Escape from the World Trade Center

by Leslie Haskin

  Ariella wants me to start journaling. I guess it’s supposed to help me “process” . . . yea right. That’s Ronnie’s thing . . . not mine . . . and he’s crazier than I am! Anyway, invisible friend, my therapy moves to New Paltz today . . . Ariella won’t be coming here to talk anymore. Yippee. Yippee. I’m going to tell her that the Prozac makes me feel funny. I hate it. We’re supposed to start EMDR today. She wants to know if I’m ready . . . that’s stupid. Of course I’m not ready. I’m never ready. I don’t know why she keeps pushing this EMDR stuff. Nothing’s gonna help—especially not tapping my legs while I talk. She’s a good therapist though. I like her. Never thought I’d be talking to one though. I probably needed to a long time ago. I’m not so sure she really gets it. She wants me to take her there in my mind, but I’d rather NOT!!!! Get over it. Get over it. Get over it. I know that’s what everybody thinks I should do . . . but I should feel this for the rest of my life. I would laugh if this whole thing weren’t so pathetic and sad. . . . I can’t even think straight anymore. I’m just gonna walk in there today and tell her to shove all of her degrees and pills and everything else . . . MS goody . . . goody. Somebody please help me . . . please please please please. I’m not ready to die!

  God??? I need to be back by 2:30. Eliot gets home and . . . I hate this!!! I hate this whole thing!!!!!!—Even writing in this stupid book!!

  I noticed Steve, the underwriting director, running toward the exit with something tucked underneath his arm. He looked at me as he passed. It was odd seeing him run like that. He had a look on his face as if he was going to be sick. Mary Alice was behind him. She was screaming and cussing for everybody to get out of the building.

  The office became more and more deserted as the seconds ticked by. The smoke got thicker, and people were just running to get away. The explosions were so loud and so threatening. There were no distractions or independent course of action in what we were doing. We wanted out, and nobody stopped to try to figure things out or pick up anything that was dropped. Most left behind keys, jackets, purses. . . .

  We left our lives.

  Bhranti, a soft-spoken and always pleasant underwriting assistant, sat at her desk redressing her feet with walking shoes. She sat amidst her many family photos, and her eyes traveled quickly between the now emptying office and pictures of her children, weddings, birthdays, and family “fun” shots. Her eyes lifted as I approached her desk. She drew her lips away from her teeth in a narrow, insecure smile. I watched her composure change in her shaking hands. Looking back, I can only imagine what her thoughts must have been.

  I waited for her, and we walked calmly toward the exit as if this mass exodus were a normal or expected occurrence. I noticed Bhranti glance back. Neither of us considered the gravity of our situation, nor did we speak of it. It seemed safer not to. Instead, our words blended until our conversation knotted into a bland and dull monologue. “Good morning, Bhranti.” “Hi, Leslie . . . what happened?” “I don’t know . . . maybe an earthquake.” “Ha ha ha . . . an earthquake . . . wow . . . is Millie still in the bathroom?” “I don’t think so.” “Do you think I should bring my purse?” “Nah, it should be okay.”

  It went something like that, only more like chatter. We were of like minds on autopilot, able to see and understand only the exit signs and following the crowd. Again she glanced back. We never imagined that we would not return to our office. It was never a thought in our moments of bewilderment and forced exit that the city beneath us was in total chaos and suffering through a marriage of vulnerability and horror.

  We had no idea that directly above us a plane had crashed into the building, leaving hundreds already dead and countless others praying for last rites. On impact, and just a few floors up from where we had sat seconds before, some of our colleagues had already been snatched from their seats and tossed like rag dolls into the open sky. My friends were hanging on to thin windowsills and making phone calls to say good-bye to their families. Lives interrupted.

  Hundreds of would-be evacuees were desperately searching for acceptable escape routes, digging holes through walls, racing through corridors, and transferring from one stairway to another to avoid the large holes where floors were missing or in flames.

