Escape from the World Trade Center

by Leslie Haskin

  I noticed Millie, a member of my staff, on the sky bridge. She was alone, crying, and because of her weight and bad leg, struggling to keep going. I went over and kept her company until she was ready to start moving again. I’m not sure who supported whom, but with my arm wrapped around her shoulder, and her right hand in mine, we crossed the bridge.

  Millie was in the World Trade Center during the 1993 bombing, and like Linda, she wanted to talk about it. So we talked about it. Correction, she talked. I kept us moving. The conversation was like the others I’d had that morning—one-sided and mindless. It went from the bombing to her having left her purse in the office and not knowing how she would get home, then back to the bombing. I nodded my head in acknowledgment and kept my focus straight ahead. I heard her but I had little idea what she was saying. My instincts were basic; keep moving and get out of the area.

  From where we were on the bridge, I could see the atrium of the Financial Center and hundreds of evacuees and onlookers. They stood ogling and almost cheering for us as we approached.

  A little more than halfway across, I noticed Nancy. She was an old commuter friend from years before. We rode the bus together, and my memories of her were fond ones. She was always polite and always smiling. A terrific conversationalist, Nancy was strong, decisive, and confident.

  I hadn’t seen her in more than two years and there she was. I caught her eye as she passed us. She was walking with someone as well—much in the same way that I was walking with Millie. She looked at me and for the first time in the many years I had known her, there was no laughter in her smile. Instead, I saw a woman with a forced nervous grin and a million questions in her eyes. I almost smiled politely, but I definitely shook my head. She shrugged her shoulders, I mine, and we continued the long crossing to the Financial Center and to safety.

  I noticed immediately that the Financial Center’s atrium was completely untouched. It was like entering the twilight zone—a parallel dimension with no signs of bereavement whatsoever. It was as beautiful as ever. Everything was in perfect placement. Its long marble staircase cascaded down into the area of tall palm trees that on many days was the perfect lunch spot. My first impulse was to sit for a minute on the benches surrounding the indoor garden and take a deep breath of resolution. But, twilight zone or not, I was still not close enough to home. And although the structure was untouched, the chaos was far-reaching. People were running everywhere. No one knew where to go. Millie and I moved slower now as we took it all in.

  A woman ran by, obviously in shock. Her face was drenched—awash with tears and what looked like slobber. As she passed, she was praying aloud. She was running toward the plaza and crossing herself—running, crossing, saying prayers, kissing her fingers, running, and crossing. Believe it or not, it struck me as being funny.

  Have you ever been so afraid that you lost all sense of . . . everything? I almost laughed at her. . . .

  Millie and I walked down the stairs. We moved in a slow but deliberate purple haze. Just walking, watching, and saying nothing. Police officers and firefighters were still yelling. The urgency in their blaring at us catapulted me back into the grim reality of our location and made me fearful again. I was so shook up and confused that I was almost in tears. Had I even a vague idea of the enormity of what was still to come, I probably would have saved the tears for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

  Crowds of people stood near the Financial Center exits. They stared with inviting eyes. I could tell that they wanted, no . . . needed, to hear the individual accounts of what it was like inside the Twins. They needed us to validate the savagery so that they could justify their hollering and then move on. But no one really moved on. Not from that . . . no one could. It was too hard to do that . . . to let go . . . to walk away. It was too hard and still too surreal, you know.

  Tragedy is a bizarre irony in that it can be fascinating, mesmerizing, and at the same time heart wrenching. For some, there is no escaping that carnal “need to know” or that compelling dark hunger to “spare no details.” Therefore, although varying in the degrees of atrocity, we were all poets, and it was inevitable that eventually each of us would “spare few details” in telling our stories.

  These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. (John 16:1–3 kjv)

  We exited at the far end of the building closest to where the Financial Center ferry docked. There an even bigger crowd lined the sidewalk and looked up at the burning towers. Some were talking, but most were in quiet repudiation . . . speechless. Groups hugged and tried to console one another. Most just stared up and cried.

  Millie and I separated. I lost sight of her and never saw her again.

  I drifted through the crowd for a while, until miraculously, I ran into Nancy again. By then the details of what really happened had begun to surface.

  Witnesses saw two airplanes intentionally fly directly into both towers in an apparent terrorist attack. To us, this was just an assumption. How could it be anything other than an accident . . . how?

  A West Indian woman, thick with her accent and heavy in her hands, stood near us shaking her body hysterically as if she were doing a dance. She pranced back and forth like a tiger, shouting “sabotage” and “terrorism.” I could see that she was furious and scared at the same time. There were tears in her eyes and she kept balling her fists, taking short leaps into the air, and stamping her feet violently against the pavement as she landed. Because of her accent she lost me on some words, but I could plainly understand her demands for revenge.

