Reluctant Hero: A 9/11 Survivor Speaks Out About That Unthinkable Day, What He's Learned, How He's Struggled, and What No One Should Ever Forget (12 page)

“You mean who you
lost
against in high school?”

Before either of us got stuck with new roommates, Billy moved in with me. We played football and rugby together and became best buddies. Billy was always a funny guy. He had a good heart and always knew how to have a good time. Our parents kidded each other. Mine hoped Billy would rub off on me. His hoped I would rub off on him. We did rub off on each other, much like two experienced bank robbers sharing the same cell. But we had fun. I learned to count on Billy for whatever I needed, whenever I needed it—no matter what the circumstances for either of us. 9/11 was no different. Who else would I run into that night but Billy?

The bar offered little relief. TVs in all four corners replayed the horror of the day over and over again. I watched every bit of it. And I drank and drank and drank—not for pleasure or for thirst, but because it was there. I consumed whatever was in my path. I was so charged up, and I couldn’t come down. I was surrounded by people who cared about me—people I knew— yet I felt like an alien, isolated. I felt on edge. Before I knew it, the clock said 2:00 a.m.

Robert had already gone back to his apartment. John rose to leave. He said he could stay with a friend. I told him he could stay with us but that it was a small apartment. (Robert actually gave Joy and me his bed, and he slept on the couch.) We looked at each other like one-hundred-year-old friends. We hadn’t been separated since we met on the stairwell early that morning. What was there to say? We were beyond words, beyond emotion, and beyond our own comprehension of what we’d been through together. “I’ll call you tomorrow, first thing,” I said. “I know you will, Mike,” he said. And he left. We all left soon after.

On the walk back to Robert’s, I started feeling woozy. Not drunk, but spent. I sat down on the building’s stoop. I didn’t want to move. Joy urged me to come upstairs. I finally obliged. I
lay down and mumbled, “Hey Robert, if you have a bucket, put it by the bed.” My head rested against the pillow, and I looked at Joy, her gorgeous brown eyes looking down at me. The next thing I knew, it was 5:00 a.m. I snapped up, totally awake. I never wake up like that, not that early.

I felt completely awake, clear, and conscious. Joy lay sleeping beside me. The forces of memory and disbelief mixed uneasily in my head, formulating a sad, simple question: Could this all have been real? I was also feeling upset, as if suddenly awakened from a nightmare. Finally, one thought so strong and definite blared at the front of my skull:
I gotta get out of here. Now.

I tapped Joy, quietly. “C’mon, let’s go get coffee.”

Robert was still sleeping. We left the apartment and walked east toward 1st Avenue. I’d never been in New York when it was so quiet. No cars, no horns, no buses, no planes. Nothing. It was like the Twilight Zone. All you heard was the occasional hum of the fighter jets flying above, patrolling the city.

It was early. A morning haze dulled the sun. We grabbed some bagels and coffee and walked all the way to the East River promenade, where we ate our breakfast and talked. I tried to express my feelings. I told her how happy I was that we were together and safe. I tried to explain that I was still feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that had happened. She said she understood and was very sympathetic. Then, quite suddenly, I was overcome by the urge to see my family. I wanted to leave the city as quickly as possible and go to them in New Jersey.

We returned to Robert’s, gathered our things, thanked him, and left. It was 6:30 a.m. We heard that nothing was running— no trains, no buses. But the desire to see my family became all-consuming. Nothing was going to keep me from finding a way.

I flagged down a cab on 3rd Avenue. The cabbie rolled down his window to talk. I said to him in all earnestness, “This is very important. I need your help. Can you drive me to New Jersey?” He started screaming at me in broken English, “Do you know what’s going on? Do you have any idea what happened
yesterday? The tunnels and bridges are closed. What’s the matter with you? I can’t go to
New Jersey
!”

Joy and I laughed. So much for a Kumbayah moment. Did I know what happened? he asked.
Yes, my friend. I know what happened.

We learned the PATH was running out of 33rd Street, so we made our way down there.

Nobody talked on the PATH that morning. Everyone had this far-off look in their eyes. It felt like we were all saying the same thing: “Did yesterday really happen?”

We got out of the PATH in Jersey City and walked directly to my car. It was parked outside of my apartment, but I wasn’t going in. I walked right by it.

Joy went to her place to gather some things. Then we hopped in the car and drove to Verona. I pulled up at my parents’ house around 8:00 a.m.

At my family’s house, my parents occupied the lower half, and my sister’s family lived on the top floor. I entered downstairs and caught my dad walking through the folding doors that led to the living room. Our eyes met. And he just shook his head. He was worn out, emotionally spent from the previous day’s hell. He wrapped his arms around me, and we gave each other a big bear hug. With tears welling up, he held me by my shoulders. “You don’t know how great it is to see you,” he said. We cried some. We didn’t speak much. He just shook his head a lot. And we stood there, together.

I can only imagine what he went through after speaking to me while I was on the 55th floor and then watching the Towers go down and having to sit back and wait and watch and not know and not be able to do a thing about it. My father was shaken up.

In some ways, I went through less than my family did. I knew they were safe. I knew about my own safety. But when I woke up that morning, the urge to see my family was overwhelming and immediate. By Wednesday morning, it had begun to sink in how close I came to never seeing them again. Also, I thought about what they were going through
because of me.
I felt responsible, like I put them through it. It hurt me to imagine their pain. It still hurts me to think about that.

