The Day The World Came To Town

by Jim Defede

  Maryann was no less emphatic during her conversations with Hannah and Dennis.

  “They are going to have to prove to me that he’s dead,” Maryann told Hannah. “They’re going to have to find his body before I believe it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Following the news at the Lions Club.

  Courtesy of Roxanne Loper

  Flying down the highway, lights flashing and sirens blaring away, the fire truck was on a special mission. There weren’t enough new toys in Gander for all of the children from the stranded planes, so the engine was sent on an emergency run to Grand Falls, fifty-five miles west of town. Inside the truck, Susan O’Donnell, the general manager of the Canadian Tire store in Gander, could barely contain her glee. Since Tuesday afternoon, her employees had been doing everything they could think of to help the passengers. And her company was backing them each step of the way.

  No sooner had the first planes started to land in Gander than O’Donnell received a phone call from her bosses telling her she had carte blanche to donate everything in the store, if necessary, to the relief effort. “Anything the passengers need that you can provide, please do it,” she was instructed. Money was not to be an issue. The costs would be covered by the chain’s charitable organization, Foundation for Families. In fact, if another store had something the passengers needed, and that store had reached its limit in terms of donations, then O’Donnell was authorized to go in and buy it for the passengers. It was like a scene right out of Miracle on 34th Street.

  Over the first few days, Canadian Tire donated almost $20,000 in its own merchandise and spent another $10,000 in other stores, including its chief competitor, Wal-Mart. Normally, O’Donnell can’t even bring herself to say Wal-Mart’s name aloud, referring to it instead as “that store.” For her, Wal-Mart is “that W-word.” In an emergency, however, there was no time for rivalries.

  Canadian Tire donated sleeping bags, air mattresses, blankets, and bottles of water. One of the first things it donated, though, were toys. One of the firefighters in town realized there were a lot of kids among the passengers and wanted to give each of them a small toy to play with when they came off the plane. He contacted O’Donnell and Susanne Gillingham, the store manager, to see if they could help. Logistically, it would have been difficult to hand the toys out at the airport, so they worked out a plan to have the toys delivered to the various shelters. Canadian Tire sells toys only during Christmas, so its stock in Gander was fairly limited in early September. O’Donnell discovered, however, a warehouse full of toys in Grand Falls. When she explained the situation, the fire department lent her a truck and a driver, and off they went.

  O’Donnell had one rule for the toys: nothing violent. No war toys. No guns. Not now, not with everything that had happened on September 11. Instead, O’Donnell loaded up on dolls and stuffed animals and board games and trucks and race cars. She even managed to find a few handheld computer games. She made sure that every toy that needed batteries had them. They filled up the back of the fire truck and raced home to Gander. The fire truck went from shelter to shelter, handing out toys to kids who would come running to greet them. Each day it made a loop of the shelters to make sure none of the kids was missed. Members of Gander’s volunteer fire department took turns going to the different schools, churches, and lodges so they could see the look on the kids’ faces when they pulled up. O’Donnell wasn’t sure how many toys they gave away or how much it cost. She just liked the feeling of being a Newfie Mrs. Claus.

  After a peaceful night sleeping in their tent, Sara Wood and Lisa Zale awoke in time for breakfast at the Knights of Columbus. Afterward they returned to their tent to do a little reading. They had picked up a whole stack of trashy magazines during their excursions about town the day before. Then it was down to the community center. The center doubles as an ice rink where hockey games are held, and the locker rooms had showers where passengers could wash up. A large contingent of teenage girls in town volunteered to work shifts at the center, keeping the place tidy and handing out towels and soap and shampoo.

  After cleaning up, Wood and Zale went shopping for clothes at Wal-Mart, had a manicure and a pedicure at a beauty salon, and then swung by the Comfort Inn, where they knew their flight crew was staying. They found a couple of flight attendants and had lunch with them at Jungle Jim’s. The crew members had no idea when their flight was going to leave, they told the women. Wood and Zale weren’t too worried. They were starting to enjoy their time in Gander. For Zale in particular, it was a nice break from her three kids, two boys and a girl, ranging in age from nine to fifteen. There was no reason why her husband, Mark, couldn’t handle things for a few days. By the second day, though, Mark was calling the Knights of Columbus regularly.

