Chapter 9

Today, she wore another pink flannel shirt and avoided using Noah's Cleveland Fire shirts. No reason to muddy the waters when everybody thought she was married to Hank.

They woke up together and got dressed with a couple kisses, but no morning stress relief. The sun was up, and the cocoon was gone.

Leaving Hank to work on the Pile, she returned to St. Paul's and helped serve lunch, as an impromptu meal service was slowly emerging. The plan was to have a working hot meal kitchen by the weekend. There were other tent refreshment stations set up but none closer than St. Paul’s. Protein bars and something called New York Egg Creams were very popular, though it was milk, seltzer, and chocolate syrup without eggs or cream.

A Red Cross volunteer stopped by and asked for a hand at delivering water bottles to workers on the Pile. Even though Hank and the firefighters had warned her not to venture to the Pile, the discussion had explicitly been about night. Nothing about being forbidden during the day.

Bethany from Harlem gave Abby a Red Cross vest and temporary ID tag. She checked Abby’s mask and hair, her own braids secured by a scarf. Like Abby, she too had a respirator, a disposable one. Abby re-affixed hers without asking for instructions. The men were more flexible about using them, but they’d give women hell about not having theirs on.

They climbed into a small gator-ATV with a load of two hundred water bottles. As they drove, Abby finally saw the Pile, which she had only glimpsed in shadows last evening.

She couldn't find the words to describe the blocks of destruction. It wasn’t an octopus; that implied it had a shape. Neither gelatinous or solid, it was a mass of pointy and dull edges like someone had dropped an Escher painting in a blender.

Her brain kept trying to reject what it saw. Even the air she breathed took on an even more acid quality, though the respiratory was doing its job.

They parked, and the Escher painting was moving because there were hundreds of people on top of it. Squads of firefighters armed with hoses and fire extinguishers put out spot fires that intermittently flared. Heavy equipment operators with cranes tried to shift partially buried firetrucks out of the heap of steel. They had help from construction workers with blowtorches of large and small varieties cutting through beams.

By far, the most active groups were the bucket brigades. Five or six men stood on the Pile, filling five gallon buckets by hand. When full, the buckets were passed man by man to the back and then a second line carried the empties to the front again. They continued their cyclical journey, moving two 110 story buildings five gallons at a time.

Courtesy of a talkative chaplain she’d met last night, she knew what the sorting area was for. The buckets were dumped out to be examined for human remains. A chaplain stood by each sorting site to bless anything that had been human before collection. Remains were then moved to the Burger King freezer next to the Brooks Brothers store before being transported to the DMORT team.

Hundreds and thousands of people, all moving parts. Her supply of two hundred water bottles seemed like nothing.

Tears sprang to her eyes; it was overwhelming. Never had she felt more helpless. New York, the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania. Had the world ended and she hadn't noticed? Not only would she likely never find Noah, did it matter if she did?

"Come on," Bethany said. "Start at the back of the line and work toward the Pile."

"Wait until they stop?" Abby asked.

“They never stop, Pink Lady,” Bethany said.

“It never stops?”

“No. They won't quit. They keep going. After a while at the front of the line, they rotate to the back, and it’s our best chance to get them to re-hydrate.”

Abby brushed away that tear forming on her cheek with a dusty hand. “Never quit?”

“This is New York; this is my fucking city. My city doesn’t quit. America doesn’t quit.” Bethany jerked her head at the firefighters. “They didn’t quit when they went up the stairs. The rest of them won’t quit now. No fucking quitting.”

“No quitting,” Abby agreed.

“Also, no punching or screaming, Pink Lady. The FBI has sharpshooters posted on the buildings on the perimeter.”

On cue, a set of fighter planes jetted over the area. Abby had heard the noise before but hadn’t put two and two together to remember the military was patrolling the skies.

They made three runs to distribute food and water to the workers. One the second trip, Abby taped her ‘Free Hugs’ sign on her vest above the Red Cross. The chaplains were particularly happy to have someone else to give out the hugs since they were hugged out. They took turns blessing everyone in the line and often offered similar comfort. The firefighters tended to be less careful with the men than they were with ‘the Pink Lady.’

