Homer's Odyssey

by Gwen Cooper

  The news also informed me that there was no electricity or running water in Lower Manhattan. So if I did get to my cats, it would probably make sense for me to remove them from the apartment even if my building was intact. The four of us couldn’t live indefinitely in an apartment that had no water and was accessible only by climbing thirty-one flights of stairs. I decided to call my friend Scott to see if he could put us up for a few days. Scott had recently moved from Miami to Philadelphia—only an hour and change by train outside of New York—where he lived alone in a three-bedroom town house. He was the kind of friend you went to in a crisis, and was also the only person I knew who had the space to accommodate all four of us. I wrote down Scott’s name on the piece of paper with my subway routes, and next to his name I wrote litter/litter box/cat food, a reminder to myself that I should ask him to purchase these things ahead of our arrival. I would reimburse him when we got there.

  Of course, it was possible that Scott wouldn’t be able to receive us, at least not for a couple of days. Or maybe electricity would be restored, and it wouldn’t be logical to take the cats all the way to Philly. In that case, I would need supplies—supplies I couldn’t assume I would be able to get in my own neighborhood if the shops were all closed. I found a separate piece of paper and filled it with a list of the things I would need to buy. I also made a note to pull as much cash as I could out of an ATM. Cash, I had found, was always a good contingency plan in a crisis.

  My last note to myself was to call the appropriate city and state agencies to see if anybody was organizing a rescue effort for pets trapped near what every news outlet was now calling Ground Zero. There was an emergency information phone number that flashed on the bottom of the TV screen, but after several calls all I got was a busy signal. It was probably better that way, I told myself. Let the government agencies attend to people. I would take care of my cats.

  Sharon was still asleep when I poked my head in to check on her. I scrawled a note and propped it up on her bathroom mirror to let her know where I was going. Then I pulled on my filthy clothes of the day before, grabbed her keys and my purse, and headed out.

  The day was as clear and beautiful as the previous one had been. I expected my muscles to be stiff from all the walking I’d done yesterday, but they moved smoothly and eagerly in time with my thoughts—as if they, too, had been awaiting only daylight and consciousness to begin turning plan into action. I walked a few blocks up what appeared to be Bay Ridge’s main thoroughfare until I came upon a large drugstore. There I purchased a cheap pair of jeans, two large T-shirts, underwear, a sturdy pair of inexpensive sneakers, socks, a toothbrush, deodorant, and soap. I also bought two gallons of water, a box of kitty litter, a large bag of off-brand cat food (Vashti might just have to be itchy from allergies for a few days), a flashlight and batteries, and the biggest backpack they had.

  It was a job of work getting my haul back to Sharon’s apartment, but I was so pleased with myself that I hardly noticed. Embarking on the earliest components of my plan put me one step closer to my cats. I felt as if they were half rescued already.

  • • •

  THE R TRAIN out of Bay Ridge was crowded that morning, but not unbearably so. Probably, I thought, a lot of people who worked in the city were off for the day. I hadn’t considered it, but I realized that my own office would, perforce, have to remain closed. What felt odder than having an unexpectedly free Wednesday, however, was the idea of people who weren’t taking the day off. It was impossible to imagine that in the same world that contained the smoking ruins of what had been the World Trade Center were people doing commonplace things like dressing for work, making coffee, or packing lunches for their children. Yesterday had felt disconnected and unreal. Today, it felt like something I had been born knowing would happen eventually, and it was the people going about normal, everyday things who were the ones living strange lives.

  “You’re crazy,” Sharon had told me flatly when I unfolded my plan to her upon returning from the store. “Listen to the news—buildings are still collapsing down there.”

  “All the more reason to go now,” I replied.

  Sharon went on at some length, insisting that people weren’t being allowed back in, that there was no way I’d get through. I was welcome to stay with her at least through Friday, she told me. She was itchy to get out of town—a lot of people were—and she and her mother were planning to go away for the weekend. But her spare bedroom was mine until then.

