9.11 - 38. Chapter 38: Survivors and Victims

I'm posting this one on 9/11/13 as well, since it largely completes describing the initial shock, horror, and consequences of the 9-11-01 attacks.  This was probably the hardest chapter I've ever written. 

September 11, 2001

9:32am: North Tower

“Do you need medical attention?” a cop asked as we finally made it out of the building.

“I think I just sprained my ankle,” Stef said. I’d been so absorbed in trying to call everyone, and in trying to figure out what to do, I’d ignored him until we made it to the bottom of the stairs. When it came time to walk, he’d staggered and fallen. So now I was helping him, propping him up on his injured side.

“You can barely fucking walk,” I said. “I need to get him to a doctor, and then I need to find my sons,” I said to the cop. “They’re in that Tower.” I gestured at the South Tower.

“Take him to the triage,” the cop said dismissively. “It’s at the corner of Vesey and West. That way,” he pointed, and then made to walk off.

“Wait,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“I need someone to take him to the triage area so I can help find my family,” I said firmly.

“Look asshole,” he said to me. “We’re all a little busy, so why don’t you take care of your friend. They’re not letting you in that building, no matter who you are.”

“I am Stefan Schluter,” Stef said courteously but firmly.

The cop kind of blanched at that. He shook Stefan’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Schluter, but you guys still aren’t going to be allowed into the building.” I made to launch into him, but he turned on me and was much less polite than he’d been to Stef. “I know you want to help out, but you’d just get in the way. We’re trying to get people out of the building, not get them back in. The only people going in are police and firemen. So please, stay out of the way and let us do our jobs. We’ll do our best to find your family.” His hard-core attitude had faded, and he was being sincere, almost pleading with me.

“Thanks for explaining it to me,” I said, and shot him a slight smile. I turned to Stef. “Come on; let’s go get your ankle looked at.”

“I am fine,” he insisted. “There are other people who need help more than I do.” We watched a man walk by, crying in pain, his arms clearly burned badly.

“You are better than him, but you are not fine,” I said. Someone helped the burning man, and I focused on Stef, and on helping him to the triage area.

“You gave up quite easily with that cop,” he teased me.

“I didn’t give up at all,” I said to him. “I beat a strategic retreat.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Well, after I deposit you with the medical people, I’m going back there and I’m going to find them,” I said, absolutely determined to do that. “Even if I have to steal a cop’s uniform to do it.”

“If I am that big of an encumbrance, you may leave me here to crawl on my own,” he said, in a snit.

“You’re a huge encumbrance,” I said, teasing him, “but I’ll make sure you’re safe first.”

“Whatever,” he said. First I laughed, and then I got sad. “What is wrong?”

“You reminded me of Will when you said that.” I shook my head. “That’s his favorite word.”

“He says it with a style I cannot match,” Stef said.

“What if I never see him again, Stef?”

“You will,” he said, meaningless words.

Stef and I hobbled along in silence, while I thought about my arguments with Will. Here I’d been so worried that he was going to implode and really hurt himself, I’d been worried about what might happen, yet he was in the South Tower, and unless they’d found a way to get people through to the bottom, or unless they put out that fire, I’d lose him forever. All of our fighting, all of our arguing, all of that was for nothing. For nothing. Then my mind shifted to Robbie, who was there with him. Part of me was glad, because if anyone could get them out of this scrape, it was Robbie. But what if he didn’t make it? God, the thought of losing him, of not having him in my life, was sheer agony. Stef must have sensed my internal turmoil, and decided it was best to just leave me alone, so we walked on in silence.

We finally made it to the triage area, and a nurse was there to take all of our information. “Name?” she asked.

“Stefan Schluter,” he said.

“Right. And I’m Santa Claus. Name?” she asked rudely. It made sense that here in this part of the country, next to Wall Street, as it were, that they’d know Stef’s name.

“It is nice to meet you, Santa,” Stef said acidly. “I am Stefan Schluter.” She looked up at him, squinting, as if trying to decide if he was telling the truth. He pulled out his wallet and showed her his California driver’s license.

“I’m sorry Mr. Schluter,” she said. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“That is quite alright,” he said.

“Here, let me get you situated. We’ll have you sent uptown when the next ambulance gets here,” she insisted.

“There are others who are more injured than I am,” Stef insisted. “I will wait my turn.”

“We’ll see if we can get someone to look at your ankle in the mean time,” she said pleasantly. I scanned the medical facility and almost dropped in shock at what I saw.

“Look who’s playing Florence Nightingale,” I said to Stef. I gestured over to where JP was talking to a lady on a stretcher.

“Evidently he thinks he is a doctor,” Stef joked. “Help me over to him.”

