My 9/11 Story

By nightfall on this tragic day, still in shock, confused and having an intense need of being with fellow New Yorkers, I was drawn to my local bar, The Right Bank (a waterfront bar on the East River just south of the Williamsburg Bridge)not knowing if it were even open. It was open and filled beyond any event I’ve witnessed there. Mostly everyone was blankly staring into space or at the TV( which constantly replayed the horrible images captured earlier that day.) Barely audible were the few conversations going on in corners of the room before me as I stood silently in the door taking it in. Here was my extended family at their most vulnerable, all of us smacked into a state of mutual confusion and grief. The bars owner, an ex-fireman, paced around nervously, torn between his role as host and his attention to the television. The outside courtyard, from which one could painfully see downtown Manhattan with it's freshly punched out front teeth, was also filled to capacity with shell-shocked patrons. All these faces, familiar to me at various degrees of intimacy, shared an expression of loss and uncertainty here at what was to become the beginning of a new era in America.