Five Years Ago

As I was preparing to eat my lunch, my coworker asked, "What do you have there?" I replied, "Steak sub from Subway." As this is not my usual sub (we've all worked together for far too long), she said, "Oh - that's different!"

I had to think back. When was the last time I'd eaten this sub? Then I remembered. 4 years, 361 days ago. She was surprised at my memory. I had to tell her I remember this so vividly because it was the Friday after the towers went down. My mom & I were on our way home to Ohio after being stranded in the Bahamas in those ominous days following Sept. 11, 2001.

We had landed on Grand Bahama Island on Sept 10. It was the first time (and the last) the husband & I had spent time apart, but, no big deal - 4 days away with my mom. How much trouble could I possibly get into? Well, aside from the normal stuff. We were late getting in on Monday night due to our flight being delayed so we wandered to a local restaurant, dined on conch fritters & beer, and headed back to the room to rest our heads in preparation for the adventures of the next few days.

Tuesday morning found us up bright & early, shining faces beaming at the tour desk clerk. We asked what tours might be available that day, she looked suspiciously at us & said, "Have you heard about the World Trade Center?" We glanced at each other, confused. The Trade Center thing had happened several years before - what was she talking about? She caught this baffled exchange & pointed in the direction of the bar. We turned to follow her gesture & saw a cluster of people standing around the ornate wooden counter, all gazes fixed on the tv sets above the bartender, who was also focused on the scene taking place on the screen above him as he dried glasses. Funny how you remember these small details, isn't it?

We saw the flaming hole in the tower, blinked disbelievingly, and, like a couple of people in a trance, we walked towards the bar, never once taking our eyes off the TV sets that broadcasted three separate channels, all the same footage. Then, BAM! The next plane hit. People gasped, shook their heads, a couple of the women started crying. I took a seat next to a Brazilian construction worker who was glad to have someone to talk to. "I should've never left my wife & baby daughter! The world is going crazy. I shouldn't be here. I should be home! But the money is too good - and now you see where I'm at." I nodded, still staring at the screen. The rest of his chatting is forgotten, but the faces of all those people isn't. We watched until we could watch no more, then, suitably dumbfounded, all smiles wiped clean from our faces, we wandered out around the pool, taking in the small lizards sunning themselves, a beautiful woman who was unaffected by the world around her & was applying sunscreen, and the ornate landscaping. We decided to make the most of it - after all, what else were we to do?

Everywhere we went, the usually boisterous & somewhat pushy Bahamians were quiet. They still offered hair-braiding, timeshares & so on, but I could tell they weren't going to push the issue. And, to each one that received our glazed stare & polite, "No thank you", they said, "I'm sorry for your country." It was a eerie feeling indeed.

Mom & I did have fun, as much fun as could be had in those strange days afterwards. I finally managed to push my way to a pay phone to call a very worried Scott to tell him we were safe & just waiting it out. He reported that it was very weird back home - there were no planes in the sky, no accustomed jet noise over our small house.

On Thursday we were scheduled to come home. Of course, the planes still weren't flying. I wasn't having any part of it & we decided to get off the island by any means possible. Thursday morning found us petting dolphins, the afternoon found me sitting on the bed in the hotel room making frantic calls to local travel agents. The shabby old cruise ship Discovery was scheduled to depart from Freeport at 3:15 that afternoon to arrive in Ft. Lauderdale. It was our only chance.

We hurriedly slammed all of our belongings into our bags & fled to the hotel desk to check out. At the curb we found a smiling cabbie who, upon me telling him our plan, glanced at his watch, tossed us & our luggage into the car, and said, "Hang on. We can make it." It was 3 o'clock. That man drove like a bat out of hell, but, true to his word, we were there in a matter of minutes, checking in at the pier, sweating & pink. He got a nice tip that day!