  This should have been of some concern to me because, technically, I was homeless. As far as I knew, the things I’d purchased that morning might be the only possessions I had left in the world. But that was a long-term problem, the consideration of which could only make me emotional and distract me from the immediate business at hand. In the short term, I’d already put my friend Scott on alert and he was more than willing to welcome me and my three cats if, upon reaching my apartment, I decided it was necessary to remove them. Today was only Wednesday, and by Friday I would be long gone from Sharon’s apartment.

  Sharon had insisted that I take her spare keys with me anyway, in case I returned that afternoon and she was out. “Once I get to my cats, I probably won’t come back here,” I warned.

  Sharon shrugged. “Then you’ll give the keys back next week at the office.”

  My backpack rested on the floor of the train at my feet, next to a shopping bag that contained the items I hadn’t been able to fit into it. Everything together probably weighed about twenty pounds, but wasn’t so bad to carry when most of the weight was distributed on my back.

  The R train crossed over the Manhattan Bridge on its route back into the city, surfacing so quickly from subterranean darkness into sunlight that the change was startling. It was like a rewind of the walk I’d made yesterday. A wall of smoke rose from the ground to the south of the Brooklyn Bridge, and even on the train and at this distance, I could smell it. I turned away from the window.

  The train deposited me at 14th Street. I had never thought of Manhattan as being a place with a particular, universal smell until the only smell of it—at least for me, there at the border of downtown—was the singed smell of the rubble at Ground Zero. I thought of Homer, of Homer’s sensitive nose and his hyper-acute hearing. What must it smell and sound like to him, so much closer than I was to where fires still burned and buildings continued to collapse? Somehow it seemed as if Vashti and Scarlett, who could see out of the windows of our apartment, would be less frightened. At least they would be able to connect something visually to what they smelled and heard—surely, it would be less terrifying for them.

  Or would it? I understood so much more than they did, and even I couldn’t make sense of it all.

  Stop it, I told myself. This isn’t helpful.

  The intersections of 14th Street were barricaded to keep vehicles from passing, but a handful of people crossed the barriers either on foot or mounted on bicycles. I had thought earlier how odd it was that the world that held the rubble of Ground Zero could also contain normal people going about normal lives. Now I realized that there were actually two worlds: the one on the northern side of the barricades, where people sipped coffee outdoors at trendy cafés, and cars and cabs propelled themselves impatiently toward shops or office buildings—and the world on the other side of the barricade, devoid of cars and navigated only by a handful of persistent pedestrians. Tightening my grip on my backpack and shopping bag, I joined them.

  I walked south and east, zigzagging through the streets, the plume of smoke that had once been the World Trade Center serving as my compass. Businesses were closed and deserted, their windows papered over with the flyers and posters that had materialized overnight. Have you seen our son? the signs implored. We don’t know where our daughter is. She works in the World Trade Center. Smiling faces looked at me from the flyers, grinning beneath graduation caps or beaming from the safety of honeymoons and family fishing trips. Do you know my husband? Have you heard from my sister? If you know anything,
please call … please call … please call … It was a journey through the underworld, the shades of the dead clamoring all around me.

  I made it to Canal Street before I was stopped by military personnel guarding the impromptu checkpoint I would have to pass if I was to continue. The young men in army fatigues with machine guns strapped across their chests were polite, and vaguely sympathetic, and called me “ma’am,” but they were completely unwilling to let me pass.

  “This entire area’s locked down, ma’am,” they told me. “We can’t let anybody through.”

  “But I live there,” I pleaded, “and my cats are—”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” they said firmly. “We can’t let anybody in.”

  A flatbed truck carrying men and women with cameras was waved through. “But you’re letting those people in,” I argued.

  “They’re journalists, ma’am.”

  Recognizing a lost cause when I saw one, I headed east across Canal Street. When I reached the next checkpoint, I tried once again.

