We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer (3 page)

Pasquale hurried down the stairs and out the door. He slung his briefcase over his back by its long strap as he made his way to the driveway and his car.

River Vale was a town of pretty homes and tall trees and grass, and it was particularly lovely that fine morning. At the train station in Westwood, he parked his car. As expected, he’d missed the express train into Manhattan.

There were a few other men on the platform with him. They nodded. “Some damn game,” one said and shook his head.

Pasquale agreed. He’d stayed up late watching the Giants play the Broncos—a heartbreaking pigskin defeat for New York.

The man folded his morning paper into the traditional commuter’s fold and began to read.

The next train got Pasquale into Hoboken at 8:22 a.m. From there, it was less than twenty minutes by the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train to the World Trade Center. He arrived there at 8:40, joining the masses of people heading to work. Much to his surprise, he would be on time, as long as he hurried a little. All that hesitation at home hadn’t put him off as much as he’d thought.

He entered through the northeast corner of the North Tower, One World Trade Center, and took the elevator up to the forty-fourth floor.

At the second elevator, which would take him to his office on the sixty-fourth floor, he met Bill, a man he ran into often, waiting for the same elevator. “Good morning,” Pasquale said and nodded to the middle-aged man, offering a usual New Yorker greeting—friendly, but not requiring too much conversation.

Bill returned the greeting and gave a nod.

When the elevator arrived, Pasquale got in behind him, and they turned to face the doors, ready to ride up on a day like any other. But then the elevator gave a violent shake…and began to drop. Everything was chaos for a moment before the elevator caught itself and was stable once more.

“What the hell?” Bill said, looking at Pasquale as if hoping that he would have the answer.

“I don’t know. Must have been some kind of mechanical failure,” Pasquale replied with a shrug. However, when the doors opened, he knew it had to be something else.

The elevators in the building were set to drop down to the lowest floor in the event of an emergency. In this case, the doors opened on the forty-fourth floor, which was in a state of complete mayhem.

Pasquale’s jaw dropped at the sight before him. He could see nothing but dark, heavy smoke. The lobby was filled with it.

“What the hell is going on?” he heard someone screaming in terror.

Maybe we should just get back in the elevator and get the hell off of this floor. We can’t even see to get off the elevator. What if a bomb went off or there was an explosion?

The elevator was lit and working properly, and though neither spoke a word, Bill and Pasquale decided to get back on it and go on to the sixty-fourth floor, where the command center and Pasquale’s office were located.
Maybe we can get some answers about what the hell is going on up there…

When they got to the sixty-fourth floor, Pasquale saw Pat Hoey, Executive Manager of Tunnels, Bridges, and Terminals, in his office talking with Steve Fiorelli, a structural engineer. Lisa Trerotola, Franco Lalama, and others were standing silent outside of the office. “Do you know what happened, Pat?” Pasquale asked.

“I don’t know, but I was thrown out of my chair!”

“Wow!” Pasquale said, stunned. “I am going to go call Louise. She might know what is going on.”
Plus, I don’t want her turning on the TV or getting a call from someone asking her if she knows something without hearing from me first. She hasn’t been sleeping, and this pregnancy has been so rough on her. I don’t want her being nervous on my account. Or worse, I don’t want it to cause harm to her or the baby…

CHAPTER TWO

There Was No Time…

“I had this fairytale picture of my family in my head. The only thing was, I never knew if it really existed.

You
[Pasquale]
have made my fairytale into reality…but only so much more. You are more than I ever imagined, and I only wish that God gives us eternity to share a life together. Now we will have Hope in our lives. I love you from within my soul.”

~Louise Buzzelli

(in a letter to Pasquale, August 17, 2001)

The sound in Louise’s head wasn’t real.
A ringing phone? Not this early.
She’d been up half the night after so many nights of the same—awake and reading, pacing the floor, trying not to disturb Pasquale, who had to get up early. Being seven and a half months pregnant and constantly uncomfortable meant any extra hours of sleep she could grab were precious.
Maybe if I ignore it,
she thought,
whoever is on the other end will give up.

But the old-fashioned black bedroom phone rang on.

It can’t be Pasquale calling…not yet.
He’d kissed her goodbye on his way out to work.
It would have been nice,
she thought as she yawned,
if he’d have taken the day off,
but she knew he couldn’t. His job as a project manager with the Port Authority was too important to him.

She put a hand down to touch Brittany, who loved to crawl into bed with her and take Pasquale’s warm spot after he got up in the morning. The terrier stretched, opened one eye, pawed the air, and went back to sleep.

The phone was insistent. It wouldn’t stop ringing just because she’d desperately willed it to.

Louise reached across the bed, almost knocking the phone from the nightstand. It was so hard to move quickly with her big belly getting in the way. “Hello?” She tried to sound awake and alert, but she knew she only sounded tired.
Maybe,
she hoped,
the conversation will be short so I can go back to sleep. I’m still so tired.

“Louise, it’s me.”

Pasquale? Oh, Pasquale—but not this early. Didn’t he just get to work?

“Louise, please don’t be alarmed. Something’s happened to my building…”

Oh no!
Louise shifted her body, then sat upright at the side of the bed.
Not again
. He’d been at the Twin Towers in 1993 when it was bombed.
Not again! People from everywhere in the world worked there together, shared the space, got along. Why?
She heard herself make a sound. She tried for a word, anything to choke out. She needed to reassure Pasquale, who was trying to reassure her.
But wait. At least he’s talking. He’s on the phone. He’s all right.
At least she could breathe.

“Can you turn on the television and tell me if you see anything?” he asked calmly.

