We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer (16 page)

“My God,” Pasquale uttered before he could stop the words from escaping his mouth.

“I know. I feel awful about it, but at least the bodies are pretty much intact.”

“Their families...Terry and Eileen…the kids…” Pasquale said, trying his best to keep his voice strong. “At least they can give them a proper burial.” Pasquale hung up with Nico and began to pray that Pat’s and Steve’s families would be able to find some peace now that they could say a proper goodbye.

As odd as it seemed, Pasquale was relieved for those families. He knew the what-ifs had to be worse than knowing. After his initial relief that the families had some sort of closure, his thoughts strayed to the countless victims who had not received any kind of conclusion.
My friends, murdered by fucking cowards!
he thought. These thoughts kept eating at him. He tried to take comfort in the hope that maybe the victims had not suffered. He hoped they had been knocked unconscious in the fall and that since they’d been found, as Nico put it, “pretty much intact,” he hoped they had felt no pain. But that brought him only the slightest of comforts.

A few hours later, the phone rang. Pasquale hoped it would give him a break from the anger that was consuming him, but it did not.

“Hey, Pasquale. It’s Nico. Sorry to call again. Steve’s funeral will be held on Thursday. Can you make it?”

“Of course!” Pasquale responded without hesitation. “There’s no way I’d miss it.”

“Are you sure, man?” Nico asked. “No one would blame you if you need to sit this one out.”

Pasquale knew his friend was only thinking of his best interests, but he also knew he wanted to be there—he had to. “Nico, I am NOT going to miss this. I won’t lie. It
will
be hard for me, but I have to pay my respects to Steve’s family. It is all I can do for them.”

“Thanks, Pasquale. It will mean a lot to them, especially to Terry,” Nico said before saying goodbye.

There was so much more that Pasquale wanted to say to Nico, but he could not let his guard down. He wanted to tell him that it would be beyond hard—that it would be torture for him to look those people in the eye. The thought of looking at them and seeing the pain he felt inside displayed on their faces terrified him, but what scared him even more was knowing they would ask the same question he’d been asking himself since that day
.” Why you and not them, Pasquale? Why are you still here, when they are not?”
They would ask the question with their eyes, if not their words.
Why me?
he asked himself, trying to think of what he could possibly say for an answer.

He could not help but think they would look at him, standing there alive, with just some bruises, while their loved one was lying in a casket. He worried that they would resent him.
It doesn’t matter if I am scared of their judgment. If can’t blame them for resenting me, if they do. They should be allowed to feel whatever the hell they want after the shit that happened. If I could do anything to change what happened or bring them all back I would…I’d do anything.

~ ♦ ~

Though he’d hoped the day would not come so fast, it was there in a flash. It seemed like it was no time at all between Nico’s call days earlier and his arrival on Pasquale’s doorstep, wheelchair in tow. “What the hell is that, Nico?”

“Your leg, man. You shouldn’t be putting weight on that thing. I thought it might help you so you don’t have to stand around on crutches. The place is going to be packed.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Pasquale knew Nico was right, so he allowed Nico to help him out of the car and into the wheelchair when they finally arrived at the church. It made him terribly uncomfortable, and though he knew he was much too big to hide, he tried to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible, hoping not to attract any unwanted attention—
any
attention, for that matter.

Nico had told him over and over again how much people wanted to see him, but Pasquale knew it was not the time or the place for social calls and congratulations on his survival. Rather, it was a time for remembering a great man who’d been jerked from the Earth, stolen from his family and his life much too early by a group of cowards carrying out a cowardly act. Now was the time to pay his respects to a friend and to do his best to console that man’s grieving family.

Nevertheless, despite Pasquale’s wishes and his valiant attempts to remain invisible, people immediately began flocking toward him the moment they saw him being pushed toward the church. Though it was the last thing he wanted, he had no choice. He had to field a flurry of questions about
him
and how
he
was doing, while Steve lay in a casket not far away. He did his best to keep his responses positive, but after so many hugs and kisses, he could barely hold back his emotions; tears began to surface. After a few moments, he signaled to Nico that it was time to go inside.

As they entered the church, he was not surprised, but humbled to see the vast number of people gathered to celebrate one man. It made him feel proud of Steve, proud to have known the man. As he looked around at the bereaved and the mourners, he realized just how many people his friend had touched. He made his way to the back of the church and fought hard to control himself. It was difficult to keep from weeping uncontrollably.

He could not help but think that it could have easily been
his
funeral. He thought of Steve’s wife, Terry, and their children; he pondered their unfathomable grief. He knew how close his family had come to the same fate, how easily his beautiful Louise and his own mother and father could have been the ones weeping in the front. Images of that tragic day came back to him, and he remembered conversations he’d had with Steve. These thoughts and many other what-ifs pervaded Pasquale’s mind; even in that sacred place, in the safety of that old church, those thoughts made it impossible for him to find sanctuary.

As much as he hated himself for thinking that way, he knew he could attend no more funerals. The days that followed brought many more as more bodies were found. There were countless phone calls, all inviting him and expecting him to be there for the memorials of the countless fallen he’d been acquainted with, but he felt he could not. Instead, he sat at home, knowing that the funerals were well attended by others. He sat alone, wracked with guilt and beating himself up.

