stuckinthemiddle

In the days that followed March 22, 2016, my best friend told me that one of the best ways to start working yourself away from a stressful situation, was to talk it to death – to the point where it really does become boring for you to tell. And I certainly did my fair share of that over those 7 long days after the incident – 3 times with Matt Lauer, once with an NBC correspondent (where a lot of my comments were edited out), and once again with Andrea Mitchell (my first time staring into a camera with an earpiece shoved into my ear). I’ve repeated this story verbally so many times – that it has had two distinct benefits. The first is that I’ve actually remembered small details to fill in the blanks, as the memory has become clearer, aided by the disclosure of facts. The second benefit is that, each time I was asked to tell it, I found myself shortening it, because….well, I’m getting tired of it. It has gotten old. So thank you, David Erickson, for your advice, because I think it worked, and worked well. I don’t have problems sleeping or concentrating, I can ride the Metro here in Brussels satisfied with my overall safety and level of situation awareness, and in general – I feel fine. Honest.

But, since we want to commit this to “paper,” and have a record of it (because, let’s be honest – yes, it was a Big Deal in life to live through) I’ve been working on this written record for a while now. Here goes:

Monday night, the 21st of March – after a visit that had more than its fair share of conversation both good and difficult – I forced Sheerine to finish her packing early, since it was going to be an early morning. AA 751 was departing at 9:40 AM the next day to take her back to Philly, which worked out well for me in terms of working the next day: I could have her at Check In by 7:40 or so, have her through Passport Control by Pier B by 8 – then could catch a 12 Bus one stop to NATO for work, and be relatively on time. So the plan was to roust us both out of bed around 6 AM or so, leave the apartment at around 7, take the Metro from Arts-Loi to Central Station, then a 15 minute train ride to the airport – arriving right underneath the check in area.

And that is, essentially, how we started the day: the alarm went off, I got her awake on time, I showered and then we left. I do recall the challenge of getting two suitcases (one of which was packed with my sweaters and extra jackets) into my closet sized elevator, and then rolling them up the street to the Metro station with a cigarette in my mouth. Then – because for some reason, the Belgians don’t believe in escalators going *down* – carrying both, while wearing a suit and overcoat, down to the platform level. So I got slightly sweaty early in the day – but that’s nothing unusual around here: you dress well and wrinkle yourself simply going to work everyday.

We got to Central Station at 7:09 – I bought two one-way tickets to the Airport – and managed to make it down the steps to Platform 1, just in time to catch a slightly delayed 7:10 InterCity that was terminating at the airport. The train was one of the double decker cars you see throughout Europe these days. We had the lower level of the car almost all to ourselves – though I remember looking over and seeing a few people with suitcases, people who were clearly heading to the airport as well.

I also remember being surprised by the day – because it was sunny. This is Belgium; it is never sunny. But as the train emerged from the central core tunnel, the sun was shining in the windows of the car, bright enough that I even put my sunglasses on.

Like I said – the visit was good, but if I am honest, it’s not like we haven’t had plenty of things to talk about and try and work out recently. So we talked on the train ride, which lasted about 15 minutes – specifically about what, I don’t recall. But if you asked me if I was bummed out she was leaving – yes, I was. I’ve never liked seeing her upset or sad, and those emotions on her face and in her head have always had the ability to sway my own. But I was also in that mixed mode of getting “the mission” done and getting to work, and moving past the emotions of seeing her off through passport control and security, back to the U.S.

I think I reflected on the train ride about how much I really do hate goodbyes – especially long ones. I usually would rather just get the actual Goodbye over with – and then if so inclined, think about the next reunion. That’s me: some emotions I love feeling, some types of emotion I try and avoid.

Either way – I had a meeting at 9 AM that I wanted to make on time, and I confess – I thought about the day ahead, quite a bit. The meetings. The tasks. The challenges. And I suppose that’s the way I deal with challenging situations – i.e. ones that aren’t clear. I mentally nibble at them bit by bit, but I’m inclined to take a lot of breaks as I do so, and when the opportunity presents itself to bail out of those situations which carry above average emotional weight – well, I often take it. Maybe I personify the psychological concept of Avoidance, and I am not saying it is a great attribute to have – but that is what I do: I get the goodbye over with as quick as I can.

The ride passed pretty quickly (as it always does when there is a parting involved), and the train arrived at the Brussels Airport Station, conveniently positioned literally right below the main check in hall. We had unusual luck in finding an elevator – usually, they are packed like crazy, with people who will literally cut in front of you with zero regard for the line. But today, we were lucky. We managed to roll the suitcases into the first car that arrived, and rode the elevator right on up to the 3rd level, where the Check-In area is located.