  “I’m a journalist,” I said, without hesitation.

  The young men guarding this barricade looked at me with polite skepticism, their gazes taking in my jeans, backpack, and sweat-streaked face. “May we see your press credentials, ma’am?”

  “Um …” My smile faltered. “Well, you know, it’s buried in my backpack and I …”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I was once again told. “We can’t let anybody through.”

  “But—”

  Their expressions were unyielding. “Please step away from the barricade, ma’am.”

  I continued onward, hoping that I might find some back street, some tiny alley that, in the haste and confusion, had been overlooked and left unbarricaded—or, barring that, a sympathetic soldier. None was forthcoming. I’d had a hazy idea, when I’d pulled cash out of the ATM that morning, that I would be willing to bribe people if I had to. But when it came down to it, I was too intimidated to make the attempt. Nor did I really want to know if any of the soldiers could be bribed. It would have been unsettling to learn that the people now protecting us were subject to petty corruptions.

  It’s okay, I told myself. You left the cats enough food and water to last at least through today, and by tomorrow morning you’ll be able to get back in.

  I pushed the thought of broken windows firmly from my mind. I had spent the morning walking among the images of the dead, but my cats were still alive. If they weren’t, wouldn’t I have known? They were alive, and they were fine, and my plan was a good one that would reunite me with them tomorrow. They would be fine until tomorrow.

  I RETURNED TO Sharon’s apartment disappointed, but not yet despondent. This was only a minor setback. I told myself that it still made sense to try to reach somebody at my building, and even if nobody was there, I’d certainly be able to get back in the next day.

  “Try the ASPCA or PETA,” Andrea suggested when I called her that afternoon to check in. “I’m sure they’re coordinating rescue efforts for pets.”

  I was angry at myself for not having thought of this before Andrea did. As a Miami native, hadn’t I lived through enough hurricanes to know that there were always animal rescue organizations that helped reunite owners with their pets in the wake of a disaster?

  I called the ASPCA, and somebody answered on the first ring! Hope continued to mount when I explained my situation, and the woman on the other end said, “Yes. We’re working with local authorities to help reunite people with their pets. Give me your information and I’ll have someone call you back.”

  “My name is Gwen Cooper,” I began, “and I—”

  “Wait, you’re Gwen Cooper?” the woman interrupted. “Gwen Cooper from John Street?”

  In fact, I was Gwen Cooper from John Street. But how could this woman know that? Unless, I thought, there had been some further catastrophe, some additional disaster that had only affected my building, and maybe they had a list of tenants who they’d have to break the news to and—

  “Your pet-sitter—Garrett?—has been calling us all morning. He doesn’t know if you’re alive or dead, and he’s frantic. He told us to have you call him if you called us. He says that your contract with him gives him access to your apartment in the event of an emergency, and he’ll show it to the people in your building in case they won’t let him in. He has food, water, and litter, and he’s going to try to ride his bicycle in. He said, Tell her I’m not leaving my buddy down there.”

  The potted plant resting in front of Sharon’s phone twinned and blurred. Always, always, people were willing to go above and beyond for Homer. My cats had always been a reminder to me of the capacity for human goodness in the world; each of them was alive because someone else had done a kind and charitable thing for something small and helpless—down to the burly mechanic I’d had all those years ago in Miami, or my mother who, on paper, didn’t even like cats in the first place.

  “I’ll call him,” I told the woman at the ASPCA. “And thank you for giving me the message.”

  I had to collect myself for a minute before I could call Garrett, my gratitude tumbling out in a confused jumble of sentences that only somebody as patient as he was could have unraveled. I wanted to convey something of what I felt—of what it meant to realize that my cats and I had been remembered, were being thought of by someone who I hadn’t thought about since the terror of the day before.