She returned to St. Paul's before lunch to start handing out boxes of food. Hank returned looking like a chimney sweep. Ironworkers who were willing to climb into the voids must have been in short supply. The North Dakota guys stopped by. They were working the Pile today but were assigned to sort debris tomorrow in New Jersey at the Fresh Kills landfill.

Who came up with that name?

Abby played Twenty Questions over lunch. Invariably, three-quarters of them selected saber-tooth tiger. The game often devolved into a discussion of whom each man was hunting for. There were missing neighbors, coworkers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, and everyone in between. More than one firefighter unburdened himself that there were entire companies missing. They’d lost the Fire Chief, the Fire Marshall, the Fire Commissioner, and the heads of the Port Authority Police Department.

Once or twice an hour, she’d have to take someone out of the sanctuary to give them privacy to cry on her shoulder. Everyone was focused on being strong; she’d have to pretend to need help ‘carrying something’ from another room. The rescuers needed rescuing too.

Afterward, they’d wipe off their tears and thank the ‘Pink Lady’ for helping them. If it happened during one of Hank’s visits, he’d accept their thanks with a smile. Though usually it was a smile with his eyes because he never removed his mask except to eat.

When he did come by to eat, he removed the mask and practically pressured washed his face. For good measure, he gave her a very thorough and theatrical kiss to the tune of wolf-whistles from the other volunteers. He had no problem leaning her over his arm and reenacting a scene from Titanic.

While Abby should have picked a movie with a more upbeat tone, their audience appreciated it. It was a rare moment for everyone to pretend they were in a rom-com set against the relentlessly grim scenery.

Further excitement came in the late afternoon. Everyone was invited to the Pile because the President had arrived. He climbed up on the Pile with some of the firefighters and a bullhorn. Somehow, Hank was beside her with his hand in hers.

“I want you all to know that America today is on bended knee, in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. The nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.”

Someone shouted, “I can’t hear you!”

“I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people—and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. The nation sends its love and compassion to everybody who is here. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for making the nation proud, and may God bless America.”

When he was finished, there was not a dry eye among the chants of ‘USA! USA!’ Or at least Abby thought so. It was yet another chaotic event in the insanity of these past three days. There was a small lightening in her chest. Everything that could be done, was being done.

What would be, would be. She would find Noah, and he would think it was hilarious. Her drive to New York fearing the worst was ridiculous.

The crowd dissipated, and Hank told her not to return to the Pile, promising to see her soon. Returning to St. Paul’s, she added new notes to her list of possible places that Noah could be working. Missing persons papers now covered the sides of every building, and there was a place where they were reporting the missing at the 69^th armory on Lexington Ave.

She called home again, and her dad answered. He told her Noah was inside playing chess and hung up on her. Abby wished Mom had answered, but it was unlikely she would have been more help. Her calls to the day nurse confirmed that Noah wasn't playing chess, at the movies, or watching Star Trek. They had taken Mom to the neurologist while Vicky stayed home with Dad.

Her phone calls to the cell phones of the Cleveland firefighters went unanswered. McClunis confirmed they did arrive in New York by Tuesday night, but she hadn’t heard from them since.

The night shift began to arrive around 9:00 pm, but there was a long overlap. The day shift kept stretching out its time, even though the goal was twelve-hour days. Everyone wanted to believe the next bucket would lead to a friend or family member.

She understood because she did the same thing. The next face could be Noah’s or whoever the heck Wills was. Not many guys had Afros, which gave her better chances of finding him before Noah.

This time, on their walk to Tribeca after ten, Abby found a ‘not supposed to be open’ drug store to buy condoms. The first one was put to good use in the shower as Abby gave Hank the blowjob she’d promised. He returned the favor by cutting a condom into a dental dam and proving he had a talented tongue when he went down on her. They finished the night with a similar not-sex bump and grind session as the night before but with the condom and the top sheet separating their waists instead of Hank's jeans.