One of the things that always drives me nuts about BRU is that there is one departure board, which not only tells you your destination, departure time and gate – but tells you which aisle your check in counters are located in. Since there is only one, this means that, invariably, you will have to navigate a large group of people standing in a giant herd-like clump, who block any semblance of a path as they stand staring at the board, trying to figure out where to go. Me? I can scan with my eyes pretty quick – and usually, the airline locations at BRU don’t change. So it took me about 3 seconds of looking to see that AA 751 check in could be found in aisle #8. So with Sheerine in tow, around the clump we went, navigating groups of people that, in my mind, I equated to stupid cows staring at a bright light. I think I even probably muttered something under my breath about the stupidity of the masses, or some other arrogant statement. This thought now makes me feel like an asshole, seeing what was about to come.

We arrived at Aisle 8, and I steered Sheerine towards the entrance to the American Airlines Check In queue, while I navigated behind rolling both suitcases. At the front of the queue was a short, younger blond woman, checking for boarding passes for anyone trying to get in line. As Sheerine had hers on her phone, she pulled out her iPhone and showed the agent. I walked behind her with the suitcases in tow – but found myself blocked by the woman in question, requesting to see my boarding pass. In what became Yet Another Example of Belgian Customer Service, I tried to explain that, no, I was not flying, but I was helping with the suitcases, and would be paying for one of them, so pretty please, can I enter? This being Belgium – the answer was “No,” as it almost always is.  I explained how Sheerine’s neck was pinched, and explained how I needed to hand over my Credit Card, but all I got in return was a smarmy Belgian smile, and a statement that “It is not possible.”

I know I made a snarky comment – something along the lines of “What a warm and friendly country you have here” (Actually, I think I snarled “Typical Fucking Belgium”) but I was sweating and wearing a tie and irritated. Irritated by the crowds, irritated by the day, likely wanting more coffee or nicotine – but also just irritated by the rigidity with something so simple as wanting to stand in the check in queue, and it being implied this was a great, terrifying breach of security. Bullshit. This wasn’t a security line – it was a check in line.

But, the Belgians aren’t known for giving ground in the name of customer service, so I handed over both suitcases to Sheerine, and stepped out of line while glaring at the short blond Martinet. I took her carry on – packed with Chocolate and all of her hair tools – and stood off to the side, waiting as she snaked through the queue. Then I did what everyone else seems to do when they are bored these days: I pulled out my iPhone in the interim – checking email, seeing what was new on Facebook – trading messages with a coworker who was requesting I snag her a latte from the Starbucks in the Terminal. All the while, Sheerine moved through the line, getting closer to the front, and occasionally I would look up and she was passing close enough to my position to have a normal conversation. At one point, one of the other Airport Line “Hall Monitors” interrupted my phone perusing as I was standing there, asking me if I needed help. I kind of snapped that I was waiting on Sheerine to finish check-in, if that wasn’t going to cause anyone to panic. Snark, really.  The second security agent stayed nice with me – she told me it was no problem, she just wanted to know if I needed help. I recall feeling a bit bad about that, but returned to my phone.

Finally, she arrived at the front of the line, and the actual check in desk. I watched as she talked with the agent, lifted the bags onto the belt, handed over my Credit Card – thinking that I would probably end up having to walk over and sign. But fortunately, no – the AA Service Agent was nice and pleasant, or so I have been told – that interaction is Sheerine’s story to tell. I think I asked/mouthed over if all was set with the card, and got a thumbs up back. Fortunately for me, as I would find out later on, the agent handed the card back, and she shoved it in her pocket.

I will never fully remember – or really know – what it was that got my attention first. It could only have been one of two things: the noise, or the light. Maybe both? I can tell you that the sound by itself was impressive, like whoa: a big, attention getting BOOM, that would make you drop whatever you were doing. Which in this case was my iPhone.

Whatever the stimuli actually was – a flash, a boom, who knows – my head rapidly turned directly to the right, and what I saw was, well…something messy and very bright.The glare was almost like catching the sun reflecting off a highly polished floor early in the morning, or driving into the sun down the highway – a level of brightness that makes you squint. But it was also a visual mess that my mind didn’t fully put into order – at one point, I think I thought “whoa, lots of pipes are falling through the ceiling and crushing people” – and then there was a lot of screaming. A lot of screaming.

I realized later how lucky I was in where I was standing, and how lucky we were to be at the American Airlines check in desks, which faced the British Airways check in: each of the check-in desk “aisles” at BRU are fronted by a wall – a wall which I believe contains a structural support for the upper levels. And, right behind the BA check in desk positions is a set of monitors and almost a half wall; a blockage, if you will. And on the other side of that half wall is where the first bomb was detonated.

So thanks to that wall and the angle, my view of the explosion was interrupted, in a way – kind of like trying to look through slats on window blinds to see what’s going on outside your house on a sunny day. The picture I had was interrupted. But this also meant that most of the really nasty shrapnel and debris couldn’t actually get to us – we stood in a cone of protection.

But the shock wave – that made it through to us just fine. It smacked me – not enough to knock me over, but you could definitely feel it pass through you. I can only describe the sensation as being similar to wading into the surf at the beach – that feeling you get when a big roller washes past and through you, at the same time? That push, that surge, that makes you stumble back towards the shore? Kind of like that.

