Javier had actually been here that long-ago September 11. “They… don’t teach us much about the attacks in school.” Tommy didn’t want to push. But if the man was willing to talk he would listen.
“My son’s in high school. Tenth grade.” Javier looked at him. “He says the same thing. No one talks about it. Even here in New York.”
A hundred questions filled Tommy’s mind, but he didn’t dare ask them. Instead he stared at the memorial plaque again. “The numbers are… more than I can get my mind around. Hundreds and hundreds of first responders. All killed.” He looked at Javier. “It’s hard to believe.”
The man folded his arms. “It was hard to believe back then.” He looked across the grounds, like he was seeing it all again. “The call came in. Fire at the top of the North Tower. Plane crash.” He blinked a few times. “We thought it was a small plane. Some sort of crazy accident.” His eyes met Tommy’s. “Because who would’ve thought hijackers would crash a plane on purpose?”
Tommy hadn’t thought of that. How back then no one would’ve expected such a thing.
“Bad guys used to ask for money. They cared about living.” Javier had a heavy New York accent. Probably born and raised here. He narrowed his eyes. “Well, Tommy Baxter. Since they don’t tell you what happened, I’ll tell you.” His eyes welled up. “It happened. I was here.”
And then as if Javier had known Tommy all his life, he began to tell the story. By the time Javier and his buddies arrived on the scene, the entire World Trade Center block was madness. “The roar of the fire was like a living, breathing dragon high above us.” His voice cracked. It took a while before he spoke again. “People were running in every direction, screaming and tripping over each other. Terrified. Because men and women were burning alive up there.” A single tear slid down his cheek. “That’s when I saw people hitting the ground.”
Video accounts of 9/11 came up every now and then in documentaries or in YouTube clips. Tommy had heard about people falling from the highest floors. “They were pushed out… when the plane hit?”
“No.” Javier’s answer was quick. “They looked like they were falling. But I stared up at the burning floors and I saw what was really happening…. A lot of them were jumping, Tommy. The inferno must’ve been more than they could bear. Because I watched them climb out onto the window ledges… and jump.” He looked up again. “One after another.”
This was something else Tommy hadn’t considered. Had his grandfather been one of those who jumped? Were his final moments surrounded by suffocating fire and indescribable terror? The possibility made Tommy sick.
His office would’ve been just below where the plane hit, a few floors beneath the all-consuming, towering flames.
“Chaos. That’s what it was. We thought it was the end of the world.” Javier looked toward the memorial pool again. “Hundreds more firefighters were dispatched while the Port Authority began evacuating the damaged North Tower. Instructions were to keep people in the South Tower in place. So they’d be safe.” He clenched his jaw. “No one knew another plane was headed straight for us.”
Javier talked in detail about running up five flights of stairs in the North Tower helping people get to the stairwells, administering first aid to men and women who had fallen. “The elevators weren’t working, of course.” He shook his head. “I came across an old guy collapsed near the stairwell. Chest pain. Short of breath.”
Tommy could only imagine the panic.
“Looked like a heart attack.” Javier shrugged. “My buddies were still running up the stairs. One flight after another. Fifty pounds of gear on their backs. But that guy… I had to help him. That’s why we were there.” His voice trailed off.
A breeze moved through the trees that lined the memorial. Leaves still summer green rustled overhead as Javier nodded. “I saved that guy. Threw him over my back and got him down to ground level. Took him to a waiting ambulance.”
By then the Port Authority was ordering a mandatory evacuation of both towers. “But it was too late.” Pain deepened the lines on Javier’s face. “A minute later another jet tore into the South Tower.”
Javier was still loading the heart attack victim into an ambulance when the second airliner hit. “Now we got two infernos, two buildings with more people jumping.” He shook his head. “I knew my buddies needed