The Flats

Chapter One

Friday February 26, 1993

7:34 Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) from Syosset to Penn Station

Did you tell her? Mort asked.

No, John answered.

You have to tell her. When are you going to tell her?

I have a date with her at lunch today. It’s our first date.

You’re going on a date and you haven’t told her yet?

Yes we’re going on a date and no I haven’t told her yet, John said.

How long have you known her?

Nearly two years.

And in two years you haven’t told her?

John simply stared at his train friend, trying to will him into being silent.

Jesus Mary and Joseph, John, you’ve got to tell her right up front.

I know, I know, John said.

Mort shifted in his seat, and John noticed his chronically wrinkled attire.

How can a rumpled, wrinkled nightmare like you be one of the most accurate and sought after accountants in the City? John asked.

It’s an art, and part of my charm, Mort said.

An art?

I don’t want to look like I spend a lot, or make a lot. My clients might think I’m overcharging.

So you go to work like this as part of a well thought out plan? John asked.

Yes.

I find that very hard to believe.

Yo Johnny, we can’t all look like a cowboy who spends his entire life working out in the sun but still has time to model for GQ.

Come on, John said.

I’m forty, ten years older than you. I’m Jewish, from a big Jewish Long Island family. This is what guys like me look like.

I know lots of Jewish people who wear ironed shirts and suits that have been to the dry cleaner in the past year.

And I know fashion models who would make a deal with the devil to look like you, Mort said.

Do Jewish people believe in the devil? John asked.

Mort rolled his puffy eyes and picked up his newspaper.

Chapter Two

Friday February 26, 1993

12:05 pm

Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were upset. The parking spot they wanted wasn’t available. Their accomplice was supposed to have been waiting in his car, waiting in the best spot, waiting for them so he could pull out of the spot next to the main column supporting one of the towers of World Trade Center, but he wasn’t there. Ramzi cursed again, then pointed to the only open spot on basement level B-2.

It’ll still work, Ramzi said.

Allah Akbar, Eyad answered.

Eyad parked the yellow Ryder van and turned off the key. The two young men got out. Ramzi lit the twenty foot long fuse and the two men started walking for the stairs. They broke into a run after just a dozen steps.

12:17 PM

John sat staring at the computer screen in front of him. He was watching an arbitrage program that he’d written making up its mind about making a currency trade. He leaned forward in his chair, his finger poised to click at just the right moment.

Suddenly the entire building shook and he was thrown to the floor as his chair kicked out from under him.

What the…? John said out loud.

He stood up and rushed to the window. Looking down and west towards the World Financial Center and the Hudson River beyond, he could see the flood doors for the garage under the World Trade Center lying twisted and crumpled in the middle of the West Side Highway. Thick black smoke billowed up from the entrance to the underground garage.

John turned back to his desk, picked up the phone, and started to dial. In just a second he realized there was no dial tone. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and hit speed dial to connect with his boss in midtown.

Anne? Something’s happened down here. An explosion. The phones are out, my computer is out. I’m shutting everything down and getting everyone out.

It’s probably just a transformer, Anne said.

I don’t think so, John said. I’m getting out. Talk to you later.

He flipped off his phone, went out into the center of the main room where workers were looking around, looking at each other, unsure what had happened or what to do. John raised his voice to what his friends called his ‘outside voice’, but what he still thought of as his ‘command voice’. Get out. Now! Everyone out! he shouted. He moved towards the emergency exit and started pushing secretaries, traders, and analysts ahead of him.

MOVE! NOW! he ordered. For a moment the shouted orders took him back to the Somali battlefield. His hand reflexively went to the scar below his jaw.

In the garage, 150,000 pounds of pressure from the truck bomb had blown a one hundred foot wide hole through four levels of the concrete garage, killing four instantly. The blast had severed the main electrical power line, leaving the towers dark. Not even the emergency lighting system was lit. All the elevators had jolted to a halt. Thick black smoke had started venting upwards through the hole, and into the emergency stairs.

John waited until everyone in his group was in the stairs, then headed down himself. As they raced down from the twelfth floor, they met the thick acrid smoke creeping its way towards the third floor. Some workers stopped and turned to start back up. John felt the weight and urgency of the thousands of workers on the floors above moving down towards him.

NO! Keep going down! John ordered. He pushed the workers down into the nearly impenetrable darkness. Keep going! he ordered. Just three more floors!