  Nancy and I gasped and shook our heads in disbelief. This was extreme. This was too much. On top of all the other stuff this day had vomited into our consciousness, this was much too much information to process. . . .

  We didn’t know what to believe, so we discounted all of it. After all, it couldn’t be true. This was America, New York, 2001. These things didn’t happen to us, did they? We don’t have terrorist attacks on this soil, do we? We don’t nurture souls so black, with hatred so profound, as to exact such deliberate and ruthless slaughter on thousands of innocents . . . not anymore . . . not again, do we?

  Nancy and I looked intently at each other, seeking confirmation that we had not gone completely mad. Someone behind us cursed terrorists and vowed vengeance on America’s behalf. “This means war. This means war!” they cried. I lit a cigarette.

  “Oh my—look, there goes another one.” Nancy and I looked up, aghast at what we saw. Nancy shuddered. I told her that I had seen at least ten already. She gasped. For a second she looked queasy. We stood there . . . together . . . and watched one after another choose death by flight.

  One couple stood close to the edge of a window, held hands, and let themselves go. I watched her dress opening and flapping in the wind almost birdlike. His suit rounded over his back in the wind as he fell. I imagined the sound of the air pushing past their ears and creating that low reverberation that you hear when you stick your head out a moving car window. I thought about how the wind can steal your breath away and how the pushing air vigorously massages the skin. Except for the end, it would have been exhilarating.

  Their hands separated midair and they tumbled. Finally their bodies met with the hundreds who fell or were pushed or jumped before them. One by one, they landed—ending dreams, plans, futures, and families. I felt a soft moist hand close into mine. I heard a sigh deeper than the pains of a mother losing her only child. Nancy.

  Bystanders shrieked in horror. They wondered aloud what terrible thing forced those people to those open windows. What vileness made human beings desperate to be volunteers? They couldn’t imagine making that choice.

  Meanwhile, those of us who survived that particular battle knew too well what went on behind those walls. We were well acquainted with the jagged edges and angr
y fire. We walked through the intense heat. It seared our own skin. We knew too well the brutal nature of mass murder. We knew of the thin ledge outside those windows that couldn’t accommodate so many waiting for rescue—pushed. We knew of the explosions of flames that wipe out reason—jump. We were in accord with the severity of a reality so dreadful that it gave way to hopelessness—surrender. We too had been so afraid that we lost all sense of . . . everything.

  I propose now, in hindsight, that in situations like these, it is neither necessary nor possible for us to understand all the whys or hows in order to learn from them. It is neither consequential nor probable to fully process these moments with a rational mind. They are too deep. We need only surrender that moment to the moment and leave “comprehension” or “meaning” to follow in the fullness of time . . . eternity.

  This is the lesson: God is sovereign and though He allows us to live the consequences of our choices, He will assign meaning to our moments and redeem us. He is our Redeemer.

  I watched more fall or jump. By now I was so removed that I couldn’t even cry. Instead my mind made art of it all. I chose to go even further down that particular rabbit hole.

  I noticed that as they fell their arms seemed like gliders waving calmly in the wind. I noticed the slow and steady motion of the fall itself, and again, I imagined the sounds and the whispers midair. Their clothing spread out like canopies in the gentle breeze of the once beautiful autumn air. How could something so stunning be so heartbreaking? I just looked, smoked my cigarettes, and counted.

  I remember the color of his shirt . . .

  “Leslie . . . Leslie . . . LESLIE.” A sharp voice snatched me back. “Let’s get away from here.” It was Nancy. She grabbed my arm and we headed for a ferry. The ferry would take us back to Hoboken so that we could board a train going to upstate New York . . . home.

  I realized that I only had a little cash. “Nancy, I need to find an ATM. I have no cash for the ferry.” She looked at me with a question mark above her brow, undoubtedly wondering, What are you talking about, Leslie?

  “We’re not stopping, and we don’t need tickets or money!” She kept her focus and kept walking, all the while tugging me closely behind her—like a mother pulling her child along—and sputtering about my being ridiculous. Our slow walk got faster as we got closer to the dock. Judging from the look on her face, that putrid taste of smoke was washed from her mouth by the taste of freedom. I guess she saw more than a boat.

  Making a final attempt to process the day, I glanced over my shoulder one last time.

  I looked back in risk—lest I become a pillar of salt—subconsciously knowing that that part of my life was over but wanting to hold on to it. I suspect that intuitively I knew I would never return to the Trade Center as it was. Maybe the masses that stood around knew something as well, and they mourned the towers long before they fell.

  There was nothing left to me. Nothing except my instincts and a voice of anguish inside, fostering its relationship to every scream, every pop, thud, explosion, and moan that had replaced the quiet sips of my early morning coffee. We would soon be reconciled.

  Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: “Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!” (Revelation 18:8–10)

  Nancy and I reached the ferry dock. Again, I mentioned an ATM and cash. Again, she told me not to be ridiculous and pulled me along. We pushed our way through the crowd. Nancy was determined to get aboard and not to leave me behind.

  There were so many people trying to get on that we were afraid there would not be enough room for us. Nancy pushed. It was probably her way of fighting back. She pushed hard, and while pulling me by the arm, we boarded the ferry. With perhaps one foot on the dock and the other on board, the boat pulled out—leaving behind hundreds of panic-stricken survivors and bystanders.

  Not knowing if or when another ferry would come, they hung on to the railings near the dock, crying and begging us not to leave. All of them wanting . . . wanting their slippers, their favorite TV dinners and fish sticks and mothers and mothers-in-law and sodas and warm blankets and dogs and cats and credit card bills and old movies and repossession notices and . . . and loved ones and telephones and TVs and beds and just . . . simply . . . normal . . . home.

  Nancy dropped my hand and walked toward the back of the boat.

  I looked around. I didn’t like being alone. Alone, I couldn’t make sense of anything. I remember looking down at my feet and for some reason patting my toes in my shoes. I remember looking at the seats of the boat. They didn’t make sense. The floor didn’t look like a floor, and the people seemed . . . unreal.

  There were hundreds on board, rushing about, looking into the water, and grabbing life jackets like on a scavenger hunt . . . not frantically, and not everyone, but purposefully. I might have wondered what they knew that I didn’t. I turned to speak with Nancy, but she was out of sight by then.

  That’s when I saw Lorna. She was visibly shaken and sitting near the side of the ferry. Her face is still as clear to me now as it was that day. She looked drained and aged. Her makeup had faded from crying and her hair was no longer perfect. She was trembling and tousled.

  I stared as she described seeing the second plane fly into Tower Two. “I kept waiting for it to pull up, but . . . it just went right in.”

  I don’t know if it was disbelief or denial, but she relived the entire thing while shaking her head back and forth, gesturing no. “I . . . uh . . . it . . . there was a huge hole in the side of the building, Leslie.”

  I listened and was amazed to hear that there had in fact been not one but two attacks. It was the first conversation that really registered for me all day—registered and delivered another devastating blow. I watched this big beautiful woman become smaller with every syllable.

  It is illogical looking back, but even though we lived it, neither of us had any idea of the infamy September 11 would later claim. We were clueless that even as early as 8:50 a.m., the day had moved beyond a date on the calendar and into something bigger and of a much greater magnitude than what we could wrap our minds around . . . ever. We were just too small.

  Suddenly there was a terrible sound like a freight train coming.

  I saw this in a dream . . .

  The walls were hollow and pitch-black. Nothing was solid. Everything that existed there was a mist but still able to be

  touched. I was there for a reason, but I didn’t know why. I knew that I wasn’t ready for whatever was ahead. I tried to tell the Lord no. I tried to tell Him to wait, but my mouth sealed and I could not speak. I was “me” but I was watching myself from somewhere outside of it all.

  I stood motionless in darkness with my back pressed firmly against a mirrored wall that I could not see; expecting that at any moment something would devour me. My senses sharpened and I could feel the presence of something very evil. “Jesus Christ is my Lord,” I screamed at the top of my voice. Nothing came from my mouth. I passed by a mirror and saw a face like mine. It approached me quickly in body only—then dissipated. My face itched and then my entire body. Terror gripped my knees and forced my hands to my eyes. “Jesus Christ is my Lord,” I shouted again and again.

  There was movement about me, and faces I’d never seen before, some just figures of faces with no features at all . . . just blank and empty. Though I had never seen them, I knew them. Then suddenly I was angry, so angry that my breathing quickened and my muscles tensed. My fists balled and my back released the wall. I reached inside of me, with all the strength and faith I could collect, and I shouted with authority . . . “Jesus Christ is my Lord!”

  I looked back to Manhattan Island in stillness.

 
; There it stood in the unfamiliar magnificence of surrender—WEAK.

  Then, in almost perfect rhythm and easy gracefulness—in a huge cloud of black smoke—over in seconds—gone—FAILED.

  Tower Two surrendered her ghosts—COLLAPSED.

  “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”

  Jesus wept. ( John 11:35)

  Chapter 12

  It Is Finished

  There Is No Other Love

  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

  —JOHN 3:16

  The crowd that had been standing and watching the fires found itself in the path of a slaughtered giant. No one hesitated to move. For miles, the rumble of thunder drowned out the cries of the city. More horrified screams and shrieks of panic rose from the streets of Manhattan and invaded every living room in the world. It was almost a synthesized movement as people turned to run. They pushed the people in front of them and used each other to propel themselves faster in a desperate attempt to escape . . . and then, the deafening, angry thunder and the all-consuming black cloud. . . .

  I still hear it sometimes.