Ground Zero

by Alan Gratz

  Carter shook his head. “What a mess, huh, Taz?”

  “I know,” said Taz. “And today of all days.”

  “Oh,” Carter said. “Right. Jeez.”

  Reshmina remembered Taz saying that exact same thing when she’d first brought him home. “What do you mean?” she asked him. “ ‘Today of all days’?”

  “Today’s 9/11,” Taz said, like that meant something.

  “I don’t understand,” Reshmina told him.

  “Nine-eleven,” Taz said. “Nine for the month, eleven for the day. September 11th. Today’s the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center.”

  Reshmina shook her head. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Are you serious?” Taz asked. “The Twin Towers? The airplanes?”

  Reshmina still had no idea what he was talking about.

  Taz frowned, and he and Carter shared a confused look.

  “How could you not know about 9/11?” Carter asked Reshmina. He was almost angry about it.

  “9/11 is … it’s the whole reason I’m here,” Taz told Reshmina. “The whole reason any of us are here.” He ripped open another Velcro pouch on his vest and pulled out two pieces of paper. One was a thin, glossy page from a magazine. It showed a photograph of two gray, rectangular buildings, each twice as tall as the other buildings around them. Black smoke poured from both, blowing sideways in the wind.

  Behind the buildings was bright blue cloudless sky, like today.

  Taz showed her the picture like it should mean something to her, but it didn’t. She’d never seen these buildings in her entire life.

  “She’s a kid,” said Carter. “She just hasn’t learned about it in school yet,” he told Taz.

  But when Taz showed the picture to Mor and Baba, they’d never heard of 9/11 either. Neither had Anaa, nor an elderly couple who’d been with them in the cave. Baba called the other villagers over, but none of them knew what 9/11 was, or why the Americans were so angry about it.

  “That’s the World Trade Center in New York City,” Taz told them, tapping the photo. He was scowling now. He looked a little like Pasoon when he was angry, Reshmina thought. “Terrorists flew two planes into the Twin Towers, one into each building. Three thousand people died in the attacks. My dad died in the attacks.”

  “Your father?” Reshmina said.

  Taz showed Reshmina the other photo he carried, this one of a man and a boy in nice clothes. A father and son. The father had a broad chest, brown skin, and a nice smile—just like Taz. The little boy in the picture had high cheekbones, brown hair, and blue eyes. Also like Taz.

  “I was there that day,” Taz said. “In the North Tower. I made it out, but my dad didn’t.”

  Beside him Carter looked at Taz with a kind of reverence. Almost awe.

  Taz traced his fingers over the man in the photo. “That’s him. My dad: Leo Chavez. He worked in a restaurant all the way at the top of the North Tower.”

  “Chavez?” Reshmina repeated. “Your name is Lowery.”

  Taz nodded. “That’s my adopted name. I took it in honor of the guy who helped me get out of the towers. He adopted me a year later. Richard Lowery. My name’s Brandon Lowery now.”

  “We just call him Taz,” said Carter.

  Reshmina looked again at the photos. If someone had done this to her village, to her baba, she would feel the same anger, the same sadness. She explained the pictures to her family and the other villagers in Pashto, and they nodded with understanding.

  “So it is badal, then. That is why they are here,” Anaa said.

  Reshmina sighed. The Americans didn’t follow Pashtunwali, but apparently revenge was something they knew and practiced as well. And who could blame them?

  “Afghans did this to you?” Reshmina said sadly. “The Taliban?”

  Taz shifted and looked uncomfortable. “Well, no,” he admitted. “It wasn’t the Taliban. The men who flew the planes into the buildings, they were mostly from Saudi Arabia. A group called al Qaeda. But the Taliban hated America and the West as much as al Qaeda did,” Taz explained. “The Taliban let al Qaeda set up their terrorist headquarters here. The al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, he planned the September 11 attacks right here in Afghanistan.” Taz glanced around. “The Taliban government wouldn’t hand bin Laden over to the US, so we invaded.”

