Souls of the Righteous

For one awful moment this morning I was back in 2001.

I had gone to Ground Zero to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

I was feeling bit anxious, given the pandemic and ever-rising level of madness in this world, but I was there when the planes hit the World Trade Center and I was determined to be there today.

Twenty years ago, I was standing outside a Brooks Brothers store on Church Street watching smoke pour out of the North Tower and wondering what the hell was happening.

I was working in a building across the street and the plan was to go home, meet up with my sister and take our father to dinner for his 80th birthday.

As I watched the North Tower burning, I recall thinking that if this was indeed a terrorist attack, they often happen in twos.

And then that second plane hit the South Tower.

The area looks so different now. The Brooks Brothers store is gone and the Trade Center location has been turned into a memorial.

So many businesses in the area are shuttered because of the pandemic.

This morning I walked down Church Street to get a photo of the Freedom Tower.

I was just lining up the shot when I noticed the sky was a brilliant blue, just like it was on this day 20 years ago.

And then I saw commercial jetliner moving toward the building from left side of the frame.

Of course, the plane was nowhere near the Freedom Tower. It was an optical illusion, a trick of the eye. Nobody was in any danger.

But my heart froze and that terrible day two decades ago came roaring back to me.

The Hand of God

The explosions, the screaming, the buildings coming down and that horrible cloud that lingered on for so long.

I thought of the flyers with photos of the missing that papered nearly every wall and streetlamp in town.

I thought of the people I met that day as we all struggled to get home to our loved ones.

The people I met while taking refuge from the debris storm in the lobby of senior citizen home on Water Street.

There was this Japanese business man I had met that seemed so lost and confused that I kind of adopted him for a while.

We parted company at an apartment building near the Manhattan Bridge and I do hope he got back to his people.

There were those wonderful people waiting for us as the crowds walked over the bridge, offering us water and the use of their cell phones.

And that incredible man who drove me and a bunch of other people to Bay Ridge in his van.

This morning I waited for the church bells to start ringing at 8:46 AM, the time the first plane struck the North Tower.

I thought about retracing my steps down Water Street, but it was getting crowded, hardly anyone was wearing a mask, and I just wanted to get out of there.

I walked up the block, turned on to Broadway and took a long, deep breath.

"Twenty fucking years," I said to no one.

I went home and for a while I listened to the reading of the victims’ names and, as usual, I cried.

This evening I heard from a woman whom I had met on 9/11.

We had walked over the bridge together and I guided her to the Long Island Railroad at Atlantic Avenue.

She told me that she was grateful for my company on that day and I assured her that the feeling was mutual.

My sister and I spent the day in Prospect Park and then had dinner at our favorite Mexican place in Bay Ridge.

Walking back to her car, I saw the search beams that make up The Tribute in Light going up into the sky.

Twenty years. I still can’t believe it.