And behind all that was the bright yellow/orange light – and then things flying through the air towards me. Scraps of paper, it almost looked like, shredded stuff – my mind formed the word “crap” to describe it, as if the wind was sending a lot of trash my way. Another large thing – I have no idea what – went flying past me, a few feet to my right. But mostly it almost seemed like staring into the output of a wood chipper: small bits flying at you.

People have asked when, exactly, that I actually *knew* I was in the middle of a terrorist attack. Well. I’m definitely one who follows the news – and you would have to be a prime idiot to live in Belgium and not be aware of the issues that exist here (I plan on discussing those at length later, in another post). And we had all been aware of the fact that on the previous Friday, the Belgian Police finally nabbed Salah Abdesalem, the last Paris attacker who remained at large, and who had been speculated to have escaped to Syria – even though he had never actually left Brussels in the last four and a half months. Four and a half months, not leaving the same half a square mile, and yet – never caught or given up. It’s a small town, when you get down to it: the fact that he was able to escape capture is absolutely mind blowing. And a seriously damning indictment on the Brussels Police, Belgian Intelligence, and, well – Belgian society as a whole.

Now, yes, they did finally get him – but anyone who has the slightest inkling of what ISIS really is was probably acutely aware, in the back of their heads, that we should probably have gone on full alert around here. Even though we were all excited about the fact that the little rent-boy turned terrorist was taken down, I think more than a few knew it wasn’t going to go unanswered by ISIS, which has long operated with such impunity here as to blow your mind. A storm would brew, so to speak.  So while I think we were all honestly happy to see Salah take a round in the leg, stumble, and get piled on by Brussels Police before being dragged into custody – there was also a slight sense of foreboding in it all.

So given the above, I can answer the question of “when did you know it was a terrorist attack?” with full honesty: fucking immediately. Call it intuition – call it the result of having practically stepped off the plane into the lock-down state back in November, post Paris, and maybe even always half expecting to eventually, somehow, encounter something like this here. And here we were, here it was, and it was actually happening around me. It was no longer a hypothetical abstract possibility of something you might stumble into one day – it was 30 feet away, in the next aisle over.

Now – I think that there is some trait I have always had, or some mentality I have always possessed – the result of all of my thoughts about 9/11, Terrorism in our brave new century, Coast Guard Basic Training, with it’s focus on dealing with emergencies, whatever the hell it was – something must have prepared me for this moment, because there was no panic. I immediately turned back to Sheerine, and while I’m not kidding when I say – my head got clear quick. The mind gets sharp, and there was one objective: alert others, and find cover.

I remember some of the people in the AA check in line had crouched down already – but most were standing with a very confused look on their faces – including Sheerine, and the check in agent she had been talking to. Now, some people were starting to move, but many were sort of frozen in place, displaying on their faces the confusion of a collective “Wha?”

I opened my mouth while she looked at me, and what came pouring out was something like  “SheerinethatsabombGETDOWNNOW!!!!” – with the volume of my voice growing as the words of the message formed and globbed together, like I was losing my ability to enunciate while trying to get the words out at an ever quicker pace. Which, lets be honest, I probably was.

At that point, I started moving towards her. According to her, I went directly *through* the stanchions on my way – who knows, don’t remember feeling that. What I do recall feeling was that I was in a race – a demented race, but a race. Ever had a nightmare where you needed to escape from something, get distance from something, and you felt like you were just ever so tragically slow? That was it, in real life. My legs were moving, but not fast enough, and I recall thinking I was doing the “reaction” part badly, saying something like “dude – you are slow. Speed up.”

That’s not to say you form totally coherent thoughts, like “It was my job that moment to protect her by getting to her,” or some heroic-minded bullshit like that, but you do know exactly what you need to do, and you do hope it will be enough:  move that way, get to her, get down and cover her, the clock is ticking, there is going to be another, and it’s going to be close by, or right behind you.

 

Instinct was right – but fortunately not 100% right that day. I was about two or three steps towards her – big ones, I am a tall guy – when the second bomb went off. This one was to my left, back towards the front of the airport, somewhat behind me. The shock wave again hit again- but it was more this time, like a *particularly* big ocean swell – the kind that comes in between sets of waves, the one that lifts you up off the bottom and you feel it pass through you. And the sound, again; let me tell you, that sound was something else entirely. I remember USCG Honor Guard training on dealing with  the Howitzers at the Pentagon (the Honor Guard trainers would come up behind you and make loud noises, and you slowly learned not to flinch) – but I always remember that specific kind of BOOM – a deep and hollow boom, a dedicated sound. You felt that one in your gut, even if you learned not to let the rifle bounce at Present Arms.

And you know what? There was also a part of me that was relieved at that moment. Actual relief. Why? Because I’m one of those people who doesn’t want to ever be seen as alarmist. And with that second BOOM – I was no longer at risk of being some crazy, idiot American losing his shit and charging through barriers in full spazz mode over nothing.

