still missing

"Neither the air nor decomposing bodies should pose a major health concern." Health experts at the scene

"We continue the search for our brothers and sisters." Mayor Rudy Giuliani

"I need his body - I need to know what happened." A grieving relative

"We will survive, we will prevail." Sen. Hillary Clinton

"We need the help of the spirit of God." Rev. Billy Graham

"Love is stronger than hate." Spoken at the Memorial Service at the National Cathedral

"Why did they die?" A child, speaking to a reporter on 1010 WINS News Radio

sept 11 2001 - the nine o'clock hour: the towers are falling

sept 12 2001 - it happened: 24 hours later

sept 13 2001 - and on the third day: no rest

sept 14 2001 - what now then: looking forward

sept 14 2001 - enter the president

sept 15 2001 - remembering what is impossible to forget

1:30AM, September 14, 2001

Elizabeth got this call just after 9:00 AM on Tuesday.

"Liz, it's me, Dan. My building has been hit and I made it to the 78th floor. I'm O.K. but will remain here to help evacuate people. See you soon."

Daniel Lopez is 39. He is still missing.

So is William Cloverdale. Diane Gladstone, Gia Guillermo and Brendan McCabe have not been heard from either. Michael Lynch weighs 160 pounds and has a celtic cross tattooed on his arm. Michael Zeigler is 44 and very good looking, and Linda Long is sitting by her phone and waiting for a call.

It is now so very long and yet not long at all after it happened.

They have picked people at two of our airports, people who are carrying knives and fake identification and pilot's uniforms and trying to board planes, and only later does it set in that it could have happened all over again.

Out of the negligible number of bodies found, only a handful have been identified. Thousands wait to be retrieved - 5000 are now on the missing persons list, and that's the people who have been able to get through to the hotline.

Rumors were rampant. More buildings were collapsing. Bombs were going off. Nothing was true. It was difficult to believe anything anymore.

We are all looking at headlines and television screens and listening to radios, and yet it seems that all of a sudden, we can no longer take it in.

Last night, I headed home through Times Square, past the Palace Theatre, where 'Beauty and the Beast' was in intermission. The neon signs are lit up with pictures of flags, a sea of red, white and blue hangs from the construction site across the way. A cheerful crowd of theatregoers is downing expensive bottles of intermission water, smoking their cigarettes and talking non-stop about the first half of the show.

I can see south to the smoke, where one of my neighbors is weeping as she stands in a crowd of volunteers. She leaves. It is too much.

At work, jaded reporters keep asking one another, is it going to get better?

We keep hearing that young girl on the radio, who continually asks, "Why did they die?"

I saw people who hadn't smoked in months, years, picking up cigarettes. Everyone was telling stories about how much they had to drink the night before. It was like being in war, when such things are all the pleasure that one can find amid the mayhem.

By the looks of it, things are not getting better - if anything, it only becomes more real to us by the minute, the sadness grows. It is as if the time since Tuesday early morning, regardless of whether or not we've been eating, sleeping, working, drinking - it's just a big blur.

The sense of community has been incredible. We are smiling at each other on the streets, as we catch ourselves examining each other's looks of sadness. People around the city are reporting phonecalls from Canadians, who are dialing random residences in the city and expressing their support for us.

But the truth is, this is not yet anywhere near the aftermath - there were 28 bomb scares today, a friend of mine e-mailed from her office above Grand Central. They were being evacuated.

Around one in the afternoon, a reporter told the story of 42nd Street, there in front of the Great Terminal. There had just been an evacuation, police were screaming at passengers to vacate the premises. Everyone moved into the street, and then the police screamed that they were not moving fast enough.

Nobody listened.

Suddenly, everyone was tired. They would not be made to run.

Jennifer and I ate breakfast at our favorite coffee shop, she is still recovering from the shock of standing underneath the buildings as the second plane hit.

She is so happy to be sitting in Brooklyn and eating pancakes, even though she is wearing the same clothes she wore on Tuesday, and the only money she has is fifty dollars her aunt gave to her after she realized her wallet was still in her desk on the thirtieth floor of the American Express tower, which has been badly damaged and is considered structurally unsound.

We both used to work on that floor together, back in a time I can barely remember.

Jennifer is smiling and waving at the small child who is at the table next to us, in her mother's arms. She goes over, kneeling next to the child, and touches the girl lightly on the cheek. They are both laughing, and I am thinking about the fact that it is my fault that she worked there, I encouraged her to get the job, and how grateful I am to see her alive.

Last night, I watched out the window as our crowded, silent train crossed the Manhattan Bridge. The floodlights on the ground were backlighting the billowing smoke and dust, creating a gorgeous and frightening halo, hanging over the darkened downtown skyline.

The subway conductor was thanking us for riding the MTA, and asking us to remember the many people who have lost their lives in this tragedy. The president is coming today to see it all for himself. He spoke today, choking up, speaking for the first time from his heart - it was a telling moment.

In these early hours, all I can think of is that I want to get my hands dirty. I feel cheap and lousy for going off to work, when there are people gasping for air under rubble, hoping that someone will come save them before its too late. I may not be the one to lift them out, but they are saying on the radio that the rescue workers are desperate for coffee, and could we please bring some.

My neighbor is Cuban. The two of us are standing in front of the building as the city goes to sleep, and talking about where in his shop window to hang the flag.

I will sleep, even though as the days go by, it feels wrong to sleep when all around me, thousands are lying awake and waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the call that may never come.

A bolt of lightning flashes in the sky above the city. The rain is coming. The little girl is asking again, on the radio, as the music plays once more.

"Why did they die?"

We will weep, but then, when our eyes have dried and we turn once again to the mundane and find ourselves again locked into the routine of life, we must never forget.

Never.

 

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com

Next Update: 20 September

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