by
I don't like to talk too much about the fall of 2001. Not so much because of the actual physical pain it causes in my chest, and it does. It's more on account of the fact that I fear listeners will think I'm making myself out to be a victim. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm not one of the many people I watched plunge to their death from the towers. I didn't get crushed when the buildings collapsed.
Instead, I was in my office down the block writing a brief for an arbitration between two insurers. A couple of companies fighting over money. That was my bread and butter.
Then I found myself engulfed in the most toxic of clouds. When the dust had settled somewhat, it was close to noon. Before leaving the office, I'd heard on the radio that several planes were still unaccounted for. I feared they were coming next. There were government people, or at least I assume they were, who handed out masks in front of our building.
We joined a procession up and out of Wall Street. What I saw next was other-worldly. There was a piece of a plane in the middle of the street. I walked through a light brown dust that was nearly a foot deep and it covered everything. The dust was many parts asbestos and some part human life. And there was office paper everywhere floating in the sky.
Tears streamed down my face as I slowly worked my way up toward Chinatown, heavy legal files under each arm.
I still have my shoes and mask and newspapers from that day in a chest I keep in a corner of my bedroom, behind my reading chair. I've only opened it a few times. It's like a time machine to hell. I don't know why I keep it, actually. I can bring back the memory of that day without any physical evidence.
The President said that the terrorists would not shut down our economy. And my employer led the charge as the oldest law firm on Wall Street.
They hired a giant truck with generators to power the firm. We opened for business on Monday, September 17. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft would be there to serve our clients. I was worried about people's health, not the economy.
The several story high funeral pyre that was the World Trade Center complex burned. And burned. And burned. My brother came up for Thanksgiving. He took video of that raging fire more than two months after the event.
Each day, I would walk through clouds of smoke and dust as I went to and from work. There was never any question in my mind that what was in the air was toxic. I could smell it. I could taste it. It was chemical mixed with the flesh of thousands of people who'd once walked these streets.
For months, I'd look out my window and watch what I was breathing each day. But I didn't complain. A block away, there were noble souls making little to no money doing the really difficult work at the site.
Four months later, I had lost 40 pounds. You see, I was vomiting almost every day. Perhaps it was the stress or the toxins or some combination. The government said not to worry. The air was safe. I knew it was the patriotic thing to stay quiet and keep reporting to my job.
I'm a part of what they call the World Trade Center Health Registry. They track my health and that of any volunteer who was below Canal Street during the events of September 11. Hopefully, it will help the medical community understand and respond to the lingering effects of that day, and the toxic weeks that followed. For now, the only scars I know I have are emotional.
Four years later, to be closer to my office, I moved to Battery Park City, right next to Ground Zero. Sometimes I look out my bedroom window at the site and think about how that day changed me. But I never get clarity on that question because I can't remember how life felt before that awful day.