Thunder Dog (12 page)

After my stint at Kurzweil Computer Products was over, I looked for something else in the high-tech arena. I enjoyed the challenge of sales and working together with customers to determine their needs. In the mid-1980s I started my own company with a friend selling specialized computer systems, including some of the early computer-aided design (CAD) systems that architects use. We did okay but didn’t make a lot of money. It may seem strange that a blind person could sell CAD systems until you think about it. When architects who came to see our products asked for demonstrations, I would sit them down in front of the screen and ask them what they wanted to draw and how they would do the job on their drafting tables. I then took them through the steps of drawing on a CAD system so that by the end of the demonstration, they had drawn their own building and could even conduct a three-dimensional tour of what they had drawn. My blindness prompted the customer to get even more involved than if a sighted salesperson had done the same presentation.

After a few years we decided to close the doors, and I started doing sales again, working for several different companies that manufactured specialized disk systems and tape backup systems for customers who processed large amounts of business-critical data and needed a safe and secure method to store their records. We helped sell systems that could create and maintain data libraries for businesses in the areas of health care, government, education, media and entertainment, and finance.

I loved my job and did my selling both by phone and in person. When I set up appointments, I usually didn’t tell people I was blind, not because I thought it would make a difference but because I just didn’t think to tell them. But the longer I worked in sales, the more I began to realize my blindness had a certain value in selling. I don’t mean I tried to make people feel sorry for me. I don’t think I ever made a sale that was motivated by the customer’s pity for me, feeling sorry for the blind guy. That’s one card I never play because I don’t see it as a handicap in the first place.

But one area where my blindness came in handy was in product demonstrations. When I was on a sales call and I set up the product and took the customer through the steps of operating and troubleshooting the products, I could almost hear the wheels turning in the customers’ heads. “Gee . . . if a blind man can operate this, then anybody can.”

Then there was the dog factor. Having a guide dog proved to be helpful in certain situations. Customers were more open to having conversations, and even if I could sense they were giving me dirty looks, they might not shoo me out the door as quickly. I worked hard to build relationships, to determine what the customer needed, and to solve problems with creative solutions. If I didn’t have a workable solution, I suggested alternatives. After I did everything I could do, I would stop talking, ask for the order, and wait. And I did well.

As I worked my way up from humble sales rep to sales manager, I traveled hundreds of thousands of miles, and I worked with some great people at a company called Artecon.

My sales reps and I had a good time. I used to egg them on to make their sales calls by telling them we were “dialing for dollars,” a theme I took from a low-budget TV game show by the same name. We worked in cubicles and I kept the atmosphere fun and lighthearted.

Once a month I rounded up all the salespeople, and we piled into a motor home and headed to George’s Burgers, a greasy joint in San Marcos. One time they let me drive the motor home in the parking lot. “Just put the thing in D for Drive,” they told me.

“When I hit the bumps, the Braille keeps me in between the lines,” I said.

One of my favorite sales reps of all time was Billie Castillo. She was a firecracker and didn’t know much about technology when she started, but she made up for it in moxie and energy. “I was a sales rookie who didn’t know the difference between computer disk and tape, and you turned me into the World Wide Web Queen,” she said recently.

Billie didn’t much like to fly, especially in the winter when they were de-icing the wings of airplanes. She always said I had a calming effect on her. “Something about your personality, your no-fear thing. You’re so used to adapting and reacting to the environment.”

I traveled a lot of miles with Billie. We developed a great strategy using my guide dog Klondike at trade shows when we took walks around the other booths to check out our competitors’ products. Klondike would draw attention with people wanting to touch him or ask questions. “Oh, your dog is so cute. Can I pet him?”

After we gathered a group of dog lovers, we’d slowly saunter back to our booth with Klondike, bringing the crowd with us. Once or twice Klondike accidentally stepped on power cords and interrupted the power supply to other booths. But who could get angry at a beautiful golden retriever?

In 1996, I ended up with an office in the World Trade Center for the first time when I opened up a regional sales office in New York City for Artecon.

One thing that impressed me about the World Trade Center was the stringent security. After the bombings in ’93, they put strict measures in place to control and monitor who went in and out of the buildings. In the lobby, you were asked to provide your ID. If you were a visitor, they either checked your name off of a clearance list or called up the company you were headed to in order to verify that you were expected. After your identity was verified and your visit authorized, they took a photo and created a badge for you with a bar code. But just because you had a badge didn’t mean you had the run of the building; the badge limited your access to certain floors only.

