10 Years

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to read this piece as a featured reader at Story Club. Thanks JP for working hard to get this story told right before the 9/11 anniversary. 

Some kids dream about being a baseball player when they grow up. Or a fireman. Me? I wanted to be White House Press Secretary.

I declared myself a Democrat at age eight. As a teenager, I dreamed of a life of briefing books and tough questions from hard-nosed reporters. Oh, and saving the world, one liberal ideal at a time.

By 29, I was getting close. I was a Press Secretary for the Senate Democratic Leadership, which is how I came to be sitting at my desk in the US Capitol the day that something went very wrong.

I had just hung up the phone with a reporter when my coworker Chris walked into the press office.

“Do you know why they suddenly went into recess?” he asked me. 

Chris, you have to understand, was in charge of tracking the business of the Senate floor for the entire Democratic caucus. It was his job to know why.

“Why are you asking me?”

I followed his eyes over to the small TV on my desk just in time to see the clerks and Parliamentarian quickly rising from their seats at the front of the well and hustling out of the Chamber. Without warning, everyone on the Senate floor had just vanished. 

“This can’t be good,” Chris said.

My body already knew what to do.  I kicked my heels off, ready to run, when the yelling started in the hall outside. 

And I ran.  Ran down the hall past the galleries, echoing with everyone’s shoes pounding the ornate ceramic tiles.  Down the marble staircase and past the Chief of Capitol police who was using that loud, deep cop voice, commanding us to “Move it out, move it out!”

As I neared the exit, my brain started pinging: I could die. I could die right now. My entire being focused on one goal – getting through that door, getting the hell out of the building and running until I couldn’t run any more.

***

This is not my September 11^th story. 

On May 11, 2005, a small Cessna 150 violated the restricted airspace above the National Mall.  Fighter jets scrambled and forced the plane to land. The pilots were arrested, questioned and then released without incident.  

What most people want to hear is my story of 9/11. About how my friends and I ran for our lives as the Pentagon burned in the distance, believing that another hijacked plane was still in the air, headed for the Capitol where we all worked.

Well, if you want to know the truth, the dirty little secret, about evacuating that day: it was actually kind of…fun. In fact, it was one of the most exciting days of my life.    

Because we had no idea.

CC-BY-SA-3.0/Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia

On September 11, 2001, my best friend Kelly picked me up for work in the morning. The crushing heat and humidity of summer had finally broken under a clear blue sky. We didn’t have the car radio on, instead singing along to an old tape from high school: With my Naked Eye I saw /the falling rain/ coming down on me.

So we didn’t know what the hell Anne Marie was talking about when she blitzed us as soon as we walked in the door of the office the three of us shared.

“Have you seen the news?”

I was annoyed. “Anne Marie, we just got here.”

What she was saying barely made sense.  “A plane…crashed… right into a building” I looked at the sky out the window, thinking she meant outside.

“Where?” I didn’t see anything.

“New York”

Oh.

Here’s what I did.  I went downstairs to the cafeteria for a bagel. 

When I got back to my desk, the second plane had already hit. Live pictures had just started to come in of the Twin Towers bleeding cement-colored smoke. I watched the coverage with a detached interest. New York City had clearly been the victim of some kind of terrorist attack. But that was more than 200 miles away. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when Katie Couric cut in with “We’re getting reports of a fire at the Pentagon,” that the hair on the back of my neck stood up. 

I called my boyfriend back in the Midwest. He was watching the news, too. “I’m thinking about going home.” “Yeah, maybe you should, just to be safe,” he said as the TV went live to the Pentagon, belching black smoke and scarred from the outside.  “That’s not just a fire.”

 

We could hear the sounds of shuffling feet in the hallway toward the stairwell and voices shouting that we had to get out. Adrenaline carried us down three flights of stairs and back out into the sunshine. I wasn’t afraid for my life so much as I was curious. And, yes, excited. For the first time in my 25 years, I felt like my life had taken on the urgency and vitality of a Star Wars movie. 

Out in the parking lot, five of us packed into Kelly’s SUV, but we couldn’t move. Her car was blocked in the parking chute by cars on each end. 

“We should get an attendant.” I said, ever the rule follower.

“Fuck that. We need to get out of here,” said Caleb from the passenger seat.

“What are we supposed to do, just move someone else’s car?”

Kelly unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed into the white Camry standing between us and freedom. Using the keys left inside for the valets, she drove it two spaces forward, came back to the driver’s seat and peeled out of there. I’d never seen her so determined, it was pretty badass.   

It’s hard to believe now, but not one of us in the car had a cell phone. Remember, this was 2001 and everyone didn’t just have one. We were going to have to get wherever we were going and make calls there. It was quickly decided that would be Richard’s place, a house he shared with five other roommates up by the zoo. 

Traffic was slow, but steady, leaving Capitol Hill. Drivers craned their heads to get a look at the yellow cloud curling over the Potomac. Office workers spilled from federal buildings, carrying suit jackets and walking up Massachusetts Avenue in droves. The cab of the SUV was our escape pod. On ABC radio, Peter Jennings delivered increasingly unbelievable updates. “Sources are reporting a possible car bomb at the State Department.” Jesus.

