The following was originally written 10 years after the WTC attacks with the intent to preserve my memories as accurately and as vividly as I could before time would inevitably corrupt or decorate them.
An Almost Perfect Day
“A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before but there is nothing to compare it to now…”
– Thomas Pynchon, “Gravity’s Rainbow”
The day is born of a perfect combination of temperature and humidity, the kind of day remembered years later with a wistful comment, “What a perfect day that was”. The morning air is clear and fresh, cleansed by the previous night’s storm. The sky is a matchless blue canvas with brushstrokes of high cirrus.
Some days you eat the bear…
Commuting is effortless today. The Merrill Lynch offices in lower Manhattan are my destination. The train pulls into Penn Station on time. I take the #1 local and, as if I’d wished it so, it is going express to Chambers St today. The rhythm of Savoy Brown in my headphones echoes the cadence of the tracks beneath the car. Everything is on time, in tune, in synch. Perfect.
At the Cortlandt Street station beneath the World Trade Center, I’m ascending the stairs when, suddenly, I hear shouting and screams above. I freeze on the staircase. The herd of commuters pushes past, undeterred or unaware, leaving me undecided whether to shelter below or continue up to the WTC concourse. The subway attendant is peering out of his booth, also curious, uncertain. Something unusual is going on. There is no sound of gunfire so that decides the issue for me. It’s onward and upward. “Excelsior” as we say in the great state of New York.
However, my walk to the office via the lobby of the WTC North Tower is blocked by a crowd of people fleeing from there. Two men are carrying another with bloodied and apparently broken legs. Others show varying degrees of injury and terror. I turn and go with the flow. Getting to work is suddenly not such a priority.