Television news was on round the clock in my parents’ living room, just like it was in every other house in America. As the day progressed, I slowly pieced together a more comprehensive picture of what happened the day before—the enormity of it, the loss of lives, the firemen, two planes, the Pentagon, the plane going down in Pennsylvania. My feeling responsible gradually gave way to feeling grateful. This was a historic event. While it was happening, I wasn’t thinking,
This is one of the most devastating events in American history
, but it’s now considered the worst-ever attack on American soil. It’s compared to Pearl Harbor because it was a surprise attack, because of the number of lives lost and the frantic hurry to save people. But I saw no historical, political, or monumental significance. As I sat there and watched news commentators and politicians place the event in context—the
whys
and
hows
of it—all I could think was,
This was a terrible thing, and I happened to be in the middle of it
. That’s it. There have been other disasters like this—both natural and man-made—in which people found themselves as involuntary participants. That’s just the way it is. I just happened to be one of those people for this disaster. I also happened to be one of those people to get out safely. I’m still amazed at how lucky I was.

My father and I sat on the couch for a little while. I questioned him about what he knew. We watched the endless loop of destruction footage. He stood up in front of the TV and
said, “There it is. You want to see it? There it is.” Oh, how it must have made him go mad watching it over and over and over again. And they just kept showing it. He didn’t want to see that image anymore. But you couldn’t turn on the damn TV without seeing it.

When he watched those images on TV, he watched it from the perspective of a father who saw both towers collapse and knew his son was in there somewhere. He listened to the reports of how many lives were lost, how many firemen died, endless stories of individual loss and grief. Once I gave him a hug, I began to feel better, but I wanted to make sure he was OK, and that he could move on. 9/11 was a traumatic experience for him.

I went upstairs to see my oldest sister, Susan. I don’t know if she fully grasped the situation, but it didn’t matter. I hugged her, and I was so purely happy to see her face.

My mother was at Verona High School, where she worked managing the cafeteria. I drove up to the high school with Joy. Mom was right there as soon as I walked through the back doors of the school. She tried to be strong, but she cried as soon as she saw me. We gave each other a long hug, and then we walked around a little bit. She proudly introduced me to some co-workers. I stayed only a short time and then drove back with Joy to my family’s house.

I saw my sister Maria later in the day. She had been at work and was emotionally exhausted. No melodrama. This was too heavy for that. You just had to be in their shoes. It’s still hard for me to tell exactly what my family went through, but they went through more than anyone should.

As much as they might’ve wanted to know about me, what was important to me was to know about
them.
I wanted to know what everyone else was doing when it happened. “What were you doing when you heard? How did you react?” Mostly,
it deflected their attention away from asking me questions. I didn’t want to explain it all then.

My parents didn’t probe me about that day, and I didn’t want to tell them too much. My parents were world-class worriers, and they didn’t need to know how close I came to such horror and death. I didn’t want them to have to think about what I had gone through. Just being together was all any of us wanted or needed to know.

That afternoon, I took a ride over to my brother’s house. Angelo lived a half mile from my parents. He was in Upstate New York on business and wasn’t due back for a couple more days. I saw his wife, Lisa; my three-year-old niece, Amanda; and my godson, Angelo Jr., who was just four months old. Lisa gave me a big hug and cried. Little Amanda was glued to the TV. She couldn’t understand why we were acting so funny. She’s thirteen years old now and still has never asked me about 9/11. None of my nieces or nephews do. I sat down on the couch in my brother’s living room. Lisa handed me my godson. And then from nowhere, a calm washed over me. This child in my arms made me feel sane for the first time since it all happened. I sat still with him. I just sat. Joy says that was the only time the look in my eyes changed from distance and blankness to the look in the eyes of the person she knew when she first met me.

I felt love. I felt comfort. I felt peace. This was what life was supposed to be about. I don’t know how long I held Angelo Jr., but it was for a while. And for that brief while, the madness stopped.

Lisa took little Angelo away to feed him. I sat with Amanda in front of the TV. The news was on. I became gripped by a report about the firemen. They said something about three hundred
missing, or dead. And I lost it. I cried openly for the first time. I didn’t want my niece to see me, so I got up from the couch and walked out to the back deck. I put my head in my hands. Joy tried to comfort me, but I was inconsolable. I just sobbed and sobbed.

The firemen they were talking about—I saw them. I remember their faces. These men were going up the stairs as I was going down. To remember those men, their faces, and know they didn’t make it out filled me with a sadness I had never felt before. Tremendous anger would come later. But at that point, there was heavy, overwhelming sadness.

I felt for their families. Here I was, able to be with my family—my parents, my sisters, my niece, and my infant nephew—and there were so many people who were not having this same experience of reunion. Their houses and hearts were not full of joy and relief and people hugging, but were instead filled with sadness and longing and loss. In the days to follow, I couldn’t get around that sadness. I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who didn’t make it out and what their families were going through. It makes me angry today to think of what these families
still
go through.

How do you not feel guilt? I was inside Tower 1 for ninety-six minutes after the plane hit. And I made it out—walked out— while rescue workers were still going
in.
Firemen charged
in
, knowing two planes had hit and/or knowing the other tower had already fallen.
They went in knowing this.
They went in to save other people. They didn’t make it out, and I did. How can you not feel guilt? These are the same firemen that moved aside so I could carry a woman in a wheelchair around stairwell corners and out to safety. How can you not feel guilt? I get to spend time with my family, then and now, and they do not.

Today, I meet people at events having to do with 9/11, and it’s difficult. Months after 9/11, I attended a dinner honoring me
for what I did that day, and I met a father whose son did not make it out. He sought me out and embraced me. He told me about his son. And all I could feel was guilt. I feel connected to these people, but it’s a different kind of connection. All the families that lost someone share a connection with each other that’s completely different from the one they share with me. When I meet them and I tell them I was there on the 81st floor and I made it out—never mind anything else I did—they must be thinking, in the most natural, non-envious way, Why you and not my son, my daughter, my husband? When I see them, I tread very lightly because you just don’t know what they’re going through.