Warday

As the light draws closer, the rattling of the cars is joined by the high bellow of a great engine. This subway is drawn by one of the old diesel work engines that the MTA used to haul disabled cars off dead tracks.

We are illuminated by its powerful headlamp. As the train enters the station it gives off loud blasts from its horn. “Shave and a haircut, two bits.”

Brakes squeal and the thing stops. Diesel fumes are bellowing around us. “Hiva. Jenny,” the driver shouts from his cab. “Where to?

“Bleeeker,” she shouts back.

The doors on the cars that this train hauls are permanently fixed open. Inside, the cars are lit by gas lanterns hung from the ceiling ventilators. “Hey, Jenny,” shouts a huge man in a filthy radiation suit, “who the hell… whatcha got here, tourists?”

“They’re reporters. They want to do a story on the Big Apple.”

“The core or the damn seeds?” He laughs. “You stick with me, you s’uvs. You’ll see a hell of a salvage We’re takin’ out five tons of copper wire a day.” He extends a huge hand as the train lurches off. “I’m Morgan Moore. I de-build buildings.” He roars with laughter. He is an incredibly wrinkled man, maybe fifty, his eyes glimmering like dark animal eyes in the light of the swaying lamp.

“You look so goddamn clean, you must be from Lousy Angeles. Am I right?”

“We’re from the Dallas Herald News,” Jim says. He already has his recorder out. “We’d like to interview you.”

“Whar’s yer hats, cowpokes?” Morgan Moore cries amid general laughter. “Y’all cain’t be Texas boys without yer hats, can yuh?” There’s no derision in Morgan Moore’s voice, only humor.

And his interpretation of a Texas accent is hilarious. We laugh too.

As we rattle along I observe that there are about ten people on the train, none of them minding their own business as in the old days, all interested in the phenomenon of the reporters.

“Seriously,” Morgan Moore says, “you guys gotta put a story about what we’re doing at the World Trade Center in your paper.

It’s worth front page.”

Another voice: “We pulled over three miles of wire out of the South Tower just yesterday. You’re talkin’ eighty gold dollars’ worth of copper in one day.”

“We’ll be down to the structural steel in another three months,” Morgan Moore adds.

We stop at Fourteenth Street, and four people get on. One of them is a black man in a three-piece tweed suit and a homburg. He carries a neatly furled umbrella, and he doesn’t say anything to anybody. He is totally unexpected, and there is no real way to explain him. The salvors do not make jokes about him. Jenny Bell might have smiled at him, and he might have nodded, but that is the only indication of familiarity.

He is a welcome indication that, despite everything, the old spirit of this town still flickers.

Soon the brakes squeal and we are at Bleecker Street.

“’S dog country,” Morgan Moore says. The gentleman with the umbrella stands beneath the lantern, staring blankly. The other salvors murmur agreement with Morgan Moore.

Jim asks him if he will do an interview for us. He agrees at once—as long as Jim comes down to his World Trade Center site with him. There is a moment’s hesitation. We are both supposed to stay with our guide. And we aren’t even supposed to talk to local residents, much less record interviews with them.

“Have a big time,” Jenny says. “We’ll catch up with you at the TC by—let’s see, it’s ten now—say two o’clock. You wait for us there.”

Then she and I step onto the platform. The train grinds its gears and roars off down the tunnel.

“There’s an awful lot of foliage in this area,” Jenny says as we near the stairs. “And dogs, like Moore said. You stay close to me.

And I mean close. No more than three feet away.”

“The dogs are that dangerous?”

“This is their city, Mr. Strieber. They’re the kings here. Our best defense is to stay the hell away from them. But since you want to see the Village—”

We emerge into the light and fresher air of Lafayette and Bleecker. There have been more aggressive fires around here.

East toward the Bowery most of the buildings are caved in, their rubble spread into the street, covering the inevitable ruined vehicles. “You go down toward the Holland Tunnel, the cars really get thick. And in the tunnel, all the way to where it’s drowned down near the middle.”

My heart is beating harder. Many, many times I emerged from this same station on my way home. In a few minutes we’ll be able to see 515 West Broadway.

Ahead is Broadway, the ruins of the Tower Records store on the ground floor of the Silk Building. I think to myself, the destruction of this city is so vast, so intricate, that it is not possible to grasp it, let alone tell about it.