As I said, the predominant memory of those few seconds is the singular focus on trying to move in her direction, trying to be quick, with a small voice in the back of your head asking, insistently, over and over again, “Is there enough time? Is there enough time? IS THERE ENOUGH TIME?”

Enough time for what? Specifically- to get there before the next BOOM went off – cause who the fuck knew where the next one would be. Oh – I had no doubt there would be a third explosion – this was ISIS:  it was just a matter of when and where in the departure hall. So even while moving, you fully expect, any second, for there to be an explosion right behind you, and you will find yourself in a dream-like flying state before everything goes black.

I think I got to her as she was dropping to the ground out of pure reflex – or because I was charging at her and probably looked like an oncoming freight train. Nonetheless, I pretty much piled on top of her, and ended up slamming her head into the metal ticket counter side as I pushed her down – which, lucky us and lucky me, was the only injury she or I really experienced that day. I did what I could to cover her up – and had a very abstract thought in my head of wondering if my body would be enough to absorb a blast and protect her. It was absurdly analytical: for that second, really, honestly – you aren’t scared. You wonder about things, but nothing is neon-light terrifying.

I remember covering her up – and waiting for the next one. There was one, there was two – why wouldn’t there be a three? And to be honest – again, in a clinical, detached sense – I wondered if we weren’t about to be dead, or at the least, about to be seriously fucked up.  But again – these thoughts didn’t really carry emotion; it really didn’t resonate, the idea that any second now, that could be it, lights out, it’s over, dental records time to help identify our bodies. At this point, you are just thinking thoughts.

But when you are trying to reassure someone, trying to squeeze in as many words of comfort and calm as possible – you don’t voice that, either way. So I covered her up as much as I could – trying absurdly, to cover all of her not just with me, but with the overcoat I was wearing – a favorite purchase of mine I had made in some Men’s shop, in London. Yes –  in that moment, I apparently thought my magic overcoat could shield her as well. So me and the overcoat, we were going to become a human shell, hiding a pebble underneath, and the name of the game was “surface coverage.” If the explosion couldn’t see her – then it couldn’t get her.

Sheerine wasn’t screaming  – though she did sound alarmed, and on the verge of full blown panic – which you can tell when you hear an increasing warble in someones voice, along with increasing volume. So I think, just as much for her as for me, I needed to say things, reassuring things. And so I repeated over and over again – in a voice that was captured on someones phone video – “It’s Okay. It’s Okay.” (That’s a total lie, by the way – because in the back of my head, I was pretty sure it was NOT okay, and that things were going to continue happening, and happening fast). Someone nearby was parroting me – saying the same thing over and over. A woman, I think. I also said things like “I got you. Stay down. I got you” – who knows. In the moment, you are just trying to reassure.

So we waited for that third blast, and I remember staring at the floor and counting seconds. As history has shown – that third blast didn’t come (though it should have, if Mohamed Abrini hadn’t come to his senses – or completely wimped out –  in the seconds before, and abandoned his bomb over by the Air France check in desk. The third device was 40 lbs of highly volatile explosives; given the proximity, yes, that would likely have required dental records to ID us afterwards)

I remember lifting my head and looking around, counting seconds – thinking that if it hadn’t happened by now – every second ticking by with no bang meant that the likelihood of another blast was receding. Those passing seconds – instances which were not bringing an additional shock wave with them, which weren’t breaking the silence – as they stacked up, they got more comforting. 10 was good, 20 was better, let’s see if we can’t make it to 45 seconds with nothing. Ultimately, we did.

The Third Desk is where we were – Row 8. The day I took this, it was being used by British Airways – since American has yet to resume service to BRU. But that’s it, that’s the spot. 

The comfort did not last. I tend to think a lot – and I am glad I do. I  think I have long been aware that there is a truth to these situations: those who survive terrorist attacks are the people who stay calm and cautious, and don’t seize the first chance to run. Can’t fault those who do, right? I truly believe that half of the deaths in these types of situations are the result of letting down your guard, embracing a natural sense of relief – which in this case would be thinking “Hey – two explosions, we weren’t near them, we made it!” And then standing up and running for safety – right into the 3rd blast.

The next thought was more unsettling: Paris in November 2015. It wasn’t just bombs in Paris, though there were plenty of those –  it was Kalashnikov rifles, with 7.62 full metal jacket rounds, fired at the Eagles of Death Metal and their fans. I have an SKS rifle back home that fires that exact round – I know the sound of sending one down-range, but I have no idea what it sounds like coming towards you. In Paris, there wasn’t just the Evil of trying to blow people up with suicide bombs – no no: ISIS went even further, sending in assault rifles to clean up the rest. The idea, to me, is terrifying: a blast goes off near you, people are killed and wounded, and for a second, you thank your lucky stars you were far enough away – only seconds later, to be facing an AK-47 and to realize, with a large degree of finality, that no – you weren’t the lucky one after all. That’s a kind of double jeopardy that flat out terrifies me.