And then he breathed in his first deep breath of the soot and hot acid fumes. His eyes burned and he coughed. His gut clenched and his stomach turned. But he kept moving down, kept moving everyone in front of him.

In just thirty more seconds they were at the ground level and crashed through the emergency doors into the cold clean winter air. Like all the others he coughed out a lungful of smoke and took in a deep cleansing breath. As he breathed, another escapee from somewhere inside ran into him from behind.

Keep moving, John ordered. He pushed workers away from the exit and out onto the plaza and away from the building. Keep going! he said. Now was the time to lead from the front, to show the way.

When they were across the plaza he halted his group. They all turned back to the twin towers. Most of the escapees were bent over double, retching, still trying to breath in clean air or trying to wipe the soot from their faces. As they watched, a trickle, and then a flood of raccoon eyed workers with shirts or blouses over their faces erupted from the emergency exit. Many fell to the ground, throwing up, gasping for breath, where they were immediately trampled where they fell. John imagined the horror that must be occurring in the stairwells.

He took a head count, asked if anyone was missing, pulled out his cell phone and called Anne again.

Everyone got out. It’s bad. We’re coming up to midtown, John said.

Okay, Anne said. What’s going on?

I don’t know. There was some kind of explosion, and there’s a fire. We were lucky to get out.

Lucky to get out, he thought. Like that last firefight.

12:25 PM

Diane checked her watch. She sipped a light beer while she waited for her first date with John from the train. That’s how she described him to her friends, as ‘John from the train’. A tall man with a rugged face that made him even more appealing than his blue steel eyes and trim fit body. She’d sat beside him for over two years before he’d finally asked her out, for lunch, for today. And now John was late.

Goddammit, she said.

What? the waitress asked.

Sorry. I’m supposed to meet a guy here and he’s late, Diane said.

Typical, the waitress said.

Does he work in the World Trade? a man at a neighboring table asked.

Yeah, Diane said.

Something’s going on over there. My brother works there and he just called me and said there’s a fire or something, the man says.

A fire? Diane asked.

Yeah.

The bartender overheard and started flipping channels on the battered old television hanging behind the bar. For some reason all the local stations were off the air. He didn’t know that the bomb had destroyed the local television and long distance telephone infrastructure.

What the fuck? the bartender muttered. He kept flipping until he found a working station. The Financial News Network showed a shot of smoke pouring out of the underground garage and people rushing away from the building.

Oh my God, Diane said. Her hands flew to her face.

John watched from across the plaza as firefighters in breathing apparatus started heading into the building through the revolving glass doors. For now, the smoke seemed to be venting from just the garage and the emergency stairways. There didn’t seem to be any smoke coming from any windows or from the front doors.

I’m going to help, John said.

What can you do? his secretary asked. Let the firemen handle it.

John took another look, made sure everyone from his group was out, and headed back for the revolving doors.

Yo buddy. Where ya goin? a burly policeman asked.

I’m going back in.

Stay outta the way, the policeman said. He put his beefy paw on John’s chest and fixed him with a hostile gaze. You see those people getting trampled over there? the policeman asked. He pointed towards the mayhem at the exit from the fire escape. Whaddya think it’s gonna be like in there? the policeman said. He pointed to the revolving doors. You’re out, so stay out.

John stepped back, waited for the policeman to look away, and then bolted for the doors. His long strides ate up the few yards in an instant, then he was in.

Once inside, John saw a group of first graders across the lobby, huddled in a tight pack near the elevator doors. They were frozen in a panic, clinging to a few adults directly in front of the elevators that lead to the observation tower.

John headed for the group. He saw a woman down on the floor. Her head was twisted at an unnatural angle. A terrified child was clinging to her arm, trying to drag her.

Come on, John yelled to one of the adults. We’ve got to get these kids moving! The screaming children nearly drowned out his voice. He pulled on the arm of one of the adults, pointed to the revolving doors, and motioned for him to get the kids moving.

But the rest of our group is on the elevator, a teacher said.

There’s nothing you can do to help them in here, John said. You’ve got to get all of these kids out of here now!

