"Calm down," I told my brother. "There must be something you can take."
"It’s called wine," he sobbed. "They’re gone, they’re just … gone."
Over 20 years he’s been with the Port Authority, rising to supervisor in the World Trade Center. On Tuesday he had a sick stomach, left late, saw the second plane hit while walking to the PATH. All three of his ex-wives worked there. All are accounted for. The neighbor across the street with the prosthetic leg somehow managed to escape from the 84th floor. The husband of one of my running club mates is okay. My cousin, trapped in the city overnight, is okay. Everyone I know is okay. Why am I not okay?
By Wednesday morning I wanted to ram my boss’s car. He has been treating this as business as usual. All day Tuesday on my route (I’m a mail carrier), people emerged, filling me in. It just got worse and worse. Why are you even out there, they asked – and I had no answer. By Saturday, the tiniest dog in creation came after me and for the first time in 24 years, I fired pepper-spray, missing by a good foot but driving it away and feeling good about it.
Saturday night I had to get out. I couldn’t watch anymore. Downtown Barnes & Noble was a still-life with magazine readers, like always, sitting frozen in their wooden chairs, a few browsers, one sales girl who asked me why Steve Martin’s Shopgirl, which I purchased, was so popular. I stammered something about him getting into the mind of this young woman and it just felt good talking about something else.
I got on the PATH, as packed and silent as settling dust, got off at Christopher Street. It was as if someone had blanketed the entire area with chloroform. On a perfect Saturday night in late summer, almost no one was around, and those I spotted walked trance-like through what normally is a circus of light and sound.
Outdoor cafes and restaurants were sparsely filled. People were talking, but as though someone had pressed a mute button, so quiet and awkward went the conversations. It was one giant first date. I wandered to McDougal Street and even there, with its four-corner café face off, it was relatively quiet. The Bitter End was between bands and no one hanging outside seemed to care one way or the other. Laughter was MIA.
The Dead Zone continued as I walked toward Broadway, my body feeling sluggish by osmosis. I had no heart to trek to the East Village clubs. I found myself in an almost empty Tower Records on Fourth Street, and was actually approached for the first time in my history by a bored salesperson asking if I needed help. I wanted to scream. Of course I need help. Everyone in this %#&@$#! city needs help right now. I bought k.d. Lang’s Live By Request and left.
I needed catharsis. Something drove me to Washington Square Park – finally people, community, connection. I moved down the line staring at candles and watching people scribble thoughts on sheets hung from a wire fence. A father and teen daughter hugged each other. A group of very young people – too young for Vietnam, children during the Gulf War – somberly listened to a woman sing a raw "Me and Bobby McGee" in her best Janis tone. Applause. A woman screamed about Jesus, standing off to the side. I left, got lost, wandered past blank-faced doormen with arms on hips. Traffic was scant. Pictures of the missing hung everywhere, including the PATH. My legs kept moving into the stunned night. I passed a coffee shop on Wanamaker, stared in, spotted a forty-ish man also staring straight ahead past his coffee, past the window, sitting alone, a sculpture minus a base. I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking.
Is God just a rumor? – Joe Del Priore