A few years and a couple of jobs later, I ended up in the World Trade Center again, this time with Quantum. In the year 2000 we opened an office on the 78th floor of Tower 1, the North Tower. I was regional sales manager, and this time I got an all-access security badge from the Port Authority, which meant I could go anywhere in the building, including the underground parking garages. I kept up my habit of taking a different route each time, and I explored the building and developed an array of shortcuts. Before I ever brought my guide dog, I used my white cane and explored the building, constructing my mental map so I would always know where I was.

One of my best sales reps ever was Kevin Washington. If you can sell in New York, you can sell anywhere. And Kevin could sell in New York. He was a hoot and always gave me a hard time. He started calling my white cane a “ninja stick.” He also liked to challenge me and try to get me lost. He would walk with me to a certain point in a basement or parking garage then walk away and see if I could find him. He was fascinated with how I navigated, so he called me Batman “because you have built-in radar like a bat.”

“We all know you can see,” Kevin used to joke. “Come on . . . there’s no way you can’t see.”

Once, Kevin and I were walking down the street together with my guide dog. The sidewalk was crowded, and a woman coming the opposite direction neglected to move aside, bumped into me, and fell down. We helped her up, and she came up fighting mad. She shouted at Kevin, “You’re his handler. You should be more careful.”

Kevin and I both reacted when we realized she wasn’t talking about the dog, she was talking about Kevin. Handler? If ever I was tempted to use my white cane as a ninja stick, that would have been the time. But Kevin and I just laughed it off.

A feisty and opinionated New Yorker, Kevin was a huge help in dealing with the New York cabdrivers. Many of them were uncomfortable with dogs in their cabs, and if I stood on the curb, they’d pass me by. It wasn’t easy for me to catch a cab. So Kevin would stand at the curb and hail a cab while I stayed back out of sight. When the taxi stopped, I’d run forward with Roselle and join him. If the driver still balked, Kevin would unleash his New York City bluster. “Look, this is a working dog. You pull away and we’ll report you to the Taxi License Commission. And I have friends in Homeland Security. Don’t mess with us.” We did file a few complaints to the NYC Taxi and Limo Commission against cabdrivers who refused to transport us. We probably helped finance the city budget with those complaints.

On September 11, Kevin happened to oversleep because he’d been up late the night before playing with his beautiful one-year-old baby girl. He ended up going into work late and was on the PATH train, just entering the tube under the Hudson River, when the first plane hit our tower. The ground vibrated, and the train stopped then reversed and went back to Jersey City. With the trains stopped, he was stuck in Jersey City. He watched the towers fall, not knowing whether his Quantum colleagues were dead or alive. I had expected Kevin that morning, as he had a 10 a.m. appointment with people from Cantor Fitzgerald on the 102nd floor of Tower 1. He had not arrived by the time we left, but I didn’t know until later what had happened to him.

When David, Roselle, and I hit the concourse, the shopping mall under the World Trade Center, we begin to run. More water. We still don’t know exactly what is going on, but from the commotion in the lobby, it’s pretty clear that we need to get out and away. The shops in the mall are deserted, and the human traffic is flowing the same direction: up and out. We take an escalator and ride it up and outside to the second-floor plaza.

For the first time since the chaos began, we step into New York sunlight. We stop and breathe in some fresh air. It seems like a lifetime since we heard the explosion. I check my watch. It’s been an hour, almost to the minute.

David looks around, then up at the towers. “There’s a fire in Tower 2, up high,” he says.

What? The explosion was in Tower 1. What is going on?

We’re confused. What is happening?
Maybe when our building tipped, the fire jumped to the other tower
. We can’t think of any other explanation. The stairwell had been like an isolation chamber, blocking us from any outside news.

But we’re about to find out.

Faith is taking the first step even when
you don’t see the whole staircase.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

W
aves of people approach. First, the paramedics. “Thank you, but we’re fine. No injuries here.”

Next come the television reporters, asking for comments, but we are still in flight mode, and we keep moving. People fill the streets, streaming in all directions.