Together with the other adults he started to herd the kids towards the doors, towards safety. When they were about half way across the lobby, the thick black smoke began billowing out of the air vents. Some of the parents and kids kept moving, and some froze, staring at their approaching death. John looked back at the elevators, saw the terrified child still clinging to the woman on the floor, and raced back towards her. He tore the tow-headed girl from the motionless body and started running back towards the doors, racing the cloud of smoke. He reached the revolving glass doors, forced his way through, and burst out into the fresh air. He moved as fast as he could with the child over his shoulder, moving away from the building, away from the smoke, away from the policeman who’d tried to stop him.

A reporter and a cameraman, safely positioned fifty yards from the doors, stepped into his path. The thin reporter thrust a microphone into his soot-covered face and tried to shout a question. John stiff-armed the reporter as he swept past with the wailing child. The reporter went flying onto his ass, while the cameraman kept shooting.

Oh my GOD! Diane screamed. She pointed at the television. That’s him!

She watched as John ran out of the World Trade Center with a shrieking child over his shoulder. His nose and mouth were darkened with soot, but she could clearly recognize him.

That guy? With the kid? the waitress asked. Everyone in the restaurant was crowded around the television behind the bar.

Yeah. That’s John.

Is that his kid? Did you know he had a daughter? the man said.

Diane and the waitress shot stupefied looks at the man then turned back to the screen. They watched as John kept going across the plaza to a small group of children. He put down the child, who instantly wrapped herself around his legs. He placed his hand on her blonde head and started saying ‘it’ll be alright’ in a soothing voice.

Across the river in New Jersey, Ramzi Yousef looked at the thin plume of smoke drifting up into the sky. He knew he’d failed. The blast was supposed to have knocked down both towers by dropping one into the other. He was supposed to have killed everyone inside for the praise of Allah. He’d dreamed of a slaughter on an unprecedented scale. He took one last look at the smoke, then headed towards Newark Airport. His flight for Pakistan was scheduled to leave in just under two hours.

Chapter Three

Midtown Manhattan

Friday February 26, 1993

Did you get everything switched over? John asked.

Yes, his boss Anne said. And we saw you on TV.

What?

There was a guy from the Financial News Network who was down there doing some other story and he just got the scoop of his life, Anne said. He was having a pretty good day until you ran him over.

What?

You ran him over. Knocked him down. He was pretty pissed. But then his cameraman or somebody must have gotten control of him because they went back to talking about the Towers.

Do they know what happened yet? John asked.

Some kind of explosion in the parking garage.

It was pretty bad, John said.

I’m making sure everyone has called their family to let them know they’re okay. And I sent someone to the drug store to get lots of soap and towels or paper towels so everyone can clean up. After we get everyone cleaned up let’s feed them and then send them home. It could be a little chaotic getting everyone home tonight, Anne said.

Good idea, John said.

So did you phone your wife? Anne said.

Um, no, John said.

You can use my office if you’d like, Anne said.

Anne, there’s something I need to tell you, John said.

Anne saw the faraway, confused, and hurt look in his piercing blue eyes.

Step into my office, Anne said.

I’m so sorry, Anne said. It’s hard to believe, and that it would go on this long.

John’s broad shoulders slumped. His eyes stayed on the floor.

Chapter Four

Friday February 26, 1993

If you didn’t want to go out with me you didn’t have to bomb the World Trade Center, Diane said. You could have just called it off.

John managed a resigned laugh. He lightly held Diane’s manicured hand across the small table at the diner at the LIRR station in Syosset. He marveled again at how small her fingers were. The scuffed table usually held only newspapers and coffee. John didn’t recall ever seeing anyone actually eat there. Still, he was grateful to almost be home, and even more grateful that pretty little Diane, who he was supposed to have met for lunch, had been able to meet him at the station. He’d been unsure about whether he was going to have the strength left for the drive.

That’s the way it had been back when he was leading his platoon. Calm and focused in action, decisive, but then completely wrecked for hours, sometimes days, when the critical moment had passed.

I was worried like crazy until I saw you on TV, Diane said.

You saw it too?

I think everyone saw it. They played that shot over and over, Diane said.

Damn, John said.

What? You’re a hero! You went back in and pulled out a scared kid and got all those other kids and their worthless parents and teachers out too. What kind of teacher or parent would freeze up like that?

It was pretty bad, John said.

But you got out, Diane said. She rubbed her hand up and down his forearm, and then rested her hand on top of his. John thought that her rubbing her hand up and down his forearm was the most comforting feeling he knew.

With his other hand he pushed a strand of her wavy, nearly kinky, black hair behind her ear.

