Another New York Story

Nicole stood in one of the bag check lines at the British Museum. No, she couldn’t stop them, again. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she reached for a tissue balled up in her pocket while trying to choke back sobs and look normal. The line was moving so slowly it would take another ten minutes at least before she reached the front. She thought about coming back later, but no, the line might be just as long. London was on high alert after some acid throwing and crazy drivers smashing into pedestrians. She squared her shoulders.

By the time she reached the check station, her nose and eyes were red, but she had herself under control.

The guard gave her a look after glancing into her bag. “All right then?”

“Yes, sorry, when I stand in this sort of queue it brings back memories.”

The guard waved her in.

*

No one touched the paper-wrapped box on the subway seat. We all stared at it as if looking harder would give us X-ray vision. It was next to an older gentleman, and we were all debating whether to say something about wanting to sit down. It was tied shut with the standard, red and white striped string used in bakeries and had an oval sticker with a logo on the outside. Even though the brown paper was plain, the box had been wrapped with meticulous care. Each fold was knife sharp and perfectly symmetrical in a precise, downward-facing point on two sides.

We all looked at each other. Usually, it takes an extraordinary event to get a New Yorker to look you in the eyes on the train. Really, no one wants to engage. Not out of unfriendliness, just wanting a little privacy in a city with little privacy.

The train, a downtown Number 6 Local, pulled into the 51st Street station and stopped with a staccato jolt. The doors slid open with the New York Subway's standard "ding-dong". The seated man got up and walked out. The box was still there. A man jumped off the train and pulled the old gentleman's sleeve as he caught up, but the conductor’s voice came as the doors closed, “Watch the closing doors,” with another ding-dong. The train started to pull out of the station as the two men stared in through the glass, one looking a little confused and the other a little angry.

I sat down next to the box and picked it up. Someone sat next to me.

“Next stop 42nd Street, 42nd Street next,” the conductor’s voice called out.

At 42nd Street, the doors opened again, and most of the people got out. A few got on. It was a little after 8:30 a.m. I had been to the dentist early for a cleaning and was running late, but I had let my boss know the day before. Usually, my daughter would be with me too. There was a daycare center right in my building, but it was too complicated to bring her to the dentist with me and too far to go back and pick her up, so I asked my mother to help out for the day.

At 33rd Street there was some delay. The train idled, doors open, and a few people glanced at their watches. Same with 23rd Steet. At 14th Street the doors opened. “Union Station, 14th Street, Union Station. This train will be terminating at 14th Street. All passengers disembark. This train will not be leaving the station.”

I got off, still holding the box carefully since it seemed as if there might be a fragile item inside, and crossed to the express side of the platform with everyone else. A few people bent over slightly in hopes of seeing the headlights of an approaching train. Nothing.

Then a muffled announcement came over the loudspeakers. “We are evacuating this station due to a downtown event. Please exit the station quietly and calmly.”

We all looked around. “Must be pretty serious,” a guy in a gray hoodie said. A few people nodded in agreement. We filed out through the turnstiles with a steady thump and click. The ticket window was still open, so I held up the box.

“Someone left this. He got off at 51st Street.” I described the man. The attendant gestured to the door, so I brought the box around and passed it to him. Then I joined the queue of people crowding up the stairs.

When I got to the top, it had turned into a beautiful sunny September day outside. It seemed more crowded than usual. There was confusion. I ducked into a nearby shop for another cup of coffee. They had the television on overhead.

Reports were that a small plane had just hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center. My knees started shaking. I was working in the North Tower at a small financial company as an assistant. My daughter attended the daycare there on most days. It was convenient.

It was getting crowded with people trying to get coffee and people trying to get news. I pushed my way out, not sure what to do. If there was a fire they'd be evacuating my office.

Someone shouted, "Let's go over to Sixth Avenue. We can see better from there." I joined the crowd walking over. It soon became hard to walk because there were so many people. It seemed everyone was out on the street.

Someone else said, "They are saying a second plane hit the tower."

We pushed our way over to 14th street and 6th Avenue. By the time we arrived, the intersection was full of people. The atmosphere was tense and strangely silent with watching. I glanced at my watch; it was 9:30. Downtown at the towers, plumes of smoke rose into the air. The woman next to me started to cry. The street was getting more and more crowded as men and women in suits, in dresses and pumps. Tourists dressed in regular tourist gear; jeans, and tee-shirts came running up from downtown. They stopped at the crowd, panting.

"What's going on? What's happening?"

"I don't know. I don't know. They told us to leave, they told us to run."

I was worried about my co-workers. They were on a lower floor, but in a fire, with no elevators...

I looked back at the smoke rising from the tops of both buildings, and tears finally came to my eyes. For the first time in many years, a prayer left my lips. "Oh, God." That was all I could say.

We all just stood and watched. It was close to 10:00 a.m. when the first tower fell. No one could believe it. We stood there calling out, screaming, no one listening to anyone else, no one moving or thinking other than looking disbelieving at the horrifying reality. By 10:30, the second tower collapsed.

People who had cell phones were making calls, reaching people, getting message machines, sobbing with relief, sobbing with not knowing.

I didn't have a phone.

Somehow, I got home. We walked, we walked home. The subways weren't running. Another building collapsed. All of the planes were grounded. The world went silent. I thought of someone I had interned for years before who lived across the street. I wondered where she was.

The people who worked with me at my office were safe by some miracle. Many of them had been late for work, were out at early meetings, happened to be near the stairs. But some I knew, I would see them every morning on the elevator, now I would never see them again. My company found new office space, but I changed jobs. It was too close.

I could never go down there. There were too many ghosts hovering around that spot. I tried to write about it, about what that day meant for me, for the people around me. I started a poem. It went like this;

In Our Athens

We keep the charred and ruined remnants of the past to salve our pain,

Like Athens,

Our site attains,

The ghosts of broken, battered heroes lean against oppressive air.

Changed, in an instant

I could never finish it. I could never define those feelings well enough to finish it.

Everywhere I went that year, I stood in lines. People behind tables would ask me to open my bag. They would look, they would say okay, go ahead. I would cry each time, standing in that line. The second year, I stood in that line. I stood with tears running down my face until I had to open my bag. Everywhere I went, there were announcements about what to do if you saw an unattended package. On the subway, in the train station, in airports, museums, theatres. People looked at each other and looked away.

An unattended package. Just like the one I turned in at the station ticket kiosk that day. An unattended box. Perhaps someone forgot it on the subway. Maybe it was a birthday cake being brought home to a kid, a present for the wife. Maybe it was an innocent box, just like before. Just like those times when we could believe in another person we didn't know.

But maybe, just maybe, it was left there by someone who hated us. Who wanted to harm us. Maybe that box would explode, and leave the old lady sitting next to me without her vision, maybe my child would die, maybe I wouldn't make it out of that subway car the next time. Maybe the squad of people who came to detonate it wouldn't be going home to their wives and kids and dogs.

So, whether it is ten years or twenty years later, I will stand in line and open my bag and cry. I will think of the box, and the souls hovering, and the sunlight on a September morning. I will think of the bravery and the cowardice of that day. I will think of the unity shown by strangers. I will never forget.