And with these thoughts, I also realized things had gone dead quiet – at least in my ears. (When I watched the video later – I realize there was a lot of crying out going on in the Departure Hall – but for whatever reason, I didn’t hear it.) That silence freaked me out. A lot. I can only think the reason it freaked me out was that it was the complete opposite of what you would expect after a bomb had gone off: if it was a soundtrack, we would call it The Sounds of Rescue, and it would be playing in ever-increasing volume and tempo as The Authorities swooped in and saved the damn day. That’s what I wanted to hear – and I wasn’t hearing any of it, and that left me feeling extraordinarily vulnerable, like my ass was hanging out of a window with no help in sight. So in that silence – I wouldn’t allow myself to think that maybe, just maybe, it was over and we had Officially Survived. No – that would be a dangerous move. Instead, I expected to hear rifle fire. And more screaming.

So in that moment, I became obsessed with the idea of making sure that – no matter what – we didn’t do anything stupid, and make it easy on anyone still standing and intending to do harm – making ourselves dumb, easy targets for whoever else might be out there.

So the next move was to get out of my crouching position, and try and get less exposure for us. Essentially, we were crouched down in a large aisle – a big open space, with plenty of variable fields of fire. And I didn’t want to be sitting there when I started hearing gun fire. Rule number one – don’t get caught out in the open. And then, when I glanced up – I realized I was also surrounded by abandoned suitcases, all around me. And they made me extremely uncomfortable – who knew what the hell was in one of those suitcases? For all I knew – it was just as likely to be 10 lbs of explosives and rusty nails as it was dirty underwear and souvenirs.

Directly next to where we were crouched, there was a suitcase sitting on the conveyor belt – so I reached up, yanked it off the belt, and tossed it to the side. I remember it was beige and almost like a Burberry type fabric (whoever owns it – I hope you didn’t have any fragile souvenirs inside). I managed to shove my head under the metal shelf above the belt, and peek around behind the counter- and discovered that the AA ticket agent that Sheerine had been talking to moments earlier was now completely under her desk, looking like she was trying to become part of it, permanently: smart lady.

I backed my head out, grabbed Sheerine, and forcefully pushed her over the conveyor belt to the area behind the counter. She fought me on this, verbally and physically  – I remember squirming  and”No!”s – and I know for a fact I swore at her to get her ass moving. The AA Ticket Agent – who I would like to thank some day in person – helped me out here: she grabbed Sheerine’s hand and pulled her back there.

So now – at least there was cover and “protection” for Sheerine, which was good: got to cross one item off the checklist of “Things to Do in the Middle of a Terror Attack”  – that’s progress, right? At that point – I do remember some sense of obligation kicking in: with Sheerine back there, out of the way, I raised up a bit, peered over the counter, and told her something along the lines of “Listen – stay here, I need to go check and see if people are okay.” (I think about that now: if people were “okay”? Yeah, right. I don’t know why I said it that way, as if everyone in the ticket hall was simply going to be in shock, as if fireworks had gone off by accident,  versus blown the fuck apart by a bomb). She didn’t like that, at all – and in the video, you can hear her pleading with me not to, begging, etc. I responded with a lot of swears in a flash of anger – and gave in.  Apparently I swear a lot when people are trying to kill me and everyone else in the room.

So instead, with Sheerine sort-of out of the way and safe(r) behind the desk, I stayed down, and put my back to the counter. The air was even more cloudy at this point – and the lights in the main check in hall had pretty much all gone dark. All you had to look at was the light coming in, with the debris – like someone had quickly yanked dust coverings off a bunch of old furniture, and it was floating in the sunlight. It’s hard to describe, really – as the stupid saying goes, you really would have to be there to know what it was like: words aren’t going to do it. From what I have learned since then, I understand that a shock wave passing through a building will pick up every last bit of dust and dirt, and blasts it up into the air. That explains the milky color of the air. And – to be honest – the taste.

So there, I stayed, and listened – and as noted many times before, that’s what got me: the lack of noise. At least, it seemed dead quiet. During and after the first explosion – there was screaming and shouting. After the second one – I don’t recall hearing much. And while you can hear on the aforementioned video the sounds of people talking – my lasting impression of those minutes after the second blast will always be silence: it was as if everyone had gone quiet so as not to attract attention to themselves. Or as if they were playing dead to buy time. As we know now, there *were* sounds: people yelling in the background, cries, and even the airport announcements continued for a few minutes (when I watch the video, I can’t help but be struck by how absurd that is, in context). Watching the video is strange – there is a guy, filming about 8 feet away from me and at one point asking questions – but I can’t remember any of that. I do wonder what I would have done if I noticed him. Probably thought he was nuts – but then again, I still had my phone in my hand, so maybe it is instinct or reflex.

