Tower Stories

  Over the intercom we heard, “Everybody leave.” And just like that, they evacuated our building.

  After that, I walked through Times Square and saw all these people who didn’t seem to know what was going on. People were laughing. Some tourists were taking pictures of the TKTS booth.34

  And then it hit all at once, like a wave. This energy.

  Suddenly, everybody started popping their cell phones on. Suddenly, everyone got frantic. Suddenly, the information rolled over everyone—don’t ask me how, but you could see the effect it had on every person standing in Times Square. All at once, everyone was in on this terrible secret. The look on everyone’s face changed all in one moment.

  I grabbed my cell phone, too, and called my best friend Rex in Arizona. He was crying on the other end of the line, crying from all the way on the other side of the country. “Oh my God, it’s falling,” he said. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Later on, I learned he’d been watching the whole thing on the TV. “Alberto!” he yelled. “It’s falling!”

  Standing in the middle of the street, I yelled, “The Tower? The Tower’s falling!” And everyone within fifty yards stopped and looked at me, even the people on their phones. The whole world stopped.

  Right then, my phone died. Everyone’s did. I ran into a New York Sports Club and watched on a video monitor as the second Tower fell.

  Not long after that, the whole city locked down.

  A little later on, I called a friend, Nancy, who lives on the Upper West Side. She invited me up to her place on West 75th Street. I started walking, and around 70th Street, I saw people running to the Red Cross to give blood right away. It was a fine idea but, as it turned out, of no use whatsoever.

  I got to Nancy’s place and she asked me, “Are you hungry?” I realized, yeah, I’m starving.

  Then I called ABC Studios—this is the actor in me not wanting to lose my job. And I asked them, “Uh, are we still booked for today?”

  Normally gridlocked with pedestrian and automobile traffic, Times Square became eerily quiet and empty in the days following September 11, 2001.

  The guy on the other end says, “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?”

  I said, “Because we’re being attacked by terrorists?”

  He said, “Oh. Okay. I’ll call you back.”

  I got a page a little later and called in. A different person, very somber, said, “We’ve canceled.”

  Nancy and I went out to a Greek place for a late breakfast and I kept asking myself, “Why am I so hungry?”

  I sat down and the waiter brought our food. Which is when I realized: Holy shit. I’m hungry because I didn’t have enough money to buy breakfast. And because of that, I didn’t have to wait on line. And because of that, I wasn’t directly under the Tower when the first plane hit. And all those people, those faces I can’t remember … I wasn’t with them when it happened. Did some of them die?

  And I’d missed everything because I didn’t have $3.45 to my name.

  That was the best breakfast I never had.

  Shortly thereafter, this feeling started to set in, and it took me a few days to realize what it was. Guilt. The guilt of being alive.

  The waiter brought me a mimosa and I downed it quick. Then I drank Nancy’s, too. I was happy to be an artist that day. I think my life was spared because I didn’t have any money.

  Walking away from the restaurant, I ran into another friend, Katie. She saw me and burst into tears. Then she hugged me and told me this: Katie had an estranged sister whom she hadn’t talked to in years. The sister had just sent her an email that said, “I don’t know where you are. Please contact me. Let me know you’re okay. I’m sorry for everything. I’m so sorry.”

  I looked at Katie and said, “A lot of people lost their sisters today. But aren’t you lucky? You got yours back.”

  UPDATE

  Alberto Bonilla has been working hard since last we talked. Apart from logging television appearances on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and The Sopranos, he wrote a play, Walking to America, which garnered critical acclaim for its 2005 debut. Walking to America dramatizes the true story of Oscar, a young boy from Honduras who one day leaves his village and literally walks 2,400 miles to the United States in search of the American dream.

  Apart from the impact Oscar’s story made on Alberto, the two young men shared other connections: both grew up in the same village, and both saw immigration to the United States as their only means of survival in a world whose cruelty and lack of opportunity increased exponentially with each passing day.

  Oscar’s journey didn’t end as well as Alberto’s. Once he crossed the U.S. border, he was apprehended as an illegal immigrant and thrown in a Texas prison. When Alberto decided to write a play about Oscar, he contacted the immigration lawyer who’d handled Oscar’s case, hoping to speak with Oscar himself. The lawyer responded, “Why do you want to interview Oscar? If you go down to the border, you will find hundreds of Oscars, and those are the lucky ones that actually made it to America. There are so many more that never make it that far. And the ones who do are usually sent right back to where they started.”35

  “The point I am making [with Walking to America],” said Alberto, “is … how amazing a country [this is] that has that kind of technology, how blessed we are that we can have a choice. [And yet] how disturbing is it that there are millions of children around the world dying … from starvation and lack of attention? We are a nation that has infinite possibilities, but it is where we put our values that I question.”

  34 An outlet for discount theater tickets.

  35 Author uncited, “An Interview with Alberto Bonilla—Walking to America,” the New York Theatre Experience website, 2005.

