We All Fall Down (11 page)

“Forty minutes!”

“It would take me at least that long to climb up thirty floors, find them and convince a crowd of strangers—a crowd of frightened strangers—to follow me down and through the fire.”

“If you could convince them at all,” I said.

“You’re right. Maybe I couldn’t. Besides, they might not even be there now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. In my mind I saw again those two people plummeting by the window.

“There is a third stairwell. We don’t know if it’s passable,” my father said, “but maybe it’s even better and everybody has evacuated down that one.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” I felt relieved.

“Or perhaps they’re now taking people off the roof by helicopter,” he said.

“Do you think that could happen?”

“It’s more of a possibility on this building because it doesn’t have the communications tower at the top. There’s even a helicopter pad.”

“There is?” Why hadn’t he told me that before? We could have gone up and waited for evacuation.

“But it hasn’t been used for years. I’m not even sure it’s still functional. Besides, with all the smoke I doubt a helicopter could land, and if it could the last thing they’d need is one more person to evacuate.”

“Don’t you mean two more?” I said, pointing at myself.

“One. If I
was
going back up it would have been by myself. I’m not risking your life.”

“And I wouldn’t have let you go up without me.”

“I thought of that. Besides, I didn’t think I could let you go anywhere without me. You’re more important than anything in this building … anything in this world.”

I felt taken aback by what he’d said. I guess I sort of knew he thought that, but to hear him say it out loud was different.

“So, it’s decided. We have to keep going down. Together. I just hope we can let somebody know—the police or the Fire Department—so they can get up the stairs or get a message up to the people up top, just in case this was the only way down.”

I felt a renewed sense of relief. There was no way I wanted my father to go back up there by himself, and there was no way that I was going back up there with him. I knew my father well enough to know that he wasn’t just saying empty words. He had really been contemplating, figuring, planning what needed to be done to help those people, including that stupid guy who hadn’t listened to him, who had basically taunted him and refused to evacuate. He didn’t deserve to be saved … but he didn’t deserve to die, either.

“We’ll just go down as fast as possible. We’ll keep on trying to get a call out, or maybe we’ll meet some emergency personnel coming up the tower and we can tell them.”

I thought back to the interview with the fire captain. It was going to be a long time before any firefighters would be able to climb this high.

“We’ll just go down a few more floors and then try to find a phone that—”

My father stopped mid-sentence. He’d heard what I’d heard—or thought I’d heard: a faint voice calling out.

We both stood there, no words exchanged, knowing that we had to silently wait and listen. It came again, a voice. Soft and barely audible but there.

“I think it’s coming from the offices on this floor,” my father said, pointing at the door.

He reached over and put a hand against the door. We both knew that the door would be cool, but I was glad he was being careful. He grabbed the handle and went to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder.

“Is it locked?”

“It could be, but I don’t think so. I think it’s jammed,” he said.

The door itself looked fine, no buckles or bends or dents, but the frame seemed crooked, as though the wall had shifted over.

“Help me. Grab the handle.”

I grabbed on to it beneath his hands.

“Now, on three. One, two,
three!”

I strained with all my might and the door held firm. I put my foot against the wall and used my entire body to try to muscle it and—it popped open, sending me flying backwards, my grip on the handle the only thing that saved me from tumbling down the stairs. I put a hand down on the soaking-wet landing and got to my feet.

I peered through the doorway. It was darker than in the stairwell and it was difficult to see clearly what was there. Suddenly a beam of light stretched out and through the darkness. My father had turned on his flashlight.

“Unbelievable,” I mumbled as my father let the light play around the room.

There was a scene of complete devastation. It looked as if a tornado had rushed through the place. The floor was littered with what had once been the ceiling. Tiles and wires and large pieces of metal ductwork—the heating and air conditioning vents—were lying on the floor. Up above were ugly, open, raw concrete and a mass of wires. There was water seeping through the ceiling and falling to the floor like a series of small waterfalls. And there was a breeze against my face—not strong, but a stream of
fresh, clean air. Obviously at least some of the windows had been smashed. Probably
all
of the windows had been smashed.

My father shone the light in front of him.

“There’s smoke!” I yelled in alarm. I could see it drifting through the air in the beam of light.

“No, not smoke … dust,” he said.

Dust? Why would there be dust? I took a deep breath. He was right, it didn’t smell of smoke.

“It’s from the ceiling panels or the concrete or something … I don’t know.”

There was dust drifting, suspended in the air. It was unreal, sort of like a haze or mist or fog … inside a building.

My father walked through the doorway and I hesitated for an instant but followed after. I stopped just inside, holding the door open with one hand and reaching for an overturned chair. I grabbed the chair and put it in the doorway to stop the door from closing. I didn’t want anything to prevent us from getting back out.

“Hello!” my father called out. “Is there anybody—?”

“Here … here,” a faint voice replied.

“Where? Where are you?” my father answered as he waved the beam around the room.

“Here … here.” The voice was female and foreign and frightened.

“Where? I can’t see you!”

“Here … I here!”

My father aimed the flashlight in the direction he thought the voice was coming from. There was nobody, nothing—no, there was a hand waving from beneath some debris. We rushed over. It was a little girl! What would a little girl be doing here by herself? No, it wasn’t a girl, it was a small Chinese woman, lying on the floor beside a desk. She shielded her eyes from the glare of the light. Her clothes were soaking wet and there was a large gash on the side of her head.

“Are you all right?” my father exclaimed.

“Hurt … hurt,” she whimpered. “Trapped … hurt.”

In the edges of the beam I saw that she was pinned beneath a fallen file cabinet. There was a large piece of metal ductwork that had smashed into the desk and ceiling tiles were scattered all around her. Had one of those hit her and caused that gash?

“Hold this,” my father said, passing me the flashlight.

