While everything was happening, I was walking a video on what it means to be a good juror. When we got a chance to go into the waiting room, I looked out the window facing the opposite way of the towers. Traffic was at a standstill on Adams street -- the road to the onramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. Must've been some accident. Some emergency vehicles zoomed by. People were standing in front of the Marriot Hotel, just waiting there. Must be some tour group, I thought, waiting for a bus.
Finally they made an announcement that the U.S. had been attacked and that the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had been destroyed. They were trying to get information. A woman who had brought her walkman allowed me to listen on one of the detachable earpieces (thankfully, it wasn't a "bud"). I even joined her in the smoking room because she was stressed and needed a cigarette. So did a lot of people apparently.
I managed to call my mother-in-law. She was the natural choice that everyone would check in with. My wife was already home. She got one of the last trains out of lower Manhattan before the system shut down. They released us soon after, as it was obvious that not much would be happening in the court house that day ... or that week. We were dismissed.
People lingered, trying to console the distraught. I remember one woman who didn't even know anyone in the towers, but kept saying "My God, all those people!" Outside, I spoke with jurors and lawyers and whoever. One female lawyer I wanted to smack for a thoughtless question, but she's a lawyer -- that's her way. I saw some people from earlier and I made sure that they had someone to walk with. The bus stop had hundreds of people at it, and no one even knew if they were running.
I joined a group and started the long walk home -- some were longer than mine -- they had to go to Staten Island. Not as far for me. Dust was falling from the sky. "Scalpers" (or whatever you want to call them) were selling dust masks for a buck a piece. Someone later bought a half-dozen of them at a hardware store for a buck-fifty. He took one and passed out the rest. I got the last one.
We stopped at Third Avenue on the Gowanus Canal. It was our first real good view. It didn't seem real. But it was. And then we went back to walking. I said good-bye to them when I reached my mother's house. I watched the news on CBS -- the only station with an antenna on the Empire State Building instead of the Towers -- and had some tea. A little while later, some of the trains were running, so I was able to get a little closer.
Another walk to find a pay phone. I found St. A's first. Then I found the phone. I was the next-to-last one to make it there. And then we watched, and waited.