We didn’t know how Marcus and Susan were. Tuesday, September eleventh was once removed from us here in Los Angeles, but it wasn’t for our friends and their two young children. They live five blocks, maybe less, from what use to be the World Trade Towers on Hudson between Duane and Reade. We didn’t have their e-mail address and the phone lines were down. We didn’t know how to contact Susan's parents; Marcus’ family lives somewhere in England, and we didn’t know any of their friends in New York. We were worried. We hoped that their children, George and Haley, were at school somewhere uptown. Marcus and Susan? I knew Marcus worked in midtown and I fantasized Susan, an art director, was on location at some fashion shoot in Central Park .  

They are good friends. I often stay with them when visiting New York. They live in Tribeca where they own a full floor in a historical building. A trendy bakery occupies the ground floor, and the smell of baking bread permeates the lobby and elevator. The last time I visited I brought my toddler Lily with me. We walked in and there, in the center of the living room area, was a huge tepee with dolls and farm animals all around it. Her eyes widened with surprise and glee and she let out a ooohhhh, climbed out of my arms, ran into the tepee, and didn’t come out for a full fifteen minutes. It was a kid's paradise in the middle of fifties style sensibilities; modern couches, Eames chairs, moose and deer head hanging on walls, a stainless steel kitchen. George, their seven year old, rode his tricycle up and down the length of the loft, as his five year old sister, Hailey chased after him crying, " want a turn, I want a turn." What a magical space in a city of sky scrapers and tiny apartments.  

Now the two tallest buildings in their city were gone, and powdered cement and rubble were everywhere, probably up to their front door if not inside their carefully designed home -- but we didn’t know. We stayed glued to our T.V. hoping to catch a glimpse of their street. We were afraid for them, but didn't believe they were dead. No, we didn't believe that at all.  

Watching all the media coverage that morning, I became overwhelmed, then sick to my stomach. I wondered how I could have watched coverage of Bosnia, or earthquakes in and El Salvador, or starving people in any number of third world countries, and not have had any physical reactions. I’d shake my head, thinking how awful it all was, but it never hit me like this. Why? Okay, I lived in New York City for ten years, mostly in Lower Manhattan. I have many friends there. It was home. It’s the United States, and the unthinkable finally happened; they, who ever ‘they’ were, struck us on American soil, and they struck us hard.  

That Tuesday morning I turned on the television at about 7:15 a.m. and started making coffee as usual. The images on the screen were horrific. Not fully awake, I was unable to digest what I saw. I wondered if this was a clip from an upcoming film, and then I heard the news caster saying, “Oh my God, the other tower’s been hit.” I ran to the bathroom, where my husband was shaving and spoke slowly, not sure that I was making sense, "You’re not going to believe me, but a plane just ran into the World Trade Center, and another one into the Pentagon building." He looked at me as if I was crazy and said, "What the hell are you talking about?" "You’d better come see," I said, and we ran back to the T.V. , shaving cream still fixed on my husbands face. My daughter was still sleeping.

Who could do such a thing? It occurred to me that it could have been our own home-grown terrorists, but I didn’t think so. It occurred to me that Los Angeles could be next. Before I could obsess on that notion, we heard another plane had gone down in Pennsylvania. Exhausted by the images, I moved into a sort of auto pilot, and like a zombie made lunch for Lily to take to school. I called the pre-school and yes, it was open. I was relieved. It was close by, and I reasoned it wouldn’t be a target, and I knew she’d be much better off there than with me. I would be better off too, for a few hours. When she woke, I got her dressed, fed her breakfast, and my husband took her to school on his way to work. I called my friend Staci, woke her up, and gave her the news of the morning. She came over and not knowing what else to do, we recited Buddhist chants and prayers for peace.

My husband called from work and said, "They’re stockpiling at the grocery store, go get food." There had been a small earthquake just two days before and going to the market for more water and survival food seemed like a useful distraction, between terrorist attacks and tremors. The second tower crumbled as I unpacked groceries. By the time I picked Lily up from school, around one o'clock , I was numb.  

I managed to reach friends in New York, who had cell phones. They seemed dazed over the phone lines, but safe. One friend told me how, as she approached the Holland Tunnel, from New Jersey, she saw what looked like a huge fire ball in the sky, and then thick black smoke. Her first reaction was similar to mine; she thought the burning Towers looked like a scene out of a a Hollywood movie. The Port Authority policemen at the tunnel turned everyone around, and as she was driving home she noticed that she was shaking uncontrollably.She stopped at a diner off the highway and ate a big breakfast, just to ground herself enough to drive home.  

