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 (16 page)

They put another producer on it. Let’s call him Roy. His approach was not much different than that of the other producers. He got to my CEO, who urged me to take the call. Roy said he wanted to do a “survivor story.”

“I don’t know, Roy,” I said. “I’m really not sure this is for me.”

He wasn’t listening. “Now, Michael,” he said, “I need you to send in personal photos, write up a short summary …” E-mail this, fax that, make a list of this … He just kept going. I looked incredulously at the phone in my hand. Finally, I got a little irritated. “You want to do a survivor’s story, Roy? I’ve got forty survivors outside my office door. You want me to be on the show? Get them on the show.” There was a pause on the other line. Roy spoke: “Maybe that can be arranged,” he said. Then he said he’d call me right back.

I had been feeling guilty about all the attention focused on me.
Damn it, my guys were survivors. They were on the 81st floor, and every one of them made it out. They all have stories. They’re all hurting. They all experienced horrific things and did amazing things, and nobody’s calling them. I’m not the only survivor.

Roy called back. He actually called my CEO, Rob Hale. The next thing you know, we’re all going out to Chicago to be on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
, Thursday, September 27
.
John and I would be on the couch with Oprah. The rest of the office would be in the audience. A couple guys in the office would be featured from their seats. Oprah paid for my ticket, John’s ticket, and my CEO’s ticket. My CEO bought flights for all the reps.

I had three simple objectives/conditions for this trip:

1. I wanted to get my guys out of New York and have a night on the town together, as an office, in Chicago before the show. But they wanted to fly us out late Wednesday night before the 9:00 a.m. Thursday CT taping, and put us back on a plane right
after the show. I said no way. I made them change the plans so we could fly out Wednesday morning and have a day together in Chicago. After we made the final flight arrangements, I heard from Oprah’s staff that she got wind of our plan to be there the day before. You know what Oprah did? In addition to putting us all up on her dime at the Omni Chicago Hotel, she gave each one of us $100 per diem to spend at the hotel. Her generosity left me speechless. What class. So my first objective was achieved by the grace of Oprah Winfrey.

2. I wanted to make sure I mentioned the name of our regional manager, Kevin Nichols, on air. Though I had started the process, Kevin was really instrumental in organizing everyone to go down the stairwells while I stayed behind to check the bathrooms and elevators.

3. I wanted to thank, on air, Mrs. Toussaint’s fifth-grade class from Heights Elementary School in Sharon, Massachusetts. Those kids sent me postcards that kept me glued together at a time when I was, minute by minute, nearly falling apart. I still have every one of those cards, and they still heal me when I hold them.

I came home after work one night, during that first mind-blurring week after 9/11. I was exhausted from sleepless nights—stomach knotted, nerves jangled, phone ringing—and there among a pile of mail was this manila envelope with twenty crayoned cards in it. The kids drew pictures of me. One had me in a Superman costume. One had me standing on the Towers. One depicted a man carrying a woman in a building with flames coming out of it. I sat down, held these cards in my hands, and I felt …
stillness.

I did not know it then, but what was to come, starting with Oprah, was a journey of nonstop formal public appearances and high-profile media engagements. And when those cards arrived, it was the beginning of the most consistently good feeling I had doing such things, and that feeling always had to do with kids. When kids were involved, it touched me in a way that let me be me again. Kids—like when I sat holding my nephew the day after 9/11 and I was able to feel my feelings, even though they were very difficult feelings to feel. Kids somehow defrosted me. I could not articulate it, but when kids were part of the plans, the noise in my head—the million discordant voices of guilt, anger, fear, grief, imbalance, loss—quieted, and I felt peace. And though my thoughts remained nearly impossible to articulate, among kids my mind seemed ordered, my perspective seemed sensible, my balance was temporarily restored instead of constantly careening from one unwanted feeling to another. After 9/11, the only time I found that equilibrium was with kids, and the first time after 9/11 I felt it was when I was holding those cards from Mrs. Toussaint’s fifth-grade class.

