Where Were You on 9/11?

Just a morning like any other – almost mid-September and, although nice and cool in the morning, we’re in for a triple "H"’er (Hot, Humid ‘n Hazy). They say it’ll get up to the high 80s today. We’re paying for the nice spats of weather we had in July and August. The ride on the commuter train (“MARC”) affords me my usual 45-minute snooze from Baltimore Penn Station to D.C.’s Union Station. Then it’s into the morning rush-hour commuter throngs pressed together for four subway stops.

The morning air outside the subway is cool and crisp at 7:15. The sky is in that transition between the nearly hot white of summer and the deeper azure of autumn. Making my way across K Street to Farragut Park, I notice that the grass is a nice, lush green, with rows of lush mums crowding the base of General Farragut’s statue. The cops have chased away all but a couple of the penniless, homeless overnight guests of the city, still covered with several pages of the financial section of the Post. I spy K Street Kate as I cross 17th Street, give her a smile and two bits as she returns a toothless grin. That’s her corner. Squatter’s rights. She salutes me with two gnarly black-nailed fingers to her eyebrow, and I return the salute. I wonder if she’s related to that bag lady in Atlanta who made $50K last year, tax free.

I hurry up to the top of I and 17th Streets to buy my fresh fruit cup from the Pakistani vendor, who is always smiling and wishing me a good morning. Two minutes later, I’m in my building and at my desk.

9:30 a.m. I head for the window to check the weather after hearing a tremendous thunderboom. The fire alarms sound as I reach the windows that look toward the Pentagon. The only black I see is in the form of huge, billowy plumes of smoke and fire coming from Arlington. The building shakes, reminiscent of a California earthquake aftershock. Confusion ensues: What the heck is going on here? No thunderstorm; earthquake?

Our building’s security guards are now on my floor, urging everyone to evacuate the building immediately and try to get home as best we can. “All mass transportation has come to a standstill,” they inform us. “Try to find a ride, a boat, walk or sprout wings.”

As I race down the stairs and out to the sidewalk, I see people running by and screaming or crying, sirens blaring, cops on bikes, on horseback and in patrol cars. EMS vans stream by on K Street one after the other. I glance down a block toward the White House and see many shiny black sedans, limos, and LTDs on Pennsylvania Avenue. Cops are starting to ring the periphery of the grounds down there. I glance at my watch: 9:55. I decide to take my chances and cut across Farragut Park to the subway. It’s a good thing that I turned on my internal divine autopilot – that little voice that guides me intuitively – and jump-started it by sending a last-minute memo to Dude Almighty to keep an eye out for me.

The street-level gates clang shut with a grinding squeal just behind me. I am one of the last few they let into the subway station. Down into the bowels under General Farragut’s statue I go. As the view opens up around the corner and I descend the second-level escalator, I see a sea of humanity; a crowd so dense I can’t even see an inch of the platform. Do I really want to be down here? Too late. I’ve committed. The steely gates are locked behind and above me. There’s no place to go but down into the rat tunnels. As I reach the platform, the train toward Union Station arrives. I have already been pulled and pushed into the middle of the melee; now I have no choice. A strange force of moving bodies plops me magically into one of the cars. “PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF THE DOORS,” whines the monotone robotic voice. During rush hour, you can hear this up to about four times as the commuters on board the train arch their backs and curve their arms clear of the door sensors so they can get on their way. This time the mechanical conductor is already on the eighth announcement, and will reach number ten before the doors are clear and the cattle car, groaning under the weight of the equivalent of two and a half rush hours, ambles through the tunnel.

We seem to be exiting the tunnel into the Judiciary Square station too quickly; the throngs of platform passengers are a blur as we stream past into the next tunnel, twisting tortuously to the right on the long leg to Metro Center, a main transfer point and juncture of three or four subway lines. And so we continue, hurtling into the darkness, then the light of each station… ”Gallery Place – Chinatown” … Snippets of the morning’s events clip my ears but don’t stick; they’re flying too fast in too many directions: “It was two planes, one for each tower…, “someone says. And another: “ …Nobody could have gotten out of there in time…” “There were people jumping from over 90 floors up…” We come to a screeching halt at Union Station. “Everyone must leave the train – this is the final stop. The subway is closed. Please proceed in an orderly fashion to the street level and outside. Union Station is also now closed.” Great. Well, at least I got this far. Up a short escalator, all turnstiles now open – too crowded to worry about everyone inserting their fare cards and grabbing them on the other side – heading toward the final, long escalator to the street.

She is trying her best to single-handedly maintain order in her little underground kingdom. I’ve tangled with her a few times in the past, this representative of rabbit-hole commuting. You have to cock your head to one side to read her nametag today: “Mazey.” It’s dangling by a single brad, apparently half-unfastened by the throngs pressing in on her for what must be almost an hour by now. “Do not go into the station…” and then she turns quickly, having caught sight of another miscreant trying to sidle past people on the escalator by sitting on the rubber handrail. Just as suddenly, she is off in yet a third direction, her face taut, strained, and distraught with the sinking feeling that she is no longer in control. She melts like butter into the throngs pressing me from behind.