We pause for a moment on the southwest corner of Broadway and Ann, about a hundred yards away from Tower 2, the South Tower. David takes out his camera to take a picture of the gray and black smoke billowing upward from the towers while I try to reach Karen on my cell phone to let her know we are safe. All I can get, though, is an “All circuits are busy” message. We learned later that that the overloading of the cellular phone system was due to the many trapped people on the upper floors calling loved ones to say good-bye.

We still don’t know exactly what happened to cause the explosion and the fires. We won’t find out until later that the blaze in the towers is so intense it is reaching temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees and generating heat equivalent to three to five times the energy output of a nuclear power plant.
¹
Fireproofing, sprinkler systems, and the water supply for fire hoses have been knocked out, although the fire is so extensive that sprinklers might not be much help anyway. The plane’s impact between the 78th and 84th floors destroyed exterior columns and may have also damaged interior columns and the floor plate. The floors near the impact suffered severe damage. But the fire is the key problem, heating up the structure to a critical point. Molten aluminum from the plane is flowing down the side of the building opposite the initial impact.

It’s 9:59 a.m., just over an hour since we left our offices. David puts away his camera, and I am closing up my cell phone, unable to reach Karen, when a police officer screams, “Get out of here! It’s coming down!”

The South Tower emits a deep rumble that becomes a deafening roar. I hear glass breaking and metal tearing, accompanied by a chorus of shrill and terrified screams. I will never forget that sound as long as I live. It was like a cross between a freight train and a waterfall of breaking glass.

A floor up in the southeast corner started the ball rolling with a partial collapse, along with columns along the east face buckling near the floor from south to north. Then the top of the building twisted to the east and south, crashing downward and taking successive floors out like dominoes. The South Tower was down in just ten seconds in a cacophonous waterfall of glass, steel, and people.

The impact creates a vibration that travels through my feet and up my legs, and the street feels like a trampoline bouncing. A jolt of fear rips through me and my throat freezes; I can’t even scream.

David cries, “Oh, my God!” and starts running. In a split second’s time I swing 180 degrees, lifting Roselle up bodily and spinning around with a death grip on her harness, and we break into a run too. We are running for our lives. No one is helping anyone anymore.

Except for Roselle and me. We are still there for each other.

Rocks, metal, and glass fall around us, and small hard objects pelt my head and face.

For the second time today, I think that I might die, this time without even being able to say good-bye to Karen.

Many people did perish in the streets surrounding the towers, crushed by the falling building, flattened by debris, or blasted by the shock wave. There were eyewitness reports of eight-ton steel I-beams tumbling end over end. Cars launched through the air along with chunks of concrete, metal ductwork, and shards of glass. One report tells of an EMT firefighter who survived while a flying I-beam killed his partner right next to him.

Roselle and I run away from the noise. I don’t understand why this is happening. My heart cries out to God in anguish.

How could you get us out of the building only to have it fall on us?

As soon as I silently scream out the question, God answers. I hear his voice inside my head and my heart. He speaks directly to me.

Don’t worry about what you cannot control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself
.

I’d never before heard God’s voice so close and so clearly. Immediately I feel peace and a sense of protection. My mind and my heart begin to settle down, and I start to focus on Roselle. The harness feels solid in my hand, and our bond is sure.

But now I am stronger and more confident. I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that God is directing me just as I direct Roselle.

The noise becomes more intense, debris showering the streets. We reach Fulton Street, which we had crossed only a few moments before. After turning right on Fulton, David and I somehow find each other, and we stop for a moment, all of us panting from the adrenaline-powered flight. It turns out he had run in the same direction.

Then comes the cloud.

A monstrous dust cloud three hundred feet high roars at us, enveloping us in a thick, toxic blanket of smoke, gases, vapors, and pulverized concrete dust. The cloud moves too fast and we cannot get away. We’re blasted with sand and gravel.

My body tenses up but there is nothing else to do but inhale. The dust and debris fill my throat and my lungs. I am drowning, trying to breathe through dirt. The dust is so thick I can feel it going down my throat every time I take a breath. I feel like I’m dying, the dust filling up my body and choking the life out of me.

Somehow I hang on to Roselle’s harness and we keep moving. Roselle is right alongside, guiding perfectly. She never stops.

Guide dogs are specially bred and trained to focus. When they are first received from the puppy raisers and brought back to the Guide Dogs for the Blind school for training with a certified guide dog instructor, each dog is given a temperament assessment during which the instructors note the dog’s reaction to different situations such as run-ins with other dogs and cats, exposure to food, noise, and other circumstances likely to produce anxiety in the average dog. Fifty percent of the puppies wash out. Dogs who maintain concentration and focus move forward in the training; they have the potential to do well in the intensive months-long course of guide dog training.

