Sent to me by Tony..
I've been scared. I don't like to be, much less admit it, but I've been scared. I was lucky and in Queens, not in Manhattan last Tuesday. No, I wouldn't have been THERE (though I was working on the roof of a building a block away a month before this happened). When the towers went down, I walked to the overpass behind the apartment house and stared at the smoke that was in the place of the towers on the Manhattan skyline. Even though I'm one East River away from the closeups on TV, it was stomach twisting. I called my foreman that night, and he told me how they watched it happen from the windows, 30 blocks away, how tough-guy construction workers were shaking, some crying, because they thought it was WW3 and the begining of The End.
My son, Joey, mimicking a computer pinball game we have, said "Oh no- try again!" when the towers tumbled down on our TV screen. And I thanked God then, as I do every day, that he's too innocent to be touched by this, that he's 3 & 1/2, and the world is still Pooh, Barney, the Itsy Bitsy Spider and the alphabet song. I thank God he's not like the older children I see in Manhattan every day, the ones that look like they're suddenly 70 year olds in six year old bodies, with a look of terror in their eyes that no one, much less a child, should ever have. Joey squirms away from Jennifer and me, wondering why mommy & daddy have this sudden obsession with hugging him every time they turn on the TV.
On Thursday, back in Manhattan, I had to walk from 42nd and Lexington to 23rd and 1st, because the #6 line was down. (They were afraid of subway vibrations bringing down weakened buildings). It's not really as long a walk as it sounds, but I passed the recovery HQ on 1st Ave - past all the TV vans, and past a block's worth of pictures taped to plywood sheets. As time goes by, these hopefull "have you seen" pictures have become memorials, and they're everywhere. I can't talk on the phone without staring into photographs with tearfull notes of hope underneath, knowing they were put there by loved ones who will never ever see them again. I call my wife, and my voice becomes a dull monotone. She asks why and I'm at a loss how to explain.
Again, I'm on a job 30 blocks away from "ground zero", and I can see out the window that what was once a symbol of acheivement is now a smouldering hole in the ground. I know it's only been a week, but I wonder when the skyline won't have a haze that has nothing to do with pollution. I walk down the street and I see people that are scared and jittery, no matter what their race or profession . I buy a paper from an elderly Arabic man, who wears a "God Bless America" shirt every day, and shrinks down in his kiosk- which is draped in American flags- like a frightened rabbit every time I, or any other customer approach. I give the little smile I have, but I don't think it does any good. I wonder, if he's so afraid, why he stays here, and I realize he probably has no one and no where else to go.
Our shop is working on restoring power to one of those buildings- the same one I was on the roof of not too long ago (The Trinity building, 111 Broadway)- and being a lowly apprentice I helped the truck driver deliver material yesterday. My driver's licence was scrutinized by armed police and National Guardsmen, like I'm trying to get onto a military base, and they make me wait in the cab while they and the driver search the truck. They won't let the truck get closer than a few blocks away and we wind up rolling 3' diameter wooden reels of sj cord down the street. The smell twisted my stomach, when I realized that what I was smelling wasn't just burnt wood/rubber/plastic/concrete- it was the smell of death: The death of a great acheivement, of that smug "nothing can ever happen to us" attitude we Americans had without giving it a second thought, and, most disturbingly, of over 6000 bodies.
And there's this feeling that grips me, this feeling that there's nothing I could ever do to protect myself, my wife or my son, and I wonder every night if tomorrow some new insanity will strike. I jump every time a car backfires. I run 2 miles a night and every time a plane flies overhead I flinch. I watched President Bush's speech on TV tonight, and every time the picture flickered a little (I don't have cable, so 2 is really the only reliable channel- the others are coming and going- for those of you not in NYC, the WTC had all the broadcast antennas for the area except channel 2, leaving those of us who are cableless with only CBS) I thought "oh shit, what's happening now?" Every time I hear a siren, I wonder what's happened. The Q4 bus got held up at the Middtown tunnel yesterday (connecting Queens to Manhattan) because there was an accident. Of course, everyone seeing a bunch of flashing lights and emergency vehicles as we approach a tunnel, we instantly look around like caged animals, wondering if stage 2 had begun.
I realize I live on an island, and the only way to the rest of the world is by crossing another island (either Staten Island or Manhattan) or into The Bronx. Am I going to worry for myself and my family over every bridge and tunnel we cross for the rest of my life? And if it's "them," what form will it take? Watching 6000 people die as the WTC go down in flames is one thing. Watching my family and millions of others in this city die from Anthrax in our water supply is another. I'm sorry if I see this as just an NYC thing. It's hard to grasp that this is affecting the whole country. It's an uncertain time, it's become an uncertain world. Love each other, stay safe, and live your lives, for yourselves and for each other.
-Tony
shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when
it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.
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