On the Other Side

by Michelle Janine Robinson

  Neal watched her and was unnerved by her silence. He wondered if he should be concerned about the two of them sleeping under the same roof, given her uncustomary detached response. It then occurred to him that he had nothing to worry about. He interpreted her quiet as surrender and felt victorious.

  “I have a meeting with a new client tomorrow morning. Make sure you wake me up before you leave,” he said gruffly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The next morning, Damita was happy to find Neal was still asleep. He was on yet another bender and there were empty bottles and drug paraphernalia scattered throughout the apartment. She had no intention of waking him, as he instructed and was sure to dress quickly. She packed a small bag to take with her to work, so she wouldn’t have to come back. She would stay with her mother until she found her own apartment.

  Before she left, she heard the click of the answering machine and walked over to it to listen to the message more closely. She wondered if it might be her mother or Carmella but knew that they had stopped calling her on anything but her cell phone. The voice she heard chilled her to the bone. It was the same voice she recognized the night she was attacked.

  “I’m outside waiting whenever you’re ready, Mr. Westman,” the voice said.

  Damita stared at the machine in horror. Suddenly everything clicked. It was the driver. He was the one who had attacked her along with three other men. This time she would be going to the police. She was going to tell them everything. She removed the tape from the answering machine. It occurred to her that at some point she might need it.

  Damita didn’t want the driver to see her when she left from the front of the building, so she decided she would ride down to the laundry room. She believed there was an exit there that led out to the back. She picked up her suitcase and got on the elevator and pushed the button to head down to the laundry room. Once inside the laundry room, she found the door to the street. As she opened the door, her cell phone began to ring. She didn’t immediately recognize the number and then remembered she had seen the same number once before. One night she was meeting Neal for dinner and she was still at work and running late. Neal had sent the driver to pick her up and given him her number. Very often drivers were unable to park near the busy World Trade Center location where she worked.

  She looked at the phone, nervously, wondering if she should answer it or not. She decided it was an ideal opportunity to buy her some time to get to work and eventually contact the police, before Neal had an opportunity to interfere. She answered the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Westman, this is the driver. Mr. Westman asked me to pick him up this morning. I’ve been calling both his cell and the home phone number and there’s no answer.”

  “He must have forgotten to let you know. He decided to do a conference call from home rather than go into the office for his meeting. He’s not feeling very well.”

  “Oh. Okay. Did he mention whether either of you would need me this afternoon? I have some other jobs I need to do, if he’s all set for now.”

  “I doubt he’ll need you to drive him anywhere today. And I certainly won’t. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be in bed all day.”

  “Great,” he said.

  Damita hoped her voice didn’t give her away. She tried her very best to remain as nonchalant as possible, but it was difficult under the circumstances.

  She arrived at work sometime around eight-twenty a.m., in the hopes that she would have an opportunity to decompress before everyone else started filtering in. She saw Mr. Underhill immediately and noted the look of shock on his face. She realized she was usually so impeccably dressed. However, today, her clothing was bordering on disheveled, her face was bruised, yet again, and this time she hadn’t even taken the time to cover it with makeup. Instead of the tastefully coordinated pumps she typically wore on her feet, she was wearing a pair of running shoes.

  “Damita, once you get settled, could you stop by my office?” Mr. Underhill said, before walking away.

  Throughout her entire ordeal, Damita kept anticipating the moment when Mr. Underhill became fed up with her personal drama filtering into the office. She was sure today would be that moment.

  Emotionless, she went into the closet in her office and retrieved a suit and a pair of shoes that she kept there in case of emergency. She shut the door and changed. She used her compact mirror and applied some makeup to the multiple bruises on her face.

  She considered calling her mother to let her know she would be coming to stay with her as soon as she left work, but didn’t want to keep Mr. Underhill waiting.

  As soon as she left her office to head to Mr. Underhill’s, there was a loud noise. She stopped at Wendy’s office first.

  Wendy looked shocked. “Did you hear that? What the hell was it?” Wendy asked.

  “I don’t know. It sounded like an explosion,” Damita responded.

  Wendy’s face seemed to drain of color as she pointed out the window. “Oh my God! That was an explosion. Look at that hole. There’s a huge hole on the side of North Tower.”

  Everyone at the firm began to gather and Wendy and Damita joined them near the break room. They were all discussing the fact that a plane had hit North Tower.

  “What kind of a plane?” Wendy asked.

  “It must have been a private plane. It can’t possibly be a commercial jet. Can they even fly that low?” an employee from the mailroom mentioned.

  “Maybe it crashed,” someone else speculated.

  “Do you see all that smoke?” Damita said.

  As they all watched, helpless from South Tower, they could see that people inside North Tower, desperate to escape the fire and smoke, were jumping to their deaths.

  Damita looked over at a woman from their Legal Department. She suddenly went deathly pale, right before she started screaming. “Did you see that, they’re jumping? They’re all dying!”