  As we approached the central stairwell, the ceiling started to collapse into the reception area. An explosion forced fire through closed elevators doors with an angry swoosh, and the screaming metal sound got louder. I had never seen fire so angry. I never knew it was so loud. The crackling alone was deafening.

  The cries that came from behind the twisted metal of bleeding elevator doors pierced my brain. People plunged to their deaths when cables melted from the heat. Others trapped in those suffocating lifts burned to death as flames shot down broken shafts. The sounds were bone-chilling.

  I think Bhranti finally associated the sounds with what was happening, because she started to come unglued.

  “It’s okay, Bhranti. We’ll be fine,” I said, still on autopilot and still with no cognizant thoughts. I think I heard myself speak. I think I believed what I said.

  There was only one exit available to us. We waited a few minutes until there was room enough for us to enter. It was a long, dark, and narrow stairway that we, like the others before us, forced our way into single file. There was only enough space for two people per step. So crammed and desperate, we walked like tightly wound robots—stiff and unresponsive, down stairs that led only deeper into the inconceivable. Every face carried a blank look, absent from its body.

  At first there was an eerie silence in those stairs—a stillness with a quiet adrenaline and uneasy calmness that was really too calm. I noticed every infinitesimal detail, and my awareness followed every sound closely. The anxiety I felt isolated every footstep and amplified every breath. Every pant and every heartrending whimper etched in my mind.

  Picture this. The stairwell was more like a movie set. The lighting, probably coming from emergency generators, was sparse and dim to none. It somehow stretched down the stairs and gave notice to moisture that settled on the scuffed and now smoke-stained walls. Dingy water dripped from busted pipes and through breaks in the cement ceilings, creating a constant flow down already slick stairs. The sound echoed. The railings—warm and covered by chipped metal paint—were lined with hands of all colors, like an assembly line.

  The heat was insufferable, and the smell of the smoke was horrible—rancid. This was no ordinary smoke. It smelled of chemicals, rusted metal, and burning hair; fabric, flesh, inconceivable things. This was powerful, pungent, and fuel-saturated. It was thick and acidic, and burned badly in our throats and eyes, tingled on our skin.

  Corporately, our thoughts were of surviving, so we pressed through it all. We descended slowly and stopped at almost every landing to make room for others entering the stairs. Slower still we moved to the left or to the right to accommodate the injured or avoid large puddles and holes.

  At one point, there was a woman burned to the bone. It is mind-blowing to see how thin and sensitive skin really is. I could actually see the ivory marrow. We tried not to stare. But as she passed, tears rolled and mouths fell open. “Oh, my God,” I heard someone say. The burned woman trembled uncontrollably. What was left of her flesh looked like it had been boiled. It was actually slipping off her body . . . just hanging there . . . loose. She was in total shock. Her arms were stiff and stretched out in front of her as if she were imitating a sleepwalker. Her escort held her very gently and led her down the stairs. She never looked at a soul.

  What kind of motherless soul can so easily and savagely murder thousands and proclaim it all to be in the name of righteousness? What kind of righteousness annihilates lives with such contempt and in such grand scope that it leaves an entire world in mourning? This woman had a life.

  A few flights down, I guess near the twenty-seventh floor, an Asian man positioned himself at the entrance of his office. He was clearly terrified, and he yelled for us to leave the stairs. He and his colleague ran back and
forth from an open window to the stairs, as if measuring the degree of devastation from one place to the other. He yelled that he had heard of fires beneath us and that it was too dangerous to continue downward. He suggested, no, urged us to join him and his colleague and wait for help.

  Neither he nor I really knew what was ahead. I stared at him through my burning eyes and considered accepting his offer. He stared back nervously. I started to move toward him, but the momentum from the crowd behind pushed me on. I had no choice but to go with the flow. I followed.