  Reshmina’s anger flared like a brush fire. “Wait,” she said. “This Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, they destroyed these buildings, killed three thousand people. That is terrible. Unforgivable. The curse of God and all his angels and of the whole people upon them.” She spat on the ground. “But how many more of our buildings have you destroyed in return? How many more Afghan people have you killed?”

  Taz was quiet. Beside her, Reshmina’s family looked on with concern. She knew they didn’t comprehend her words, but they could hear the anger and confrontation in them.

  “You said yourself,” Reshmina continued. “Afghans did not do this attack. You are seeking revenge against the wrong people! Did you find and kill this man? This Osama bin Laden?”

  “Yes,” Taz said quietly.

  “When?”

  “Almost ten years ago. In Pakistan.”

  “Then why are you here?” Reshmina asked again.

  “Hey, if you’re not with us, you’re against us,” Carter said.

  Taz looked away, and Reshmina waited. Did Taz agree with his friend? Or was his answer still “We’re here because we’re here”? What kind of excuse was that when people on both sides were dying? When Hila was dead?

  “So if the United States does to my country what this Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda did to yours,” Reshmina asked, “does that mean Afghanistan now gets to invade your country in retaliation for your attack?”

  Carter laughed. “What? No.”

  “Of course not,” Reshmina said bitterly. “Because the rules are different for the United States. You make your own rules.”

  “Damn right we do,” said Carter.

  Reshmina looked at Taz, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. It wasn’t right, and he knew it.

  The walkie-talkie on Carter’s body armor squawked to life. “Carter, this is Pacheco,” the voice on the other end said. “We’ve got a house at the top of the village with at least five insurgents holed up inside it. No civilians in range. Over.”

  Carter held a button on his walkie-talkie and stepped away to respond, but Reshmina could hear what he said. “Acknowledged. Pull back and I’ll call in a bird. Over.” Carter waited a moment, then spoke into his walkie-talkie again. “Base, this is Carter. We need a strike on a building with at least five insurgents in it. Pacheco will call in coordinates. Over.”

  In moments, Reshmina heard the familiar thrum of an incoming Apache.

  WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP. The helicopter thundered up along the river and hovered right over their heads. Everyone ducked and backed away from the downdraft, and a second later came the hiss and whoosh of a single missile streaking out from under the metal grasshopper’s wings. The missile struck a house at the top of the village, and it exploded in a burst of fire and rock.

  Reshmina let out a breath. It was over now, right?

  Suddenly, there was a loud CRACK, and Reshmina watched in horror as the house beneath the shattered building crumbled and fell. The house underneath that collapsed under the weight of the first two, and the demolished buildings took out the next house, and the next, and the next, until the whole village became one great avalanche, falling down on itself.

  Carter cursed and turned to everyone standing around watching. “Run! Get across the river!” he cried.

  The villagers ran from the landslide, into the fields. Taz ran with Reshmina and her family. When they were safe, they all turned and watched as the village slid down into nothing, swallowed by a great brown cloud of dust that came roaring at them like a lion.

  The helicopter hovered a moment more, then lifted away. Its blades churned the smoke and dust as it left, and through a brief g
ap in the cloud Reshmina saw the empty hillside where her village had once been.

  Everything she had ever known was gone.

  “Dadgum,” Carter said. “Bombed ’em back up to the Stone Age.” He clapped Taz on the shoulder. “That’s for 9/11,” Carter added.

  Carter and the other American soldiers headed back across the river while Taz waited behind.

  “Reshmina, I’m sorry,” Taz said. He looked horrified. “That was not supposed to happen.”

  “And yet it did,” Reshmina said.

  “I’m sorry,” Taz said again, and he left to join his people.

  Reshmina’s legs gave out, and she sank to her knees. Around her, the other villagers cried out and sobbed.

  If the Americans had named their helicopters “Apaches” for some tribe they had defeated in battle, Reshmina thought, they should call their next helicopters “Afghans.” Because the United States had surely destroyed Afghanistan.

  Brandon and Richard walked hand in hand down empty Manhattan streets. They were both dazed, and neither of them had spoken for blocks. Soon they came to a small city park with lush green trees and red and yellow flowers. Richard found someone who let him borrow a cell phone, and he stepped aside to try to reach his family again.

