Thunder Dog (14 page)

Helping to drive these advances is National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the oldest and largest national organization led by blind people for blind people. There are fifty thousand members across the country, and most of them are not mountain climbers or army platoon leaders, just regular folks. “We who are blind are pretty much like you (a sighted person),” said Dr. Maurer. “We have our share of both geniuses and jerks but most of us are somewhere between, ordinary people leading ordinary lives.” The NFB works hard to help ordinary blind people. Right now there are an estimated 1.8 million blind people in the U.S., “blind” meaning they have 10 percent or less of vision remaining and can no longer effectively operate as a sighted person. But with its fifty thousand members, NFB is making a significant impact on the blind population with its message of empowerment, a strong sense of community, and the education, tools, and resources offered to the blind by the blind. It is by far the largest organization of blind persons in the country and is the strongest representative of the blind in the nation.

The NFB serves as a watchdog organization. For example, the federation recently filed complaints with the government against Amazon, the mammoth online bookseller, to urge them to make the Amazon Kindle e-reader accessible to blind readers. The Kindle does have a primitive text-to-speech interface, but there is no method for people to get at the menus and operate the e-reader nonvisually. When the Kindle DX was marketed to colleges and universities for students to use in place of printed textbooks, Dr. Maurer said he remembers thinking,
Wait just a second, now. You’re creating a barrier to reading. Blind people have as much right to read as anyone else. Reading is a fundamental right—it has to be—otherwise you’re creating two groups: one that is literate and one that is not
.

The NFB is also working with the federal government to provide raised markers on paper money so blind people can distinguish one denomination from another. (I get around this by putting special folds on my cash bills, a different one for each denomination, so I can tell the difference. An unscrupulous person could still try to cheat me when making change. But my trusty K-NFB Reader has a special currency mode and can read bills.) The NFB has also been lobbying car manufacturers to add sound to electric cars, which are almost silent. Think about it: if you are blind and walking through a parking lot, an electric car with a virtually silent engine could easily make short work of you if its driver didn’t happen to spot you first. This effort is meeting with some success. Recently Nissan added a soft whine to the Nissan Leaf’s engine. The noise fluctuates in intensity with the car’s speed and makes a clanging sound in reverse.

Other car manufacturers are working on similar projects. Congress just passed a bill signed into law by the president on January 3, 2011, to require the government to research methodologies for quiet vehicles to provide audible sounds for the safety of all pedestrians and to create rules which will require manufacturers to incorporate appropriate audible signals in all quiet cars. This law came about because of the imagination and active participation of the 50,000 members of the National Federation of the Blind.

I grew up in the sighted community, mainstreamed by my parents. For the most part I never got the chance to be around other blind people and had no sense of the larger blind community. I thought I was doing pretty darn well on my own with my guide dog Squire. And because I did well in school, I began to develop a bit of an attitude, especially toward blind people who struggled more to cope with the challenges. In reality, I didn’t even know how to use a cane yet, and I was locked in my own little academic world, unaware that there were other blind people out there who might have something to offer me, and me to them.

That all changed when I got involved with the NFB. I first became aware of the organization when I won a scholarship my senior year of high school and went to the NFB state convention in California to pick it up. Kenneth Jernigan spoke. I listened, opening up to the possibility that I could learn something from this group of people. Jernigan was an engaging, charismatic speaker who had that magical quality of being able to energize and inspire people to new ways of thinking. He was fearless and he was brilliant. His talk was an elegant argument against the status quo and a clarion call for change. (You can read the text of one of his best-known talks at the back of this book.) Jernigan wanted nothing more than a revolution, a civil rights movement for the blind. I left with my head spinning. His voice rang in my ears: “The real problem is not the blindness but the mistaken attitudes about it. These attitudes can be changed, and we are changing them.”
⁶

Later that year, I went to a six-week college prep course by the California State Department of Rehabilitation for incoming blind college freshman. It was my first exposure to living in a community of blind people and my first time using a cane. I didn’t want to seem ignorant, though, and bought a cane from the Braille Institute a few days before so I could try it out and do some practice. I quickly got the hang of it. One night my mobility instructor issued a challenge: after dinner, we would see who could make it back to the dorm first, him or me. He would wear a secure blindfold.
Game on
.

The instructor and I worked our way back neck and neck until we hit a large parking lot with a lot of ins and outs. I found my way pretty quickly, drawing on my hard-earned echolocation skills. My poor instructor got lost, poking around the parking lot with his white cane for almost two hours. As you might imagine, this little exercise did nothing to throttle down my ego.

