Sometimes the music really distracts me when I'm trying to dump core. But then, I like music.
So, the World Trade Center volunteering.
We had to be at the Red Cross in Brooklyn at 10:30 to start a midnight shift. We arrived and starting filing out forms while being told repeatedly to hurry up, that the bus was leaving soon. We finished the forms, and then were ushered into a room to be interviewed. They asked us about our feelings about the disaster, if we were directly affected, and what are reactions had been on the 11th. I guess some people just start crying when they bring it up, and they have to dismiss them. We passed though, and they sent us of, running, to get our ID badges.
They loaded us on to the bus and we headed for the site. On the way down, we got a quick and dirty orientation, including being explicity instructed not to give any workers or firemen "chinese pleasure massages", to wear hard hats at all times outside, and various other instructions. We also picked our assignments on the bus. The coordinator called out something like "Logistics!" or "Kitcken!" or "Oasis Room!" and then a number of people, and started taking called out names until the spots for that detail were filled. It was the kind of thing where you don't know what to volunteer for if you've never been before, as was the case for about half the bus load, because the next thing might be better. I ended up on the kitchen crew. We arrived down there right around midnight, at the Marriott Hotel about a block from "the pile".
The streets are covered with dust, debris on all the awnings, and the whole landscape is about as surreal as you can get. Bright lights shining on the pile, construction trailers everywhere, military personnel, cops, firemen, constructions workers. Huge trucks lined up waiting to be filled on one side, and full trucks leaving on the other, being sprayed with water to cool down the still smoldering wreckage. We didn't have much time to gawk though, we were ushered right into the hotel, and directly to the kitchen where we started serving food. The job consisted almost entirely of standing on a steam table line, serving up rice, chicken, veggies, etc. At about 4 a.m. we switched to breakfast. Somewhere in there I did a couple hours of dishes in the big hotel kitchen.
The hotel had been converted into a "respite center", of which the red cross is running three. It's a place that anyone working down there can go anytime they want and get a decent meal, sit and talk, get counseling, a massage, sleep. There are hundreds of volunteers at each one, and a steady stream of clean-up people 24 hours a day. They expect to be down there doing this for a year.
The response of the people was so varied. Some looked shell-shocked, didn't talk much, and just went silenty through the line, pointing to the food they wanted and going into the dining room to sit by themselves. Other were laughing and joking with their friends, and with us. We tried a little bit to entertain people, to show them a smile and a friendly word. We wore tall paper chef's hats, which got lots of grins. It's amazing to think of all these people going down there every day, or every night, and dealing with this. In some ways, working there inside the hotel, it's easy to forget what's going on, it's a job you're doing for 8 hours that night, and you just keep on shoveling sausage without a thought. But then every now and then someone comes in covered with dust, or with a look on their face that I've never seen before on anyone. Numbness, extreme exhaustion. Some of these guys looked like they were so young. Many of them are just telephone workers, or ConEd guys. They were never remotely prepared for this to be their job. The cops, the firemen, at least they're in the field. They expect to be in the middle of shit when it happens; but the utility workers, the construction workers, some of them just looked awful. It's almost impossible to know what to say or do. I just tried to smile at them and be very polite and respectful. Many of them were very grateful to us as well.
This is getting long.
The shift ended at 8 a.m. and our replacements came. We left to get on the bus and saw our surroundings by the light of day for the first time. We were very close to the pile, and the wrecked facade of one of the towers is still standing and was sillhouetted against the steel gray dawn sky. It was very striking and spooky. Everyone on the bus had their necks craned around looking at it until it was out of sight. There's no way to to really describe it; the whole place was a war zone. Everything has been changed to facilitate the clean up process, there's no sense that this area will be "normal" for many many months.
Managed about 3 hours of sleep Saturday morning before going out to the park to play volleyball. Those of us who had been at the site overnight weren't exactly playing our "A" game, but it was still lots of fun. A beautiful day, unseasonably warm, and we had a good group of people. Dave, Cass, and Erica even showed up. I had a couple of decent hits, my swing adjustments are working a little bit I think. I'll try some more tomorrow night at our game.
After volleyball we hopped the train down to Eric Dalessio's again. Tall Paul drove up, so this time we were only missing Thane. It was a bit more low-key than last time, as we were all pretty tired and Dave was sick. If Dave's sick, it's automatically a more low-key evening. Nate and Amanda came up too, though, so there was some good music going on (and some bad). Amanda was disappointed that her drinking buddy from last time wasn't there, but such is life. That's another blog, another time. I had a great time jamming a little with Eric and Nate, singing harmonies and playing some extended blues. I suck, but it's still fun.
Gotta cut this short... Stayed in Fanwood for most of the afternoon, playing football, eating and talking. Made it back to the city, went to Liz, Kris and Rich's and had some soup and watched a little baseball. There we go.
On the way home this evening, there was a guy on the subway dressed in a full tunic. I'm not sure if that's the right word. Whatever it's called, it's traditional Muslim clothing, and he had a little hat on, etc. In any case, he was obviously a devout Muslim. This is a weird story to tell, but it warrants telling I think. I didn't think anything at all of him at first, and never really did until I happened to glance his way and he was sort of reading a paper, but his eyes were darting all over the place. He couldn't keep his eyes on the paper for more than a few seconds. What struck me about the whole thing was how two sided it was. He was likely just a regular guy who's feeling very vulnerable these days. He probably gets comments, certainly suspicious looks, all the time.I mean, he basically was dressed in what has largely become thought of as "terrorist wear" by many people, subconsciously or not. But then the other side of it is, that when you see someone sitting darting their eyes around and looking very nervous, that only focuses your attention on any little ember of fear that might pop into your head. Any little paranoia on your part is quickly amplified by what is most likely also paranoia on his part. And vice-versa.
It was a strange thing to think about. I couldn't figure out if the thoughts I was having were indictable somehow as well. In some ways, the mere focus on the distinction between us is suspect. I don't know. How can you not notice differences? You can't. But where is the line drawn?
I'm 9 minutes past my deadline. Must sleep.
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