Now: on the subject of absurd things we do in the middle of terrorist attacks – one of my next actions was to text my coworker. Yes – that’s right: I was crouched down in what felt like a war zone – and I had a crazy strong desire to get the word out, as quickly as possible. Stupid, right? To crouch there, and text. But that’s not the first time I have done that: I once crawled out of a car wreck, grabbed Sheerine from her wrecked car (she had lost control while following me, and our two cars killed each other), dragged her out of the way of any additional party crashers, and then immediately texted my boss to let him know I wasn’t coming in that day. It’s nuts. I took a screen shot of that moment of texting, and am putting the picture in here for posterity. You can see the time stamp on the text – that’s maybe 1-2 minutes after the explosion:

The last line makes me laugh: I don’t know what I meant by “Alert” – did I think I was reaching NORAD? Issuing some sort of call to arms?

After those texts – and as more time passed between the second bomb blast and the now – I finally moved forward a bit, and stood up just a tad. I remember looking down towards the site of the second explosion. And like every other asshole in the place, I snapped a few pictures. Why? I think part of me was still doubting that it was over – and for some reason, the idea of capturing images – evidence maybe, even? – was extremely important. So I took the following pictures in quick succession:

 

That second one – that’s the second bomb site. It’s also the area I was talking about earlier: the area where everyone would stand and stare at the screens like moo cows, looking for their flights. I said earlier that I was invariably annoyed trying to get around the herd standing there, and I would always mutter something under my breath about them and feel superior – and that I felt like an asshole about it now. The reason for that is – that’s where the second blast went off: right in the middle of all of those people. Perfect, condensed target, right? Now – the resolution isn’t so good, and a camera isn’t the human eye, no matter how many pixels are crammed in. In that second one – you can see the hole in the ceiling from the upwards blast, and you can see, sorta kinda, the demolished Brussels Airlines customer service kiosk. What you can’t see on this picture, because you can’t really zoom in on an iPhone – is what you could see with your eyes: other things on the ground. Things that were not debris, but people. That second picture, down there in the shadows and smoke, is a damn murder scene.

(Sidebar: we now know, thanks to leaks from the Belgian Congressional inquiry into the attacks, that after Ibrahim El Bakraoui blew himself up and started the panic, Najim Laachraoui tried to literally chase the crowd that had started to flee with his luggage cart bomb – i.e. trying to get as many as he could – only to have the bomb fall off the cart, land on it’s side, and detonate prematurely. Consequently, the charge inside – which was likely shaped in order to send the blast largely in one direction – detonated vertically, as opposed to horizontally. It went up into the ceiling, instead of into most of the people running. So while many still died and were badly wounded, most of the nastiness went into the ceiling – and, one can only hope, Mr. Laachraoui’s head – versus directly into all the fleeing, terrified people. His clumsiness is our luck.)

After I snapped those pictures, I really just remember thinking of one word: WAIT.  Wait until something else happens, or the situation changes. If you asked her, Sheerine would tell you that we were in the airport for at least 30 minutes after the explosion – that’s not true, but it’s not like she is embellishing. Far from it; in a stressful situation, you have no solid sense of time. 2 minutes can seem like an hour. The reality was probably more like 6-7 minutes. And the only reason I knew it was only 6-7 minutes after the last blast is because I have time stamps to refer to – when pictures were taken, when texts were sent. But it did seem forever – with the one comfort being the fact that, the longer we went without another boom or gunfire – I allowed myself to consider that  less likely it was. More time for friendly guns to arrive, for Authority to arrive, and save the day.

There were many “notable” moments in this whole experience – to say the least. One that stands out in particular was the fact that as I waited for whatever, I had a direct view to the doors to the outside. Even crouched down – and even with the haze of the air – I could see outside, and it looked tantalizingly close. You could see people outside – you could see them moving around, you could see cars, you could see rapid movement, the sun was out. Really, truthfully, it looked like the definition of SAFETY, lit up brightly and warmly, an escape route, and if you could just cover those last few steps and get there, all would be okay.

I’ve thought about it – the best comparison I can come up with is from playing the old DOOM video game all those years ago; you would be getting your ass kicked trying to get through a level, but if you could just make it to the last switch, open the last door – level complete, take a breather.

So you would be almost at the end of one hell of a level, down to very little ammo and health, barely clinging to life and dreading a do-over, and you would see something like this, and be like “SCORE”:

Hang on a second…

But – those of you who played Doom might remember – one of the things the game designers liked to do was to hide one last Imp or Chain Gun Guy who would jump out, surprise you. So you would go “YES! I made it!’ – only to have a monster come out of the dark and kill you.

This might seem stupid, but that’s what I remember thinking as I looked at the doors to the outside: they were so, so close,  a veritable visual definition of the word “deliverance”, and all we had to do was get over there and out. So tempting. But in those moments, thinking and trying to make the smart decisions – well – “Doom.”

So I kept telling myself to avoid the temptation – and hold position. And if we did go out that door, then we absolutely had to approach very, very carefully, because who the fuck knew what or who was between us and that escape route. Another bomb? Maybe. Probably. A shooter waiting for anyone to break cover? They did it before – why not now?

