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“The Dark Day” 
Remembrances of Sept. 11, 2001

I am alone. Not in the same way I was a year ago. Today I am sitting by myself thinking about the honest pursuit of loftier goals and for the first time, there is a sense that it might not have to be a conflict with those around me. Endless promotional interruptions seep into every corner of the media with reminders of poignant memorials and patriotic tributes to the victims and heroes of the darkest day in recent American history.

If there is one thing I have learned more than anything else in the last tumultuous year is that I am, in fact, not alone. It is a bright and comfortably warm September day, very much like that horrible day last year when everything seemed to change.

There was the awkward silence of unspoken resentment and hurt in the air, as it had been for several weeks since I had begun to express more forcefully a feeling of ineffectiveness and need to return to more creative endeavors. Our evenings had consisted of alternate nights of heated and emotionally exhausting discussions or mutual avoidance to recover from the cathartic confrontations. Our mornings were spent just following the uncomfortable routine of preparing for school and jobs without getting in each other’s way. Even the more and more frequent impassioned exchanges about relinquished hopes and unfulfilled dreams were starting to become repetitive and did not seem be bringing either one of us any great understandings of the other’s point of view. We were posturing and defensive, and it was a very lonely existence, for both of us. September 11th, 2001 started this way.

“Have a good day,” Eric called back to me as he did everyday signaling he was leaving for school.

“You, too,” was my expected reply. “Poor kid,” I thought, “If he only knew the half of it.” Flashbacks of growing up in a troubled household pressed me deeper into concern and guilt for my own son with every analogous action.

Helen and Eric climbed into her car and pulled away from the curb while I finished ironing my shirt. There was not much to indicate I was going to have a good day, or at least any better than the endless parade of boring meetings and the uninformative memos that had become the norm. There was very little to look forward to.

For the last few months I had been feeling more and more removed from the effective performance of the job that I had been hired to do. The acquisition of my employer by a national corporation at first held the promise of stepping up their image to a higher level, more in keeping with the high caliber of people I had grown to respect and admire. Unfortunately it soon became clear that their placating rhetoric was simply a tactic to prevent any mass exodus of competent staff until the company could be complete cannibalized and restructured into the parent corporation’s image. I saw the elimination of my position, and my employment, as imminent.

I felt like everything I had worked for and cared about was ending.

The car started effortlessly and I adjusted the seatbelt, placed my cell phone on the passenger seat and turned on the radio before starting out on the 40 minute commute that had become just another routine part of my day. The radio was tuned to Howard Stern, but I honestly can’t recall if his acerbic sarcasm was focussing on a hypocritical public figure or he was extolling the virtues of the more adult forms of entertainment. It may have well been one of the frustrating 20 minute commercial breaks in his otherwise amusing program. It was all background noise. I wound around Shelbourn road and crossed the highway to head east toward the city of Philadelphia. A scruffy tradesman in a plain white panel truck speckled with patches of rust waited next to me at the traffic light. A woman with a preschooler screaming in the back of a generic aqua colored minivan stared blankly at the red glowing disk, praying for it to change quickly. I envied them their acceptance of their place in this world. Of course they may have been just as disconsolate with the lot fate had dealt them, but when you despair for so long, your imagination isolates you into that unenviable place of feeling that you alone are the unhappiest soul.

I pulled away from the intersection, leaving that stinging fantasy behind and concentrated on not thinking at all. In the middle of a light and tastefully challenged interview with one of his semi-celebrities, Robin Quivers, Howard Sterns serious counterpart on the show interrupts and announces matter-of-factly that a plane has just hit the World Trade Center. They briefly pause the comedy routine to comment on the accident and then return to their capricious conversation without any further details.

I admit, my first reaction was an apathetic lack of sympathy for the pilot and passengers. I had imagined an amateur pilot, probably a wealthy entrepreneur with more money than sense, losing control of his private plane while trying to impress his passengers with the vista visible over the island of Manhattan. I thought of John F. Kennedy Junior’s tragic accident the previous summer off the coast of Cape Cod and assumed this to be the same sort of event. Nothing was further from the truth, and I was going to learn that in the next several minutes.

Interspersed in the midst of the less and less funny comedy were reports of smoke and debris as well as accusations of a deliberate kamikaze-like attack. It was impossible to fathom that anyone would deliberately fly a plane into a 100-story building for any reason and my rational mind wanted any reason to dismiss the idea. The more I heard of the news reports, the harder it was to dismiss. As I got closer to my familiar exit on the highway, I found myself praying that everyone had misinterpreted the scope of this unfolding catastrophe. As I pulled into the parking lot, interrupting a description of visible flames and billowing smoke from the north tower of the World Trade Center, came the report that a second plane has just hit the other tower. This was not an accident.

“Does everybody know what’s going on?” The thought raced through my head in torrents of panic. “Does Helen know?” Nothing in my 42 years of experiences could reconcile the unimaginable events I had just heard described.

I jumped out of my car and jogged into the building, heading directly for my office, the radio and the phone.

“Turn on the news,” I soberly called back to the puzzled receptionist as I bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time.