Chapter Five

Monday March 1st, 1993

7:34 LIRR from Syosset to Penn Station

So did you tell her? Mort asked.

No. I didn’t have time. I got arrested.

Whaddya mean you got arrested? Mort asked.

I got arrested Sunday afternoon, at my place. There’s a knock on the door and there’s two local cops and a New York City cop and they ask if I’m John and can they come in? So I ask what’s this all about and they look really embarrassed, like they can’t believe they have to do what they have to do. And the New York City cop explains it all to me, about how the reporter I ran over is pressing charges.

That’s bullshit, Mort said.

That’s what the cop from the City said. He said it was ‘bullshit’. He said if it was up to him he’d go bitch slap the reporter for me. But apparently the reporter is connected to some politician and I’m sure he thinks this will help his career or something. So anyway, they brought me down to the station, and they were real apologetic, but still I got arrested.

So now what happens? Mort said.

Now I have to go to court and go on trial for battery.

That sucks, Mort says. You’re a frickin’ hero and you have to go to court? For battery? The guy was in your way. You were pulling kids out of the Trade Center. What was he doing? Nothing. He was standing there fifty yards away trying to make a name for himself. It’s bullshit.

Chapter Six

Courtroom in New York City

Friday April 16, 1993

I still can’t believe this, John said. He straightened his Brooks Brothers tie, looked around the courtroom, and sighed deeply.

You hit him. By definition that’s battery. What makes it worse is that he’s a reporter. Those bastards feel like they deserve some sort of special treatment, his lawyer said. All the prosecutor had to do was show the tape to prove you hit him.

I was carrying a kid out of a burning building, John said.

Which is why the judge is going to go easy on you, the lawyer said.

Easy?

He has to find you guilty. He has no choice. The television people are here and you hit the guy. The guy’s uncle is a congressman, and his brother is a judge. It’s complicated. New York has sentencing guidelines, but the judge doesn’t have to follow them. He can let you off with a slap on the wrist if he wants to.

What about that necessity defense you told me about?

It’s bulletproof as far as I’m concerned. But you never know what a judge is going to do. It gives the judge a reason to go easy, but you never know. But it’s not like he needed a reason to go easy in the first place. You were carrying a kid out of a burning building for Chrissake, the lawyer said.

Would the defendant please rise? the judge asked from the bench. John wondered if anyone had ever said no in response to the question.

John stood. His lawyer stood beside him.

I find you guilty of battery, the judge said. You are hereby sentenced to 30 days in jail, with all but one week of the sentence suspended during one year of parole. The judge banged his gavel.

John looked at his lawyer.

Are you fucking kidding me? I’m going to jail?

Only for a week, the lawyer said.

John shook his head as he watched the Sheriff’s Deputy approach him with his handcuffs ready.

John hung his head and put out his wrists to be cuffed.

Just wait for the civil suit asshole, the reporter shot across the aisle.

Chapter Seven

Friday May 28, 1993

5:06 LIRR from Penn Station to Syosset

So did you tell her? Mort asked.

Do you know that you’ve asked me that same question practically every day for the past year? John said.

And I’m going to keep asking you until the answer is yes.

You might be waiting a while, John said.

That’s no skin off my nuts, but will be off yours, Mort said.

Why is it so important to you whether I tell her? John said.

Because you’re my friend, Mort said.

Yeah, a real friend, who busts my balls about the same thing every day. Don’t you ever want to talk about the Jets or the Mets or something?

No. Sports are stupid. And you never want to talk about sports anyway, Mort said.

You’re right about that.

Are you going to see her tonight? Mort asked.

Yeah I am. We’re going out to the Hamptons to look at this little place I’m thinking about renting for the summer. The Goldfarb’s are going to be here and even though they said I could stay in the gatehouse, I’d feel odd with them being here and everything. So I’m going to rent out there.

And Diane’s going to look at it with you?

Yeah she’s got the summer off, so we’re going to stay out there all summer and I’ll ride in from there instead of from here.

So I’m not going to see you all summer? Mort asked.

Not if I rent and live out there with Diane.

Sure, sure. Trade in your train wife for a real wife.

She’s not my wife, John said. His words were short and clipped.

Oh, yeah, sorry, Mort said. You know what I mean.

It’s okay, John said. He reached into his bag for his novel. He was reading a ghost story set on Long Island, in Caumsett State Park, where a two hundred year old whaling captain ghost was ruining another man’s life.