  “I’d like to speak to Lisa Zale,” he’d say.

  “Who?”

  “The girl in the tent,” he’d respond. “She’s one of the tent girls.”

  “Oh, okay, hold on, I’ll get her.” He called so often with questions for his wife that folks started recognizing his voice.

  Since there was a chance of rain Thursday night, the women walked back to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of tarps to further insulate their tent. Everywhere they went around town, they brought their shopping cart, filling it with items they might need. People offered them rides, but they liked the freedom of walking. When they started lining their tent with the additional tarp, the other passengers told them they were definitely deranged if they were going to sleep outside in a tent during a rainstorm. But Wood and Zale loved their tent. They even bought a little chandelier for the inside. Well, not exactly a chandelier. It was just a flashlight they hung from the roof of the tent. As far as they were concerned, though, it was a chandelier, and nobody was going to tell them otherwise. And tonight, when the rain started to pelt their little green tent, they would put on the pajamas they bought at Wal-Mart, climb into their sleeping bags, read their trashy magazines, and eat leftover junk food. It would be a regular slumber party. The only thing missing, they thought, were the curlers to do each other’s hair, and a working telephone to make crank calls to boys.

  There are reportedly only 144 Bonobo monkeys in captivity, including Cosana and her traveling companion, Unga. They’d been on their way from the Dierenpark Planckendael Zoo in Belgium to a zoo in Ohio when they were unexpectedly detoured into Gander. Cosana and Unga are part of an endangered species found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, in Central Africa. Only twenty years ago there was thought to be 100,000 Bonobos. Today, according to a project known as the Bonobo Initiative, there are fewer than 3,000 in Africa.

  Genetically speaking, no other animal is closer to a human being than a Bonobo monkey. Cousin to the chimpanzee, Bonobos even look more like humans than any other ape. And Bonobos are closer genetically to humans than they are to gorillas.

  Thanks to Doc Tweedie’s efforts, the Bonobos were allowed off their plane and settled into the same hangar with the cats and dogs. For five days, their handler, Harry, rarely left the monkeys alone. Harry was so afraid of Unga and Cosana escaping that he wouldn’t allow them out of their traveling pens. Not even to wash out their cages.

  From the standpoint of cleanliness, this wasn’t a problem. After going to the bathroom, the Bonobos actually picked up their tiny turds and passed them through the bars of the cage to Harry, who would then dispose of them. Cosana even took great care in tidying up around her cage. Each morning, she tossed to the ground all of the hay in her cage; then Harry held up a fresh batch of straw, and Cosana carefully selected the pieces she wanted for her bedding. Unga was less particular and would throw the hay around his cage, often making quite a mess.

  The Bonobos were kept only a few feet from the portable kennels that held the dogs and cats. The monkeys seemed absolutely fascinated by the other animals, particularly the dogs. After a while they even tried to imitate the barking sounds of the dogs. Whether the pair was attempting to mimic or to mock the dogs no one coul
d tell.

  Watching Cosana and Unga was a real treat for Tweedie, who spends most of his time around the region’s livestock. He peppered Harry with questions about the animals. Tweedie appreciated Harry’s devotion to the animals, but also felt sorry for the handler, because he was actually sleeping at the airport alongside the monkeys. After a couple of nights, the veterinarian finally convinced Harry to come home with him for dinner. Two hours later Harry was back at the airport caring for the animals.

  Patsy Vey had trouble concentrating at work and decided to spend the day helping the stranded passengers instead. A family from Saudi Arabia had just finished showering in her home when her phone rang. Early on she—along with a few hundred other people—had placed her name on a list of folks who would be willing to allow passengers to shower in their homes. Rather than wait for them to get to her name on the list, she had gone out earlier that day to one of the shelters and found a family anxious for a chance to use her bathroom.

