story11135.xml

story11135.xml

born-digital

story

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2004-10-31

Auden's poem September 1, 1939 seems eerily prophetic now, regardless of what he meant or later thought of it.

Anyway, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was at a retreat in a really tony conference center in Westchester. We were having a presentation on something ? maybe ethics for young lawyers, or something like that ? when a friend of mine came in and said one of the towers had fallen. We'd heard at breakfast that a plane had hit one of the towers, but we assumed it was some tiny commuter plane ? a tragedy, not a disaster. But she was telling us that it was worse, and she was crying. Suddenly everyone was on the phone ? the firm's main office is in NYC, so most of the people there lived in or near the city. I tried to call my husband, but couldn't get a signal, so I walked out of the complex up to the road. Even when I got a signal, I couldn't get through.

A couple of the other people there were also from the DC office. We decided to drive back. We called around to try to rent a car. The first few places I called wouldn't rent for a one-way trip. The next place I called asked if I wanted a round trip. "Yes," I said, which I consider the most justified lie I ever told. (Later in the day, the car rental places revised their policies, and I don't think there was a penalty when we returned the car in DC, but at that point in the day people had not integrated the shock with the rest of life.) We went to get the car. On the radio, we heard a report that a bomb had gone off a few blocks from the Supreme Court. The apartment my husband and I were living in was a few blocks from the Supreme Court. I still couldn't get through to him. I knew, I knew that the chances he was hurt were small. And I knew that when we didn't hear that report again as the minutes and hours went by that it was probably a mistake, but we never heard it retracted.

I'm a yellow-dog Democrat, but I will always be grateful to Rudy Giuliani for what he did that day. He spoke on the radio, and he said that he didn't know how bad it was, but that it was bad, and he was strong and devastated and forthright. He showed that it was possible to be all those things together.

We couldn't see much as we passed the city, just a big column of smoke. I never paid much attention to the skyline of NYC before, so I don't even have a sense of how it changed.

The roads were almost empty. I remember passing a caravan of ambulances on the New Jersey Turnpike ? they were heading the other way, towards the city. Each one had different markings, because each one was from a different little New Jersey town, but they were all going together to give what help they could. Even then, we were getting a sense that they weren't going to be able to do much, but they were going. I cry every time I think of that caravan; I'm crying now.

Eventually, we stopped at one of the Maryland rest centers. There was a woman there who hadn't had her radio on as she drove for hours and hours, and the other people there were trying to explain to her what had happened. It still seemed so unbelievable. I reached my husband, and confirmed that he was all right.

We had trouble getting close enough to the Metro to drop me off because of roadblocks (one of the other lawyers took the car to drive the rest of the way home). But I did make it home. I found out that my secretary had told my mother that I was "in New York," not specifying, so she was quite upset for a while.

Did I suffer? Obviously not, not in the way that so many people did ? and are right now. But it changed me.

One of my law school classmates, a big brawny guy, was outside the Trade Center when it happened. A fireman came by and basically started collecting anybody who looked strong to come inside and help. They were heading towards the site when the first tower fell, so they didn't go inside. A few minutes later and things would have been different.

Some of the lawyers I worked most closely with were taking a deposition that morning, at Rockefeller Center. The deposition ends abruptly, with a note that the building was evacuated. We used that transcript a lot during the litigation. The next day, I went to work, because I desperately needed something to do. The partner in charge of the case ? the same case the deposition was for -- wanted us all working; one of the other lawyers was disgusted at what he saw as insensitivity. For me, it was a lifeline, a way to keep from sitting and crying.

Not too long ago, I got lost, as I often do, and I drove back to the area around the Capitol, because I knew I could find my way home once I was there. But there were all sorts of unexpected roadblocks, and policemen stopping cars and looking inside with flashlights. I drove past the Supreme Court and I couldn't see it. They're building these walls, you see, to make the building safer. But making it safer means taking it away from us, taking away equal justice under law and replacing it with high white walls. I cried most of the way home for this second loss. (Really you'll still be able to see most of it when they're done. But not the lawn where local dogs used to frolic and where we built the Snow-preme Court, with a bow tie for snow-Justice Stevens and a red hairbow for snow-Justice Ginsburg, not the beautiful architecture of the building's sides, and anyway it's the symbol of justice walled away that really kills me.)