A small patch of blue is visible past all the people above me. My watch reads 10:20 as we collide with the chaos above.

A strange mix of D.C. subway personnel, D.C. cops, and National Guards tries to keep the crowds bubbling up from the depths of the subway from colliding with the streams of people evacuating the main halls of Union Station. It’s not working. As I near the top of the mechanical stairway, each step two or even three abreast, the people on the three steps above me seem to be falling backwards. We are hurtling into a solid, unyielding wall of people at the top of the exit. Everyone is hanging onto the moving, rubber handrails for fear of falling backwards like a line of dominoes. The tension is so great, I can feel the handrail slipping and starting to buckle. I decide to punch my own hole in the crowd, jumping diagonally in-between two clumps of people ahead and above me. Once outside, I keep on moving, fearing that to stop would mean to stop for good and become part of the huge, writhing molasses snake of bodies.

Emptying Union Station has created a sight so mind-boggling it can only be described as a sea of people as far as you can see, so many people that you can’t even see the pavement; so many people that cars are not going to even crawl an inch for hours.

“Keep your eyes and ears open – pay attention!” So directs my divine autopilot. At least I know the Dude got my memo. I overhear someone saying that the bus station is still open. I head for the station on foot, down one street to find a faster route clear of bodies and machinery. The Northeast District is not a nice place to be walking, even during the daytime. Suddenly rounding a corner, four Arabs come running in my direction, fists held high and shaking rebelliously in the air, and they are chanting over and over again: “Congratulations!” in Arabic. They’re too drunk with their celebration to even notice me as I pass on by. My blood starts to curdle, as I hope they keep up their celebration as they exit onto Union Station Square, where they will be vastly outnumbered. I check my anger and grief, and keep on moving. Glancing to my left down the next cross street, I catch a glimpse of some young white skinheads rocking a car appearing to contain some Arab youths. Both groups are shouting in rage at each other. I pick up my pace.

I don’t have to get much closer than two blocks to the bus station to know it too is closed. Another sea of people. Time to regroup. No public transportation at all. Not a cab in sight; even if there were, where would it go? I could walk faster. “Go to that other bus station on New York Avenue,” my inner voice nudges me. I head up New York Avenue, for ten blocks. There’s the station. This one is deserted. My autopilot insists: “Check the alley that the buses use to leave from the back of the station.”

Glancing down the street toward the alley, I see the last bus at that station poke its nose out to check for traffic before pulling out. I soon find myself firmly planted in front of the bus, gasping wildly for breath and yelling: “Hey, Mac – you headed for Baltimore?” The driver leans out the window and answers: “Hey, Mac – are you crazy, standing in front of my bus?” Laughing nervously, I continue the crazy dialogue: “Yeah, I’m crazy, but are you going to Baltimore?” He laughs, looks around as if his supervisor might be watching, then motions me aboard, where I don’t mind standing all the way to Baltimore if I have to. The bus heads down what must be the only clear side street in the District, wending its way to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

Two young girls in tank tops and shorts wag their tongues at each other in Polish – tourists, it turns out, who picked the wrong day for a trip to the Capital. Their next stop was to be New York City, then Warsaw. They might not even get back to Warsaw. I catch bits of French here, German there, a little Italian, and even some English. It strikes me as odd how diverse a people we are, yet we still manage to get along, sometimes and in some ways better than others, but we muddle along nevertheless. Why does it always take some kind of crisis to get people to pull together and help each other, smile at each other, offer a comforting word? Shouldn’t that be the way we are all the time?

We make it to the BW Parkway and travel along for a while until suddenly the bus shudders and starts sputtering thick, black smoke. The driver pulls over and we all pile out. Before we know it, we are surrounded by National Guardsmen. Then I realize that we have broken down just outside of the National Security Agency. Great place to break down on a day like today.

We’re searched and released. I continue on foot along the Parkway for seven miles toward Baltimore. It’s in the 80s, but I don’t care. My load is light, I love to walk, and it’s no longer a summer sun that beats down relentlessly on my face and neck – we’re moving into Fall. And I’m moving toward Baltimore using the only reliable transportation I have – my size 11s.

Around mile 7, a black Mercedes honks, pulls onto the shoulder, and the driver’s head is visible as he leans out the window and shouts: “Hey, Bob is that really you? Need a ride?” As I get closer, I realize it’s a colleague from a former government job I had about 10 years ago. What a coincidence – or is it? We come to a standstill a mile out of the city. I soon learn that Baltimore, too, is closed. We appear to be at war, but with whom? Has anyone seen the enemy?

From this vantage point, I can see the beautiful Baltimore City skyline. I look at it realizing that this may be the last time I see it. This thought captures my attention for the remaining 7 miles on foot to my front door. The America we wake up to tomorrow will be vastly different from the America we woke up to this morning. We have already suffered God knows how many losses; but we have also begun to recapture our lost national spirit.

© 2001 Robert R. Cole