I was there 9/11, 2001. At the time, I was living in New York City since 1992 and became familiar with large-scale traffic, people in a hurry, and never looking anyone in the eye. I had been working a job that required me to practically live on the premises and never shed a tear. Daily, I came in contact with the rude and shrewd and citizens that assumed you owed them something. Most poignantly, my boss. A millionaire that wanted to be serviced, catered to, and prayed to like a god.
On many occasions I had the opportunity to shift my duties to a location directly across the street from the World Trade Center in Manhattan. I remember being there on Earth Day 2001 where there was a fair at the World Trade and I was able to eat lunch while watching the festivities and the human focus as the world’s eye turned to making the planet better. Greener. And in cooperation with our nature.
That was all about to change 5 months later. On September 11th, I woke up to a phone call from my mother asking me to turn on the Today Show. I hurried to the TV and saw the footage of the aftermath of the first plane’s viperous bite. That’s when I turned to the window. From my living room window I can see the smoke rising up into the sky like a demon on horseback. Thank God I was scheduled at my employer’s Brooklyn location that day.
I reported for duty. The place was nearly empty. Our limited employees were scared and nervousness was showing like a flag held at half-staff. Then the SECOND PLANE HIT! Reports were coming in from all over. Panic rose to a tastable level that ensured panicked movements, hasty words, and sweaty foreheads. I ducked out to get some fresh air and lunch.
The scene on the streets of Brooklyn was a mass exodus! Traffic blocked the roads as the city-dwellers were trying to get out of New York City at a safe distance. There was talk of possible bombs on the bridges. Horns were honking; the fear was overriding from the internal feeling to a wave of mass anxiety that flowed down the streets.
Meanwhile, at the Trade Center, my friend had the great misfortune of being a security guard that was on duty. Let’s call him “Diego”. Diego survived and lived to tell me the terrible story that I’m about to recount.
After the first plane hit, my million dollar boss ordered his employees to stay in the building, which was directly across the street from the World Trade Center, while he fled. He took off to New Jersey and left his people to die. As the wreckage, debris, and shrapnel from the building was coming down, the employees and customers were running from one exit to the other to find a way to get out of the building while large chunks of junk where falling like rain. The smoke and soot where unbearable. Outside was not an option but staying inside the building next to the crumbling mass of the World Trade risked that their temporary shelter may be coming down on them as well!
In the middle of this madness Diego gets a call. It’s the boss. He’s phoning in from his limo. The boss tells him, “Close the metal gates that seal the large windows closed. The Trade Center may be coming down.” Diego tries the electronic pulley system. Nothing. Too much debris caught in the mechanism for it to go down. He reports this to the boss. The boss, protecting his interests tells him, “Go outside and force the gates down.”
Now Diego goes outside into the hail storm of choking white soot that looks like sacks of flour pouring out of the sky with hidden shrapnel and sharp particles bouncing off sidewalks. Then he looks up and sees the bodies jumping out. Taking their last surge of life not to die with their skin melting off.
The bodies are hitting the sidewalks all around him and the Trade Center is ready to collapse. Diego is pulling as hard as he can to close the window gates. He struggles. He fights. His nerves are so jumbled that he thinks he is floating on air while asphyxiating on airborne particles thick as cotton. In a moment that he does not remember, he gets the gates closed and finds himself back inside the building as the earth rumbles and the building heaves a cataclysmic boom that deafens him. The Trade Center crashed down. The closed gates surely deadened the impact of the falling buildings. Surely saving many, many lives. The pulse is trapped in time, angelic is the deafening blow. People were in stasis, not sure if they were alive, dead, or trapped under rubble. Condition critical.
Diego survived that day. He was not in good shape. Neither physically nor mentally. He was a husk of his former self. Not only did 9/11 change him but it changed New Yorkers. Neighbors that never talked before said good morning. People started holding doors for each other. Sheepishly, people looked at each other in the eye while on the subway. The stink of fear had slowly evaporated leaving New Yorkers to look at themselves as mirrors. Honored, cherished, and grateful. Everyone was of equal size. The millionaires, the employees and the homeless. If I can never forget that day that produced the crash heard around the world, I would be in a good place. Living in the moment. Looking at people in the eye. Having true care for my fellow man. Staying in every second so open to life and knowing that anything can change in a moment. That’s all it takes. One moment. This is where I want to be…in the now.
I never heard from Diego again. He disappeared. Hopefully, he can view this utmost tragedy as a catalyst to transformation. To see the world and it’s people as helpful just as he had helped so many by closing those damn gates! I hope to never forget.
“Love is a Loop” a pencil drawing about what we give is what we get. Love is a circle and I shall never forget. Prints are on SALE here. For a very limited time. Get yours today!