He had been asked to attend, but he just could not face them, the widows, the friendless, the siblings, the now-fatherless or motherless children, and the now-childless parents—all those people who knew
he
had been spared instead of their husband or son or daughter or friend. So many were put in the ground or into urns far before their time, and so many tissues were filled with the tears of those left behind. And, knowing this, Pasquale Buzzelli’s nightmares truly began…

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Back to Work

“
I remember telling Terry, Eileen and Linda that if it means anything, I did not think Pat, Steve, or Franco suffered. I told them it happened so quickly that they did not suffer.

I could feel my throat closing and the water building up in my eyes as I told them. I started to cry…”

~ Pasquale Buzzelli

When November came, Pasquale decided he could not stay home watching 9/11 footage on TV any longer. He had not been to work since 9/11, but he decided it was time to return. He enjoyed his job and his co-workers, and he hoped returning to work, at least part time, would be enough of a distraction that he could start moving past that day. Pasquale had always been a planner, a man of routines, and he hoped getting back to those routines would help him calm the beast that was raging inside of him. So, with his leg mostly healed and nothing but scars remaining, he went back to work.

Nico picked Pasquale up in the morning, and they rode to work together. It was not a long drive, but Pasquale had plenty of time to worry about how his friends would receive him. They had lost such great people in the attacks, and as ridiculous as it seemed to anyone else, Pasquale worried they might resent him for not being one of them.

“How are you feeling about this?” Nico asked him.

“I feel good, Nico. I am ready to get back into the swing of things,” he lied.

“That’s good,” Nico said as he patted Pasquale on the back. “I know everyone there is excited that you’re coming back. We’ve missed you around the office, man.”

“Thanks. I’ve missed everyone too. It’ll be nice to see them and catch up on things. I’m a little nervous about it, but I think it will be a good thing to get back to real life,” Pasquale said. To say he was a little nervous would be quite the understatement. He was terrified of seeing the faces of everyone who knew
he
had lived in lieu of someone else. He did not want to worry Nico, though, so he kept those thoughts to himself.

~ ♦ ~

After the Twin Towers fell, the Port Authority, Pasquale’s employer, was left homeless. While they were waiting to figure out a permanent residence, they settled into a makeshift office in Journal Square, New Jersey. When Pasquale entered the building, the first thing he noticed was how improvised and do-it-yourself everything seemed. Instead of their normal offices filled with desks and cubicles, they had to settle for folding chairs around rows of desks that had been pushed together to form some semblance of tables and workspaces.

Because he and Nico arrived later in the morning, Pasquale was unable to sneak in discretely, as he would have preferred. Instead, he walked into a room full of people whom he was scared to face. When he entered the room, all heads turned, and he felt every pair of eyes boring into him. He held his breath for what seemed like an eternity as he stood there on his crutches, waiting for someone to say something. But then, Pasquale received a tremendous shock: Every one of them stood up from their desks...and began
applauding
him.

As touching as the outpour of emotion toward him was, he felt it was undeserved. As he looked around and saw the smiling faces and the tears in just about every eye, a lump formed in his throat, and he struggled in vain to stop his own tears from flowing.
How can they look at me and applaud?
he thought.
Don’t they know there is no reason for me to be standing here instead of Pat, Steve, or Franco? This is too much. I should not be here...

As he stood there, taunted by those doubts and thoughts, his friends began flocking toward him. Some of them just wanted to shake his hand, while others hugged him, as if they needed to touch him to confirm that what they were seeing was, in fact, real—not just another ghost haunting them from that day.

“How are you, Pasquale?” someone asked him. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I am okay, I guess,” he responded automatically.

“Are you sure? How is your leg holding up?”

“Yeah, I am fine, really. My leg is a little sore, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“That is so great! Wow! I cannot believe you’re really here!”

Everyone he passed seemed to have the same questions for him, and without even really thinking, he somewhat robotically answered them all the same way. He did not want that kind of attention. He did not resent those who gave it to him, but truly, he just wished there was a way he could just be another anonymous face in the crowd—an invisible man rather than a symbol for hope after all that had happened that day. He could not escape being “the survivor,” no matter how hard he tried.

After the commotion died down, Nico led Pasquale through the crowd and to his desk. “Here ya go, man. You got everything you need?”

“Yeah, Nico. Thanks,” he said as Pasquale sat down and tried to find a place to hide his crutches.

Someone brought him a cup of coffee, and after he thanked them, he got to work.
If I just put my nose down and work, maybe the attention will go away,
he hoped. Every so often, he looked around and noticed people looking in his direction. Some were whispering to each other, and he could only imagine what they were thinking.
Oh God. I just hope they are not talking about me. I hope they know I miss those guys just as much as they do.

It was not an easy day, to be sure, but as the hours ticked by, Pasquale started to settle in. He found some solace in his duties and began to feel comfortable around his friends and co-workers, and even his paranoia about them judging him began to recede. He looked around at the stacks of papers and drawings laid out on the office tables. There was something soothing about it. Though it was just a thrown-together attempt at an office, it offered a welcome return to normalcy for him, something he’d been searching for since he’d awoken atop of the rubble and seen that big blue sky.

~ ♦ ~

For the first couple of weeks, after that initial awkward return, things went on almost as if nothing had ever happened, as if nothing was different. Eventually, though, Pasquale was forced, once again, to revisit the wounds that just would not heal. This time, it was the wives of his fallen allies, asking if they could come and visit him. Though he knew it would only reopen the door he so desperately wanted to shut, he could not deny them a chance at even the slightest bit of closure.