Stef put his arm around my shoulder, and I put mine around his waist, and I helped him hobble over to where JP was sitting with the young lady who was coughing and hacking badly. He was talking to her in a soothing way while he held her hand. When she was done with a coughing fit, her eyes would connect with his, as if he was giving her hope. “Alright, we’re ready to send you out,” an orderly said. He and another man took her stretcher and made to carry her off. JP stood up as they lifted her up.

“Thank you,” she said to JP, taking his hand briefly.

“It was a pleasure to get to know you,” he said in his calming tone, the one that made you think everything was going to be alright. He turned around and found us looking at him.

His eyes glanced at me briefly, and then settled on Stef. This was one of those extraordinary times when all of his shields came down, all of his stoic reserve failed him, and the person underneath that outer layer emerged. It was like seeing a turtle come out of his shell. He got a huge smile on his face and lunged forward, grabbing Stef in a very intense hug. Stef returned his hug enthusiastically, and it looked like he tried to let go, but JP wouldn’t release him, so Stef gamely hugged him back.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said to Stef almost sobbing. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I am harder to get rid of than that,” Stef said lovingly, trying to help him get himself back under control. JP finally broke off their hug, and backed up to look Stef in the eyes. “I love you,” Stef said to him. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” JP said, and hugged him again. Then, as if remembering that the rest of our family was in limbo, he pulled away and looked at me. “I am glad you are alright as well.” He gave me his lopsided smile, the one that said that even though he’d been mad at me, he loved me. A lot.

“My turn,” I said, and gave him a hug, one of the more meaningful hugs we’d shared. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too,” he said.

We pulled apart and I wiped the tears from my eyes. “Have you heard from anyone else?”

“I have not, but I figured this was the best place to look, and I have tried to be useful,” he said.

“They’re all in that other Tower,” I said to him, desperate for him to solve this problem.

He looked away, toward the Tower, and smiled. “Not all of them.”

9:38am: South Tower

“Do you need medical attention?” a cop asked us as we finally emerged from that fucking building.

“I need to have my sister checked out,” I said, gesturing to Maddy. “She probably breathed in a bunch of smoke.”

“The triage is at Vesey and West,” he said. “That way,” he pointed.

“My parents are still in that building,” I said to him emphatically. “They’re trying to get out.”

“Where were they?”

“We were on the top floor, the observatory,” I told him.

“You can’t get down from above the damage,” he said.

“We did,” I said. “We went down Stairwell A. It was smoky as hell, but we made it.”

“Stairwell A is passable?” he asked, stunned. No one knew this?

“Yeah,” I said. “It gets tough around the 80^th floor, but otherwise you can do it.”

“We’ll see if we can help get them out,” he said, although neither one of us had any idea how he would do that. Maddy started screaming again, and coughed a few times. “Take her to the triage.”

“Alright,” I said resignedly. Darius was being unusually quiet, but that just meant he was freaked out.

I started walking toward the triage area, when Darius pushed in front of me. “Come on!” he said urgently.

“Fine,” I said. “What’s the hurry?”

“What did Pop tell you?” he demanded. I didn’t respond, so he answered his own question. “He said that fucking building is going to collapse, and that we have to get as far away from it as we can.”

“Fine,” I agreed. We picked up our pace, so we were almost running, jostling a crying Maddy and weaving through the crowds as we headed away from the Towers, and away from Robbie, Mom, and Hank. It was quite possible that Darius and I were orphans. The people in the South Tower had said that there weren’t any survivors in the upper floors of the North Tower. That’s where Dad and Stef were. I wiped the tears out of my eyes, but that just had the effect of rubbing soot into them and irritating them even more, so now I was a total disaster.

“It’s right up here,” Darius said.

“Can’t we just go back to Mom’s house?” I asked. I so didn’t want to deal with medical people.

“Maddy isn’t very happy,” he noted. “She could be hurt.”

“She’s dirty, she’s tired, and she’s probably hungry,” I said. “I mean, she may have smoke in her lungs, but I don’t think that’s why she’s pissed off.”

“You know babies better than I do,” he said. Babies scared the fuck out of Darius. “Let’s stop by there and see how bad it is.” Based on all the injured people we’d seen, it would probably be pretty crowded, and that was my definition of bad.

“Seriously?”

“It’s on the way to Mom’s house,” he snapped.

“Fine,” I agreed. We made our way toward that area, and it was incredibly chaotic, with people arriving that had horrible injuries, mostly burns, and then some others, like us, who were able to walk and seemed largely alright. We stood there briefly, probably looking pretty strange. Darius and I were both almost completely blackened from the soot that covered our bodies, and about every few minutes we’d start hacking. Maddy looked pretty ridiculous, because she was all smoky and sooty, except for her face, which was cleaner, and her hands, because I’d wiped them off to try and keep her from sucking the dirt off her hands.