Roselle passed that test back when she was a puppy, demonstrating the intelligence and steadfastness I need now. Enveloped in the cloud, she continues to work and to guide even though her eyes, nose, and mouth are full of dust and debris too. Roselle’s guide dog training could never have prepared her for anything like this, but she is brave and she does not quit; instead, she uses whatever senses she can muster to watch out for me.

Whatever happens, whether we live or whether we die, we are in this together. If we don’t make it out alive, I hope we stay together, my hand on Roselle’s harness. I will never let go.

In tough times one of my favorite biblical passages is Psalm 23, and the older I get, the more I realize that life isn’t just about green pastures and still water. Just like in the psalm, life also includes hot, dusty roads; deserts; enemies; and sometimes, fire.

Psalm 23

The L
ORD
is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I will dwell in the house of the L
ORD
forever.

My dad taught me to love God. Not only did we spend a lot of time over the years working together on electronics, math, scouting, and doing ham radio but we also talked about bigger things like: Who created the universe? Why are we here? Who is in control? What is the purpose of life? I could bring just about any question to my dad and he was willing to talk to me about it. In a lot of ways, we were kindred spirits.

My father did a lot of reading on Christianity, and he read to me often. When I was in fourth grade, I came home from school one day to find several big boxes waiting for me. Inside was a Braille Bible, King James Version, in eighteen large volumes. It takes up almost five feet of shelf space and still occupies prime real estate in my home office.

My mother was Jewish, and her ideas about religion tended to be wrapped up in Jewish holidays and challah and chicken soup with delicious matzo balls. She never attended synagogue, but she did go to church with us at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Palmdale. I sang tenor in the choir and we attended services every Sunday, although I sometimes found the sermons boring. Rather than sitting and listening to the preacher, I liked exploring the Bible on my own and having discussions with my dad. Our talks ranged all over the place, and we talked about different faiths and ways that people worshipped God. But for me, faith always comes back to a friendship with God.

“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God,” said Brother Lawrence. A lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris, Brother Lawrence wrote
The Practice of the Presence of God
about maintaining a profound awareness of God moment by moment, no matter the situation.

On the ground in desperate flight from the collapsing tower is not the first time I prayed on September 11. I started praying up in the tower after the first explosion, listening for anything God had to say. Just as listening is the most important part of successful selling, it is also the most important part of prayer. It’s how I try to live my life, constantly asking,
Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I’m supposed to do? Is this the right path to take?

Looking to God for direction is where Psalm 23 starts. Its first words are a simple statement of trust in God with “The Lord is my shepherd.” In fact, the whole psalm is one of trust, a vow to put oneself in the hands of the living God.

The psalm’s author, David, had been a shepherd in his youth, just like my father, so the psalm is very special to me. But the shepherd-and-sheep image also reminds me of the relationship between my guide dog and me. Everything hinges on Roselle’s initial acceptance of me as her leader. While she helps me in very important ways by keeping me out of holes and making sure I don’t walk in front of a speeding electric car (which doesn’t make much noise), it is ultimately my job to plan out our route and to direct her. If she doesn’t trust me as her shepherd and respond to my tugs on her harness or my verbal commands, our relationship can’t work.

Because Roselle and I are a team, I take care of her. I provide for her wants with food and water, usually in the evenings, in order to minimize her need to relieve herself during the day, especially during long days of air or train travel. She isn’t allowed to eat from the table at home or in restaurants. This is a constant temptation for her because many people would like to feed her, and I often have to turn down succulent bits of steak and chicken from well-meaning restaurant owners and servers.

Roselle’s fear of thunderstorms reminds me of my dad telling me about how fearful sheep are, afraid of anything new or unexpected. Sheep can’t sleep and won’t eat unless they feel safe and secure. They’re also afraid of fast-moving water, so it’s up to the shepherd to find quiet, comfortable places, green pastures, and still waters where the sheep can sleep, eat, and drink. During thunderstorms, Roselle’s safe haven was under my desk in the basement at home, her head on my feet. When the South Tower suddenly gave way and we were overtaken by the airborne dust and debris, we needed a sanctuary too.