Wandering ‘unknown’ city
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, September 12, 2001
WASHINGTON — It took me so long to know of it. I sat at my desk, bent on a deadline, even as sirens screamed, even as our phone rang. Finally I heard my daughter’s quivering voice, calling from Utah, on the message machine downstairs. "Mom! Tell me if you guys are all right!"
I switched screens. Washingtonpost.com: "Both towers of World Trade Center have collapsed. Federal government buildings in Washington are being evacuated after apparent terrorist attack at Pentagon. All air traffic is grounded. An airliner has crashed in Pa."
Outside, the sky was a lovely blue. How could this horror come from such a sky? Walking toward the subway, heading downtown, the streets jammed with traffic leaving the city, sirens constant, a fleeting absurdity occurred to me: What if I got hungry downtown? Would my currency work? Somehow I seemed not to be in my own country.
Making my way toward the White House, four blocks out came the yellow crime tape blocking traffic. One more block and it crossed the sidewalk, too. Everywhere were uniforms: Secret Service in black vests, federal agents in white vests, D.C. police on horses, cops of every sort, some with huge guns pushed into the air. On streets empty of all but emergency vehicles, I stood reflexively awaiting a walk light. A woman was next to me. As a plane flew overhead, she flinched. "I guess ducking wouldn’t save you," she said.
Across the street, a man stared dumbly at newspaper vending boxes, as if looking in vain for some kind of explanation. "How can people in this city ever again feel … ," I heard one man say to another. "Last I heard they were guessing 10,000," a young woman told a companion. "Oh, yes, I’m fine, we evacuated and … ," a woman said into a cell phone. A British accent floated by: "I just want to ring my daughter. She’ll be frantic."
Then, amid sirens, the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church bells pealed the quarter hour. As if everything hadn’t changed. The few people still downtown looked out of place: Hotel cleaning ladies in their uniforms, in the middle of the day waiting for buses. Chefs in their toques. Suddenly, on a deserted Pennsylvania Avenue, emergency vehicles pulled up, took a twitching homeless man from a bench, put him in an ambulance. Remarkable that for so quotidian an emergency tragedy, the city still could spare some assistance.
Back on the subway, bound for Union Station, I opened the weekly — "The Washington Diplomat" — I’d picked up as I made my way past the fortified Israeli Embassy. Here were articles about terrorism, security — and from the British historian, Sir Michael Howard, this: "Most of the conflicts now and in the foreseeable future will not be between Goliath and Goliath but between Goliath and lots of little Davids whose little sharp stones from the brook may be more effective than the huge technological armor of great superpowers."
Police with dogs stood in the subway stations. A security alert, in red letters, said: "Pentagon Station and National Airport Station are closed." At Union Station, the great hall and shops, too, were closed, and most trains delayed or canceled. "Immediate departure, Gate K, all tickets to New York honored," said the loudspeaker. In an empty cookie stand, red lights glowed on the coffee makers, an alarm shrilled, a tray with burned crumbs sat atop the sales counter.
Before the great station’s facade, an Interior Department worker in a cherry picker lowered, one by one, the three flags on the towering poles with their glorious golden eagles on top. "Why are you doing that?" a homeless man asked, boozily. "A lot of people died, man," said the workman. "They don’t even know how many."
Over toward the Capitol, more yellow crime tape. On the lawn just north of it, signs read, "Crew Working in Trees." Limbs lay scattered here and there. Lamed and halted, like the city.
Across the street, our newest memorial commemorates the Japanese-Americans interned in World War II. "On February 19, 1942, 73 days after the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued executive order 9066 which resulted in the removal of 120,000 Japanese-American men, women and children from their homes," says a plaque. "Allowed only what they could carry, families were forced to abandon home, friends, farms and businesses to live guarded by armed troops and surrounded by barbed wire fences."
As I copied this, a police motorcycle paused on the empty street nearby, its engines gunning. What must he think, I wondered, patrolling so unknown a city, in such new and perilous times.
Security is so fragile. And so is liberty.
Geneva Overholser can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or overholserg@washpost.com.