I took the light and tried to keep it on target, away from her face and down at where she was pinned beneath the filing cabinet. My father struggled to move it, lifting it slightly away from her body.

“Pull her out,” he said. I could hear the strain in his voice.

I put the flashlight onto the edge of a desk and the beam of light shifted, leaving him and her in
only partial light. I reached over and pulled, helping her shift away, scuttle a few inches until her leg came free. I held on, helping her to her feet and settling her into a chair.

“Are you okay?” my father asked.

“No speak … much … English.”

“Your head, does it hurt?” my father asked.

She looked confused, as though she had no idea what he was talking about—which I guess she didn’t. My father put his finger to his head in the spot on her head where it was gashed.

She reached up and touched the wound, then wrenched in pain. She brought her hand back down and looked at the blood. She looked shocked, as though somehow she hadn’t been aware that she was hurt there.

“What … what happened?” the woman asked. It was clear that she was struggling to find the words.

“I think something fell from the ceiling and hit you,” he said. “Maybe something like that,” he said, pointing at the piece of ductwork that lay on the desk. It was huge and heavy and angular. If that had hit her directly it would have taken her head right off her shoulders.

“But why … why fell?”

“An airplane hit the building.” He held his arms out like the wings of a plane.

“This place?” she asked, sounding confused and shocked.

“Yes, this building. We have to get moving. Can you walk?”

She just shook her head, again, not understanding his question. He mimicked walking, moving his feet up and down in place, but she just looked even more confused.

He reached over and pulled her to her feet.

“No! No! Hurt!” she yelled. She pointed down to her leg.

I trained the beam on her lower body. Her leg was ripped open and raw and swollen! My father eased her back into the chair and then bent down to look at the leg.

“It could be broken,” he said, “but even if it isn’t she can’t walk on it, she probably can’t even put any weight on it.”

“But if she can’t walk, do we leave her here?” I asked.

“We can’t leave her here. I don’t know how safe it is.”

I looked up at the open ceiling. I didn’t like the water seeping through. If water could get through, if the floor had been fractured or weakened, then maybe more chunks or pieces could still fall down. I anxiously scanned the ceiling right above our heads. There was nothing there that could fall down—just open pieces of concrete. We were okay … okay unless the
whole
thing fell down on our heads. Was that a possibility? I didn’t know, but I knew I didn’t want to stay there any longer to find out.

“We have to get out of here,” I said. “Soon, fast.”

“You’re right. We can’t stay.”

My father bent down in front of the woman so his face was right at the same level as hers. How was he going to explain to her that we were leaving? We could send help back but that would take time, a long time, and if I didn’t feel that it was safe for us to be here for even another minute, why did I think it was okay to leave her here?

“I’m going to pick you up,” my father said to her.

“You’re going to carry her?” I asked.

“I don’t see any other choice,” he said to me. He turned back to her. “It might hurt, but we have to move. I hope you understand.” His voice was calm and reassuring.

He stood up and then reached over and picked her up from the chair and cradled her in his arms. She cried out in pain but didn’t fight or argue. I think she understood.

My father was a big man and she was tiny. She couldn’t have weighed any more than a hundred pounds, soaking wet, and she
was
soaking wet.

“Lead the way back to the stairwell,” he said. “Make sure I can see the way under my feet. I don’t want to trip or drop her.”

I shone the light forward, marking the entire route toward the stairs, and then mentally marked it. I got up, led the way and then trained the light
backwards, behind me, to illuminate the path for my father.

“Be careful here,” I said. I picked up a chair and tossed it out of his path, shoved a desk over with my hip and cleared the way as best I could.

I kicked away the chair I’d used to prop open the door to the stairwell. It was much brighter there. My father took the woman and set her down gently on the stairs. He pulled the bandana—the shredded tie—from around his neck and carefully placed it against the gash on her head. In the brighter light I could see that the cut was deep and angry and her hair was soaked and smeared with blood. Thank goodness the blood had almost stopped flowing.

Her eyes looked glazed over. She looked stunned, like she was in shock. Was that because of the head injury, or was it just because she couldn’t get her mind around what was taking place? Without language I couldn’t find out which it was. Either way, what did we do with her now?

“It’s safer here,” I said. We could just leave her now that we’d gotten her out from beneath the cabinet and onto the stairs. “Maybe the people who were on her floor have already told the authorities and somebody’s on the way to get her,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” my father answered. “My guess is that in the confusion, in the darkness, in the panic to escape nobody even noticed that she was still there. I can’t imagine anybody knowing
and deciding to leave her behind. That would be inhumane to leave somebody like that!”

After what I’d been thinking I suddenly felt bad.

“In all the confusion—the ceiling falling down, the lights going out, the windows smashing—I just think people rushed out and there was no way for anybody to know, or not know, who had gotten out and who remained. It would have just been pandemonium.”

“I guess so. At least she’s better off here than she was there.”

“But not as good as she’s going to be,” my father said. He stood up. “I want you to help her climb onto my back.”

“You’re going to piggyback her down the stairs?” I asked, not believing what he was suggesting.

“I think that would be the easiest way to carry her.”

“But down seventy-four flights of stairs? That’s … that’s … impossible!”

“I don’t know how many flights I’m going to carry her, but every floor down and away from the fire is a good one. You’re supposed to evacuate at least three or four floors away from a fire in both directions. We’ll just take it bit by bit, stair by stair, floor by floor.”

I helped the woman to her feet—actually, her foot. She kept the other foot off the ground. My
father turned around and then took her arms and wrapped them around his neck. He reached back and grabbed her, lifting her up and on to his back.

“She hardly weighs anything,” he said. “You lead.”

“Sure.” I was just happy to be moving again.

“And if I stumble, you have to try to stop me—us—from falling down.”