United We Stand (10 page)

Behind the truck there were two smaller vans— workmen’s vans—and a large truck with glass sheets on the side. I started to pay more attention to the vehicles that were on the road. Aside from the taxis, most of them were like those that had just passed, service vehicles. That all made sense. Most businesses were closed down, but tradespeople would have more work than they could possibly handle. Lots of buildings had been
damaged, and there had to be shattered windows in almost every building for blocks around Ground Zero.

James was still on the phone. Was his mother giving him a hard time for taking off? Or maybe he was being told something bad about his father … and there was nobody here but me. What would I say to him?

Then I heard a loud, rumbling sound. I looked up and down the street. I didn’t see anything along the road that could be making that sound … It wasn’t on the road … it was coming from the air … It was an airplane! My gut instantly tightened. How could there be an airplane? They’d all been grounded! If there was a plane in the air it could mean only one thing … another attack!

“James!” I yelled out. Before I could say another word the plane—no, planes—came into view. Three fighter jets, F
I6S
, streaked overhead. Not terrorists. U.S. Air Force planes. They were flying overhead to protect us. I felt instant relief. But like the sight of the soldiers on duty it was also disturbing. Who would have thought that we would need the military overhead to protect us?

“They are pretty impressive,” James said. He’d hung up the phone.

“Can you imagine flying one of those?” I asked.

“I can. I could see myself as an air force pilot.”

“I thought you were going to be a firefighter,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop myself.

“Things change. Firefighters protect people. Our military protects people too. It’s the same job with
different equipment. Maybe one is more needed than the other right now.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I decided not to. “Things go okay on the phone?”

“Yeah. She wants me to come home soon.”

I knew what I wanted to know next, but I didn’t know if I should ask. I took a deep breath. “Any news?”

“Nothing
but
news,” he said, “but nothing about my father, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. I guess no news is good news. That’s what my nana used to say.”

“I guess that makes sense … for a while, anyway. Then no news is just no news.”

Another conversation I didn’t want to have.

“Here comes a bus!” James said.

I looked up the street. A transit bus was coming toward us. James waved his hands, and the bus slowed down to pick us up.

“This is the end of the line, boys,” the driver said as he pulled the bus over to the curb.

I looked over at the signs at the intersection: Broadway and Canal. The end of the line wasn’t that close.

“Sorry I can’t get you farther,” he said. “This is as close as the authorities are letting us go.”

“How far is it from here to the towers?” James asked.

“Twelve, maybe thirteen blocks, but you probably can’t get there.”

“We can’t?”

“The whole area, for at least four blocks in each direction, is barricaded. It’s restricted to authorized personnel only.”

I’d figured that was going to be the case from the beginning, so I wasn’t surprised. This would be the end of the line for us, as far as we could go, as close to Ground Zero as we could get. I wasn’t troubled by that. I was encouraged. I knew James needed to see it. I also knew that I didn’t. Seeing it on TV was almost too much for me. Instead, we could stand by the barricades for a while, look in, leave, and get back home. We
needed
to get back home. How much longer could I keep my mother guessing about where I was?

We climbed off the bus. The air was thick and hazy. The smell that had been building throughout the ride was now so strong that I could almost taste it in my mouth. The closest I could come to describing it was that it was like somebody having a big barbecue and throwing last week’s garbage and a full set of snow tires on the grill.

Wordlessly we walked down Broadway. There were more people on the sidewalk here—moving both toward and away from Ground Zero—and lots more vehicles on the street. Along with the police and fire vehicles and ambulances were a lot of vans with writing on the side and more tradespeople. There were carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and welders. Among the vans was another truck with one of those big cranes. They must have been using those to remove the girders.

I looked at my watch again. It was almost two-thirty, well past lunch.

“You want to get something to eat?” I asked James.

“I’m not hungry.”

I was, but I wasn’t going to say anything about it right now. Besides, there really wasn’t any place to eat. All the little restaurants that littered the area were closed. The stores along Broadway and down the side streets were, without exception, barred and shuttered.

Up ahead I could see that the road was blocked off. There were big yellow barricades, manned by police and soldiers. Crowded around them were dozens and dozens of people. I assumed that they had wanted to get closer, like us, and, like we were about to be, they’d been blocked.

We wandered into the back of the crowd. Despite the large number of people there was complete silence. Everybody stood stock- still, almost as if they were in some sort of trance, staring toward where the towers would have been if they’d still been standing. From here we would have been able to see them … at least, I was pretty sure. Now all there was to see was smoke rising up into the air, adding to the haze that was already hanging over everything.

It was then that I noticed the photos. A woman was holding a picture of a man. Underneath was his name and some information and in big letters “HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?” She was here looking for somebody who was missing. Beside her was a man holding a picture of a woman above his head, turning
it slowly from side to side so everybody could see her. She looked to be the age of somebody who could be his wife. Again there was more writing, asking about her whereabouts.

I understood then that these weren’t people who were here to gawk or try to catch a glimpse of what was happening. These were people like James— people who had lost somebody, or at least couldn’t find somebody, somebody who was important. They were down here with photos and pleas, hoping against hope that someone could help them. I felt a bit like an intruder, like I’d wandered in to some stranger’s birthday party or … no … I’d wandered into somebody’s funeral, and I didn’t know the person and I wasn’t invited. Then I looked at James. Okay, maybe I
was
invited.

Slowly we shifted through the crowd, moving closer to the barricade and— I stopped in my tracks. The whole side of a wall was covered with those pictures and pleas. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of them. But why wouldn’t there be that many and a whole lot more? That was how many people were missing.

Beneath the pictures were flowers, hundreds and hundreds of flowers, in bunches and singles. There were lit candles and stuffed animals and signs with big letters naming the person in the picture and offering information about them and who to contact if they were located.

