You
could be among the dead. There’d never be shame in that. You could be
among the lucky ones, standing one moment at the copy machine, thinking
about lunch or sex or how you have to drive all the way to Rhode Island
to see your in-laws this weekend—WHAM!,
you’re pulverized out of existence. Now you’re a beloved memory. You’re
perfect. You’re a face in a Pulitzer Prize–winning series of memorials
in the paper, a sainted name projected onto the walls and rafters of
Madison Square Garden during a performance by U2.
You could be among the survivors. Not among we survivors,
who’d watched the towers fall on television. But those who’d scrambled
out of the ash and debris, ties flailing over their shoulders, personal
effects abandoned, heels snapping off. Those who’d gone down 82 floors
in the smoke and the darkness just before the floors had gone down, too.
They’d been suddenly conscripted in a one-day war. We were the folks
back home.
You
could also be a rescuer. Official or not. Anyone could walk past the
barriers at 14th Street and volunteer for service. You got a shovel. A
facemask, maybe. You could dig through the rubble all day, come back and
do it all over again the next. The point was to find someone alive. No
one did. But as long as there you were digging, you were alright. Many
who did proclaimed that they had no choice, that the disaster site exerted a stronger pull than their families or
their jobs. Such duty was obviously hazardous, possibly suicidal. (The
maw at Ground Zero was smoldering with bones and hair, with glass,
paper, rubber, steel, plaster and asbestos; with nylon, vinyl and
formaldehyde; with polypropylene, polystyrene and a thousand more of
man’s creations; the disintegrated elements of city.
The smell of death and poison, sickly-sweet and acrid, hung over the
entire island for weeks.) Who did this kind of work? Not us. Not me. We
weren’t among the dead or wounded, the survivors, nor the saviors.
There
were a few things that people like us could do. We could give blood,
everybody said. My sister and I dutifully presented ourselves at the
nearest donation center. A line of likeminded souls stretched out the
door and around the corner of 67th Street and Second. Inside, perplexed
staff members scrambled to manage the influx. We were turned away. Plus:
no one needed any blood.
Here
we were, some coworkers and I, traipsing through Chelsea on a sunny
weekday. Kevin towed a Radio Flyer filled with provisions we’d earnestly
assembled and purchased at a Duane Reade. Boxes of PowerBars, a case of
Gatorade, Bounty paper towels, Advil, Slim Jims, M&Ms and Visine.
We were told they needed Visine most of all.