Upon boarding the ship, we stowed our couple bags in a locker & started exploring. This was a great adventure despite the circumstances that brought us there. The ship was packed with all manner of travelers, all of the same mind as us. "Just get us back to the U.S." The crew looked very alarmed at the scores of sad-faced Americans making their way onto the crowded ship, and they hustled to get us all accomodated in the dining room. I imagine they'd probably violated every fire code, but when faced with a fire marshal or an angry, hungry horde, they must've decided the authorities were the least of their worries & pushed more & more tables & chairs into the cafeteria. We were slightly concerned about the glutinous fare on the buffet, but ate it anyways. We sat at a table with a young black couple from California who were, no pun intended, in the same boat we were. We still wonder how they're trip home went - they had a lot further to go than we did.

On board the ship, the crew was trying to make it business as usual. "Keep them entertained." A handsome dark-skinned magician did all he could to make his audience of disheveled, grieving passengers smile, and sometimes it worked, but for the most part it looked like a refugee camp. Red-eyed women curled under their jackets, heads pillowed on their men's shoulders. The men didn't look much better - baggy-eyed, staring straight ahead, but staunch for their women. I often wish I would've taken more photos of this strange, depressing sight in the most incongruous of places, but at the time it seemed in bad taste.

At 11 or so we arrived into the port at Fort Lauderdale. The Coast Guard held us up for 3 or 4 hours until they had thoroughly inspected everything about the ship, apparently. Mom was dragging, tired, unhappy. I did the best I could to keep her entertained while somehow managing to keep a limb on every piece of our luggage, making comments on people passing, telling funny anecdotes, just saying stupid, profane things - anything to keep her awake & pushing onward & good-humored. At 3 we disembarked. Getting off that ship & onto solid U.S. ground was a fantastic feeling. I might've even done the stereotypical thing of kissing the filthy ground.

From there, we didn't know what we were going to do, but we were prepared to do it & we knew it involved a car. Scott & his dad had offered to make the long drive down to retrieve us, but no point in that - we'd have to wait for them & that was out of the question.

There were still a couple of cars available as advertised in the windows of the shuttles circling the lot, so we boarded one & stood in line at the rental agency for another long, agonizing hour. At 4:30 in the morning, we had our car - a hulking maroon Chrysler. Now. I'm not a Chrysler sort of gal, but I was more than happy to see that big capable car on the lot. We loaded the bags in the trunk & I took the wheel.

We pulled out of the lot & opened up the big car on I-95 up the coast to Jacksonville. Hurricane weather was the forecast for the day, tornadoes had been spotted in such & such town. As we heard these words from the radio, I looked at the signs whizzing past our windows at 75 miles per hour & it just so happened that the such & such town was right to the east of us. Mom craned her head out the window, looking for tornadoes & urged me to drive! Drive!

Here's where I must break to tell the Sandal Story. On the day of swimming with the dolphins, Mom saw fit to wear her little leather sandals into the water after seeing me wearing my Tevas. The sandals festered on her feet for the next 18 or so hours. We were on our way, flying up the coast, sealed in our new-car smelling vault, when suddenly I caught a whiff. I didn't know what it was at first - was it rotten ass? Did something die in the back seat? Mom caught my wrinkled nose & tentative sniffs & started giggling. I didn't realize my dainty, prim mother was capable of generating such a stench, but, she most certainly is. I exited at the first rest area - "You gotta take those off." Giddy from lack of sleep, we were both hooting with laughter as Mom tried to wash her feet in the rest area sink & then attempted to dry them under the hand drying machines. We tottered back to the car & the shoes went into the trunk.

Okay. A day later because I had to cut it short last night at closing time.

We managed to avoid the nasty weather, the big car hurtling steadily along the highway, my hands relaxed on the wheel, water spraying out from under the tires. We were nearly alone on the highway during those early hours, but as the morning grew brighter, we were joined by more & more vehicles, on their way to work, to school, to whereever. We made it to Jacksonville. I had called my office before we hit the city & had the boss arrange for a one-way car rental from a Jacksonville rental agency. I was very sad to see the Chrysler go - its comfort & supreme roadworthiness would be missed on the long drive through the south.