There was a knot of people standing off to the side in the plaza and we walked toward that group. As we moved closer I could see the reason for the crowd. There was a camera crew interviewing people. We kept
moving closer until we were near enough to see and hear what was going on.

A man stood in front of the camera, holding up a big picture. It showed a woman in her twenties with dark hair, dark eyes, and a big smile.

“This is my daughter, Marcia,” he said. He had an accent and darker skin, and he looked like he was Mexican or Cuban or something like that.

“She’s very beautiful,” the female interviewer said.

“She looks like her mother. She has her mother’s eyes,” he said.

“And your daughter, your Marcia, she worked in the World Trade Center?”

“In the North Tower. She worked in the restaurant at the top of the building. She called home after the plane crash,” he said. “She left a message on the answering machine. She said that she was fine, that she was safe. I wish I’d been there to talk to her instead of just hearing her voice on the …” His voice cracked and then trailed off, and it was obvious he was fighting back tears.

“You haven’t heard from her since then?”

“Nothing. Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Marcia, we know you’re okay,” he sobbed. “We haven’t given up. Anybody who has heard … please call us … please.” He started to cry even harder but kept holding the picture up for the camera.

One by one people came forward to the camera and held up pictures of the person they loved—the person who was missing. All these different people,
but pretty much the same story. All were desperately hoping to hear something, anything.

The announcer—she was young and pretty and seemed vaguely familiar—looked directly into the camera. “These ordinary citizens, these ordinary people, are here hoping, praying for word on their loved ones.”

I thought she was going to start crying. Not fake, movie-star, made- for-TV crying but genuine tears. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“They have gathered here, as near as possible to the spot they last heard from, or of, their loved ones, but this is as close as they can get. Their way is blocked by police barricades—”

“I can’t watch this any more,” James said. He practically ran away, pushing past people.

“James!” I called out, but he didn’t turn around or slow down.

I rushed after him, but he was moving fast. I bumped past the people in my way and grabbed him from behind by the arms.

“James, I …” Then I started to cough, and instead of stopping it got worse and worse, and it felt like it was caught in my throat and I couldn’t breathe.

James slapped me on the back. “Are you okay?” He sounded worried.

I nodded my head, but I couldn’t answer or stop coughing.

He slapped me harder on the back. “Just sit down,” he said, and he eased me to the curb.

“Does anybody have any water?” he called out.

Almost instantly half a dozen water bottles were thrust toward us. He grabbed one—a full one—twisted off the cap, and handed it to me. I took a big swig and swallowed, and it washed the cough back down my throat.

“You okay now?” he asked.

“Yeah … I’m … okay.”

I noticed that we were in the middle of a little throng of people. I coughed again and took another swig of water.

“I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t catch my breath,” I tried to explain, although I hardly had enough air in my lungs to answer.

A woman kneeled down in front of me. “I’m a nurse. Do you have asthma or bronchitis?”

I shook my head.

“It’s all the stuff in the air,” she said. “God knows what we’re breathing in.”

“I guess.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“I’m not coughing,” I said. I was suppressing the urge to cough.

“Good.”

She took my hand, turned it over, and placed two fingers against my wrist—she was taking my pulse. Thank goodness she’d taken my right hand, the one that had only a few cuts. I didn’t have the energy or the oxygen to start to explain to her what had happened to my other hand.

“A little fast, but you’ll be fine. Sit there for a while. If you start coughing again you’ll need to talk to a paramedic.”

“I’m good, honestly!” I protested.

She turned to James. “You’re his friend?”

“Yeah.”

“If it gets that bad again you’ll have to get him to see a paramedic, understand?”

“I don’t need a—”

“I’ll make sure he does it,” James said, cutting me off. “I’ll make sure he’s okay, whether he likes it or not.”

“Thanks. It’s good to have a friend.”

She walked away, and James sat down beside me. We sat there as the crowd slowly dissipated and we were no longer the center of attention. I continued to sip from the bottle. I took a big drink and spat it out on the pavement … That’s when I noticed that there was something, some kind of dust or powder, that had accumulated on the ground. It was so fine that it looked almost like snow … I knew it was from the collapse of the building. Concrete or pulverized paper or … I didn’t even want to think about what else it might be. That was the same stuff that had gotten into my lungs and was now making me cough so badly.

“I shouldn’t have brought you down here,” James said.

“You didn’t bring me. I came because I wanted to come.”

“No, you didn’t. The last place in the world you want to be is here. You came because you were being a friend.”

There was no point in arguing. We both knew it was true.

“It’s time for you to get home.”

“Sure,” I said. I felt a sense of relief. I looked at my watch. “With any luck we should be home by—”

“Not
we
.
You
.”

“What are you talking about? We should both go home.”

“I’m not going home. I came here to get to the towers, and I’m still going down to the towers.”

“But the barricades … what that woman said … They aren’t letting anybody get any closer.”

“I have to get through,” he said.

“James, they’re not letting anybody through.”

“You go home. I’m going to find a way.” He got to his feet.

I jumped up and took him by the arm. “I’m not going home without you.”

“Well, I’m not going home,” he said.

“Then I’m not going either.”

“No, really, you should go. I’ll be fine,” he said.

“
We’ll
be fine. Maybe I can’t make
you
come with me, but you can’t stop
me
from going with you. Come on, let’s find a way in.”

We figured that the most congested places would be around the barricades on the major streets coming down on the north side of the restricted area, so we started to circle around to the bottom. With the ferries not running there would be almost no one coming up from the tip of the island. Almost instantly we knew we were right. The crowd at Beekman Street was smaller than at Broadway. We passed by Ann Street, and then John and Maitland. As we continued to circle, each street had fewer people than the last. That was encouraging. Of course each street also still had a barricade manned by police officers.