Ghosts, John thought.

Chapter Eight

Saturday May 29, 1993

It’s beautiful, Diane said. I never thought I’d get a chance to live someplace like this, even for just three months. Poor Jewish kids like me only dream of stuff like this when we visit some distant relative who has money.

It is incredible, John said.

Can you afford it? Diane asked.

Yes. I live at the Goldfarb’s for free, and I make a good living. I don’t have any bad habits or expensive hobbies, and I do a pretty good job investing. So yes I can afford it.

I didn’t mean it like that, Diane said. I’m sorry how it sounded. It’s just that I don’t know that much about you.

And yet you’re going to live out here in the Hamptons with me for three months? John said.

So that I can get to know everything about you, Diane said. She emphasized the word ‘everything’.

Is that why? John asked.

Diane rubbed her hand up and down on his forearm, then looked straight into his eyes, licked the deep red lipstick on her lips, and dropped her hand to his hip.

That’s not the only reason, she said.

Chapter Nine

Tuesday December 7, 1993

5:33 PM

Colin Ferguson held the green ticket for the east-bound train leaving Jamaica station and heading for Hicksville. The train rolled to a stop directly in front of him. He picked his canvas bag up from the concrete platform and walked on to car 9891 with eighty other passengers. He found a seat in the back, facing east, towards the front of the train, and held the canvas bag in his lap.

6:01 PM

John sat in the aisle seat, closer to the back than the front of the car. He didn’t recognize anyone on this train. He tried to read his book, but was still too keyed up from a hectic day at work. Even the soothing Mediterranean landscape in his book wasn’t helping him relax.

Merillon Avenue, he heard the conductor call. The train started to slow. Some passengers stood up and started shuffling their work and ride-weary feet towards the door.

Behind him, John heard a pop, and then another, and then the screaming started. It took a moment to recognize the pops. There weren’t supposed to be those kinds of pops on a train. Only in a fight, or on a pistol range. Not here.

John turned around to see what was happening. He saw a black man slowly moving up the aisle, pointing a gun at passengers as he moved from the back of the car towards where John was seated. The man’s eyes were cold, his motions slow, he seemed to be addressing each passenger in turn, and then holding something up to show them. The massacre in progress didn’t immediately register in John’s brain. But then another pop, and then another, and then five or six more, evenly spaced, and the splatter of blood on the windows was able to burn through the absurdity of what was happening.

Gun! John shouted.

He’s got a gun. Someone’s shooting! a woman screamed.

John tried to move away from the shooter, but the aisle was already blocked by passengers trying to run away, trying to get into the next car.

I’m going to get you, the shooter said. He looked a passenger straight in the eye. He pulled the trigger. Brains exploded onto the window and the passenger slumped forward.

Pop.

Pop.

A staggering passenger with blood running from his chest collapsed into John’s arms, splashing him with blood, and knocking him down into the aisle, before landing on top of him and becoming motionless.

Ten or fifteen seconds passed. And then the shooting started again.

He must have reloaded, John thought. He saw the left foot of the shooter step beside him, and then the right. John lay frozen beneath the body of the dead but still bleeding passenger that covered him. The left foot moved on, then the right. John counted to ten, then squirmed and rolled over, finally heaving off the dead passenger. He twisted around to see the retreating back of the shooter.

Pop, pop, pop. Like a metronome. Each shot found a target in the crowded and now panicked train car. The shooting stopped. John saw the shooter starting to reload for a second time.

Grab him! someone yelled.

John rose, took three running steps and dove into the back of the shooter. In an instant he was on the bottom of a pile of passengers that were all holding down the shooter. The shooter went limp in John’s arms.

Oh God what did I do? John heard the man say. What did I do?

Why are we stopped? Diane asked. We’re short of the platform.

A minute later, passengers started streaming forward into the car where Diane was seated after her day trip to the city for shopping.

There’s someone shooting people back there, a passenger said as he ran by.

Shooting? Diane said.

A second, a third, and then a flood of passengers running by and crowding forward convinced her that she’d heard correctly.

OPEN THE DOORS, the passengers screamed. A couple of middle-aged businessmen were trying and failing to pry the doors open. A woman pulled a small hammer from her purse and started trying to bash out the window.

The portly engineer listened again to the passenger who was repeating