  “What should we do?” someone asked.

  “We should stay put,” Damita said.

  “Where is Mr. Underhill?” someone else asked.

  “I don’t think he’s in yet. It’s still early,” said another.

  “He’s here. I saw him this morning when I arrived,” Damita said.

  Suddenly, Damita’s cell phone rang. She was surprised. Everyone had been attempting to use their cell phones and they all had gotten the same message that all circuits were busy. When she answered, the connection was weak, but it was clearly her mother.

  “Baby, are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine, Mom. I’m okay.”

  “I heard a report that a plane hit the World Trade Center.”

  “It did, but it’s not our building. I’m in the South Tower. The plane hit the North Tower.”

  “Is it bad?” her mother asked.

  “It’s pretty bad.”

  “You need to get out of there, now.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Damita, please get out of there.”

  “I will, Mom. I promise I will.”

  “Damita, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom. Don’t worry. I’m going to be fine.”

  Within minutes of Damita hanging up, there was an announcement over the PA system.

  “May I have your attention, please? This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test. There has been an incident in The North Tower. The incident has been isolated in Building 1. There is no fire danger to Building 2. Building 2 is secure. I repeat Building 2 is secure. Please return to your offices. We will continue to keep you updated with any further instructions.”

  Wendy’s expression was one of utter terror. “Return to our offices? They have got to be fucking kidding me. We need to evacuate now,” Wendy said.

  “Are you telling me we have to walk down seventy-seven flights of stairs? I’m sure the elevators aren’t working. They immediately disable them in an emergency situation. Isn’t this building secure?” one young woman asked.

&nbs
p; “Maybe we should go up to the roof,” suggested another woman.

  Suddenly, there was a violent jolt and Damita felt like she was in an elevator that was quickly plummeting. The building began to sway heavily and then almost as quickly, stopped. Above them the ceiling was gone and the windows were blown out.

  Damita looked around to find everyone was covered in dust and particles and the air was full of debris and smoke, and a strong chemical odor filled the air. Just as everyone was approaching full panic mode, Mr. Underhill entered, covered in dirt and soot from head to foot. He was bleeding from a wound to his head and he appeared to be in shock. His stark paleness could be seen, even beneath the dirt that covered his face.

  “Mr. Underhill, are you okay?” Damita asked.

  “I got out just in time. One minute longer and I would be gone. They’re all dead,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Everyone on the seventy-eighth floor is dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Well, we won’t be going up,” someone said.

  “What do you think happened? Were they wrong? Has the plane that flew into the North Tower caused damage to this building as well?” someone else asked.

  “That sounded like we lost the top floors. Do you think the whole building will come down?” said another.

  Everyone had questions. Ruled by fear, no one considered the fact that they all had the same information and therefore no one could be sure about what was indeed happening.

  One man in particular seemed much calmer than everyone else.

  “Something tells me that first plane may not have been an accident. What happened to this building may have been as a result of structural damage to the North Tower, but more than likely it was another plane. At this point, we all need to start down the stairs and continue until we get to the bottom,” he said.

  “But, she’s pregnant,” someone said, pointing at their pregnant coworker.

  “I’ll help her,” the man said.

  Damita was terrified, like everyone else, but somehow this man made her feel safer; like everything was going to be okay. She didn’t recognize him as an Underhill employee, but she figured he was a visitor or maybe a new member of the staff that she had yet to meet. Either way, she was glad he was there.

  He helped the pregnant woman, as he said he would and even stopped every now and then to make sure others were doing okay. He would encounter someone who had fallen or been hit by a piece of falling debris and try his best to assist. At one point during their descent, Damita noticed an older man slumped in a corner, his leg oddly twisted. His face was contorted in agony and she stopped to see if she could help. She tried to help him to his feet, but his leg was obviously broken.

  “You can’t get him down more than seventy flights of stairs. You’ll have to leave him. Rescue personnel will be along. They will need to help him.”

  “Maybe if we all—,” she continued.

  “We can’t. You have to keep going. Rescue personnel are here. Anyone who has been left behind will get help.”

  Damita looked around at her coworkers and others she didn’t recognize and wondered if in addition to working together, they would die together.

  He saw the frightened look on her face and tried to reassure her.

  “You know, we’re actually in good shape, under the circumstances. Judging from the smoke and fire that seemed to be coming from North Tower, we’re good. There’s barely any fire and if we move quickly we can get to safety before the smoke becomes life-threatening. Everything is going to be okay; really.”

  Damita forced a smile. There was an overpowering odor. “What is that smell?” she asked.

  “That’s jet fuel,” the man answered.

  Damita saw him try to help Mr. Underhill, who seemed close to being catatonic. She watched as he continued to navigate the stairs despite his head injury and apparent shock. Debris and smoke further impeded everyone’s progress. Every now and then the man would stop to remove debris. She wondered what had happened to Mr. Underhill when he was on the seventy-eighth floor, especially since he reported back that everyone on that floor was dead. She took notice of the scent of fuel and wondered if there was a threat of an explosion. There were gaping holes in some areas of the stairwell and at one point, Damita stepped directly into a hole, twisting her already fragile ankle. The man who was helping everyone stopped to help her as well and reminded her to keep going.