  Uncertainty is that seamless monster of polarity that obliterates us all. There was no sure way to go and no clear answers. There were no fire alarms, sirens, or signals to warn us of what lay ahead. Fear was our god, confusion our master, and we—those “fortunate” enough to be packed in the stairwell—were bound together by that god, descending deeper and deeper into the unknown, the arms of a waiting enemy we could not see.

  Somewhere about the twenty-fifth floor, and after several halts in our descent, a woman began to cry. It had a rippling effect. First one, then another, until before long the sounds of weeping women raced up the stairs faster than we could go down. Their cries sparked conversations and speculations that incited more fear.

  I believe there is no worse predicament than the union of ignorance and peril. Somehow, seeing and knowing your enemy gives a little more hope. This was hopeless. My heart pounded faster and harder in my chest.

  As more speculation entered, all rational thought exited. Rumor suggested that a small airplane had “accidentally” crashed into the building. Others said it was an earthquake, and, of course, some swore it was a bomb. We had no idea against what or whom we were fighting.

  Whatever we did see and endure in those stairs, we were the lucky ones. For some, there were no stairs and no exit at all.

  As more people filed into the stairwell, so did more hearsay and more tales of horror and narrowly averted disaster. There were hundreds of people before us and still hundreds more behind us, all of them in a frenzied passion, wanting to live to tell their story.

  Flight after agonizing flight I listened to conjecture, wailing, and the “what-ifs” and “could-haves.” Flight after torturous flight I heard the cries of tormented victims trapped and warning of something fierce, daunting, and unspeakable catching up to us.

  I think I was afraid. I know I was outside of myself. At that point, I could easily have just died and gone to heaven, had I not been bound for hell. Swallowing, I closed my eyes, and for the first time since the day began, I reached for my mother’s legacy and prayed: “God, help us”—three words, three simple words that made all the difference in the world; three words that changed the course and consequences of my entire life, because they changed me.

  I often wonder how many prayers flooded the gates of heaven that day. How many Christians, or otherwise, called on the Lord? How many Jews looked for the Almighty? How many others called, by whatever name, on the one true God? How many nonbelievers, if only for a moment, and if only to ask how this could happen, believed in Him and called on His name: “Jesus”?

  I met Michael when I worked for the Bank of New York. I was moving on to bigger and much better things, so I hired and trained him to take my place. He was smart, funny, and very cute. He had big bright eyes, dimpled cheeks, and a smile that made inquiring minds want to know more. Mike was a sharp dresser, sharper still in wit. He learned to do the job quickly. He learned to do the people immediately. After about a week, I found out that he knew the shortcuts of the job and already was making his own rules. Most days he spent more time socializing and warming up to the women than he did working. Nobody really cared because he really was a delightful man, and that was his way of getting things done. He could convince someone to take responsibility for certain aspects of his workload and have them think it was their own brilliant idea. That was Mike.

  I got such a big kick out of him. He was easy to be around, and he could make me laugh until I bent over. His sense of humor, his love of life, and his gift for living each moment like it was his last endeared him to me. Few promises and fewer regrets.

  In October 2001, I learned that Michael had lived his last moments a few floors above my head at Cantor Fitzgerald, in the World Trade Center’s north tower, on September 11, 2001.

  I bet he was brave.

  I miss him.

  PART TWO

  The Enemy of My Enemy

  Chapter 7

  Strike Two

  From Panic to Pandemonium

  We continued our descent down the stairs. We kept on through the dark and bottomless depths of a maniac’s loathing of religious freedoms—nothing personal. We kept finding something different behind every door we opened. While most of what we found was abandoned space, other spaces still sheltered people who were afraid to leave.

  Another floor—another man peering out and more petrified people.

  My cell phone rang. “Hello,” I said—no response—“Service unavailable at this time.” I swore.