  HUSTON STEWART

  Huston Stewart, twenty-four, hails from Jacksonville, Florida, and went to school at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. After receiving a job offer in New York City, Huston (pronounced like the Texas city) made plans to move to Manhattan in the fall of 2001.

  Huston’s experience of September 11 was one that many people around the country and around the world shared: the tension of waiting for news of a loved one who worked in the Towers.

  I WAS IN New York from August 15 to August 30 of 2001 to apartment-sit for friends of my parents. These folks were going back to Jacksonville to vacation for two weeks, and it worked out perfectly. I had two interviews right away with Doyle Dane Bernbach, one of the largest advertising firms in the world. Then, on my third day in Manhattan, I interviewed with Opal Financial. They offered me a job on the spot and it wound up being perfect for me—a transfer into finance, which is what I’d always dreamed of.

  Opal asked me to start work on September 17, so that left me with two weeks to vacation. I wound up meeting this girl, Hobby, while I was in New York. We started dating and fell in love.

  She was like, “So you’re gonna move up, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Can you believe it? Suddenly, I had everything in the world going for me.

  I went back home to Jacksonville on August 30. My plan was to fly to New York from Jacksonville on September 12. Right after that, I’d move into an apartment.

  Bad timing, as it turns out. I had all this stuff set up for the day after September 11.

  On the morning of the eleventh, I turned on the computer at about 8:30 at my parent’s house in Jacksonville. Walked over, turned on the TV, put on CNN like I do every morning to follow the economy and check the news. The first Tower had already been hit. I thought it was some kind of freak accident.

  I immediately called my girlfriend, Who was on the way to her job at Sotheby’s auction house. I told her what had happened but she didn’t get it, she hadn’t realized the magnitude yet. She was in the stairwell of her building and she said, “I’ll call you later.”

  So I sat down at the computer and logged on. I’m still watching the TV. All of a sudden I see the silhouette of a plane fly behind the second building and boom! Just like that, the sec
ond Tower exploded.

  The first thing that went through my head was, “I’m not going up there. I don’t have a job anymore.”

  Of course, the next thought that went through my mind … I started immediately frettin’ about my best friend, Whit. He was working in the Towers at the time. We grew up six houses down from each other in Jacksonville. He’d been home to Jacksonville two days before the eleventh, and we’d gone out deep-sea fishing. Man, all I could think about was his parents, how strung out they must have been. But I didn’t want to go down to their place because I guess I didn’t really want to know.

  I sat on my couch in shock until around noon. Finally, I went down the street. It turned out Whit’s dad, Dr. Athey, was alone at the house; Whit’s mom was in Connecticut visiting his sister. A few close family friends had gathered, and I was welcome, of course. But the front of the house is all glass—you can look right into the living room. As I approached, the first person I saw was a priest, and I flipped.

  See, I was 50/50 on Whit’s chances before I got there. I saw that priest and I was like, “Oh, shit.”

  I got inside, and they all said, “We’re waiting to hear,” which was sort of a relief. No news is good news, right? But then I thought, they hadn’t heard anything for four hours. That can’t be good.

  I don’t know how long I hung out there. An hour? It seemed like a long fucking time. Then the phone rang. I don’t remember who called, but Whit’s dad picked up the phone and just listened for a second. Whoever was on the other end must have just said, “He’s okay.”

  Dr. Athey fell down on the couch and buried his face in his hands, crying tears of joy and relief.

  When I visited New York that August, I’d contacted an old fraternity brother of mine. He showed me his apartment and offered for me to move in. It was a beautiful place. Huge, with bay windows that overlooked the Trade Center.

  After the attack, I emailed him to see if he was okay. Hell, to see if he was alive.

  He said, “I’m fine, thanks. You’re still coming up, right? You’re more than welcome to.”

  So I did. It went perfect. Searching for an apartment in New York City is insanity, but here I got this place with no broker’s fee, no lease. Of course, when I moved in, those Towers were gone. But it made sense. I was paying cheap for a huge apartment that didn’t have a great view anymore.

  We were alive, though, that’s something to think about. And I didn’t lose any friends in the attack, so I figure, what the hell have I got to complain about?

  On Thursday, September 13, I called Opal Financial to see if I still had a job, and they said, “Well, just come up and see what happens.”

  So I moved to New York exactly seven days after the eleventh. The economy was a mess right then. The stock market had re-opened, but no one knew what was going to happen in the long term. It was a scary time. Whole companies had been wiped off the face of the earth.

  The guys at Opal advised me to start sending out resumes, but I was patient. A funny thing—there was this guy who was supposed to start the same day as me? He got really impatient and they told him to back off. His impatience reflected poorly on him.

  I started working at Opal three weeks later. So did the other guy. But after a month, the other guy was asked to leave.

  I let September 11 be a testament to the fact that I was coming to New York regardless of what happened. I was ready to do something with my life, to pursue something. I met a girl worth enough to make me move, which is a big step for me. I’d made the commitment to go way before September 11.

  Everyone tried to talk me out of it. They didn’t think that, being the Southern boy that I am, New York would be the place for me. I took that into consideration. But I’ve done pretty well since. And I’ve never been happier, and I’ll never regret it.

