Picking up the Pieces After 9/11

By Georgiana Ploss   

   Just before the road was cut off by a security booth, Richard Ploss turned left into a small parking lot adjacent to a one-story, smooth-brick, tan colored building. Clicking off the radio, Richard simultaneous navigated his forest green Maxima into a spot facing away from the building and hung his parking pass from the rear-view mirror. Stepping out of the car and pulling his jacket closer around him, for it was a crisp September morning, Richard reached into his backseat and pulled out a brown-leather briefcase filled with files wrapped in manila folders and legal notepads. At the building, Richard swiped his key-card pass to unlock the door, showed the card to the desk-manager, and headed to the right down a short hallway. Turning the corner twice, Richard reached his room, unlocked and opened the door, and put the briefcase next to his desk. Taking off his jacket and putting it on the coat stand by the door, Richard exited his room again and walked passed two doors until he came to the closed door of his secretary's room. Richard glanced down at his watch, and noted that that it was only 7:00 am, too early for his secretary to be at the office. Once back in his room, Richard began to work on the new will he was drafting.

   Around nine o'clock, Richard stopped working and got up to check if his secretary was in yet. Walking past the conference room, Richard glanced at the crowd that had formed in the ordinarily empty room. Richard wondered what had captivated the audience, backtracked and looked towards the TV. At first, he could not comprehend what was happening; WNBC-NY was playing, its cameras focused on the World Trade Towers, with one of which was billowing red-grey smoke into the sky and a reporter announcing, "… right at this point, we are following the smoke in the air right now. There are several boats and watercraft as we can see…." Richard looked away from the television as someone else entered the room, along with an entourage of people. A nervous chatter started around the room, and Richard could make out "the tower has been hit" and "a plane crashed into the World Trade Towers." He turned his attention back to the television, and heard the reporter now saying, "… and in terms of the firefighting capabilities when you get up to this high level, uh, I assume the firefighters have got to get up there, and, uh, you know, fight it from inside…" When the reporter uttered the word 'inside,' the whole conference room gasped – smoke had started to emanate from the second tower and not a moment later, a part of the building disappeared under a fireball. "Oh, uh," the news reporter said in an off-putting calm manner, "If you're taking a look now, you can see that we just had another explosion, and that is considerably lower…." But no one was listening anymore. The room was in chaos; some people were standing in shock, while others were throwing around explicit phrases. The women next to Richard exclaimed, "Those bastards!" Richard stood there, a mixture of "oh my god" and horrid, shocked feelings bounced around his head. After standing there for a couple more seconds, listening to the reporters securely confirming the second tower had been hit, Richard turned back towards his office. Checking in with his secretary was not important anymore.

   Back in his office, Richard first telephoned his wife, Meg, who was at work at a hospital in Morristown, New Jersey.

   "Did you know Trade Towers were hit?" Richard asked.

   "Yes," she responded, sounding rushed. "The hospital is on high alert. We're the third wave of hospitals for victims. There's high tension. I have to go."

   After a quick confirmation that Meg would call her parents later, Richard hung up and immediately contacted his parents, who lived on Long Island, New York.

   "Do you know what happened?" he asked his mother as she picked up the phone.

   "No."

   "The Trade Towers were hit."

   His mother gasped, and after a brief conversation, brought her husband from his doctor's office, which connected to the house, into the kitchen to talk to Richard.

   "Do you know what happened?" Richard repeated to his father.

   "No. I've had hours all day. I've been seeing patients since eight."

   After repeating the news to his father, Richard wished his father a "Good day" and hung up.

   Lastly, he called his sister, who lived in Massachusetts, to check if her husband was in New York City since he frequently had business there. He was not.

   He placed the phone onto the hook, and felt relief. The phone rang then; it was a client confirming her appointment with him that afternoon. Hanging up the phone one last time, Richard fought to focus on his work again, the images of the burning towers imprinted in his mind.

   A week after the attack on the towers, Richard was called in to teach at the College of Insurance, which was several blocks from the towers. Preparing for the worst, Richard drove to his hotel in New York City the night before; his room overlooked the wreckage. Although Richard lived about forty-five minutes away from New York City, the mood between New York and New Jersey was haunting. People in New Jersey were mourning the loss of family and friends, but in New York, when Richard walked down the street, he could see wooden boards hung around the city with pictures of missing people attached. Each had the question "Have you seen me?" written underneath. On the street strangers were grieving with each other.