  Brandon stood like a statue, staring at the flowers. The park was beautiful, but it brought him no pleasure to see it or to be there.

  “Talisha!” Richard cried into the phone. He had finally gotten through to his wife. “Oh my God, honey, I never thought I’d hear your voice again … Yes—yes. I’m all right. I’m safe.”

  But are we all right? Brandon wondered. Are we really safe? He looked around at that park, just blocks away from the burning pit where thousands of people had just died—where his father had just died—and wondered how anybody could ever feel happy and safe again. This little oasis wasn’t the real world. Brandon knew that now. He had seen the real world. It was dark and evil and scary, not sunshine and flowers waving in the breeze.

  “Yes,” Richard was saying into the phone. “I’m with a boy who escaped with me. Brandon. I’m bringing him home. It’ll be a while—the subways and buses aren’t running … No, don’t leave the house. We’ll walk it … All right … Yes—I love you too.”

  Brandon and Richard got moving again. They decided to get out of Manhattan as quickly as possible, following the thousands of other people streaming out of the city over the Brooklyn Bridge. They didn’t use the pedestrian path. They walked right down the middle of the road instead, working their way around abandoned cars. Some of the people walking by them cried. Others talked in whispers. Most just held their shirts to their faces and walked away from Manhattan as fast as they could, bewildered and stunned.

  It felt like the end of the world.

  Brandon was still holding Richard’s hand as they walked into the little front yard of his house in Queens three hours later. The security door flew open and Richard’s wife, Talisha, came running down the steps. She was a pretty Black woman with curly hair, wearing jeans and a purple sweater. Brandon recognized her from the photo on Richard’s desk. A small white dog ran out onto the porch next, followed by Richard’s little daughter and son. The kids waited awkwardly, not really sure why their father coming home today was a bigger deal than usual.

  “Thank God you’re alive!” Talisha said, and wrapped Richard in a hug. Brandon looked away as they kissed.

  Richard’s wife pulled away at last, her eyes full of tears.

  “Brandon, this is my wife, Talisha,” Richard said. “Brandon saved my life,” he told his wife.

  “Then I thank God for you too,” Talisha said, giving Brandon a hug and kissing the top of his head. He closed his eyes and scrunched a little lower, embarrassed, but he didn’t fight it.

  “He saved my life first,” Brandon said.

  “You can tell me all about it after we get you both cleaned up,” Talisha said. She took Brandon’s and Richard’s hands and pulled them toward the porch. Richard embraced his children and introduced them to Brandon as Kiara and Anthony. Richard also petted the happy little dog, whose name was Neo.

  Richard’s house was small but cozy. Brandon caught flashes of it as he was led inside—shelves full of books, dolls and toy cars on the floor, family pictures on the walls—but it was all a blur. He was exhausted, and he was losing his focus on the world.

  Richard’s daughter and son followed on Brandon’s heels. Neo jumped to sniff at the Tasmanian Devil Brandon still carried.

  “Are you a ghost?” Kiara asked.

  “Hush now,” Talisha told her. “Let him be.” She steered Brandon into a bathroom with an old claw-foot tub and a shower curtain on a metal ring. “Get yourself cleaned up, and then we’ll get some food in you,” Talisha told him.

  Anthony and Kiara stared at him, wide-eyed, until the bathroom door shut in their faces, and suddenly Brandon was alone.

  He stood for long minutes in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled bathroom, letting the stillness settle over him. For the first time in hours, Brandon wasn’t trying to get somewhere or survive. He had gotten used to planes hitting buildings and smoke in the air and people falling from the sky, and now that it was all done he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  The silence in the bathroom grew. I should be doing something, Brandon thought. He just didn’t know what. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t sleepy, and he didn’t feel like showering. He didn’t feel like doing anything but crawling into a ball and disappearing, but he couldn’t do that.

  So he did nothing.