  Now the folks working through the phone list were calling to see if she could let an elderly couple shower and get cleaned up at her house. Vey couldn’t bring herself to say no. Instead, she told them she’d be right down. The couple’s name was John and Marie Uncle, and once Vey picked them up, she realized she couldn’t bring the Uncles back to her house. She hadn’t properly cleaned her bathroom after her most recent guests. Worst of all, she had no fresh towels left.

  Suddenly it hit her. She’d bring them to her friend’s home. Sure enough, when she called, the friend was happy to oblige. “Come on over,” Vey’s friend exclaimed. On the way to her friend’s house, Vey discovered that the Uncles were from Alexandria, Virginia. Vey’s daughter, Kelly, lived in Alexandria. “What a splendid coincidence,” she said. As they continued to talk, the Uncles said their daughter, Peggy, was upset that her parents were marooned in a town she had never heard of before. Vey told the Uncles she had the perfect solution for Peggy’s worries. Vey would have Kelly call Peggy and allay her fears. That night, Kelly Vey went one step better. She met Peggy in person and assured her over dinner that there wasn’t a better place in the world to be trapped in than Gander.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Royal Canadian Sea Cadets helping out at the Lions Club.

  Courtesy of the Lions Club

  Werner Baldessarini found himself in a place he’d never been before, a place he never imagined he would visit in his lifetime—the men’s underwear department of Wal-Mart.

  For most folks in Gander, Wal-Mart has everything they’ll ever need. Since the first planes landed on Tuesday, however, the store had been overrun with passengers, and by Thursday the shelves were starting to look a bit bare, particularly in the underwear section. It was one thing, apparently, to wear T-shirts or pants or dresses donated to the local shelters during this crisis. It was an entirely different matter to wear secondhand underwear. Many of the stranded passengers who accepted assistance drew the line at accepting hand-me-down briefs.

  And it was certainly a line Baldessarini had no intention of even approaching. In his twenty-seven years with Hugo Boss, first as a buyer, then as a designer, and now as the company’s chairman, he had helped shape the world’s image of what it meant to dress for success. Through the eighties and nineties, a Hugo Boss power suit, with its classic lines and dark tones, set the standard by which all other clothiers were measured. But it wasn’t just the suits. Hugo Boss designed shirts, slacks, leather jackets, shoes, boots, sandals, sunglasses, cologne, and yes, underwear. Cotton briefs, boxer shorts, and boxer briefs. All heralded for their quality and marquee name.

  Baldessarini himself was no less stylish.

  As one would expect, he was a walking advertisement for his company, dressing head to toe in Hugo Boss apparel. The cashmere suit he’d worn for the flight from Frankfurt to New York was from a special line of clothes the company produces under a signature label bearing his name. And while the suit was holding up quite well during extended wear and adverse conditions, common decency demanded a change of underwear.

  Entering Wal-Mart, Baldessarini walked between the smiling greeter in the blue vest and a row of shopping carts, past a display of beer coolers and lawn furniture, and around several racks of T-shirts bearing the likenesses of professional wrestlers and NASCAR drivers. The men’s underwear wasn’t actually in a department of its own in the store, more like an aisle, containing several metal tiers of shelves. He found the appropriate size and style, and then stood in line and paid at the checkout stand.

  When he returned to the school, he showered and changed. He immediately felt uncomfortable. The waistband, the material, the design—it was all wrong.

  Baldessarini was living through his very own version of the Hans Christian Andersen story of “The Princess and the Pea.” This wasn’t snobbery as much as it was a realization of the superiority of his product. After all, a person who is used to filet mignon certainly notices when someone tries to pass off a Salisbury steak in its place.

  Luckily, help was on the way.

