Reluctant Hero: A 9/11 Survivor Speaks Out About That Unthinkable Day, What He's Learned, How He's Struggled, and What No One Should Ever Forget by Michael Benfante
Authors: Michael Benfante
Tags: United States, Historical, History, Politics & Social Sciences, Biographies & Memoirs, State & Local, Terrorism, 21st Century, Memoirs, Politics & Government, Specific Topics, Americas, Mid-Atlantic
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“Michael?” I heard a tinge of desperation and relief in his voice.
“Anj, it’s me.”
“Michael, are you OK?”
I could hear him, but he couldn’t hear me too well.
“Michael,” he spoke slowly and deliberately. “ ARE YOU OK ?”
“ I’M FINE .”
I faintly heard a cheer in the background. Then it hit me. I was overcome with emotion. I did everything I could to hold back from pouring my emotions out all over the sanitation office floor. If I kept the conversation going, I would lose it.
“Anj, I’m fine. I’ll call you right back.”
The last time my family heard from me was when I called my dad from the 55th floor at approximately 9:15 a.m. I told him then I’d call when I got out. In the meantime, they saw both towers go down. They couldn’t get in touch because cell phones didn’t have signals. My tower, the North Tower, went down at 10:28 a.m., and I did not call them until about forty minutes later. God knows what they went through. Forty minutes became an eternity.
But what’s forty minutes? So many people did not know the fate of their loved ones for hours, days. And today, for many— far too many—there’s still no word, no finality, just speculation, absence, and utter loss.
It was around 11:15 a.m. when I hung up with my brother.
I called Joy next; I got through. “Hey sweets” was all we got out before the phone went dead. But she got it. She knew I was OK. And I knew that the most important people in my life knew I was OK.
No sooner had we walked out the door of the sanitation building than we saw a mob of people running toward us up the West Side Highway. Emergency vehicles, fire trucks, a policecar zoomed north, racing past us. The chaos was back. Like a conditioned reflex, we started running. That was hard for John because he had injured his ankle earlier. This is crazy! When is it going to stop? Exasperated, I yelled to whoever was listening: “What the hell’s going on?” Someone shouted back that a gas leak was going to explode any minute. John said, “Mike, I can’t run anymore.”
“Enough!” I said. We got off the West Side Highway and started weaving our way in, toward the city’s interior. At Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, we saw people huddled outside a storefront window watching TV like people did when Neal Armstrong landed on the moon. We stopped to watch some of it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I saw was a huge airliner flying into the World Trade Center.
It had to be a movie clip. I still wasn’t completely buying everything I was hearing: terrorist attacks, the Pentagon, planes still out there.
Cell phone service came back. Joy and I traded phone calls as I slowly progressed north. I didn’t want to talk on the phone for long because there was too much going on. I had to keep moving. I told her I would find her later uptown. She had gone from Atlantic Records to her friend Robert Finkman’s place on the Upper East Side at 81st and 2nd avenues.
Then Boozer called. He said to come to his office, his exterminating business on 30th and Broadway. That was my next stop.
John and I continued up to 14th Street, moving east between 9th and 8th avenues, where we came upon an old but regal brown brick church, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Bernard. “Do you want to go in, Mike?” John said. I nodded in assent. John and I walked up the steps slowly. There were some people sitting on them. They were praying for their friends. Like so many others we’d passed on our walk so far, they could tell bylooking at us where we’d been. “You were there,” someone in a red T-shirt said. We told them we were in Tower 1.
“We’re worried about our buddies. We are trying to figure out if they are OK.”’
“Where were they?” I asked
“They were in the North Tower too.”
“What company did they work for?”
“Cantor Fitzgerald.”
“What floor is that?”
They said 100th or 101st.
I searched for something to say, but
“Michael?” I heard a tinge of desperation and relief in his voice.
“Anj, it’s me.”
“Michael, are you OK?”
I could hear him, but he couldn’t hear me too well.
“Michael,” he spoke slowly and deliberately. “ ARE YOU OK ?”
“ I’M FINE .”
I faintly heard a cheer in the background. Then it hit me. I was overcome with emotion. I did everything I could to hold back from pouring my emotions out all over the sanitation office floor. If I kept the conversation going, I would lose it.
“Anj, I’m fine. I’ll call you right back.”
The last time my family heard from me was when I called my dad from the 55th floor at approximately 9:15 a.m. I told him then I’d call when I got out. In the meantime, they saw both towers go down. They couldn’t get in touch because cell phones didn’t have signals. My tower, the North Tower, went down at 10:28 a.m., and I did not call them until about forty minutes later. God knows what they went through. Forty minutes became an eternity.
But what’s forty minutes? So many people did not know the fate of their loved ones for hours, days. And today, for many— far too many—there’s still no word, no finality, just speculation, absence, and utter loss.
It was around 11:15 a.m. when I hung up with my brother.
I called Joy next; I got through. “Hey sweets” was all we got out before the phone went dead. But she got it. She knew I was OK. And I knew that the most important people in my life knew I was OK.
No sooner had we walked out the door of the sanitation building than we saw a mob of people running toward us up the West Side Highway. Emergency vehicles, fire trucks, a policecar zoomed north, racing past us. The chaos was back. Like a conditioned reflex, we started running. That was hard for John because he had injured his ankle earlier. This is crazy! When is it going to stop? Exasperated, I yelled to whoever was listening: “What the hell’s going on?” Someone shouted back that a gas leak was going to explode any minute. John said, “Mike, I can’t run anymore.”
“Enough!” I said. We got off the West Side Highway and started weaving our way in, toward the city’s interior. At Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, we saw people huddled outside a storefront window watching TV like people did when Neal Armstrong landed on the moon. We stopped to watch some of it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I saw was a huge airliner flying into the World Trade Center.
It had to be a movie clip. I still wasn’t completely buying everything I was hearing: terrorist attacks, the Pentagon, planes still out there.
Cell phone service came back. Joy and I traded phone calls as I slowly progressed north. I didn’t want to talk on the phone for long because there was too much going on. I had to keep moving. I told her I would find her later uptown. She had gone from Atlantic Records to her friend Robert Finkman’s place on the Upper East Side at 81st and 2nd avenues.
Then Boozer called. He said to come to his office, his exterminating business on 30th and Broadway. That was my next stop.
John and I continued up to 14th Street, moving east between 9th and 8th avenues, where we came upon an old but regal brown brick church, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Bernard. “Do you want to go in, Mike?” John said. I nodded in assent. John and I walked up the steps slowly. There were some people sitting on them. They were praying for their friends. Like so many others we’d passed on our walk so far, they could tell bylooking at us where we’d been. “You were there,” someone in a red T-shirt said. We told them we were in Tower 1.
“We’re worried about our buddies. We are trying to figure out if they are OK.”’
“Where were they?” I asked
“They were in the North Tower too.”
“What company did they work for?”
“Cantor Fitzgerald.”
“What floor is that?”
They said 100th or 101st.
I searched for something to say, but
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