Free We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer by Pasquale Buzzelli, Joseph M. Bittick, Louise Buzzelli

home already. Nothing to worry over. Our son’s all right.” There was triumph in his voice, as if he’d proven a monumental point to himself.
    But Antonia turned on him. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded, her lips tight. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you know? He went there today. That’s why his car is still here. He went there…and now he’s gone! Don’t you understand? Our son is not all right this time! Our son is…dead.”
    “No. NO!” Ugo looked hard over the wheel. “He got out. It’s the traffic. He’s just—”
    “NO!” she screamed back at him. “NO! He didn’t make it. He didn’t make it out. My son is dead. Pasquale is dead!” She put her face in her hands and wept.
    Ugo drove on in silence. From time to time, he shook his head, as if to clear what was happening inside of him. He whispered again, “He got out.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    We’ll Get You Down
     
    “I couldn’t wait to get down there to start digging for Pasquale and the others.”
    ~ Lieutenant Michael Martire,
    NYPD Brooklyn North
     
    “We’ll get you down!” the voices promised from below.
    The firemen were back, and just that human touch after being caught in limbo in such an unfathomable place, such a terrifying oblivion of destruction, was enough to send relief surging through Pasquale’s body. Slowly, he let go of the metal he’d been holding on to, putting aside any thoughts of suicide as he let the weapon fall from his hand with a ringing sound—clapper against bell—down the pile of rubble. He was going to live, no matter what. I couldn’t have gotten this far, this close, only to die . The God he believed in wouldn’t be that cruel; he’d been chosen to live. He knew that. Why he’d been chosen wasn’t a question he could face yet, but it was there, lurking at the back of his mind: Why me ?
    More voices shouted around him: “Over here! Yeah, up on that ledge! See ‘im?”
    It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard: human voices, working their way toward him. The firemen called to each other, and he called back. There were deep voices, rolling answers—new, normal sounds in the middle of all that chaos. “How we gonna get him down? What about…”
    They talked back and forth as they figured out what they had to do. It was conversation, bouncing ideas off one another—something so normal, so human in that abnormal, inhuman place of creaking metal, crackling fire, dust, smoke, and the stench of something he’d never smelled before.
    Below him—way, way below him—one of the men began to climb the pile where he lay. He could barely see the man, catching only a glimpse now and then as the fireman circled and climbed, putting a hand out to catch a piece of steel beam here, a stack of concrete there—testing each grasp, then taking another brave, cautious step. Everything moved so slowly, for there was so much there that might give way and kill them.
    Pasquale lost sight of the man for a few minutes. He worried that maybe his would-be rescuer had fallen, that maybe there was no way for anyone to rescue him. Maybe this is the end. Maybe it’s hopeless, no matter what anyone tries to do.
    It was almost more than Pasquale could take. His leg was swollen; he could feel the painful puffiness with his fingers. His ankle throbbed. He closed his eyes, pulled in a deep, arduous breath and decided that nothing was going to stop him from getting out of there. Not now. I’m too close…
    He leaned up, straining to see the men below. Maybe they had to leave again, he worried. Maybe they’ve given up because they can’t find a way to get me out. What fire department would have trained for something this big? What awful mind could have dreamt of a disaster this monumental?
    Hope and despair battled inside him, but he knew there was no choice. He was sure that if he’d only wait and lie still, someone, somehow would eventually come for him. What else can I believe? All I can do