We stood there, looking across at the bustling triage area with dread, when we noticed three familiar people staring at us. It was almost like one of those old westerns, where the two sides kind of square off and stare at each other, ready to grab their guns, only we were all just surprised. There, in front of me, were Grand, Dad, and Stef. I took off running, covering the fifty feet or so in record time, and hugged the first person I got to, which happened to be Grand.

“I am so glad to see you safe,” he said, as he broke off our hug. He wiped a tear from his eye, which made me smile and hug him again.

I let him go and grabbed Stef and gave him a big hug, even though Maddy protested at all this exuberance, and at being smashed in between me and these other relatives of hers. “We have been worried about you.”

“I thought you were dead,” I said, and felt my voice crack. “I didn’t think anyone could survive that.”

“You were incorrect,” he said. The time for our survival story could come later.

And then I was in front of my father. All of our conflicts seemed so stupid now, and I could read him like a book, and tell he felt the same way. I didn’t know what to say to him, he didn’t know what to say to me, we just looked at each other, until the tears started flowing out of his eyes. I leaned in and hugged him, and we just clung to each other. The energy and love that passed between us was so intense, Maddy didn’t even cry.

“We have to get out of here,” Darius insisted, breaking in on our moment.

“Why?” Stef asked.

“Pop said that building is going to collapse. He made us promise that we’d get out of there, and we’d get the fuck away from it,” Darius said.

“Where is he?” Dad asked, now returning to panic mode.

“He went back up to try and save Mom and Hank,” I said.

“We have to go,” Darius said again. We were about to argue with him, especially Dad, when Darius got really pissed. “Look, I don’t know if Pop is going to make it out of that fucking building or not, but he made me promise to get away from it, and to get you guys to safety, and I’m going to fucking do it, if I have to carry each and every one of you. Now goddamit, move!”

“I need to be there,” Dad said to Darius earnestly, in a voice that broke my heart.

“If Robbie can get them out, he will,” Stef said to him. “If he cannot, you will be needed more than ever.”

Dad wasn’t convinced, but I put my arm around him and pushed him along, making him walk with us. “Let’s get everyone back to Mom’s place, and then we can go back and try to find them,” I said.

“The cops won’t let us past,” he said.

“I’m good at breaking rules,” I said, winking at him. He actually chuckled. We hurried down the street, to Mom’s house. There were people everywhere, fleeing from the World Trade Center complex, but Darius and Dad alternated helping Stef, while I kept Maddy with me.

Maddy looked up at me with her big eyes and started crying again. “Hang in there,” I said to her gently. “We’re almost home. We’ll get you cleaned up, and get you something to eat.” I didn’t think that would calm her down, but it did.

We got to the condo and ran into the nurse almost immediately. “My God, what happened?” she asked, totally alarmed.

“We had to walk through a bunch of smoke,” I said. “We need to get her cleaned up, get her fed, and let her rest, and then we can find a doctor to check her out.”

“I will take care of her,” the nurse said. I took Maddy out of her sling, and tried to hand her to the nurse, but my hands wouldn’t let go. I’d had her with me this entire time, and it was like I couldn’t bear to part with her now. The nurse put her hands below mine, and smiled at me. “I will take care of her,” she repeated.

I nodded and smiled like an idiot, then forced my hands to release her. The nurse hustled Maddy off to her room. Grand was settling Stef in the living room where the television was on, while Dad and Darius must have gone up on the roof. I joined them, and was thrilled to find JJ there. I gave him a big hug, one which he fully returned. JJ was kind of awkward when it came to physical affection, so when he did that, it was his way of telling me that he loved me. He didn’t even complain that I got soot all over his clothes.

“What about Pop and Mom?” he asked, typically leaving Hank out of the mix.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They were still in the Tower when we got out.”

“I can’t get through to Robbie,” Dad said. He was pacing around, in sheer agony.

“Let’s all try,” I said. We all took out our cell phones and started dialing, hoping one of them would get through. For five minutes we dialed diligently, all of us trying desperately to make a connection.

“It’s ringing!” Darius said enthusiastically, holding up his phone.

9:55am: Tribeca

I ripped the phone out of Darius’ hand. “Sorry,” I said.

“S’OK,” he said, smiling slightly.

I was worried that Robbie wouldn’t pick up, and I desperately wanted to talk to him. I needed to know where he was, how he was doing. The phone rang again, and I knew that if he didn’t get it soon, it would go to his voicemail.