I hold notes like these more dear than any national attention I received. There’s so much honesty to them. I look at these cards, and they bring me back to when I was a kid doing something like that in class, filling my head with imaginings of what a grown-up person like the one I was thinking about felt like. These kids were trying to understand what was going on as their TVs at home played it back relentlessly. Then they hear about it from their teacher who knows “the guy.” (Mrs. Angela Toussaint married Jeff Toussaint, my Theta Delta Chi fraternity brother and roommate my senior year at Brown.) They feel especially connected. I sat there holding those cards, man, thinking about those kids sitting at their desks, creating each one and addressing them to me. So creative, truthful, sensitive in saying “Thank you.”
I wanted them to know how much that meant to me. I wanted to thank them on national television, on
The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Truth is, by the time I went on
Oprah
, I had gotten so many e-mails and cards from so many people, every day. Cards from total strangers saying the kindest things. I wanted to show proper appreciation to every single one of them. I wanted to read a list of every name on the next national TV show I went on. There were just so, so many. Beautiful words, so caringly expressed to me about what I did and how it connected to them, whether because they had a child with a disability or loved someone in a wheelchair or someone with a debilitating disease, or they knew someone in the building, or they lost someone in the fire. These notes, which nobody but me alone saw or read, when nobody was looking, went straight to my core. These notes kept me going. If there was a medicine I was supposed to take in the early days just after, these notes were it. They also reinforced to me that maybe what I did shouldn’t be kept quiet. Maybe it should be shared.

My reps got out to Chicago late Wednesday morning. The idea of flying was scary in those days. 9/11 was only two weeks prior. Consequently, a few of my reps didn’t make the trip. The thought of flying was too nerve-racking for them. One of my reps backed out practically before boarding. That’s how it was then.

I took a separate flight, which got me into Chicago in the late afternoon. A limo picked me up at O’Hare Airport. I made quick use of the limo bar. My gang was waiting for me at the hotel, and we headed out to paint the town red. We arrived at Tavern On Rush.

When a group of fortysome people pile into a bar, the rest of the place is like,
Who are these guys?
The Tavern On Rush manager found out that night exactly who we were and why we were there. And he rolled out the red carpet. It was more than I
could’ve asked for. The manager cordoned off our own private section. Other patrons came in to talk to us. Every single one of my guys was being treated for a night like a national hero. Everybody was giving and getting hugs from Chicagoans we did not know who just wanted to show unity between Chicago and New York. On top of everything, my best friend, Jeff Fernandez, who was living in Indianapolis, drove in and met me there. It was my first time seeing him since 9/11 took place. I soaked in this dream night for every minute it lasted. Then I checked my watch, and it was 2:00 a.m. There was a limo coming at 7:00 a.m. to take me to Harpo Studios.

Roy met us in the production room at Harpo. Time to match names with faces. Roy greeted us by checking off who was who, taking attendance. “From Network Plus: Rob Hale, CEO, uh-huh. Mike Wright, uh-huh. Adam Andrews, uh-huh. John Cerqueira, uh-huh.” And then he stops at me and sniffs. “Oh. Who’s this? Mike Benfante?” Staring down his clipboard at me. “Oh yes, you’re exactly how I pictured you.” He clearly wasn’t meaning it as a compliment. That’s how Roy and I started off that morning.

I will say it now: Roy and I did not have the best relationship. Even before the day of the shoot, our dialogue was always challenging. I didn’t think he was very sensitive to the whole situation, and he probably thought I didn’t express the requisite gratitude for the opportunity. It takes two to tango, so I’ll take responsibility for my part. But this is how I recall how that day went down:

As soon as we got into the greenroom, we had been given a bunch of releases to sign. I suppose I was being overcautious, but I didn’t want to sign one of those releases. Rob Hale nudged me nervously. “Mike,” he said, “what are you doing? C’mon, let’s move this along.” But I wouldn’t do it. Then John wouldn’t do
it, either. They had to have a verbal agreement for me to show my image on TV. So John goes along with me down to a sound room, and we verbally record our assent. I’m becoming increasingly annoyed with Roy’s treatment of us, and Roy can’t believe my behavior. The tension is building. Roy comes out and lets us know how the show will proceed: First, the Rudy Giuliani segment. Then a segment on Flight 93 with Lisa Beamer, who lost her husband; Alice Hoagland, who lost her son; and the United Airlines air phone operator, Lisa D. Jefferson, who tried to comfort the passengers. Then us. Any questions? I raise my hand. “Yes, Roy,” I say. “I have a question. I got these cards from fifth graders in Sharon, Massachusetts, and I’d just like to quickly thank them during the show.” He bounces the index and middle fingers of his right hand against his pursed lips, feigning consideration. “Uhhhhh, I don’t think so. We’re pretty pressed for time. In fact, we’re already behind. Besides, isn’t this something you can just do over the phone?” I was livid. “Jesus, Roy! Screw you!”