  As the minutes passed, the fumes became more intense. As we got closer to the bottom, my eyes burned more. Even with my lids shut. Bhranti, who was still walking next to me, also complained about her eyes and not being able to see or breathe. I noticed others removing their shirts and blouses so I took one from my bag. Still today, I can’t tell you why I had my empty laptop bag or how the recently purchased blouse got there. I placed it over Bhranti’s face and told her to take slow breaths. She did so unwillingly and then asked about me and my asthma. But my asthma was not a problem because in that moment and the moments that would follow, it was not a consideration and not a threat. The Holy Spirit breathed on my behalf.

  I’m guessing that about the twentieth floor is where it happened. The heat was making me tired and I wanted to regroup. We stopped for a minute and someone opened another door. Unwittingly, I stuck my head in for cleaner air and there he was.

  A man stood staring. It was a cold and blank look. He said nothing; trapped behind what once was probably a wall, his stare mesmerized me. I remember it being a mindless gaze with complete shock occupying the part of his flesh where his face used to be. There was no fire or smoke near him. Just huge chunks of broken glass, mangled and exposed wires out of their places, furniture upside down, cables and pieces of the wall lay everywhere.

  Both large and small fragments of glass and other objects pierced the once perfectly papered walls. Crashes of more devastation howled from somewhere on that floor and the recognizable vociferous crackle of fire. I examined him closely from the stairs. His face . . . contorted like abstract art. His eyes . . . fixed on nothing. His mouth was wide and silent. His head rested between two small columns while his body was crooked and oddly twisted off to the side. He had been decapitated.

  I think I shook my head in disbelief. I had never seen so fierce a death! Was I dreaming? Was this something my mind had conjured up? I wanted desperately to understand what I was seeing, or not seeing, but I couldn’t.

  “Close the door. Don’t look,” someone yelled, and the door slammed shut.

  If only it had been that simple. If only it were possible to see merely with our eyes.

  We see with our hearts. Our eyes are simply catalysts that carry images. Our eyes capture flowers and our heart knows serenity. Our eyes capture a child at play and our heart knows joy. They capture beauty and we know love. They capture war and we are acquainted with mortality. My eyes captured hatred and suffering, and my heart knew sorrow. They captured death and destruction and my heart knew fear. To close one door simply captured what was on the other side, and my heart broke more.

  Linda, another underwriting assistant, was about one flight up and crying uncontrollably. I stood to the side of the stairs, letting others pass, and waited for her. I put my arm around her shoulder, trying to reassure her that we would be okay. I told her that we had no time to cry. “When we get out of this mess,” I said in a small voice, “we’ll cry together. But for now, we
have to keep our eyes clear and we have to keep moving.”

  She nodded. Then through moderately controlled tears, and getting more emotional as she spoke, Linda said that she had been in the World Trade Center during the 1993 bombing. She told me about her nightmares and her long road to recovery. She spoke about her doubts concerning survival, and with a mind-numbing regularity that in some way made her burden lighter she told me that she could not do “this” again.

  I hardly heard a word she said. I looked right through her, kept my eyes on those ahead, and kept us both moving.

  Still another flight . . . maybe the seventeenth floor . . . and once again, the crowd stopped moving. We were prisoners of yet another wretched moment. I hated those long pauses more than almost anything else that happened there. It was in those moments that every victim was heard and every prayer got louder. The alternative silence was much too loud and much too much to bear.

  Further down, there were wails of “Oh, Jesus, Jesus” and “Help me, I don’t wanna die.” There were horrible shouts of “No” and “Please” and “Somebody, help us.” Each plea pierced my faith a little more, seized my heart, and fear stole away my breath.

  Even worse were the familiar voices of old cigarette buddies, elevator friends, and passing acquaintances—all calling out, all asking why, and all recognizable enough to make us wonder about colleagues or look down the stairs for friends. I think we all paused individually from time to time and hoped for those who we knew were in the building but we didn’t see. We were powerless to help.

  I’m not sure just when it happened, but somewhere around the ninth floor I noticed that the screams and the bangs, the explosions, and the grinding metal all blended into one constant and excruciating opus as panic escalated to pandemonium when the building suddenly rocked again.