Dispatches from out of the dust
By Jo Kadlecek
9/11/01 11:30 am
Our city is bleeding. My phone has not stopped ringing. The
news reports are horrifying. This is my backyard and I have to go, to try to
get my head around it, to listen and respond. My bicycle will be the surest way
to get 60 blocks from here. I ride.
Scores of people are walking north, heading north. A mass
migration of broken people head north looking for safety.
Has this happened before?
Along the Hudson River, I ride my bicycle past a golfer who
practices his putting; runners jog by, sirens and fire engines rush by.
Women
in power suits and no shoes walk north past workers who gather around truck
radios listening for the latest updates on the attacks. Mobs of teenage
students also stroll north, chatting as if nothing has happened.
As if life in
New York City is always chaotic and terrifying. Every other person is trying to
talk with someone on a cell phone, trying to meet up with friends or find a
colleague.
Everyone is looking for someone as the smoke lingers over this
southern end of the most powerful city in the world, but certainly not the most
invincible. Not now.
People with suitcases walk up out of their hotels that were
in the shadow of the now-blazing towers. I hear a tourist comment on the
weather: "It's a nice day today, isn't it?"
Commuters walk in the hot September sun, stranded, numb, eager to get home. Home will never be the same.
Commuters walk in the hot September sun, stranded, numb, eager to get home. Home will never be the same.