  “Of course,” Garrett murmured, whenever I paused for breath. “Of course. I know, believe me, I understand … I’ll do everything I can … I’ll call you if I manage to get in …”

  Garrett wasn’t the only one who was thinking of Homer and me. When I checked the voice mail of my home machine, it was full. It seemed as if everybody who’d ever known us wanted to know if we were okay: old boyfriends from Miami, the friends I’d made since I moved to New York. “What’s our plan to get your cats?” they would ask. “I have a bicycle … I know a rescue worker … I know somebody at the mayor’s office … I can send you money … will money help? What can be done, what can we do? Homer’s my buddy, my boy. We’ll get him. We’ll get him, Gwen, you’ll see …”

  It was still only the first day, and hope was everywhere. Somebody would get to the cats. We would be fine.

  THE NEXT MORNING was a retread of the morning before. Once again, I tried to get into the Financial District. Once again, I was turned away. I knew of at least three different people attempting to get to Homer, Vashti, and Scarlett on foot or on bicycle, but it seemed unlikely that anybody else would be successful where I had failed.

  I calculated that the food I’d left for the cats Tuesday morning would last about a day and a half. That meant that, probably right around now, their food was running out. What concerned me more, though, was water. The air in New York was far drier than it had been in Miami, and no matter how much I filled the water bowl, it would completely evaporate within twenty-four hours. I’d heard that humans couldn’t live more than two or three days without water, but I didn’t know how long a cat could go.

  “Well, they can always drink from the toilet if they have to, right?” Andrea said.

  “No.” I was anguished. “I keep the toilet lid closed so Homer won’t fall in.” I mentally vowed that I would always leave the toilet lid open from then on.

  Thursday was the first day, since September 11 itself, when I felt true panic. I was worried for the cats’ survival, but I also found the thought of what they must be going through unendurable. They had never been left alone for so long without anybody’s checking in on them—they had never gone so long without food or a change of their water. The litter box hadn’t been cleaned since Monday night and must, I was sure, be an abomination by now. They wouldn’t understand—they would think I had abandoned them to hunger and thirst, and the horrible sounds and smells coming from Ground Zero.

  I don’t know what my state of mind would have been if I hadn’t gotten the call, late Thursday afternoon, from the ASPCA. The area had finally been deemed stable enou
gh to allow residents with pets back in just long enough the following day to collect their pets. “President Bush is going to speak from Ground Zero tomorrow,” the woman from the ASPCA warned. “So you’ll need photo ID proving you live in the area.”

  I still had my Miami driver’s license, which I hadn’t bothered to change since moving to New York. I didn’t drive a car anymore, and the license hadn’t yet expired, so it functioned just fine for normal ID purposes. Trading it in for a New York license had seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else. But I did have a checkbook in my purse with my name and New York address listed on it, and I hoped that the two together would provide sufficient evidence that I was who I said I was and lived where I said I lived. And going in with a group of ASPCA volunteers would undoubtedly help. Maybe I could avoid an ID check altogether.

  Sharon left town on Friday morning. I handed her the spare keys and tried, in the fierceness of the hug I gave her, to convey my gratitude for these last few days. “Good luck,” she said into my shoulder. “Call me when you’ve got them.”

  I phoned Scott and told him to expect the four of us—definitely, for sure—that night. My situation had all the pristine clarity of a syllogism. I would have to leave New York that night, because I had no place to stay. But I wasn’t going to leave New York without my cats. Therefore, I would get my cats that day.

  No matter what.

  THE WOMAN WHO called from the ASPCA had directed me to an airplane-hangar-sized space at Chelsea Piers. Chelsea Piers was a huge entertainment/all-purpose complex on the West Side Highway. It featured bars, restaurants, an ice-skating rink, a bowling alley, batting cages, and several facilities large enough to host trade shows. In the last few days, it had been utilized as an overflow hospital for survivors and rescue workers injured at Ground Zero. The ice-skating rink had been appropriated as a makeshift morgue.