  ELLEN SHAPIRO

  Ellen Shapiro, thirty-two, owns and operates the burgeoning gourmet shop New World Catering, located in the affluent metropolitan suburb of Maplewood, New Jersey.

  AROUND THE CORNER from me, on James Street and Main, they arrested this Iranian guy for burning his wife. The morning of the eleventh, he put out prayer mats, and the police came and arrested him about two days later. Strange.

  He owned a bookshop called Prints of Peace. The place is closed down now.

  He didn’t kill her; he burned her. I don’t know how he did it, or why, or what he used to do it. But on the eleventh he set her on fire at the end of my street in South Orange, New Jersey.

  I knew this guy. His name was Mohammad. I used to buy cigarettes from his store. He drove around in a Mercedes-Benz with New York plates.

  So the police took him away and now he’s gone, don’t ask me where.

  There were some other people living with him. But after this happened, they all just … went away.

  I think the wife must’ve known something. In fact, that’s what everyone in my neighborhood thinks.

  We’re so close to New York. You never know who lives next door to you.

  My friend, Mark, had just landed a new job working in the World Trade Center.36 He’s an insurance agent for a big insurance company.37 He’d literally just started his job a couple weeks [before September 11]. His wife just had a baby, three months old. Mark’s … let me see. I’m thirty-two, so that makes him … thirty-four? Yes, that’s right. Thirty-four.

  Anyway, this is what he told me. He was going to work that day, and he walked into the building and pressed the button for the elevator. He was standing there, waiting for the elevator doors to open, when he heard this loud crash. It was the plane hitting the first Tower. So he turned around and went outside along with many others. He looked up, and he saw the crash. He said he was standing there, looking at this great big burning hole in his building when he realized that everyone was running away. So he ran, too.

  Mark told me he got three blocks before he turned around to watch what was going on. At that point, he noticed there were a lot of people rushing past him, going toward the building to see what they could do to help, you know? Then the second plane hit the other Tower. He was watching the whole thing. And right at that point, everyone that ran past him to help? They all died. There was a rain of fuel and debris and bodies.

  And Mark said there was one guy who fell … “flew,” he called it. A guy who flew out of the second Tower.

  Now, I don’t really know if their eyes met or what happened. All I know is what Mark tried to describe to me. But Mark is convinced that he made a connection with this gentleman, this falling guy.

  He said he might’ve been fifty yards away from the building, said he saw maybe fifty people fall from the building. Maybe seventy-five people in all died right there in front of him.

  And he’s telling me he definitely can’t sleep. He doesn’t want to come into the city to work anymore. His psychiatrist told him not to.

  Basically, my friend is a mess.

  I’ll tell you why I think this is important.

  I saw Mark yesterday, on the twenty-third of September. So it’s been, what? A week and a half since the attack. My boyfriend and I were invited over to visit with the new baby and drink beers.

  When we arrived, Mark was outside. He’s a big, handy man. His place is rural; he’s got two acres of land covered with thick trees. And the first thing we saw, he’d put up a forty-foot flagpole in the front yard with this huge American flag.

  Okay, I thought. That’s a bit unusual. Patriotic. But unusual.

  So we went inside, he’s laughing and joking and everything seemed normal. Too normal. Then Mark got a videotape and said, “Get a load of this.” He popped in the tape.

  It was a video of his baby, his three-month-old little girl trying to say hello. Real cute. And then it switched to something else. This—he had filmed this. On a tree in his yard, he had tied a noose with twelve knots. He had one of those Anatomical Annie dummies from CPR classes, a big plastic doll with a chest cavity. He’d wound a black-and-white scarf onto the dummy’s head in a
turban, and he’d hung it on this noose. Next to it was a sign painted on a big piece of plywood that said “BIN LADEN MUST DIE.”

  It was dark outside on the tape. But Mark had put spotlights out. So here’s this video of a body hanging by a noose in a spotlight, a body that didn’t have any legs from the waist down, which was eerie in itself. And the spotlight fell on the American flag, too; it was very dramatic.

  I sat there, watching the tape, stupefied.

  This is one of my best friends. He’s generally a pretty calm guy. But this behavior. Um. He’s been married for five years, and now he’s got this little girl. This was a little scary.

  Mark’s company moved, and now he’s actually working at an office in Parsippany [New Jersey]. He said he got a phone call from his wife during the week, because she wanted to make sure it was okay to take the doll down. The cops had come to visit her, and they said, “We don’t have a problem with what you’re doing. It is your freedom of speech. But there are three or four school buses that go by here every day, and this is not something for kids to see.”

  So she said, “I want to make sure it’s okay with my husband.” She hadn’t wanted to hang the doll up in the first place.

  So Mark said, “Take it down.” But he still has the dummy in his garage.

  I had no idea what to say to him as he showed me this video and told me all this. And I can’t even comment on what it must have been like for him to have gone through what he did. What can you say to seeing a hundred people die right in front of you?