Then I heard the ringing end as he answered it. He was panting, and there was a cacophony of noise in the background. “We’re on the 20^th floor,” he said breathlessly.

“It’s Brad,” I said.

“You made it!” he said enthusiastically.

“I did. Stef and I managed to get out of the building. We’re with Dad and the kids at Jeanine’s,” I said. “I’ve been worried shitless about you guys.” I gently pushed the record button on Darius’ phone. All of our phones had taping mechanisms to record our conversations, something we usually only used for business.

“We’ve been worried shitless about you too,” he said. I could tell he was smiling, happy to hear that I was alive. He quickly told Jeanine that we were all safe. I could hear her loud sigh of relief.

“Don’t talk to me if it will distract you,” I said.

“No, I’m following Hank’s slow ass,” he said.

“Fuck off,” I heard Hank say, but in a playful mode.

“We’re trying to get the fuck out of here, but we don’t have much time,” he said. “This building is about to go.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Brad, the walls are damn near falling apart around us. The noises, the groans of the fabric of the building, are fucking intense,” he said seriously.

“You have to hurry,” I said urgently.

“We’re doing our best,” he said. “How did you get out? I thought you were supposed to be at that conference.”

“We were late because I had to stop and argue with Will,” I said, making him chuckle.

“So that argument saved your life?” he asked pointedly.

“It did,” I admitted.

“I think that you should make a pledge that that argument will be the last one you have with him,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s possible, knowing how we are,” I joked.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But here’s a pledge you can keep. Promise me that if you two get into an argument, you’ll resolve your issues before midnight on the following day.”

“Why the following day?” I asked.

“Because you both usually need a little time to cool off after getting pissed, but if you take too much time, then you get all stubborn and neither one of you listens,” he said. “So promise me you’ll do that.”

“I promise,” I said, mentally logging that pledge into my brain.

“Let me talk to Will so I can get a commitment from him too,” he insisted.

“I’ll work it out with him. I’m not willing to give up the phone,” I said.

“Brad, this is looking pretty dire,” he said seriously. “I’m not sure if we’re going to make it out of here.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I said, and felt the tears building in my eyes. “You’re almost there.”

“I want to talk to you about what happens if I don’t make it,” he said.

“I don’t want to go there,” I said.

“I need to do this,” he said plaintively, and as unpleasant as this was, I knew I needed to do this for him.

“Fine,” I agreed.

“I was serious when I was talking to you about Will. You and he have got to stop this bullshit arguing. That kid is strong as a rock, and you’re going to need him. You’re going to have to rely on him to get through this, if I don’t make it.”

I wanted to argue with him, and tell him that this defeatist talk was bullshit, but I sensed this was important. “I’ll do better with him.”

“He’s headstrong, and he’s a pain in the ass, just like you are. Give him his freedom and let him fuck up. He’ll make it through. He’ll be just fine.” He was so confident that he was right that he convinced me.

“It’s not like I have much of a choice anyway,” I said resignedly.

“Do this willingly, not because you’re being forced to do it,” he warned.

“Alright,” I agreed, knowing I needed to be at a good place with Will anyway.

“Anders-Hayes,” he said, referring to his company. “I want you to promote Alex Danvers to take my place. Give Evelyn his job.”

I didn’t want to argue with him, but he’d struck too big of a nerve with that one. “You’re not just saying this because he’s good in bed?” I asked, trying not to sound bitchy.

“Brad, seriously, that has nothing to do with it. Don’t go there,” he warned.

“Look, there are other guys there who are more qualified than he is…” I began, but he cut me off.

“Yes, there are, but I want you to give him the position, and not because I fucked him,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, a question that was about so much more than who was taking over Anders-Hayes.

“He’s smart, he’s trustworthy, and he has this intuitive knack about the business, kind of like Stef does with tech companies,” he said. He’d thought that about Carson too, I thought acidly, but pushed those doubts aside.

“Fine,” I agreed. “Now I just have to convince Stef.”

“Have Alex do it,” he joked. I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t.

“That may work,” I said.

“I know you’ll tell the boys that I love them, and I know you’ll tell Matt that too. You have to be strong for them,” he said.

“Baby…” I objected. This was agony, listening to his last will and testament on the phone.

“You have to be there for them,” he insisted.

“I’ll be there for them,” I agreed. “What floor are you on?”

“The 10^th,” he said. I mentally willed that Tower to hold on. “There are two more things I need you to do for me.”

“What?”

“If I don’t make it, you’re going to feel guilty that we’ve been fighting for this past week. You’ll blame yourself, and think about all the hot sex we could have had if we wouldn’t have been pissed off at each other,” he said.

