September 11, 2001, Part 5, Coming Home

This final installment has three parts, finishing the story of the couple I met in the café, describing the efforts to get home, and the going home, and finally what I took away from my unwilling stay in New Jersey six years ago tomorrow.

The couple first. They were both architects from New England. They had flown into Newark the night before for a flight that Tuesday morning out west for a vacation, as I recall to Arizona.

They had taken off almost simultaneously with the strike on the first tower. The pilot came on the intercom and told them they would be landing again at Newark. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with the plane, there’s been a plane crash into a building in Manhattan and we’ve been ordered to return.

As they circled, they saw the smoke rising from the tower in the middle distance.

As we got to know each other over the next couple of days over meals and just wandering around the lobby (people did that, there wasn’t much else to do, your fellow prisoners became your nodding neighbors, not necessarily talk, but an acknowledgement that you knew each other) I learned that they were, I don’t quite like this word, delightful, people.

They beyond telling of their quick “go around” at the airport, didn’t want to talk about what was happening. They’d ask me things about my life and tell stories about themselves, each filling in the other’s paragraphs, yes they talked in paragraphs. I passed a lot of hours with them, that I’d liken to going next door and sitting on their porch.

We exchanged cards; but, I never called, and neither did they.

Segment two.

Throughout the week, I looked into ways to get home. As I said early on in this series, I’d messed up by not immediately renting a car or getting a reservation on Amtrak.

I was left with calling Delta three or four times a day. The agents were kind and quite non-committal. “We have you in the system to go back to Atlanta, when we are allowed to send a plane to Atlanta; but, we have no idea when that is going to happen.” There was no problem, of course with canceling my flight Thursday to Kentucky. “No problem Dave. Just let us know when you want to reschedule, there’s no change fee. Give us a call later on today if you want an update.”

Sometime on Thursday, I think, I got a voicemail from Big Rick (if you haven’t been reading me for a while, do a search for the name on the blog, he appears, for better or worse, a lot in my life) “Dave, Jim (another friend) and I’ve been talking, you start walking south, we’ll get in the car and head north, we’ll meet you, we figure just south of New Jersey. We’re serious. Call and we’ll set it up.”

I’m not much of a walker so I later thanked him for his kind offer (the voicemail had loud music in the background, it turned out he’d called from my neighborhood bar, mentioned in the first part of this story.).

Friday, my calls to Delta increased in frequency, especially in the afternoon. Newark airport was starting flights that evening; and, a couple of my fellow inmates told of scheduled flights they had that night.

Mid-evening, I called Delta for the seventh or eighth time that day. “Dave, we have been slotted for a flight tomorrow mid-morning and you’re on it. We have no idea if it will really go, best we can tell you is go to the airport, first thing and take it from there. Good luck.” I walked down to the desk and told them I’d be leaving in the morning and asked if I could make a reservation for Saturday night, in the event the plane didn’t fly. Yes I could.

I got up on Saturday morning, the 15th, and had breakfast. There wasn’t much to pack. I had my choice of my suit pants and the I Love New York tee-shirt or the suit with the now dingy white shirt (in case you are wondering, they sent dry-cleaning out at the Sheraton, and where ever they sent it was shut down). I chose the suit, white shirt and the tie. Rumpled, but proper.

I got a cab over the highway to the airport. Almost no traffic. The whole way, every couple of hundred feet there were alternating National Guard troops and New Jersey State Troopers standing next to their vehicles. The troops had machine guns. The Troopers had shotguns.

I got off at the Delta departure door and walked inside. An airport security guy asked for my driver’s license and ticket. The license wasn’t a problem, the ticket of course was for the previous Tuesday evening. “No problem, go over to the ticket counter and they’ll take care of you. Oh, can I look in your bag?” He did and I did.

I got a new ticket and a BOARDING PASS from the agent, but not before another guard looked in my bag and wanded my body. “That way sir. Have a good flight.”

I got to security and there was a line of a couple of hundred people waiting. I inched forward. Every ten or so yards there was a Trooper or a troop, with the same respective weapons.

When I got to the conveyor and the magnetometer, I’d figured out the drill. Everything came out of your pockets, your belt came off as did your shoes. A security person looked into your bag before it went on the conveyor, another while it passed through, and a third as it came off.

I fumbled with change, wallet and papers to put in the bowl. “Take your time sir, we aren’t in a hurry,” he said and smiled.

We sat and sat. The flight was called and a small happy murmur went up. Boarding happened pretty quickly. The doors shut. The crew was beaming. The passengers were a bit tense. The Captain said “ I want to welcome you to Delta flight XYZ from Newark to Atlanta. There’s very little traffic so we should be in ahead of schedule. For me, the crew, and Delta, we are very happy that we are flying again and that you are with us. Enjoy the flight, and thank you for flying Delta..”

There was a smattering of applause. We took off, as the wheels left the ground, a bit more applause, which grew and grew. The flight attendants smiled. Passengers laughed.

As we approached Atlanta, the Captain came on again. “As you can imagine, we have very little traffic. We will be at the gate well ahead of schedule. I want to thank you again for flying with us. It’s been a rough week for all of us and there are some rough times ahead. But we are flying and we’ll keep flying. Thank you for choosing Delta.”

We landed to more applause, smiles and laughter.

So what have I taken from that week? In reverse order, the Captain’s words, the crews’ and passengers’ smiles, the security guard’s reassurance that I was ok, my architect friends’ refusal to be bowed by events, Joe’s perseverance, pluck and less than sober friendship, my cabbie’s tears, Rick’s, Jim’s, the Federal Judge’s, my bartender’s, my office manager’s and Charlie’s concern and humanity. Notice a theme here? People. They aren’t all that bad. Should we need a crisis to be good to each other? No, of course not. But day in and day out we don’t show each other that we care. It takes crisis and tragedy for us to reach out to each other. Six years ago this week, I found out that friends, family and strangers cared about me. That’s a good thing.