  “I don’t know how much time we’re all going to have to get out of here. With that much jet fuel, we’re in a great deal of danger,” he said.

  The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her and everyone else even more, but he felt it was important that they understood time was of the essence.

  The pain in Damita’s ankle was excruciating, but when she considered the alternative, she realized it was imperative that she push through the pain. As she continued on she noticed that others had been injured. Every now and then pieces of debris would fall. She was comforted by the presence of the man who had been by her side throughout her efforts to make it to the bottom. Some fire-fighters passed her on the stairs and she couldn’t help but think how frightened they looked. She was happy to see they were there and would be able to help the old man she had to leave.

  By the time she exited the stairwell and made her way into the World Trade Center complex mall, there were firefighters screaming and frantically gesturing to get out of the building. Damita did her best to speed up, despite the shooting pain in her ankle. Confident she was out of danger, she turned to thank the man who had helped her just in time to see a huge block of the structure fall, separating the two of them. Yet, she could still make out his voice, even above all the other voices and chaos.

  “Keep going, Damita. You’ve got to get out. The structure is weak and the building won’t remain stabilized for much longer. Keep going. If you don’t survive, it will all be for nothing.”

  Damita wondered what he meant by that. What would be all for nothing? She realized that under such extreme circumstances anyone was capable of saying things that didn’t make much sense. She realized he knew her name and since she hadn’t told him what it was, she assumed he had picked it up from someone else.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Coop. Just call me Coop,” she could vaguely hear him say.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” Damita said.

  “I’m going to be fine now. As long as you’re okay. So, go. Don’t waste another minute. Get out of here and we’ll see each other again. Don’t worry about me. I’ll meet you on the other side,” he said.

  Damita left the mall at the exit near the Millennium Hotel. She stood by watching the nightmare unfold, as debris fell from the building. She began walking north and was only a few blocks away when she heard a loud noise and saw a great cloud of dust. Someone in the crowd said South Tower had fallen. The first thing Damita thought about was whether or not the man who had helped her had gotten out. Along the way, she had gotten separated from the people she had started down the stairs with on the seventy-seventh floor. She had started out along with Mr. Underhill and Wendy. Now, she didn’t see either of them. She hoped they had made it out before the building came down. Her mind wandered to the strangest things. She thought of Tina, who had been spared this ordeal, simply because she had lost her job. She also thought of all the good times she had shared with Wendy, and even her boss, Mr. Underhill. She remembered the day she came into the office to interview with him. She was fresh out of college and scared to death that she wouldn’t be good enough. Mr. Underhill’s brusque manner did nothing to reassure her. But slowly but surely, she began to prove herself and over the years, her boss, had revealed herself to be just as much of a friend. She thought of the pride she saw in her mother’s eyes when she came to see her new corner office. In the blink of an eye, all of that had changed and her life, and the lives of those she had spent so much of her time with all these years, was inexplicably altered. She had th
e feeling of being on autopilot. She walked, ignoring most of what was going on around her. The pain in her ankle was nonexistent. One thing she couldn’t help but notice was the massive smoke cloud rising out and above the World Trade Center site. It was all so utterly and completely surreal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  She walked past the screams of others, the bodies covered in soot and dust. Amidst the chaos she was invisible. In many ways it was as if the world had stopped. No one noticed her. She tasted smoke and dirt on her lips and filtering into her lungs but welcomed it. That at least meant she was alive. First she ran, still unsure if she was truly safe. Then, she began to walk, as the downtown street names turned into numbers. She moved forward virtually on autopilot. Not for a moment did she even notice she was walking in her stocking feet. She felt and saw nothing. Everything was arranged like tunnel vision. Every now and then someone would stop in front of her, speaking and sometimes gesturing wildly, but she still heard nothing. Once, a woman with a frightened expression stopped in front of her and grabbed her by her shoulders. The woman seemed to be screaming, but Damita heard nothing. She shook her head, hoping to jumpstart her hearing and wondered if her ears had somehow been damaged.

  For a moment it seemed as though she was able to hear, but the words that did filter through were broken and the phrases unintelligible. Finally, she thought she was able to make out a full sentence.

  “Are you hurt?” someone asked.

  Damita kept walking. Speaking to her was a waste of time. Her thoughts were murky and her body devoid of feeling. For a moment she stopped in front of a store with a television on and watched what she could only assume was a movie. In the film thick black smoke emanated from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. She had the most overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. Her thoughts still splintered and her psyche trying desperately to cling to the notion that none of what happened to her was real, she refused to recognize what she was seeing as breaking news. At that moment, it was easier for her to believe it wasn’t real.