For a few seconds, Louise stood still, concentrating on breathing, one hand going to her abdomen. She needed to be calm for Hope. She walked over to the bedroom TV. When she turned it on, there was no channel-flipping required to search for what Pasquale was looking for. There it was: the dual buildings outlined against an immaculate blue sky, with black smoke pouring almost sideways from one of the Towers, the Tower with the antenna on top, the Tower where Pasquale worked. She ran back to the phone. “Pasquale, your building is on fire! What are you doing? GET OUT OF THERE!” she demanded, unable to control herself.

A newscaster’s voice came through the fog of fear she felt: “A plane has hit the World Trade Center…” was all she heard.

“They’re saying a plane hit your building! I-I don’t—”

“Okay. I’m okay. My floor is fine. We’re all okay. Can you tell me where it hit? Low? Middle? High?”

“Looks pretty high, up close to the top.”

“I’m on the sixty-fourth floor. We’re all right.” He must have turned away from the phone, because she heard him calling to people behind him, “My wife says a plane hit our building!” There was disbelief in his voice, a kind of confused bemusement.

Louise waited, breathing hard, and shock beginning to sweep over her.
Calm…calm—for Pasquale, for Hope. He’s on the phone. He’s all right. Now he’ll get out of there and call me from the street…

“Don’t worry, Louise. We’re leaving as soon as we get the word.”

“Don’t stay on the phone with me. Please, Pasquale, get out! GET OUT OF THAT BUILDING!” She watched what he couldn’t see: the blue sky streaked with awful black smoke. People had already died.
There’s no time! Oh please…

Pasquale was gone; his wife was relieved, yet afraid.
Maybe he needs my help. Maybe there’s someone I can call…

A crucifix hung on the far wall. Dear Aunt Anna, a Eucharistic minister, had given it to them as a wedding shower present. Drawn to its simplicity, Louise took down the cross, studied it, and then clutched it close to her chest. If ever she’d needed God, needed her religion, this was the time.
Maybe
, she thought,
Aunt Anna has an in with Him. Maybe Aunt Anna and her God will save my Pasquale. Maybe if I just hold on to this cross and pray as hard as I can…

CHAPTER THREE

A Hole in the Heart of New York

“Every leader and every regime and every movement and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civilized human life.”

~ Alan Keyes

(April 21, 2002)

Pasquale held tightly to the phone.
A plane? Maybe it was a small, single-engine plane. The pilot must have been disoriented—poor guy. They’ll let us out of here soon.

Around him, people stood in groups, talking. The faces he saw were stamped with the questions that were rolling around his own mind, the feelings he felt:
Should we get out of here? Should we wait?
There were no instructions covering what they should do in the event of another attack. No one knew what to do, so they all stood looking—one to the other.

“…pretty high, up close to the top,” Louise had said.
Above us then
. He shook his head. The one thing Pasquale Buzzelli couldn’t do was nothing; he couldn’t just stand still and wait...

“A plane?” someone asked when he joined his fellow workers, milling around outside the gray cubicles.

“That was what my wife said. I guess we wait—”

“But smoke’s getting in here.” One of the men pointed toward where small gray-black wisps were leaking in under the doors leading to the core of the building, to the elevators and stairwell.

“Come on!” a man yelled and took off his coat.

Pasquale followed, hurrying to the closest break room that had a sink, and they began wetting down their coats, towels, and any fabric thing they could find. Pasquale pushed some sopping towels into the opening at the bottom of the door. “We need masking tape!” he called to no one, then ran back to his office for the tape he knew was in his left-hand drawer.

“Pasquale!” Pat Hoey stood in the doorway, leaning toward him. “Something has to be open on the other side of the floor. Smoke’s getting in.”

Pasquale nodded and ran after him. They walked around the entire floor, checking each entrance door one by one. On the opposite side of the building, the south entrance, a door stood ajar; smoke filling the opening and beyond. They made an excellent team: Pat covered his mouth and nose and pushed the door shut, and Pasquale taped it closed. They looked behind them. The gray cubicles and the aisles between them had slightly filled with smoke now, and Pasquale could feel the ashy smog going down into his lungs with every breath. Luckily it was contained on the south side and did not find its way to the northwest corner of the building where the rest of the group had gathered.

Pasquale had to find a way to look out. He felt trapped, sixty-four floors above ground, as if they were suspended in space, far away from all that was happening beneath them. He needed to see, so he hurried to the southeast corner and looked out the wall of narrow windows. From there, he could see New York City.

But from those windows, Pasquale did not see what he wanted to see—not at all the city he knew. Across from where he stood, small fires burned on rooftops. Fiery debris fell from the top of his building: hot ash, pieces of the building, and paper—so much paper.
It’s…there’s an inferno out there. Maybe it’s better to stay where we are. Maybe this is the safest place…or maybe not.

All he could think to do was call Louise again.
Surely she’s watching the news. This must be on every channel. She’ll know what’s happening.

He hurried back to his own office and found the phone ringing. “Louise?” He was sure it’d be Louise, worried, and he knew it was his job to protect her still, to assure her of his safety.
Any minute now the word will come for all of us to leave. I’ll tell her that.

But it was not Louise. It was Maria, the worried wife of Pasquale’s friend, Joe Calautti. “Pasquale,” she said, “I can’t get a hold of Joe. Did you have coffee with him this morning? I know you two usually—”

“I haven’t seen him, Maria. I was late getting here, and—”

“Oh my God! Where is he? Did you know another plane hit? It flew right into Building Two. Two planes, Pasquale! I don’t understand…”