To: America
From: Ground Zero
"I wouldn't even know where to begin,"; Sam says, when I
tell him that I’m a writer. That someday I’m going to write about
all of this.
Sam is fiftyish, graying at the temples (though who can tell under those
hard hats anyways?), with a thick New Yawk accent. The sun is falling over
Lady Liberty’s shoulder. It is one of those very orange sunsets,
streaked with red. “That’s beau-tee-ful,”; Sam whispers,
almost in awe.
Wayne and Sam are in the front. I'm riding on a case of root beer
cans in the back. “Now, don’t be getting nightmares about
this,”; Wayne warns me. “It’s scary.”;
"You see that smoke?"; I look, transfixed, at just how close
we are to the rubble, within a city block now. “That’s the steel
burning. On the other side is where they’re digging for bodies.”;
It's been hard to breathe in Manhattan for two weeks, almost, but
at Ground Zero, or the pit, as they are calling it, you can see the air.
Grown and muscular men march around in nuclear war looking gas masks.
At some stops we make, they can only accept spring water and Gatorade.
Having food that close is verboten by the Board of Health.
God. It's not at all like on TV. I can't help but crane my
head to look as we turn another corner. Then I remember the news vans we saw
parked along the West Side Highway on the way in. They don’t come this
close, don’t get these pictures.
The army's out in full force, on every street corner, checking
ID’s, giving directions. FBI investigators walk alongside the NYPD,
talking, pointing. When we pass them, they smile, their genuine eyes
gleaming. “Thank you.”;
Yesterday, my dear friend Max had looked at my sneakers and sighed.
"Those are gonna get dirty, someone else said. But they
didn’t get that dirty yesterday, when all they had to do was march
up and down Fourteenth Street, hop in and out of refrigerated trucks. Once
you get through the police checkpoint, there are no rules as to cleanliness.
Asbestos must be flying through the air. The roads are, well, muddy. And, as
the law of being me demands, my right shoelaces come untied. They seep into
the ground, turning deep brown. I picture my mother having a fit as I calmly
reach down and retie my shoe.
Driving back towards the highway, we are cut off by a motorcade of police
in cars and on motorcycles, accompanying two ambulances.
“Bodies,”; Wayne says.
“Probably just parts,”; Sam corrects him.
Before they let you leave Ground Zero, they hose down your vehicle.
“Never know what kind of chemicals you got on there.”;
Wouldn’t want to spread them around the rest of the city.
And then we're on our way back to Fourteenth, where they're
packing up trucks and taking orders from the canteen sites downtown. Just
like I did most of the day, and all day yesterday… Yesterday.
Yesterday I didn't know what to expect. I had spent the past ten
days sitting in front of my television set, surfing the net for worldwide
reaction, spending time with friends and family. Singing at Union Square. But
I wasn’t doing anything. So I emailed Max and asked him what to do. And
he found a place for me to help.
Here's my disclaimer. I was never big on the Salvation Army. In
fact, on September 11th, I donated my money to the Red Cross. Those who know
me know I’m not big on the thought of salvation, or God, for that
matter… Okay, disclaimer over. Just like my friend Max had promised me over
the phone, I saw more than my fair share of miracles at the Salvation Army.
Yes, the MISSING posters are still up all over the city. But downtown,
there are different posters up. Cards from little children across the
country. A yellow post it note. God Bless America! Rachel, age 11. A red
construction paper heart. You are in our thoughts and prayers, and in our
hearts! Manorville, Long Island. Downtown there are giant posters signed by
entire families. They don’t balance out the MISSING posters, but
rather, balm them. Make them whole.
I don't know how to quite talk about yesterday. Would it quite be
enough to say I have completely altered my view of humanity? That I’ve
never seen people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, of so many
ages, all working for a commonly invested goal? I ask someone to help me load
some sandwiches onto the truck. En espagnol, por favor. I don’t speak
Spanish. Is it enough to generalize and give the world this glazed experience
of mine? Somehow, I’m not sure. But on the other hand, there were so
many details that have slipped my mind. So many things that will go unsaid if
I try to list them.
Okay. A small list. Seven year olds carrying boxes of goggles and gas
masks. An young boy filling out emergency disaster ID cards. A billion people
wearing American flags on their shirts, on their pins, on their hats, hanging
from their backpacks and hair clips. Brand new friends buying each other
lunch. Way too many people lining up to volunteer.
And, though I promised myself not to let pride get involved, miracles I
have found within myself. Directing traffic for twenty minutes, and not
getting hit. Being relied upon as the one in charge. Being asked advice.
Picking up boxes and palates that probably weighed more than I. Having people
tell me that what I was doing mattered, that what I did made the environment
a better place to work.
I got home last night around 11 o'clock. When my alarm went off at
5:10, every inch of my body, including my brain, told me to get the hell back
to sleep. I don’t know how I got up.
But I am ever so glad I did. The world was just beginning.
Addendum: Wayne’s prophecies game true. How utterly frightening to have
my body shake violently so much during one night. It’s just a dream, I
tell myself. No one’s going to hurt you.
But there was just so much smoke.
NOTE: All names have been changed to protect privacy.