Jean was sitting with her head bowed at the second floor reception area where she performed her duties as administrative assistant for the President and operations Manager of the company. The low static of a radio with poor reception echoed out of the hidden area underneath the overhanging countertop. I didn’t stop to make my customary morning greeting.

My office was a windowless room like a dark cave tucked at the end of a hall that led to the lunchroom and a utility closet before arriving in my work area. Nobody ever turned on the lights in the morning there because no one ever came into my office without a specific project or question. Recently I had spent many days virtually alone in a building full of people, isolated from human contact as I was systematically overlooked for upcoming projects.

The fluorescent lights vibrated, glowed and then burst into full illumination. I grabbed the phone and started dialing Helen’s office number as I had done almost every day before. As I heard the telltale buzz of the phone ringing at the other end, I hoped that the lines would not be jammed with loved ones and family members calling each other for comfort in the face of such horrifying actions. The receptionist picked up the line and I nervously asked for Helen’s extension.

“Mr. Crystal’s office.” It was the familiar greeting I heard every time I had managed to catch her at her desk.

“Hi, it’s me. Have you heard?”

“Yeah.” Helen responded in a semi-whisper letting me know that she was as informed as I was with the scope of the unfolding events.

“What’s it like there?” I asked. Her office was much more closely connected to New York than mine was and I was sure that there would be people in her office with friends or family in the towers.

“Nobody can believe it. Tom is trying to get a hold of his son in the city, but the lines are all busy . . .” There were a few more names of people there trying to contact New Yorkers with varying success.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” Helen replied, trying to put on a brave front in the face of the unfolding news reports of more and more horror.

“What about Eric? Are they letting out school early? Will they make an announcement? Will they try and explain it to the kids?” I am not sure which I actually spoke and which I just thought. I was having a difficult time understanding the huge unnecessary losses so close to home. I could not begin to imagine what it would be like for an 11-year-old.

“Could you call the school and find out what they intend to do?” It would have been just as easy for me to do, but I was grateful that Helen agreed to do it, even if I did detect a certain amount of resentment in my asking it. We were barely able to have a civil conversation at home without one of us breaking down or storming off. In the light of what was going on, and the trivial nature of our mutual dissatisfaction in comparison, I felt a genuine effort on both are parts to be supportive.

“I’ll call you back,” Helen replied. It was comforting to hear her voice while the radio continued their endless coverage of the mounting disaster.

People were running out of the towers now like a human tide with fire fighters and rescue personnel struggling against the flow to rescue the remaining people inside. The numbers were staggering with estimates ranging to upwards of 15,000 people. I was becoming numb thinking about it, but I couldn’t break myself away from the barrage of statistics and speculation. My glowing computer screen sat silent. There was little chance of any work getting done today, so I logged into my usual place on the internet and watch the chatters discuss, discount and support each other. These people, aside from infrequent work related questions from coworkers, had been my only contact with the outside world for months. A few of the more frequent chatters who I had had discourses with in the past and knew my proximity to New York asked me how I was doing.

The announcer broke into the already terrifying story with the incredible report that a plane had just deliberately crashed into the pentagon. And there were other unconfirmed reports of a fourth plane crashing somewhere in western Pennsylvania, although the broadcasters were quick to explain that if the reports were true, they could not say if it was another attack. For the first time in my life I was afraid to be an American. Slowly the shock overtook me and I settled in to a numb acceptance that we had been, and possibly still could be, attacked.

The phone rang a few minutes later. It was Helen.

“I don’t believe this, Helen. The world has gone crazy.” There was little else to say to say about it. “Did you talk to the school?”

“Yes,” her response was soft and somber. “They are going the full day.”

“ OK,” I replied, “I am going to leave early, I don’t want Eric coming home to an empty house. How long are you staying?”

“ I don’t know. I hope I don’t have to stay here all day. Are you going to talk to Eric about it?”

“ I don’t know what to say. How do you explain THIS? I’ll probably say something, but I’ll wait until we are both there to go into it.”

“ I’ll call you when I get home. I should be leaving soon.”

“ OK, Bye.”

I hung up the phone and turned off the computer. Trying to do anything productive today was futile. I wandered out into the hall to seek another human being. Jean was still sitting silently at her desk, while a small group of people were gathered around a tiny black and white television Mike Bohannon, the director of operations, had set up in his office. I heard gasps and expressions of disbelief peppered with speculations about how this would affect the business and country in general. I crept into the room and gazed at the small picture.

The newscaster said the upper floors of the south tower were collapsing. We all strained to see the images and at first no one saw anything. The sigh of relief that this had been a false report was replaced with a silent gape as the uppermost floors of the second tower started giving way. In seconds the huge steel and glass and concrete structure was imploding on itself and sending clouds of dust and smoke into the air. The destruction was incomprehensible. The death, immediate and certain, of everyone who had not had the chance to escape and more tragically of the rescuers who had run back in trying to save more people was beyond anything I had ever experienced. The gut wrenching empty numbness froze everyone in the room.