My husband came home early from work, wanting to be with his family. Lily got to watch way too many videos, usually saved for sick days, so that we could continue to watch the news in the other room. I went to bed exhausted, and never slept deeper than those first few nights after the eleventh. It wasn’t until the second week when the shock wore off, that the nightmares began. I’d bolt up in a panic, a sense of undefined loss hanging over me.  

Overwhelmed, nervous and exhausted, we took refuge at our cabin in the Desert. There’s nothing but Joshua trees, Pinion pines, Scrub oaks, cactus and boulders. We stare at the mountains and the stars, the way we would at the television when we were home. Sitting in silence, staring into nothing, I imagined being in one of the buildings as it was hit; being tossed around and disoriented, panicking as walls started crumbling around me filling my lungs with plaster dust. I imagined a man behind his desk signing papers, a woman in a business suit taking a quick coffee break by the photo copier, a caterer setting up for a breakfast meeting at Windows Of The World on the top floor. In my mind, I watched their shock turn to sheer desperation as they scrambled to survive. I saw images of people jumping to their deaths, then the faces of their children, parents, spouses and all the others they left behind. I wrestled to sit and hold all this sorrow.  

The planes kept crashing into the Trade Towers over and over again, unexpectedly triggering explosions of memory. I saw my friend Michael in Bellview hospital covered with carposy, wearing an oxygen mask, just before he passed away. I saw my friend Eric blue with pneumonia telling me on a street corner in the Village that he wasn’t going to fight anymore--that he was ready to die. I saw my friend Marty unable to speak or raise his head and I saw his partner Tony witness his beloveds death. The planes kept crashing catapulting me into a huge sense of loss. I grieved not only for the recent tragedy, but for the deaths of my friends that I hadn’t after all these years, been able to express. I sobbed. The weight of random devastation leaving my pain exposed, rendering me powerless until my daughter bumped her head and started crying for me. I got up and went to her. I was needed. I could do something that would make at least my own child feel better. As all of us waited to see what the future held, most of us unable to do anything but give blood and donate money to those in need, I had a purpose; to take care of my loved ones. 

On October twentieth, after calling everyday for almost six weeks, Susan answered the phone. They were all safe. She sounded tired as she told me that she had been at her children's school in the West Village when that attacks occurred. Marcus tracked her down in George’s classroom and told her what was going on. They left the school as a family, walking downtown as others were coming up, some running, some covered in white dust. Marcus wanted to make sure their home was still standing, and also get a few necessities."People were yelling at us to turn around and go back, and at one point I just sat down on a bench with the kids, and said we’re not going any further. Well, Marcus went without us, and waiting for him was awful. More people were coming up saying the second tower had collapsed, and I started panicking that I would never see my husband again. He finally came back covered in the dust, never making it all the way down to our loft. . . I’m just so grateful we’re all alive." I could hear Susan reliving these moments as she spoke.  

She told me they ended up staying with friends in the West Village, and only now -- six weeks later -- were able to move back into their home. She snuck in without permission, before the city had deemed it safe, and cleaned the entire place herself. She cleared piles of white debris without the required face mask, shrugging off the possible ramifications that might have on her lungs, "I needed to do something useful, I was going crazy."  

In November, Marcus and Susan bought a house in Connecticut. They go there almost every weekend, but continue to live in their loft downtown. I stayed with them one night this past April. The place looked great, as if nothing had happened. The kids seemed to have bounced back the way kids have the ability to do. Marcus and Susan stay busy raising them and working hard in their respective fields. Susan says they are doing all right, but whispered to me at dinner, "I just wish I wasn’t so scared all the time, it was like being in a war!" I wondered to myself if that fear would ever go away. The next morning as I poured my first cup of coffee, I remembered that out the southern window of the loft you used to be able to see the Twin Towers peeking up over the nearer buildings. I walked over to the window and just stood there, staring at an incredibly empty patch of blue sky.

Author's Biography

Cheryl Montelle has been published in On The Bus, Spillway, and Rattle. She has performed her poetry and personal stories around Los Angeles at Barnes and Nobles, Borders Books, Village Books, Beyond Baroque, and various other venues. 

She is part of the Los Angeles Writers and Poets Collective. Cheryl has studied writing with Deena Metzger and Jack Grapes. 

She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, daughter and dog.

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