“The South Tower of the World Trade Center has collapsed.” Collapsed? I tried to picture it. “So there will just be one?”

“Yeah, sticking up like a big middle finger,” Caleb said.

The radio voices kept going: the second tower fell to dust. Two, maybe three other planes were missing. The rest of the world was watching this unfold on TV, but that morning in the car, we were still a part of what was happening. And what was that?

We had no idea.

At the corner of 16^th and U Street, we had to stop for gas. Waiting for Kelly to finish pumping, paying inside, getting back in the car fed the agitation between our little group. Even after we’d started driving again, Caleb grew increasingly restless. At the next stoplight, without warning, he flung open the door and took off, running toward a street-corner payphone.

“Just leave him!” I yelled at Kelly, pissed that his little freak-out was holding up our entire group. But, on account of Kelly and Caleb being on the upswing of an on again/off again relationship, she parked off the curb and got out to coax him back in the car while I fumed.

When they returned to the front seats, I hissed at him, “You are so selfish!”

 “My baby sister lives in Lower Manhattan!” he said, defensive.

 “We all have calls to make!” At that moment, we could’ve been Han Solo and Princess Leia bickering in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. It felt like we were saying movie lines, not living our real life.  

Eventually we made it to Richard’s, where we set up our base camp. Everyone had a turn with the phone, with priority to those whose parents were most likely to have had a heart attack in the last two hours. “Mom, mom, it’s OK, we’re OK,” Jessica cooed into the phone, soothing her terrified family in California. “No, I don’t think I can come home for awhile…”

Crowded on Richard’s ratty hand-me-down couch we watched tape of the crashes and collapse – again and again on constant replay. We cracked open beers and loudly booed Karen Hughes when she – not the president – made the first official White House statement about the attacks. Caleb manned the grill out back, bringing in trays of brats so we could maintain our vigil around the TV and the always-ringing phone. Over and over again, we retold each other the story of us racing from Capitol Hill, adding even more dramatic lines and events as the day went on.

It sounds weird, but we were 25 years old, single and away from home with no kids or families. Hell, we were each other’s family, all present and accounted for and trying to figure out what came next.  

As night fell, we walked a few blocks down to a neighborhood dive called the Zoo Bar and watched the President – finally – address the nation. “America has stood down enemies before,” he said. “And we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.”

My stomach twisted a bit, thinking of my younger brother enrolled in his university’s ROTC program. ”Please let the war be quick.” I thought.

Connecticut Avenue was empty of traffic, except for a big red pickup that kept driving past. It had a huge American flag mounted on the back, rippling in the wind.

“Well, that’s a little much” I said to Richard across the table.

We had no idea.

It wasn’t until the next day, until the days and weeks after that a clear picture of the horror we ran from developed in our minds.

But here’s all I know about the day after – my one memory. I walked to the Metro in the morning and along the way, caught a glimpse of the newspaper for sale in a blue steel box.  On the front page was a large picture of a man falling head-first from the World Trade Center, arms at his sides and one knee bent. 

 And I that’s the moment it became real.  

It’s the knowing that makes it worse.

Which is why, four years later, I am running on May 11^th.

Some people’s instinct is to carefully exit through the doors marked for that purpose. I have internalized that these people die.  I push, physically push people who hesitate or slow down between me and the open air. 

Outside at last, barefoot, the pavement stings the soles of my feet amidst the shaking and rattling of the incongruous items people have grabbed on the way out of the Capitol – gym bags, car keys, coffee mugs. But this time, instead of being with my little band of friends in the middle of an adventure, it’s just me and my fear, eying the sky.

It’s a false alarm, of course.  They give the “All Clear” announcement and that’s the end of that. At this point, it’s almost a badge of honor, how quickly you get back to your desk.  How thoroughly you don’t “let the terrorists win” by altering a bit of your routine beyond the temporary inconvenience of the evacuation.  One more nerd contest to win, along with how many hours you work and how little sleep you get. 

But later that night in my apartment, I stare out the window for awhile.  The North Portico of the White House – the one with the triangle roof – shines bathed in gold light below me as if nothing ever happened.

And nothing did, really. 5/11/05 isn’t going down in history. 

But it was scary.  I was scared I was going to die.  I’m 29 years old and I’m tired of fearing for my life at work, of being just a bit part in a bad TV movie.

Thinking back to that September morning four years ago, so much has changed. At the Capitol there has been anthrax and ricin and snipers on the loose. My promotion and the inevitable scattering of my friends has left me feeling isolated. The boyfriend’s gone, too –  a casualty of a career that’s stealing increasingly more of my time, youth and sanity. And for what?  Not only am not saving the world, my days are spent helping Democrats play mediocre defense against a reckless, bloodthirsty President and his creepy henchmen.

My baby brother is a veteran of two wars at the age of 25. I fear for his life every day.  

What have I gained in these four years except the knowledge of when it’s time to run?

Maybe that’s enough.