Prologue Late
one Sunday night in September of 2000 I worked feverishly to complete
my first novel, a murder mystery. The words flowed off my
fingertips and I polished off thi
rty
pages in that final session, lifting my fingers off the keyboard in a
triumphal flourish as the words "The End" appeared on the screen in
front of me. I looked at the system clock. After midnight.
Well, what do you know? My parents wedding anniversary. A suitable day. Had they lived, it would have been 52 years.The next morning I arrived at work (I was the Family Court Judge of Montgomery County, New York) in a euphoric mood, brandishing the last three chapters and epilogue, and pointing out The End to my staff. A wonderful day. A wonderful day indeed.
Things bounced along smoothly until early afternoon, when I was informed that an important fax was coming in for me. It was many pages long, and the machine ever-so-slow. I grabbed bunches of sheets and read feverishly. Finally, at the end, I learned that a referee appointed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct had determined that I had violated the Code of Judicial Conduct. The groundwork had been laid for my removal from office.
Well, isnt this ironic. I guess this will go down as one of the most memorable days in my life. Ill never forget this one, thats for sure. For sure, Ill always remember the day Kennedy was shot, the day the Challenger exploded, and now the day I reached the rock bottom of my professional career.
Yes, sir. Ill remember September 11 as long as I live.
A year later, on the evening of September 10, 2001, I drove to Kennedy airport for the third time in three months, carrying with me my son James and his friend from Sardinia, our Rotary foreign exchange student Gianmario Crisponi. Jamie had flown out on July 10, the two16-year-olds had flown in on August 10, and now it was time for Gianmarioto go home.
The weather was a little wild. Storm clouds threatened aswe crossed the Whitestone Bridge, and in the far distance Manhattan island was socked in fog, settled in so densely that the only recognizable landmarks were the top few floors of the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
I pulled over to the right lane so Gianmario could take his final photographs of his trip to America, a panoramic view of those three famous buildings.
He had actually seen the Twin Towers before, just after midnight on August11 when I took them on the scenic route to Upstate, pausing to stroll without fear through Battery Park in Giulianis New York for a view of Lady Liberty, then driving slowly up West Street for an in-your-face look at the WorldTrade Center, rising as it did then in awesome splendor far into the night sky.
As we pulled into the airport on September 10 the lightening and thunder had already started. Security was less tight at JFK thanat Logan in Boston, so we were able to walk Gianmario to his gate. We said our good-byes.
"Shouldnt we wait until his plane leaves?" asked Jamie.
I thought about the long ride home, my empty stomach, the weatherand the mounting tolls in the parking garage.
"Hell be alright," I said. "The worst thing that can happen is they delay the flight because of the weather. Theyll take careof him. Nothing to worry about."
We went home.
The next morning I was home alone, approaching the end of the seventh month of an enforced sabbatical. I flipped on my computer,logged on to the internet, and fired up my AOL Instant Messenger", and casually glanced at the news bar scrolling across the top of the screen.
OH. MY. GOD.
The television took forever to warm up, but finally I saw the images of the smoke and one tower in flames, then realized the other one was gone, and before my
eyes the North Tower crumbled into dust. Reruns of the second plane hitting, bodies flying or jumping from windows. No report yet on the two planes.
Gianmario.
Oh my God.
I never felt so helpless. Did his plane leave the ground? Did it get turned around across the Atlantic? Is he in that ball of flame dancing across my screen in slow motion?
Mary called from school where she was watching this with a class of four-year-olds. Had I heard from him?
I fumbled around the house and found his itinerary. Under the best of circumstances he would still be in the air, hopefully flying peacefully into Rome shortly.
Jamie called. No, I havent heard from him. Im sure hes ok. Yeah, maybe we should have stayed with him at the airport. Dont worry. Hell be alright. And yes, you may make an international call to his cell phone.
Anna IMd me from Albany, from college. She is an EMT, and worked with the SUNY Albany Five Quad Ambulance Corps. They were already lined out the door donating blood at the school. They were talking about sending an ambulance down. So many people from school had family working there.
I love you, Daddy.
She was on her way over to her friend Beths house to comfort her. Her father worked at the World Trade Center and no one had heard from him in the last four hours.
Later we learned that he had just gotten off his commuter
train when the first plane hit. With hundreds of thousands of other people he walked out of Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. Cell phone service was disrupted (the local transmitters were on the NorthTower) and regular service from the Verizon switching center had been blown apart by the falling rubble.
Jamie finally reached Gianmario, on the ground in Rome. His family was very happy to see him.
Anna came home later to pick up some American flags. The ambulances were indeed going to New York and she wanted them suitably attired. There were no more flags available in Albany (this was still September 11). She wasnt able to go herself, but within a few days had signed us both up for Red Cross disaster training.
There are few degrees of separation with an event of this magnitude. Bob, Jr. told us of a girl at his college whose cousin had been scheduled to be a flight attendant on one of the planes. At the last minute,she traded off for another flight.
"Good news, huh?" he asks. Not really. "She talked her best friend into taking her place."
All day on 9/11 I was on line with my friend Lucianne Goldberg, political commentator and gadfly, who had her own talk show and was being constantly interrupted by other talk show hosts for her personal observations from New York. It happens that we both learned simultaneously of the death of Barbara Olson, who bravely phoned her husband, the United States Solicitor General Ted Olson, for guidance as her doomed plane plummeted toward the Pentagon. (Later he would find a note from her saying, "Wherever I am when you read this, know that I am thinking of you.")
Barbara Olson was a personal friend of Lucianne. Somehow, with everything else going on, Lucianne manage to find a quiet moment later that awful day and dug up this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which she placed the next morning on her web page at Lucianne.com as a tribute to Barbara and all the others:
IF God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,--
Pray then alone, 'O Christ, come tenderly!
By thy forsaken Sonship in the red
Drear wine-press,--by the wilderness out-spread,--
And the lone garden where thine agony
Fell bloody from thy brow, -- by all of those
Permitted desolations, comfort mine !
No earthly friend being near me, interpose
No deathly angel 'twixt my face and thine,
But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,
And smile away my mortal to Divine!'
Within a couple of weeks, Anna had arranged the Red Cross classes for both of us. There were quite a few we had to take, but the agency was speeding things up because of the massive need for volunteers in NewYork City. We finished up over the first few weeks of October. I personally wouldnt be able to leave until after October 18, the day the Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in my case, the day they would begin to decide whether to terminate my 16 year judicial career. Another week went by, and I got the call.