All seemed super strong possibilities, and I didn’t want us to be the idiots who gave in and ran into death, when we thought we were running away.  As I said, I became rather obsessed with not doing anything stupid and wasting our luck. This is the best example of that kind of thinking. So I stayed crouched down, not moving- and I could hear Sheerine talking with the AA ticket agent.

And then – along comes a soldier.

He was carrying his weapon across his chest – and I remember noting that his hand was not on the handle, and his finger was not on the trigger, and while he was moving with purpose, in the direction of the first explosion, he wasn’t running. I remember wondering about that, and thinking it was weird. Hell – the whole day was weird, why not this? Either way – here it was: the Friendly Gun I was hoping to see (though I found out later that even though Belgian Soldiers carry their rifles in the ready position, there are no rounds in the rifle – instead, they have an actual loaded magazine in a pocket, ready to go). I kind of rose up a bit, and he saw me and turned towards me and paused. I remember locking eyes with him for a moment – maybe 4 seconds or so of us staring at each other silently – before he turned and continued moving towards the first blast site. I think we were both in that zone, or in shock. Who knows which. But his passing by did it for me: I figured that, A. he was out in the open, so if there was/were shooters, they would have engaged him first, and B. he had walked close enough to the door so that if there *was* another bomb, he might have set it off.

So in terms of finally choosing to get the hell out of there, that was all the information and assurance I needed. I stood up, leaned over the desk, and found myself looking at the faces of Sheerine and the two ticket agents behind the counter – wide eyes I remember looking back up at me. I believe I told them “Time to go, let’s get moving” – and in my one moment of absolute smart, I glanced down and noticed a US Passport sitting on the desk below me. I reached down – flipped open the page, saw Sheerine’s picture, and grabbed it and tossed it into my pocket. Best move ever – getting her out of Belgium would have been a shit-ton harder without it.

After I got her over the counter, and the ticket agents climbed over as well – I grabbed both suitcases. I don’t exactly know why, and I am somewhat embarrassed by this, since I am a harsh critic of people who try and evacuate an airplane with their carry on. Shit is replaceable, right? But – in my head: they had survived this event as well, and it seemed like it would be totally wrong to leave them behind, like it would be a betrayal of their earning the right to live. Yes, that’s right: I anthropomorphized my luggage.

As we emerged from the ticket aisle into the main section of the check in hall – I glanced down to my right, towards the site of the second bomb – and once again, could see things that I probably won’t ever be able to un-see. I told Sheerine to look away and focus on the ground. You can imagine details – I don’t need to explain to you how you determine that someone is missing a leg from 40 feet away. Suffice it to say that you can tell automatically, because the “picture” doesn’t look right. From this moment, I remain thankful for Sheerine’s stubborn nature: though she needs them, she refuses to go get glasses or contacts, probably out of vanity. So even if she ignored me and did look, I am not sure she *could* have seen the details which I could. In any case, this order was only partially successful in shielding her from anything truly awful; when I glanced down, I could see multiple – and I mean more than a few – blood trails leading out the door. And not droplets of blood forming a path – I mean actual trails, unbroken lines, like someone went running while squeezing a ketchup bottle behind them.

As we came out the door – that’s where I saw my first casualty up close and personal. Just to make sure we stay on the same page: casualty isn’t necessarily a dead person – it’s anyone taken out of commission by an event like this. In this case, it was a guy probably my age or so, slightly balding, with a beard. A quick glance at him would tell you he wasn’t missing any limbs, and there didn’t appear to be any deep wounds in his torso; his face, however was covered in blood – probably from flying glass. At this point, I paused, and looked at him for a moment, and paused – he had 2 people tending to him, and I had people following me out. So, I took one more look, felt satisfied he was in good hands, and moved past him.

To emerge outside into the sun was both amazingly euphoric, and ridiculously confusing. On the one hand, we made it across the line (and I even think I cringed as we crossed over the threshold -half expecting there to be another blast) and it finally started to feel safer.   On the other hand, we had just made it outside after what felt like an eternity in a combat zone – and my first thought was “were the fuck are the cops?” 

In fact – cars were still pulling up, trying to drop off passengers. How crazy is that? People were pulling up to the terminal, trying to drop off friends or family to go fly someplace, with no clue as to what had just happened; I even saw someone hugging and smiling at what I would assume was a friend about to fly. It goes to show you – our brains are somewhat limited in what they can reference at any point in time: people were pulling up in minivans, seeing smoke and bloody people running around,  and instead of peeling out of there as quick as possible – they went “huh – that’s strange” and continued to try and offload their charges, with fuck-all clue about what they had just wandered into.

Outside the terminal – I could finally see the exterior of the building:

All that used to be a glass front.