In college I was busy with academics and my radio show, but my senior year, a guy named Don Brown, president of the Orange County chapter of the NFB, called me up and talked me into joining. A couple of years later, I was nominated for president of the chapter. But I started to feel like an outsider, and it seemed as if people were a little standoffish. I called organization leader Gary Mackenstadt. He told me the truth.

“Michael, you’re arrogant. People here have a lot more experience than you, and it’s up to you to get to know them.” I felt as though I’d walked straight into a telephone pole.

“You are not the only blind person out there. There are a lot of other blind people who have worked together and shared experiences. It can’t always be your way. You have to meet people in the middle.”

Gary cared enough about me to share the truth in love, and it was a much needed wake-up call. He became a mentor to me, and I realized there was a big world out there in terms of the blind community. But in order to join it and be a contributing member, I needed to offer myself for service, not act like a know-it-all who was there to set people straight. I realized that every time one blind person takes a step forward, so does the whole community.

After that much-needed attitude adjustment, my involvement with NFB grew, and when I eventually found myself working for them on the Kurzweil Reader, I got the opportunity to meet the movers and shakers in the organization. I hit it off with Dr. Maurer. We had a lot in common: he had also been blinded as a newborn from excess oxygen, we both loved science, and we were both pretty opinionated. I participated in a number of demonstrations and walks on the Capitol and interacted with national political leaders. And I always had fun. I guess that’s the salesman in me. You’ve got to have fun.

In my early NFB days I spent some time with Hazel tenBroek, wife of NFB founder Jacobus “Chick” tenBroek. Dr. tenBroek founded the NFB in 1940 in Berkeley, where he was a professor and chair of the speech department. After his untimely death, I had the opportunity to spend a week at Mrs. tenBroek’s house to help her with some filing and other tasks related to her job as editor of the
Braille Monitor
. I soaked in her hospitality, along with the history and legacy of this amazing couple who had led the charge for blind civil rights. Dr. tenBroek had advocated social welfare reforms based in constitutional law, and he helped lay the groundwork for the legal protections blind people enjoy today. My fondest memory from my time in Berkeley with Mrs. tenBroek was walking down the hill after dinner to Batz’s Ice Cream Parlor, buying a quart of their gourmet ice cream, and having it for breakfast with her the next day.

The NFB has strengthened me, encouraged me, equipped me, and empowered me to live and to work with confidence and freedom. I’ve had the privilege of becoming a part of a community of blind people who are living abundant, joyful lives and the privilege of serving in a civil rights movement that will guarantee our blind children and grandchildren access to education, literacy, satisfying employment, and purposeful lives.

It’s a big world and I’m excited to be a part of it and to serve people, blind or sighted, in any way I can. Oh, and don’t forget to keep one eye on the rearview mirror. One of these days very soon, you might just see a blond-haired, light-eyed blind guy gaining on you in a snazzy, red sports car.

After being ejected from our subway station refuge, we climb the stairs and pass back through the door to the outside. There are no cars, but I hear people walking and running. No one is saying much. It’s still smoky, but most of the cloud has passed, and the part that lingers is slowly settling onto the street, covering the debris in a thick layer of concrete dust. The sunlight feels great.

David speaks. His voice is full of shock and fear.

“There is no Tower 2,” he says. All he sees is a pillar of smoke hundreds of feet high.

It’s unthinkable. I can’t wrap my mind around it even though I felt the vibration of the collapse and heard the noise.

I search for some other explanation. “Is it possible the smoke is hiding the tower?”

“No,” says David. His voice is flat and toneless. “Mike, the tower is gone.”

We stand there for a moment, David and I. We clasp hands. Tower 2 has died, but we are alive. Two men and a dog.

We turn and walk west on Fulton Street, away from the World Trade Center. It’s time to go home.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON

I
t’s 8:47 in the morning, and I’m watching
Good Morning America
as I start to dress. As usual, Mike was up bright and early and left for work several hours ago. I heard him leave, but it had been a rough night with Roselle’s panic attack, and I’m not a morning person anyway, so I drifted back to sleep after he left.

For some reason, anchor Charlie Gibson’s face has just turned white. My phone rings.

With my eyes on the television, I reach for the phone and hear Mike’s voice. “Karen, there’s been an explosion of some sort. We’re okay, but we’re leaving the building now.” His voice is quiet, but there’s an edge to it. After eighteen years of marriage, I can tell when he’s worried. I can also tell when he is trying to stay calm.

“What happened?” I take a deep breath and wait for his answer. At the same time, I grab the TV remote off the nightstand.

“David, Roselle, and I are together. We’re going to take the stairs.” Click. I turn on the TV. No need to flip channels to see if the Twin Towers are in the news. They pop up immediately on the screen, gigantic plumes of jet-black smoke billowing from one of the towers.