“I will,” I said. “That was so fucking stupid. I can’t believe we wasted that time.”

“Brad, let it go. It’s not like we haven’t had amazing sex for over twenty years,” he said playfully.

“Yeah, but…”

“Unless you didn’t enjoy it? You didn’t think it was fun?”

I giggled. “It was incredible,” I said sincerely. “You pushed all my boundaries, and showed me ways to enjoy myself I never even thought were possible.”

“You did the same and more for me,” he said. “So will you do that? Let go of the guilt?”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“Not good enough,” he said firmly.

I sighed. “It may take me a bit, but I’ll do it,” I promised.

“You have three months to make yourself miserable, and then you have to honor your promise to me,” he said.

“You make it sound so easy,” I whined.

“You’re whining,” he said, picking up on that, and making me laugh. “You know how JP was with Jeff for all those years, how he carried that baggage with him, and how he was one walking sack of guilt?”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to be like that,” he insisted. “I want to know that you went on and were happy, and when you think about me, I want to know that you’re smiling.”

“I’ll smile when I think of you,” I said. I was smiling while tears were pouring down my face. I must have looked fucking ridiculous.

“And the last thing,” he said. “I want you to find someone else.”

“This is ridiculous…” I said, getting frustrated. “You’re almost out of there.”

“We’re on the fourth floor,” he said. “Just in case, I want you to find someone else. I don’t want you sitting around, alone and miserable. And I don’t want you to think you have to be emotionally faithful to me, and only have slutty sex with strangers.”

“I’m not my son,” I said, joking.

“You could be,” he said. It was frustrating that he knew me better than I knew myself.

“If I have to, it will take me a while, but I will do it,” I pledged. I’d have to write all these fucking promises down, I groused to myself.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “I love you Brad. I love you so much it hurts. I have from the day I first met you, from the day I saw you in the Claremont Commons. I loved you when we weren’t together, and I loved you even when we were fighting. You’ve made me happy, probably the happiest man on the planet.”

“I love you too, baby. You’re my life, you’re part of me,” I said.

And then I heard a loud roar over the phone, I heard Jeanine scream, and I heard Robbie say “Holy shit!” Then the phone went dead.

“Holy shit!” I heard Darius exclaim. I looked at where the Twin Towers were, and saw a massive cloud of smoke and dust. “There must have been another explosion or something.”

“Get inside!” JP yelled. “Now!”

They all followed him downstairs, but I stood there staring at the cloud of dust, thinking that my entire world was like that building. “Come on Dad,” I heard Will say. He gently guided me to the stairs, even though I could feel his arms and legs urging me on. “Hurry!”

Something clicked in me, survival instincts to be sure, but also the need to make sure he was safe too, and I moved quickly, following him to the door from the roof and closing it firmly behind me. We got downstairs and looked out the windows and saw this massive cloud of smoky dust blow by. It was surreal, truly surreal.

We didn’t say anything, we just watched as the wall of dust passed us by. Below on the streets people were running to escape from it, some of them hurrying into our building, while others rushed on. It enveloped them, and they coughed and choked, even as they tried to escape. Will rushed out of the condo and down the stairs, and came back a few minutes later with about ten people following him, all of them covered in dust.

“Thank you,” a large African American woman said, even as she coughed.

“Here, have a seat,” Will said, and then turned to Darius. “Get some drinks.” The two of them hurried around, with JP and Stef helping to make these survivors feel at home, and feel safe, even as the dust cloud swirled around the building.

It finally cleared, and as I looked toward the World Trade Center, where there had been two towers, now there was only one. Tears were flowing out of my eyes again, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop sobbing. I dropped Darius’ phone on the floor, and then collapsed on it myself, sitting on my ass with my arms wrapped around my legs and my face buried in my knees. I felt someone sit down next to me, and I could tell by the feel of his hand on my shoulder that it was Will.

“Did they make it out?” he asked, his voice choked up. I pulled my head up and looked at him, and shook my head.

“No,” I said, and then started sobbing again. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in, even though it was awkward with us sitting side by side, and held me while I cried. Robbie told me Will was strong, and that he was the person who could probably help me through this the best. I could feel his internal pain and anguish. He’d lost Robbie, who he’d gotten very close to, and his mother, who he’d pretty much reconciled with, and Hank, who he’d bonded with better than either of his brothers. And then it dawned on me that Robbie wasn’t telling me that I needed to rely on Will because he was strong and he could help me, even though he was. He was trying to tell me that Will was going to need me to get through this, and that I had to stop acting like an asshole, and I had to be there for him. It wasn’t that he needed me, or that I needed him, it was that we needed each other.