Today, the bear is loose in the camp site, rabid and hungry.
A few blocks away, in Chinatown, I find a pay phone unencumbered by a horde of panicked commuters. Finally, I am able to let my wife know I am ok and will be heading uptown to Penn Station. There is no subway service and I’m under no illusion that any trains will be running but what else is a commuter to do? We are a hopeful lot.
To be in NYC on this day is to know the meaning of the word refugee. What else would you call us, the thousands making their way along the avenues, myself, e pluribus unum. A short while later, somewhere near the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, I hear a collective groan and turn to see only a pillar of smoke where the South Tower should be. We stop. We stare. We walk on.
Nearby a news crew is pulling comments from anyone who will stop long enough. I mention that I have just come from “ground zero”. They seem at first unfamiliar with the term but pretty quickly pick up on the reference.
At a deli near 14th St., I purchase a bottle of water and withdraw some cash from the ATM. There is some shade there and a clear view down 7th Avenue to the North Tower; a good place for a short rest. Others find it agreeable as well. So it happens that we are all looking down the avenue just as the top of the North Tower crumbles. The huge radio mast tilts slightly and falls through the floors below. The rest of the building cascades in on itself leaving only its vertical image etched in smoke and silence. There are no words. We walk on.