“Mike!” shouted Rob Hale as he placed himself between me and Roy, like an ice hockey referee creating distance between brawlers. “You need to calm down.”

I am going to thank those kids anyway.

I tucked the envelope with the cards under my arm. “OK, Roy,” I said, flashing Roy the universal “OK” hand sign while reassuringly patting my CEO on the back. From then on, wherever I went, that envelope went with me.

Despite my tiff with Roy, I actually felt quite humbled to be in that greenroom. We were in tremendous company. Lisa Beamer, the woman whose husband, Todd, was credited with saying “Let’s roll,” was there, as was the United Airlines phone operator Lisa D. Jefferson, who handled calls from victims during the hijacking.

And then there was Alice Hoagland, the mother of Mark Bingham, a rugby player, who had fought back. She was so gracious, so considerate. She listened to
me.
Man, she was the one whom I was concerned about. But Alice Hoagland gave me a hug, and in doing so, the mother who lost her son made
me
feel good about being a survivor. I’ll never forget her. How soon it was for her to go talk about this after losing her son. I could barely keep it together, and I was here, alive. I don’t know where people get the strength, but they do. Alice Hoagland did. She was amazing to me.

We were minutes from showtime. My reps were out in the audience. Rob Hale went out to join them. The first segment, the Giuliani interview via satellite, began. The greenroom got a little quieter, with each guest exiting in succession for their segments, ultimately leaving just John and me. And I was getting more and more nervous.

Commercial break.

It was almost time for John and me to go on. A couple of girls walked us to the stage entrance. They were sweethearts. In fact, all of Oprah’s staff, with the exception of Roy, were incredibly courteous, fun, and professional. The especially sweet production assistant escorting me noticed my envelope of precious cards tucked snugly under my arm.

“Oooh, and what do you have there?” she asked.

I softly told her what they were and what I would like to do. She nodded with such understanding and asked supportively, “Where will you keep them while you’re onstage?”

I said, “I’ll sit on them if I have to.”

And with a big smile on her face, she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take those. You can’t go out there with them.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really.”

I unclutched my arm and surrendered the envelope. As I am letting go, I read the front of it. “Heights Elementary School, Sharon Massachusetts, Mrs. Toussaint’s fifth-grade class.” And I repeated it to myself over and over again.

“
THIRTY SECONDS TO AIR
,” barks some guy with a headset. I’m standing next to John. My head is about to explode. We got our cue and walked out onstage. The first thing I saw were my guys in the audience. Huge smiles were beaming from their faces. It was awesome. They were so excited to be there. We used to do this thing with each other in the office. It was like the fst bump, but we held it low, and there was no bump. So on my way to Oprah’s couch, I gave them the low fist, and everybody cracked up. I did too.

They put young and handsome John next to Oprah and sat my grizzled visage on the outermost seat away from Oprah, to John’s left. That was all right with me. The interview began, and I can barely remember a word of it. John seemed to do most of the talking. I sat pretty stoic, tight-faced. I was preoccupied with how to get the fifth graders mentioned.

Oprah was great. It’s all true about her. She just makes you feel perfectly comfortable. The woman is effortlessly and naturally a person you’d just want to hang out with and talk to. What a pro. Immediate warmth. So down to earth.

We had not met her before that moment. I felt much better as soon as she began talking to us. At a point early in the interview, when I explained how we got everyone to the center of the office, I said, “And our regional manager, Kevin Nichols, had our administrative assistant by the arm.” I checked that off my list. Two down, one to go.

We break for commercial. John and Oprah are yammering away. This might be my only shot. I lean over and break in, “Hey Oprah, I got these cards from some fifth graders in the mail. What do you think?”