  Brandon caught sight of himself in the mirror and recoiled. Richard’s daughter was right—he did look like a ghost, covered all over in fine white dust. But it was more than that. There was a hollow, empty look in his eyes, like he was dead inside.

  Was his father dead too? Brandon had seen the building come down. But had his father gotten out somehow before it happened? It seemed impossible, but Brandon didn’t know for sure. Should he be at home right now, waiting there in case his dad came back?

  A gentle knock on the door made Brandon jump.

  “You okay in there?” Talisha asked softly through the door.

  “Yes,” Brandon lied.

  He set the Tasmanian Devil on top of the toilet. He turned on the sink faucet and put his hand under the water, watching the blood and dust and grime of the World Trade Center start to wash off him. The hand of a ghost turning back into the hand of a living, breathing boy.

  When he was done in the shower, Brandon put on a fresh set of Richard’s clothes. Talisha had rolled up the sleeves and cuffs for him, but they were still comically baggy on him. He looked less like a ghost now, but he still felt empty inside, and he didn’t know if or how he would ever feel whole again. He had been younger when his mother had died, so young that he hadn’t understood why she wasn’t coming back. Brandon was old enough now to understand that his father was probably gone from his life forever. But unlike the last few months with his mother, Brandon had barely had time to say goodbye to his dad. It was still a fresh wound, deeper and far more painful than the cut on his palm.

  “Kid, you done in there?” Richard asked through the door.

  Brandon hated to leave the sanctuary of the bathroom, but he couldn’t stay in there forever. He opened the door.

  Richard had cleaned up too and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Richard reached a hand out to Brandon, and they hugged again. Neither of them had to ask, or say why.

  “Esther’s okay,” Richard said at last. “I just talked to her. She and Anson and Mr. Khoury made it out and away from the building before it came down. Anson’s dog too.”

  Brandon nodded. He’d forgotten all about them with all the other things that had happened, and a relief he hadn’t expected flooded through him. That’s three people, at least.

  “I need to call my apartment,” Brandon said. His voice was thin and raspy, and he cleared his throat. “I need to leave a message for my dad. In case.”

  Ric
hard looked like he might say something, then just nodded. He led Brandon to the phone in the kitchen and left him alone. Brandon dialed his number and waited through the rings, hoping against hope his dad would somehow pick up the phone before the answering machine kicked in.

  The call connected, and Brandon held his breath.

  “Hey, this is Leo Chavez,” his dad said.

  “And this is Brandon Chavez!” Brandon’s recorded voice said.

  “Leave us a message!” they said together.

  Brandon sniffed. He knew his father wouldn’t be there, but he had wanted so badly for him to answer.

  “Hey, Dad, it’s me. Brandon,” he said. Tears came to his eyes, and he blinked them away. “I got out, just like you told me to. I’m okay. I’m with Richard, the guy you talked to. His family’s nice. I’m at their house. If you get this, you can call me back at this number,” he said, knowing the machine would list it.

  Brandon paused. He didn’t know what else to say, and the machine was going to cut him off soon. He’s not going to hear this anyway, Brandon thought, choking back more tears.

  “I love you, Dad,” he said at last. “Goodbye.”

  Brandon hung up and went back to the bathroom and closed the door. He sat on the closed toilet seat until his tears ran dry. Then he cleaned up his face and joined Richard’s family in the living room.

  Richard and Talisha sat on the couch watching the news on TV, while Kiara and Anthony played with LEGOs on the floor. Brandon sat on the couch too, and Neo jumped into Brandon’s lap, tail wagging. Any other day, Brandon would have been delighted to play with a dog, but now it was enough to just put his hand on Neo’s warm body and feel his heart beat.

  They sat in front of the television for hours, watching and listening and trying to make sense of what was happening. Every channel was talking about the attacks. Even MTV and ESPN switched to nonstop news coverage. From talking head after talking head, Brandon learned everything the world knew so far. Terrorists had hijacked two planes and flown them into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. He knew that part. He had been there. Ground Zero. That’s what they were calling the pile of rubble and twisted steel that remained. They couldn’t call it the World Trade Center or Twin Towers anymore. The World Trade Center was gone.