In Jacksonville we made it to the airport & then to the National rental counter. We were handed the keys to a small, tan Olds Alero. I was amused to see that the car had come from Cincinnati, exactly where we planned to drop it off. Apparently some other displaced folks were heading in the opposite direction we were. We transferred our bags & those stinking sandals to the trunk of the new ride & we were off again.

Route 10 had us cut west, passing by the Osceola National Forest before meeting up with I-75, one of those arteries of America that would carry us all the way to Cincinnati, and then, almost, home. We passed thru Valdosta, past roadside stands boasting fresh peaches & fresh peanuts. Somewhere between here & Atlanta is where we stopped at the convenience center offering the Subway as well as dried gator heads, rubber snakes, snowglobes, cigarettes & nearly anything else a traveler might not need.

On into the hustle of Atlanta. The traffic was unbelievable. I zoomed the little car in & out, causing Mom to clench her seat in terror sometimes, but driving is one of the few things I do that I do well. As we went under overpasses, we could see people standing on top, waving banners of patriotism & support. We waved back, honked a few times. We felt like we were part of something, but we didn't know what.

As evening set in & the sky began darkening, Mom put her foot down. "We HAVE to sleep. You can't keep going on like this." I really thought I could, but the thought of a bed with cool sheets & a hot shower swayed my stubborn mind & I aquiesced. We made it into Sweetwater, Tennessee & found some roadside motel with a Denny's attached to it. The sandals were set outside to air, we grabbed only what we needed to clean ourselves & change, showered, and were out before our heads hit the pillow.

The next morning we were both up bright & early. Packed the car up, grabbed breakfast at Denny's, started rolling again. I was buzzed, alive. I knew home and husband was less than a day's drive and I was chomping at the bit to get there. Mom expressed some alarm at my speed, but gave up trying to slow me down and hunkered in for the ride.

At 1 o'clock, we arrived at the Cincinnati airport. I was absolutely overjoyed to see the Mom's familiar minivan but also sad to see the Alero go. The little car had swiftly and surely carried us north. I patted its hood & promised to be nicer to domestic cars in the future.

In the van, the barest taint of sandal odor could be detected in the front. I didn't care, I was less than 2 hours from home & we could've been carrying a load of rotten meat for all I cared. Mom was much less willing to speed than I was, but, she was now the pilot and all I could do was quiver and twitch from excitement.

Exactly 48 hours after we fled our room in the Bahamas, I was standing in my driveway with my sweet, delighted husband waving bye to Mom as she went to her own, probably not as happy, homecoming. Less than a half hour later, I was curled on the sofa with Scott's arms wrapped around me, murmuring about the past few days. It never ceases to amaze me how a trip like that suddenly becomes unreal, like it didn't happen, when you reach the safe clutch of your home. Maybe it's not like that for everyone, but for me, the whole journey became a strange memory nearly the moment I stepped through the door.

My own 9/11 experience was no where near as tragic as other's, but we learned something on that trip. We learned we could do whatever it takes, put up with whatever we had to, to do what we needed to do. Both Mom & I changed when we boarded that ship & looked around at all those forlorn faces, faces that might've lost friends and family, when we sat in the holding area waiting to disembark and witnessed the growing ugliness of desperate, grieving people, when we flew under those overpasses full of flag-waving patriots. All of those things, and more, had an effect on how we approach life and stressful situations. Not to say I don't fling the occasional pot of meat every once in a while, but, when it comes down to it, panic is put aside & the stern mental navigator takes over.

And back to the partial inspiration of this whole thing, the Subway steak sandwich. After eating some of it, I realized just why it had been nearly five years since I'd eaten one.

It's not a good sandwich.

And you know what else? Mom still has those damned malodorous sandals, percolating in the corner of her closet. She just won't get rid of them! She said they're a reminder of the whole experience. Fair enough. I think I'll settle for what I carry in my heart & head.