story7726.xml

story7726.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-17

That Day
One Year Later



It was one of those days where you believed it was a sin to be made to have school inside. The air was warm and the sky was without a cloud. I was in my second period class, but due to block scheduling, it was my first class of the day. My Spanish teacher was a great educator, but she had a very monotonous voice that was barely keeping me from sleeping. I sat in the middle of the class, adjacent to the wall that hung a clock on it. I recollect staring at the clock, somehow believing I could speed the time up. As the bell finally rang, I went through my break rounds. I changed books, said ?Hi? to some friends, and proceeded to the Sports Lobby where the other Football players were. When I was bored with the conversation, I decided to dress out for my weight lifting class, and walk down the long hallway to the weight room. After stretching, Coach Renner told us to warm up with a two-lap jog.
It is funny how you can remember the very last minutes before a cataclysmic event happens to you, but I vividly remember running on the inside track at a fast pace, as to keep up with my friend C.J. Coach Renner stopped us after only one lap and told us to relax talk amongst ourselves. As he faced us, he whispered over his left shoulder to a bald, heavyset man I had seen near the security office. They whispered back and forth, and then, with a large nod, Coach lifted both his arms to us in a ?lets everybody come this way? motion, as he muttered to another coach about an attack. My first thought of it was a bomb threat to the school. I wondered if we could maybe get out of school early because of it. As we were sat down in the uncomfortable weight room equipment, Coach excused himself for about twenty minutes, and a man I didn?t recognize sat down in his place in the office. D.C. 101 was blaring over the speakers, but nobody talking seemed to know just what was going on.
Finally, A reporter came on saying that the World Trade Center had been hit with a private plane, apparently by accident. As we reflected and talked about this accident, I was puzzled why we were made to go inside. Five minutes later, I found out. The Pentagon was also hit with a 747 jet. This was no accident, I remember thinking. Something sounded familiar about the World Trade Center. I tried to think about it, but my mind was a blur of people I know in Washington. Our class joined Mr. Munoz?s class in the Driver?s Ed room, as the big screen T.V. blared Channel 5. ?The second tower has been hit!? said the invisible voice on the T.V. This was followed by screams and ?oh, my God!?s. Then it clicked. The Twin Towers?Dad...the Twin Towers?Dad. The following day I had received a concussion in Football practice, and one of the few things I remember my father saying to me at the hospital was, ? Ill be in New York all tomorrow, but ill be back tomorrow night.? Having been to New York, I asked him where he would have his meetings. ? The World Trade Center, ya know, the Twin Towers??

As this registered in my brain, I saw the collapse of the North Tower and the rubble crashing down as people screamed and ran for their lives. I stared at the T.V. for about ten seconds, calmly got up, walked to the bathroom and threw up for ten minutes. I ran through school looking for a cell phone, asking strangers for their own. I finally saw my friend Danny, as he put his back in his pocket. I fumbled my fingers with the memory of my Father?s cell phone number and when his voicemail picked up, I ran to the office to use their phone. As I waited for the chance to call my mother where she taught, I saw girls screaming at the top of their lungs for their parents, and tears of joy when a reassuring voice picked up the phone. After many times when the phone lines were too busy to pick up one more call, I finally reached my mother. She was crying, but trying to hold it in, for her Kindergarten students surrounded her. She had not been able to reach Dad, so I hung up and went back to the Driver?s Ed room to use Mr. Munoz?s cell phone.
After reaching both my hysterical sisters, I finally reached my mother again, who told me she had a thirty second conversation with my father as he was exiting the second tower, where he was working that day. He told her he would call her back when he got outside. Two minutes later, the second tower collapsed with the first. I have never been overly religious, or even religious at all, but when I saw the second tower collapse with the possibility of my father not making it out in time, I threw myself on my knees and prayed for the life of my father. I would later find out that my father had gotten out of the building moments before it collapsed, but the people that were behind him about twenty feet did not.
It was now 1:30pm. My father was alive, and I sat in Mr. Hamilton?s Health trailer, bewildered at the events that just took place. My sister picked me up early from school that day, and had taken me to her apartment to wait for the rest of my family to arrive at Home. For seven hours, I watched the T.V say the same things over and over. New news about a third hijacked plane that was crashed in Shankesville, Pennsylvania emerged, and I had the duty of calling my grandparents to tell them that their son had been in the World Trade Center, but had gotten out in time. My father called from a train station saying he would be home soon. I never asked my dad how he somehow got the train, being as everything in the country stopped at once. At 11:30 pm, my Father walked into the door of our house. I had never seen him look so consumed with grief as I did in the passing month. It seemed that the words I said to him didn?t register in his mind, but were rather were blown away as if I said nothing at all.
Three months passed before he could talk about the experience in it?s entirety. The day came when he finally described his experience, over a glass or two of Scotch. . He told me of the smell of burning jet fuel and the intense heat of the crash burning his face. He described the feeling of helplessness he felt stepping over the mortally wounded, wishing to God for a way to save them. He vividly told me of the sight of seeing his co-workers diving out windows and little children crying over the body of their dead mothers. Before he could finish his story, I asked him to stop. I really couldn?t hear of his experience anymore, and I?m quite sure he didn?t want to continue reliving his nightmare anymore.