We made it to the sidewalk directly across the drive from the Terminal – and we found ourselves standing in front of the Marriott. At that point, I think that was the first time I allowed myself to literally say “Holy Shit. HOLY SHIT.” I remember my mouth felt like paste, dried out beyond all belief – but one of the first things I did was to pull out a cigarette and light it, as if there was nothing better in the world. Hell – maybe at that point, there wasn’t. I remember putting my hands on Sheerine’s face – she had some tears, yes, but to her credit, she held it together better than many others around us. I think I kissed her on the forehead – not a light one, but a serious-pressure kiss on the forehead – and repeated what I had said inside the terminal “It’s Okay! We are Okay!”

After what felt like an eternity (but to be fair, probably wasn’t all that long, and certainly not outside the realm of reasonable response times) – fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and even military trucks started rolling in. We stood for a few moments on the sidewalk – I became acutely aware that I was breathing really, really rapidly – almost as if I had waited to emerge into safety before allowing myself to have a moment of stress – and I remember mentally telling myself that Sheerine didn’t need to have me pass out and hit the ground, so I needed to slow my own breathing down and get it under control.

As the emergency response got organized – we got pushed back. At one point, there was a complete spazz out by the police and soldiers, and they started screaming at us to get back. And we found ourselves standing on the ramp to the short-term parking garage, right next to the Marriott. I just passed by this spot again a few days ago, and I took a picture for nostalgia’s sake:

Right there – now behind that fence – is where we stood and took stock. I’m nostalgic for it, I admit. That area of concrete will always have a lot of meaning – the euphoria of survival, the full realization of what had just happened, all of it.

And then, of course, there was Claude. I don’t recall exactly where we first encountered Claude – part of me thinks he was on the floor next to me in Aisle 8, while Sheerine seems to think we first encountered him out front. Either way, by the time we took this picture, the reality of our experience had sunk in, and I wanted to memorialize it. Before I took it – I told them both that ISIS had tried to kill us and had FAILED – so, now, we were all friends for life. Or some life-affirming bullshit like that. Whatever, it felt really good to say at the time.

I remember taking this picture and being choked up. It wasn’t just Sheerine (though she was mission #1 during this whole ordeal) – it was looking at the faces around you, of people who had been inside in the line of fire, and even though you didn’t know them 30 minutes prior, you found yourself just SO goddamn happy they survived. Absolute strangers, but the fact that – covered in dust and debris or not – they were still breathing, made you borderline ecstatic. There was apparently a German camera crew already there, and I got caught on camera consoling/encouraging two airport workers who were in tears, with that very message: Hey! It’s Okay! You made it! You are alive! You will be okay! Fuck ISIS. They failed!

The only time this message faltered was talking to one airport worker, this short Belgian of Asian descent, who told me he had seen a blood covered child inside. We stood there, and I had my hands on his face, talking to him. I remember telling him he was a good man, and that he would see his family tonight.

I still look at this picture – and it can bring me back to that moment: realizing how big of a bullet we had dodged, and being able to look at Sheerine and know she was okay. And that Claude could talk to his wife and son later. Those realizations, in that moment, were pretty damn powerful.

The rest of the story –  my argument with a police officer who was trying to order us to get out of the parking garage (yeah, did you guys check it for car bombs yet? Fuck you, no) – me completely losing my shit when they brought the wounded out past us on gurneys and wanting to kill anyone who belonging to ISIS with my bare hands – the walk off the airport grounds 2 miles to Zaventum – the emotions of talking to my sister over FaceTime from the Zaventum  train station parking lot, and seeing her face again – the fortuitous ride we finally snagged back downtown, and finally reaching my apartment – those I am definitely tired of talking about. And the aftermath is never as interesting as the actual event, right?

When I think back on it now – I have mixed thoughts. For one, I don’t feel unsafe; don’t exactly know why, since there is still an active threat here, and I certainly wouldn’t accept free tickets to the Euro Cup this week. But like I said earlier, I don’t walk around feeling like much has changed.And judging by the street scenes here, or the crowds that still show at Place Luxembourg on Thursdays (The infamous outdoor EU weekly Happy Hour) – I don’t think much has changed in this city either.

Maybe that is a good sign, and the best evidence we have that, ultimately, a group like ISIS will never really bring us down, no matter the body count – and maybe its not bravery – maybe its annoyance. We shake things off, and don’t like inconveniencing our daily lives with thoughts of death or terrorist lurking behind corners.  We end up wanting a suitcase to be just a suitcase again, versus dealing with a moment of panic at imagining wires and plastique inside. Granted, this also risks letting our guard down, but – I think its pretty human, and its what they really don’t understand about us – and why they will lose (this is not to say I don’t remain a strong advocate of taking the fight to them, stat. I do. Very much so.)

Whatever it is – I leave that speculation up to others. I don’t feel like I had some sort of rebirth – and as much as I have toyed with the idea of getting my first tattoo “3/22/16” or something, I don’t know if I want a permanent reminder. I think I am okay with writing this down, and letting it all go – a story to tell over a beer some day. And that’s that. As I said to Sheerine multiple times in the days after – It Happened. We Survived. There is no do-over. End of Story. – and I think that’s pretty much where I am at, and where I remain.