We listened silently to the emotional outbursts of the announcers similar to the newsreels of the Hindenburg disaster. This was 500 times worse in terms of the loss but it was impossible to feel that much grief. Humanly impossible. The mayor of New York, The Governor, The President, all were releasing small bits of information, but all we could do is stare at the smoldering rubble of the second tower and watch the first continue to burn.

Shortly before 11:00 a.m. the North tower began falling and in a horrifically spectacular repeat of the first collapse. The last remaining half of the World Trade Center, at one time the tallest building in the world, was gone. Something inside of me snapped. There must be some kind of mental self preservation mechanism in my head that told me I couldn’t see any more of this right now.

“ I’m going home,” I announced to Mike, who had nothing to say other than. “OK.” In the time it took for both towers to fall, the world had changed.

The radio was left on in my car when and when I started the engine, more reports and accounts of disaster filled the air. I left it on. Traffic was light. People were not rushing home – at least not yet. The few cars on the highway cruised silently along side me and I wondered how each and every one of their lives would be different than it was a few hours ago, quite possibly for the rest of their lives. Several miles down the highway, I crested a hill while the road took a gentle turn. There looming in front of me were two billowing clouds of steam rising from the twin cooling towers of the Limerick Nuclear Generating Station. Every day for the past year and a half I had passed by these concrete monoliths either unnoticed or briefly thinking about how unattractive they are rising from the serene cornfields of rural Pennsylvania. Today, they were targets, as if someone had painted big red bullseyes on each structure. And, I had to pass within several hundred yards of them to get home. As I passed by them, I was grateful for the oddly silent skies, devoid of the usual air traffic because of the immediate grounding of all commercial flights.
I felt the urge to do something. Giving blood or money was a start but it was not enough. The Red Cross was telling people to stay away from the blood banks because they were already beyond capacity. Anyone wishing to donate should contact their local office and set up an appointment. By mid afternoon millions of dollars in relief had already been donated and it continued to pour in. Officials were telling people who headed toward the crash sites to help to turn around. They needed doctors at hospitals and qualified emergency personnel, and the general population to stay calm and in their homes. I felt self-indulgently useless and ashamed of myself. This was not about me.

I arrived to an empty house. I looked at my neighbors’ houses and my neighborhood. There was a heaviness about the atmosphere. I can only describe it as an eerie sensation in one of those post-apocalyptic movies that Hollywood rehashes every few years, when the main character realizes that the rest of the world is gone. Of course this was not the case, but the sensation remained strong.

Eric arrived home a little after 3:00 p.m. to find me alternately pacing the floor and flipping between channels on the television.

“Hi dad,” he said, not expressing any surprise at seeing me home in the middle of the afternoon.
“ Did they say anything in school?” I asked it in such a way that if they had not told the children anything that I could ease into the topic from that point.

“ America was attacked,” he responded. There was a hesitant quality in his voice indicating to me that he didn’t quite comprehend the scope and ramifications of the morning’s events. I invited him to sit with me on the sofa and I kept one hand on the remote control in case the images became to graphic or upsetting. Slowly all the morning’s horror was repeated in a more news-like fashion and I commented on each event as it was relayed. Eric’s demeanor was almost stoic as he saw the towers collapse and the rubble in the Pentagon. We watched for 20 minutes or so. When I felt that he had had enough to grasp the days terrifying significance I put on the cartoon network which had the good sense not to change their programming, giving the children a temporary haven from the trauma of seeing real death.

It was close to five when Helen walked in the front door. Just a few minutes earlier than she would have on any normal day. No words were spoken as she dropped her purse in the chair and I hugged her. As I held her I could feel a slight trembling in her body. The tears were light and sporadic. She was in shock, like the rest of the nation. This was the moment that I had decided that whatever our differences had been recently, they were petty and insignificant compared with the unimaginable human suffering taking place within a 150 mile radius of our house.

We stayed together, talking little and discussing nothing. Emerging news stories about heroics and tragedy punctuated the seemingly endless loops of the video showing the towers collapsing. Each story was more heart felt or gut-wrenching than the next. Eric would occasionally pop his head out of the bedroom and watch a short news clip only to return to the relative safety of his programming after he realized that tragedy on this scale can quickly saturate you.

The numbness weighed on us like a lead blanket. Eric had gone to bed without too much difficulty and the sheer exhaustion of the day had taken its toll on us as well. Helen climbed into bed first and I followed. She rolled over on her side, turning her back toward me. Her actions reminded me that all my recent reckless idealism provided its own consequences. I rolled onto my right side facing out the window and lay there, silently disconnected from life. There was no sound, no sensation, no thought, no feeling. I floated in the blackness of the day until sleep took me into merciful unconsciousness.

That was a year ago, to the best of my recollection. It took me, and yes, it took us all a long time to come to terms with our own shock and fear and anger on that day. The Nation pulled together in a genuine display of national pride and support. Through the healing and resumption of normal life for all who lived and helped others live; through the souring economy and the redeployment of our young men and women in the military; through the threat of impending war and retaliation, we have survived.

September 11th 2002.