“I’ll call you again as soon as I can, but I have to go.” I hear noise in the background, people talking, voices rushed.

“Okay, Mike. Be careful!” I want to add more, but he’s already ended the call. There’s so much more to say.

I watch. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It looks like ten or fifteen floors are engulfed in a horrific fire.
What happened? How could the fire have spread so fast
?

The television reporters seem confused and a little haphazard. No one is quite sure what is going on. Then the unthinkable happens. Out of nowhere there’s a plane, moving fast, and it plows into the other building. The plane was huge, and it hit the side of the building and disappeared, as if the tower swallowed it up. A giant orange, gold, and black fireball erupts, pouring out of the tower. Debris that looks like silver matchsticks sprays out from the edges, but I know they are fragments of steel.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It feels like I’m watching one of those melodramatic disaster movies. But this time it’s real, and Mike is inside.

It’s not long before the newspeople come up with video footage of the explosion in Mike’s tower, and what they have been saying now becomes clear: his tower was hit by a huge commercial jet too. No one knows what is really going on, but the images are scaring me to death. The towers are belching smoke, and the two plumes entwine, creating a giant black cloud of smoke that enshrouds the tops of both buildings. It’s billowing out and up at high speed and the breeze is pushing it at a low angle off to the side, where it expands and turns a light gray.

TV cameras are at the site now, and there are fire trucks everywhere. Emergency medical workers are setting up gurneys and IV racks. People are pouring out of the buildings and walking and running away, while other people stand and look up, stunned.

Every time they show the buildings, I think,
Mike and Roselle are in there
.

My heart beats hard, and I feel fear. I begin to pray.
Please watch over Mike and the others in those towers. Lord, keep them safe and help them to make it out. Get Mike home safely
.

I hear a noise by the side of my bed. A pair of soft brown eyes framed by two floppy, golden ears pops up over the edge of the bed. It’s Linnie, Mike’s retired guide dog. She can tell I’m upset. I don’t trust my voice to talk, but I stroke her head. Then I remember.
Mike is not alone. He has Roselle
.

I feel a tiny bit better. Then the phone rings.
Maybe it’s him!
It’s only been twenty minutes or so. I know he is probably not out yet. Seventy-eight floors wouldn’t go that quickly, unless he took the express elevators. Mike is safety conscious, and because of the fire, I think he’ll keep to the stairs. Maybe he is in the stairwell, calling me from his cell phone.

“Hello?” My hand clutches the receiver, hoping against hope to hear Mike again. It’s a friend named Mairead. She was already at work this morning but was sent home, along with most workers in the Tri-State area. She wants to know whether Mike was working in the city today. I tell her, “Yes, he’s there.”

Then the phone rings again. And again. As the word spreads about what is taking place in New York, people across the country, and I suppose the world, are turning on their TVs and watching the World Trade Center burn, and now friends and family are beginning to call. They all want to know if Mike is okay. And I can’t give them an answer.

Time is passing quickly, and I am concerned that I get to talk to my parents in Southern California before they receive a call from one of their friends. I punch in their number. My mom answers the phone in a sleepy voice, and I gently tell her she and Dad need to wake up because something big is going on. Then I tell her about the airplane attacks. “Turn on the TV, and I promise I will call as soon as I know something about Mike.”

The reporters are busy now, with events speeding up. President Bush, on a trip to Sarasota, Florida, makes a statement and says the country has suffered an “apparent terrorist attack.” All U.S. flights are grounded. A plane crashes into the Pentagon. And the White House evacuates.

I get up, get dressed, and take Linnie outside, but I feel like I don’t even have time to breathe. I stay in the kitchen and answer calls, always with the same unsatisfactory answer. And the phone won’t stop ringing. Our closest friend in New Jersey is my pal from high school and church youth group, Tom Painter. He calls to say he’s throwing his clothes in a duffel bag and heading over to my house.
Thank God
. I love Tom. He is one of those people you can call at three in the morning. For anything.
Help is on the way
.

The TV is on, and I’m fielding phone calls. I don’t even dare go to the bathroom because I don’t want to miss Mike’s call.
I wonder if the fire is in the stairwell?

There is chaos around the towers, the streets and sidewalks brimming with a mass of people running and walking in every direction. People’s faces are pale and strained. There are airplane parts on the ground and papers everywhere, blown out of the buildings by the explosions.

The column of smoke seems even bigger and blacker than before, when, without warning, it turns gray and starts to expand out the sides. It almost looks like a nuclear explosion. The cloud grows and grows and metal pieces are shooting out of the building, and the whole thing falls, the top floors collapsing downward. In just ten seconds, one of the towers is down inside a huge, gray cloud. I freeze, my eyes fixed to the screen.
What happened
?

