecasts called for sun, blue skies, highs in the low eighties. Maybe we could go down to the Shore? There were so many plans.

My plan—my big plan—always included living in northern New Jersey. That’s where I’m from. That’s where my family is. That’s where I’ve always wanted to end up. As a kid, I skinned my knees in the parks and playgrounds of Montclair, Verona, and Bloomfield. I earned all-conference football and track honors at Immaculate Conception High School. Except for four years spent at Brown University, and cup of coffee here and there, I’ve lived in New Jersey all my life.

In fact, that’s what I told Network Plus. I wanted to be in New Jersey. “Someday you’ll be able to open your own New Jersey office.” That was their big speech to me at my interview. They painted a pretty picture. But when I woke up on Friday, September 7, 2001, I was headed into Network Plus offices in
New York City, on the 81st floor of the Word Trade Center’s North Tower. I sold telecommunications there. To be precise, I managed others who sold telecommunications. That’s what I did.

I’d been working for Network Plus since May 1994. I didn’t plan on that, either. I graduated from Brown in 1987; months later, the market crashed, and any prospects I had of becoming an investment banker crashed with it. I settled for commercial banking, but that didn’t do it for me. I wanted out of banking. Sales, in most any field, sounded like the right direction. It just happened to be telecom sales.

My rise through Network Plus wasn’t a straight line. While living in Princeton, New Jersey, I cut my teeth for two years at their office in nearby Bluebell, Pennsylvania. It was a new office, and Network Plus was a fairly new company, founded only three years earlier, in 1991. In 1996, they sent me down to Springfield, Virginia, to resuscitate a floundering sales office. The move was a disaster. The office was poorly positioned geographically, making recruitment nearly impossible. I tried hard for ten months, but the office never took off. When a sales manager position became available in Norwalk, Connecticut, I jumped all over it. Connecticut wasn’t the biggest sales region, but it was a helluva lot bigger than Springfield; and I got to manage a sizable sales staff. The Network Plus home office was based relatively nearby in Randolph, Massachusetts. Most importantly, it was a step closer to being back in New Jersey. The company was expanding. Network Plus was building a network, becoming a competitive local exchange carrier, a CLEC as it’s called in the trade. They opened up additional offices, and finally, they asked me to find office space in New Jersey. Things were looking up.

I quickly found suitable space and negotiated a favorable lease. All we needed to do was sign. But Network Plus put the brakes on the transaction. They were already setting up an office in New York City. “It makes no sense to open up a New Jersey office too,” they explained. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.

Adding insult to injury, the New York office already had a sales manager. And they had already filled my old position as sales manager at the Norwalk office. This meant I’d go from being the manager of my own office to an assistant manager in New York City. This was not my plan. I had already reached my personal goal of becoming the sales manager of an office. That was big for me. “Assistant manager” meant I was back out there selling. That was difficult for me. The thing is, I’m a better sales manager than I am a salesman. I don’t get jazzed about all the little details that make a top salesman—bringing in doughnuts, remembering birthdays, sending out Christmas cards. I respect those professional traits in others. It’s just not my cup of tea. For me, going back to selling was like being a detective being told to walk a beat again. It felt like I was taking a step back.

September 3, 1998, on my first day at the New York City offices, I looked around and saw we had only six salespeople. It would be an uphill battle. Still, I was in downtown Manhattan, in a spectacular office space on the 81st floor of one of the world’s most famous buildings, the World Trade Center. How bad could life be? Within a year, the manager of the New York City office was promoted to regional manager, and I took over his job. And things took off for me.

New York City turned out to be a perfect fit. I performed better in all aspects of my job. I liked the city. I liked riding the subway. I loved recruiting talent. Most of the salespeople I hired
were from the New York area, but I also recruited young salespeople from all over the country who were either new to New York or fresh out of college. That kind of recruiting was a first for Network Plus. At the height of our operation, we had forty salespeople in the New York office.

I was having a great time. I was active. I personally took every hire under my wing and out on their first sales calls. I gained a lot of respect from my salespeople for being in the trenches with them. People knew what they had to do. My guys and I were in sync. Business was booming.

My office quickly emerged as one of the company’s top two sales offices. Network Plus eventually opened an office in New Jersey and offered it to me. But I didn’t want it. I had New York City.

I loved Fridays for many reasons, but Friday, September 7, felt especially nice. We were a week past Labor Day, and it was still perfect beach weather. Just before I descended underground to the Port Authority Trans-Hudson train, Joy called me on my cell phone. “Let’s definitely do a movie tonight,” she said. “It’ll be good to give ourselves the night off from wedding planning.” She was right. “What if we got up early and went to the Shore tomorrow?” she said. The girl could read my mind. I hadn’t even gotten on the train, and I was already looking past my day at Network Plus. I said I’d call her from the office, later on. You see, that was the other thing about moving to the World Trade Center office. It’s where I met Joy.

Not long after I arrived at Network Plus’s New York office, in April 1999, I served as best man at Jeff Fernandez’s wedding in Key West. I flew down on a Tuesday. Jeff got married that
Saturday. I left on Sunday. It was like spending a week at Mardis Gras with a wedding thrown in. What a party.

