The taste and smell of fear
Hustled home after class this morning to do some last minute revamping on my resume in preparation for a networking thing this afternoon. Got it done, threw on the lucky blue suit and took off.
Hit the platform just as the doors of the train opened. I got on.
That was the beginning.
The regular cadence unraveled when the doors didn't close like they usually do. A #3 had pulled in at the same time, but from the opposite direction. And as soon as its doors opened, people sprinted out frantically, trampling one another. Some got on our train.
Our conductor got on the intercom and told everyone to remain where they were, to stay calm. There had been a report of hazardous material at the back of the train. A bomb threat. On both trains.
What are the odds of that? Both trains. From opposite directions? I stayed where I was.
She said an inspector was checking it out and that hopefully we'd be on our way shortly. People were looking at one another, and some high school kids were talking to one another. One guy says to the other, "Man, that's crazy shit. I can't take all this terrorist stuff. Everybody's trippin all the time."
The conductor gets back on the intercom. "If the car is wet, we must isolate the train."
Yea, I think that would have been better relayed over the pocket radio, rather than announced to the entire passenger-body of the train.
The guy sitting next to me started flipping out. Told me his whole life story and all I could do was try to keep him calm. He said he was on the 46th floor of Tower One on 9/11. He worked as a security guard. Worked there fifteen years. His wife was at home in the Bronx.
"So, how was your day, honey?" That's what he said she'd ask when he got home. He was shaking his head. "I'd be better if people would stop trying to kill me," he mocked. "I can't take this anymore." He just wanted to see his daughter.
The tension in this city is palpable this week.
Posted by Amanda at February 14, 2003 07:06 PM