  Having also worn the same clothes for the better part of three days, Deborah Farrar, Lana Etherington, and Winnie House were anxious to go shopping. Since there really wasn’t a place for them to shop in Gambo, George Neal offered to drive them all into Gander. Bill Cash, Mark Cohen, and Greg Curtis went along as well. And like everyone else, they ended up at Wal-Mart.

  Winnie was browsing through what was left of the women’s underwear in the store when she noticed a young girl who was about ten staring at her. Since arriving in Newfoundland, Winnie had been very conscious of the fact that she was often the only black person around. At one point she had asked George if there were any black people living in Gambo. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “not really.”

  Even if she hadn’t been black, Winnie wasn’t the type of person who was capable of just blending into a crowd. Her shoes made her almost six feet tall. She was wearing Dolce & Gabbana designer jeans and her hair brushed the small of her back. Winnie looked over again at the young girl. The child was saying something to her mother.

  “Go ahead,” the mother told the girl. “It’s okay.”

  The girl walked over. Winnie could tell from the mother’s accent that they were locals.

  “Excuse me,” the girl said. “Can I have your autograph?”

  Winnie was flabbergasted. “I’m really a nobody,” she replied.

  The child’s mother smiled and told her it didn’t matter. “You’re somebody to her,” she said.

  A little embarrassed, Winnie agreed, and the mother dug through her purse for a piece of paper. The child asked if she could touch Winnie’s hair.

  “Of course,” Winnie said. The child stroked it gently as Winnie signed her name, along with a few Xs and Os, for hugs and kisses.

  “Thank you,” the child said, leaving with her mother.

  Winnie was so moved she wanted to cry. Throughout her stay in Newfoundland, she was always greeted with such warmth. In all her travels around the world, it was one of the few times she was made to feel her skin color didn’t matter.

  Outside the Wal-Mart, Deb walked over to Greg, who was shaking his head and looking disappointed.

  “All they have left in the men’s section is extra-small and thong underwear,” he said.

  “Really,” Deb said gleefully. “Let me see.”

  Before she could reach into his bag, he told her he was just kidding. Leaving the mall and heading back to Gambo, Deb realized that she really liked Greg. And she could tell he liked her as well. After being thrown together the night before, they were now getting to know a little bit more about each other. Where were they born? Where did they grow up? How large were their families? Where did they go to school?

  Because they were spending so much time together, it felt as if they were compressing the normal dating cycle, so that by their second night together it seemed like they had known each other a lot longer, and they were growing close. But there also wasn’t as much pressure on them as there
might have been since they were always in a fairly large group, with George, Edna, Winnie, Bill, Lana, and Mark usually around.

  Not even an international tragedy can slow down a determined personal assistant trying to please his or her boss.

  Inside the Frankfurt headquarters of Hugo Boss, the full resources of the company were being tapped to aide their stranded chairman. On Tuesday, company executives thought Baldessarini’s flight was being diverted to Toronto, so they dispatched the president of Hugo Boss’s Canadian subsidiary, Les Minion, to the airport to greet him. After two hours of waiting, Minion learned that the flight had been diverted to Gander.

  On Wednesday, Hugo Boss chairman Werner Baldessarini contacted his corporate offices to let them know he was safe and where he would be staying for the foreseeable future. Baldessarini’s first concern was making sure that all his people in New York were safe. And they were. The remainder of Fashion Week had been canceled and Hugo Boss would have to delay the release of its spring collection—a decision that cost the company almost $2 million. Given everything that was happening in the United States, the collection and the money were merely trivial details to Baldessarini.

  By the time Baldessarini called in, his staff was already making plans for his rescue. Hugo Boss is a major sponsor of the McLaren Formula One race team. The principal owner of the team is Mansour Ojjeh, a wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman. When Ojjeh learned his good friend Baldessarini was stranded in Gander, he offered to send his personal jet to Newfoundland to pick him up. As his staff coordinated these efforts, Baldessarini mentioned the uncomfortable bind he was in—literally—regarding his underwear. Snapping into action, his assistants in Germany once again contacted Minion to see if this situation could be rectified.