I’d known Jeff’s entire family since meeting them my freshman year at Brown, sixteen years before. My fraternity nickname at Brown was
Harry
, after Harry Belafonte. My last name is
Benfante
, which sounds similar to
Belafonte
(creative bunch, those Ivy Leaguers). So this group knows me as Harry. They also know I was one of the last of my college friends to remain single. So all the mothers and wives dug in: Harry, when are you going find a nice girl? Harry, when are you going settle down? Harry, when are you going to get married? Unable to take the pressure any longer, I cried out, “The reason I’m not married yet is because I’m making sure my friends are taken care of first. It’s been hard enough setting these guys up one by one with the right girls, this weekend’s groom included. Starting Monday, I’ll worry about myself.” Mercifully, this ended the inquisition.

When I got back to the office on Monday, I noticed a new girl. She was the assistant to the vice president on the local network side of the business. I’ll never forget walking into the office that day and seeing her for the first time—sitting there at her cubicle with perfect posture in front of the computer, wearing a white shirt under a sleeveless navy blue dress, gorgeous long black hair. I thought she was so beautiful. Later that week, I was having a conversation with a co-worker about Ayn Rand novels. I couldn’t remember the name of the protagonist in
The Fountainhead
, and the new girl, seated two cubicles away, just blurted out, “Howard Roark.” I was very impressed. ( To this day she says I shot her a dirty look, but really, it was one of delighted surprise.
Really
.) That was the first time I ever spoke with Joy Osuna.

For the next two months, we saw each other in passing, and that was about it. Sometimes I asked her to write reports or clean
up a document. Admittedly, I was overly critical of her work. (A not-so-subtle way of getting her attention, she claims.)

And then it happened. On a random Thursday night, June, 17, 1999, John Powers, a college buddy of mine who lived in Connecticut, phoned late in the afternoon to say he was in the city, and could we have a drink? We arranged to meet at Bryant Park. I packed myself up and headed toward the elevator. On my way out I whizzed by Joy, who was chatting with another senior administrative assistant. Though my feet kept moving, my mind hesitated. I knew she lived uptown, which theoretically had us heading in the same direction. As I stepped into the elevator, I thought, somewhat impulsively,
Why don’t I ask her if she would like to take the subway ride together?
I caught the closing elevator doors with my foot, got out, and walked back into the office. And I asked her.

After registering slight shock, she said yes, and I waited for her to get ready. We took the subway uptown. The ride was kind of awkward at first. I only meant it as a friendly invitation. Well, maybe I did. Sure, she was cute, and I was attracted to her. Still, I wasn’t thinking about much more than going to meet a friend and maybe getting to know her a little bit better in the process.

We got to Bryant Park, and after one drink my buddy John Powers had to get back home to Connecticut. I turned to Joy, awkwardly, and managed to come out with “Are you hungry?” She said yes. So off we went to a kind-of-charming Italian restaurant in the Turtle Bay section of town—2nd Avenue and 53rd Street—called Caffe Buon Gusto.

A waitress led us upstairs to the nicest little table for two overlooking the avenue. It was very romantic. The menus came, and it struck both of us at the same time that, well, this is like a date. Awkward moment number three. To break the uncomfortable
silence, I joked, acting as if I were the big shot on an official first date, “Order anything you like on the menu.” We tossed each other a playful look and a half smile, thinking the same thing:
Sure, OK, why not? Let’s see how this goes.

After a wonderful dinner, we moved to a lively bar next door. We had drinks and watched the Knicks play San Antonio in the NBA Finals. The Knicks won!

From there we went to another place, and from there another and from there another. We ended up at a New Orleans–themed bar called Harglo’s across 2nd Avenue and a few blocks down from Caffe Buon Gusto. It was around 2:00 a.m., and we were having a blast. The bar was owned by a charming old woman named Cia and her gregarious Greek family. I told Cia that it was Joy’s birthday (Joy’s real birthday was a week before, but hey). She brought out a piece of chocolate cake with a candle in it. It was the sweetest thing you ever saw. Joy blew out the candle, and then we clapped for her—me, Cia, her family, and two other customers. The jukebox played Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” I love that song. I know every word. I grabbed Joy, and we started dancing, me singing in her ear.

Cia asked how we got together. She asked all about us. She had us laughing. I went to the bathroom; then Cia and Joy got to talking. Cia asked Joy, “How do you know dis man?”

Joy said, “I don’t know him so well, he’s a co-worker. We’re out for the first time.”

“He is a very good man—handsome,” Cia said.

“You think so?” said Joy, making Cia laugh.

“Listen to me,” Cia said, drawing Joy closer. “I think you gonna to marry dis guy.”
*

On cue, I came out of the bathroom and rejoined Joy at the bar. I started telling her story after story, semi-nervously trying to keep her entertained and probably thinking too much about how great this was all feeling and how it was all going. And then, in the middle of my talking about God-knows-what, out of nowhere, she kissed me. Stunned, and overthinking the situation, instead of kissing her back, I just picked up the conversation where I left off, practically in midsentence. But as she pulled away and gracefully resumed listening to my tales of glory, I saw something in her—something so lovely and familiar.

All your life you hear couples talk about that magic night where you spill your guts and bond with that special someone. That night was it for me and Joy. We didn’t want to go home.

The next day at Network Plus, at 8:30 a.m., Friday, there was an unscheduled, mandatory all-staff meeting on sexual harassment in the workplace. We both attended and took copious notes.