The TV newspeople are in shock, too, struggling to describe what they are seeing. Finally someone announces that the South Tower has collapsed.

I keep praying and answering the phone. Although I know Mike’s office is in the North Tower, seeing the other tower disintegrate makes me more worried. When Mike was without a guide dog for six months, people downtown weren’t always too helpful.
What will they do when everyone is in a panic, running?

Roselle and I walk as if in a dream through the streets of Manhattan. I want to put as much distance as I can between us and the crumbling World Trade Center. I want to talk to my wife. I want to go home.

Although Tower 2 has collapsed, our tower has not. Tower 1 is on fire but upright and holding steady.
I wonder if our offices are okay. When will I get to work in suite 7827 again?

As I walk, I continue to brush off my clothes and hair, although I know I can’t get all of the dust off. David tells me I have some blood on my face from some flying chips of concrete that struck my ear. I have the sudden realization that I am covered in parts of the World Trade Center, pulverized to a fine, silky dust. Not only am I wearing it; I am walking through it, too. I can’t quite get my mind around that.

We’ve been walking about ten minutes when it happens again. I hear that same freight train waterfall sound. The vibration is deep, thundering through the earth and climbing up through my shoes and into my legs. I pull back gently on Roselle’s harness, and we stop. Roselle is calm and quiet, pressing against my leg.

The rumble becomes a roar, though not quite as loud as before. I don’t feel the same terror this time because we have put some distance between us and the towers. But my heart breaks. Our tower is falling to the ground.

For a few moments we listen to the sounds. Glass shattering, steel snapping, concrete crushing.
It’s the sound of a building dying
. I don’t feel the same adrenaline rush as before. I think I’m too tired. Mostly, I just feel sorrow.
What’s happening to the firefighters who passed by? And the people above the crash zone? Are there people still in the stairwell, gripping that same rail and counting the stairs? What about the emergency workers in the lobby, standing in place and directing people out?

A picture of my office flashes into my mind. Not a visual, photographic-type picture, but a three-dimensional image of the office, with furniture, fixtures, and office equipment occupying a precise layout. I know the location of every pencil and piece of paper, every wall plug and light switch, and every piece of technology in the office. I think of my framed picture of Karen (for my visitors to enjoy) and of Roselle’s safe haven under my desk. My fingers twitch a bit as I think about my Braille writer from high school, the first piece of technology that let me communicate on paper. Throughout the years, it accompanied me to each new office, taking prime real estate on my desk.
Is it still in one piece?
Right now it’s easier to think about a dusty piece of communications equipment like my Braille writer than the flesh-and-blood people still caught up in this catastrophe.

The noise begins to quiet, and another dust cloud crawls by. Thank God, this time the cloud misses us.

“Mike,” says David, “there is no World Trade Center anymore.”

We stand there, the three of us, not knowing what else to say or do. I am nearly undone. I am a survivor, but I feel no joy. I am numb.

Then I think of Karen. I haven’t talked to her since that moment I called her in the office after the first explosion. She is waiting to hear from me.

I pull out my cell phone and punch 1, the number assigned to Karen. Somehow I get through. It rings once, twice; then she picks up.

More calls. People want to know if Mike is okay. “I don’t know,” I tell them. “I’m waiting to hear from him.” I feel like I can’t catch my breath.

Every minute, every second, I am praying for Mike and Roselle. I know my husband; he is resourceful and capable. He’s great in emergencies, thinking through the problem and taking the time he needs to decide on the best course of action. But what is going on is so far beyond his control and something no one could ever really be prepared for. I think back to Roselle’s reaction to the early morning thunderstorm.
How is she guiding? Is she afraid of the noise and the smoke
?

I’m still alone in the house except for Linnie and the cats. I can’t tear myself away from the TV or the phone. Suddenly I remember the cleaning people are supposed to come today.
I wonder if I should cancel?
Usually I pick things up before they come so they can do some deep cleaning. The house is pretty messy right now. My mind begins to wander, thinking about what the rest of the day will bring.
If Mike makes it home okay, we’re going to have people coming over. And if he dies, we’re going to have even more people, so I better get ready for them
. I guess thinking about practical things like cleaning house for guests gives me a break for a brief moment. It helps me focus and gives me something to do so I don’t think too much about what could be happening to Mike.

Then the other tower collapses, exactly like the first, into a giant, gray dust-and-debris cloud. And the phone rings again. “Hello?” I answer. My voice is hollow and small.