The plane that took me from Chicago to Boston had just
touched down. I turned my phone on and CNN
quickly flashed on the screen “Blast at
the Marathon 6 to 12 injured”. I looked to the woman next to me whose phone was
also just waking up. She was 40ish with
a greying boy’s haircut. She grimaced at her phone, and figuring she may have
seen what I just have seen I shoved my Iphone in her face with the CNN update.
The surprised look on her face let me know that A. I was intruding on her
personal space and B. she was just upset that her phone was taking so long to
load.
Then the texts came in.
Some from home here in Boston, some from my recent former home LA, one
from New Mexico. They all said something along the lines of “Are you ok?” This
was more then a simple explosion. I went to the CNN app on my phone;
information was nascent at best.
I was cruising through the terminal, trying to figure out
what was going on while simultaneously trying to collect my bag as fast as I
could because my girlfriend was supposed to pick me up soon. The only thing
that separated the sight of the terminal today from any other day was the
unusually large group of people gathered around the TVs at the Legal Seafood.
The internet connectivity of my phone was sluggish, and service was spotty. I did get a call out to my girlfriend, she was
going to be late. I had some more time to figure this out.
I put on NPR and it appeared as if there was an explosion
that was tentatively being called a bomb. A friend called me and asked what was
going on. I told him what little I knew. His follow up question: “What happens to the
rest of the marathon and runners?” I hadn’t even thought about that. Then again
he was an alumni of the running the marathon, I was not. “It gets canceled?” I
ventured. The news reports of the total injured continued to rise.
The next couple of hours were filled with disbelief, lack of
information, and misinformation. There were seven bombs, then there were just
the two, there was a JFK Library bomb, then it was electrical fire. Who did
this? Why did they do this? No one claimed responsibility. This is Bullshit.
Obama spoke, Mayor Menino spoke, nerdy Deval Patrick spoke. Everyone was glued
to NPR, or the local channels or CNN. Why didn’t we know anything concrete?
Wednesday I was on Newbury Street. As described by many others
I’m sure, seeing Boylston Street- one of the busiest streets in Boston- devoid
of activity and blocked off was eerie. There
were large Army trucks, FBI, Bomb squads, and school busses full of National Guardsman. There was something like 9000 cops and troops
and agents in the city. Fifteen blocks around the bombings were a crime scene
on Tuesday. On Wednesday, that radius shrunk. Details of the bombing were
coming in to focus, three people were dead and in excess of 150 were hurt (that
number has risen to 264). One of the people killed was an 8 year old boy. There
were two bombs that went off separated by several seconds.
The news cycle was viciously repetitive. We had no real new
information until Thursday night when they released the photos of the
suspects. At some point afterwards we
learned that the FBI did this because of all speculation that was occurring on
the internet with photos of people at the site. What was most shocking to me was
how young the suspects looked.
Waking up Friday morning was like touching
down at Logan all over again, What Had
Happened? The city of Boston was
shut down, as there was an ongoing manhunt. At some point on Thursday night the
bombing suspects who were brothers had killed an MIT cop, hijacked a car,
gotten in to a firefight with police, and seriously injured a transit cop in
that fight. The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was dead. He had a wife and a
child. The younger brother Dzhokar, who was only 19 was on the loose in
Watertown, possibly elsewhere in the city. Piecing this all together Friday
morning was difficult and truly bizarre.
This nightmare took such a strange new turn. As a precaution the city
stopped all train service, and asked people to stay in doors and not to drive.
The only time I can remember them ever turning the T off was for snowstorms and
hurricane Irene.
As the day wore on the news cycle again started to become
stale. Dzhokar was nowhere to be found. During the day we learned that he
attended UMASS, that he was seemingly a really nice guy, and that the brothers
were Chechen. Several times I heard Robin Young of NPR interview her nephew who
had gone to high school with Dzhokar. I also heard the clip of the young men’s
uncle call them ‘Losers’ several times and that he wanted everyone to know that
this did not reflect on Chechens. By
around 6 that night, they allowed people to leave their house and the trains to
run again. Very soon after however things began moving again.
There were reports that there were shots fired in Watertown.
Then there was a house surrounded, and then we found out he was hiding in a boat. I sat at my friend’s house with his
family listening to a police scanner for about an hour and half. Four grown adult
sitting in anxious silence as we tried to figure out was going on until they
caught him.
I still choke up a little sometimes when I hear the news
stories or firsthand accounts. When the entire Garden sang the National Anthem
during the Bruin’s first game afterwards, it put a lump in the back of my
throat. We are still learning little pieces, and there is obviously a lot more
dredging that will come with trial process. At least with young Dzhokar
captured there is some calm for us. But, For the people who lost limbs, and you
hear how grateful they are to be alive, I’m not sure there is much calm or will
ever be. I can’t imagine ‘Boston Strong’
will comfort the families who lost someone.
As beautiful as it was that the city came together and that
we tried to focus on the ‘helpers,’ the proximity I had to lives being shattered
is still so unnerving to me.
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