12. Brokedown Palace
It was a beautiful, crisp September morning as I looked up from my Wall Street Journal to watch the sunrise over the East River. It was a peaceful moment, and I paused to reflect on the beauty of the landscape and my place in life. That was the first thing I remember about 9/11, how sharp the horizon was as day broke over lower Manhattan.
Our hedge fund was bearish on the macro landscape but positioned for a countertrend upside trade heading into that session. As I settled into my turret and downed a second cup of coffee, Nokia preannounced a negative quarter—they released news that business was worse than expected—and the stock shot 5% higher. It was a telltale sign that the market was washed out, proof positive that traders had bet on further declines and were being forced to buy back their negative exposure. We pressed the upside, furiously buying the S&P and NASDAQ, and twisted the knife into the sides of the bears who had overstayed their welcome.
The first boom shook our office walls. I scanned the traders sitting around my trading desk and said, “What the hell was that?”
Jeff’s brother yelled, “The World Trade Center’s on fire!” We turned to the towers and saw flames and black smoke billowing into the clear blue sky.
At 40 Fulton Street, we were a few short blocks away, and, on the 24th floor, we had a bird’s-eye view. The mainstream media had yet to pick up the story, which only added to the confusion as we watched it unfold in real-time. I instinctively turned to write on TheStreet.com, posting commentary at 8:47 a.m. “A bomb has exploded in the WTC. May God have mercy on those innocent souls.”
The S&P and NASDAQ futures traded wildly in ten, twenty handle clips. We made some sales, but when it was reported that a small commuter plane had crashed, we scooped back that inventory back and then some. All of this occurred in a matter of minutes, if that.
I’ve since learned that the reason we couldn’t look away from the towers was that our minds had no way to process the information. That, no matter how hard we tried to mentally digest what we saw, there was nowhere to “file” images of human beings holding hands and jumping from atop the World Trade Center. It’s an image I can’t shake to this day, bodies falling through a maze of confetti like ants from a tree. It’s a sight that I wish to God I had never seen.
We huddled by our window with our mouths gaped open as somebody repeated “Oh my God!” over and over again. The second plane circled behind the tower and entered it from behind. In slow motion, the impact shook the foundation of our building as the fireball exploded directly toward us. I thought to myself “This is how I’m going to die,” as we gathered our staff and ushered them toward the stairwell. I stopped by my turret, quickly wrote, “I’m evacuating our building….” and sent it to my editors, unsure if they would ever receive it.
The Duck and Cover
We left our building and ran toward the South Street Seaport. I remember thinking that, worst case, we could dive in the East River and take our chances there. We overheard someone say that the Pentagon was attacked. The Pentagon? Weren’t missiles supposed to shoot down anything that threatened that air space? The Verizon switching center had been damaged, and we had no cell phones or Blackberries or any voice of reason to assuage our fears. We were cut off from the world.
I thought of friends who worked in the towers. I resisted the urge to run to Ground Zero to find them and tried to put on a brave face to calm my shaken staff.
The crumbling began with a whisper and grew to a growl as the first tower imploded. We naturally assumed another wave of attacks had begun. Everyone scrambled and scattered our office among thousands of other confused people as the wave of white smoke approached.
I’m not sure how Jeff and I found each other, but we somehow connected and ran along the river toward FDR Drive. I eyed the water to our right as a precaution—it was an option that I wanted to keep open as we broke into a sprint.
We somehow flagged down a taxi, and Jeff offered the driver $500 to take him out of the city while I tried to calm the woman in the backseat who was on the verge of hyperventilation. Between gasps, she told me that her boyfriend worked in an office high up in the World Trade Center. As I looked out the back window and saw that one of the towers was already gone, I was at a loss for words. How could I ease her pain? What was happening to our country? Was it really happening at all?
I made my way to my home on 57th Street as lines formed at convenience stores in my neighborhood. People were hoarding bottled water, canned food, flashlights, and other necessities. I had none of that, and I didn’t care; I just wanted to find my family and my friends. I needed to understand what had happened and establish a framework of relativity, a place where I could begin to digest and assess my experience. The images on TV portrayed downtown Manhattan as a cloud of smoke; a disaster area with body parts strewn like yesterday’s laundry on the bedroom floor.
Thirty minutes later, my mother charged through my front door and held me tighter than I’ve ever been held. Soon thereafter, friends began to gather at my apartment; there were five at first, then ten, then twenty. It was a dose of humanity in a sea of horror, a refuge of comfort in a maze of confusion. I found myself sitting at my living room desk, looking for a semblance of normalcy and a familiar setting.
Instinctively, I wrote this column, which was published on TheStreet.com.
By Todd Harrison
09/11/2001 08:33 PM EDT
Numbness. Shock. Anger. Sadness.
As I sit here with family and friends, awaiting calls that may never come, I am drawn to my keyboard and I’m not quite sure why.
Perhaps it’s an attempt to somehow release the tremendous sadness that’s locked inside me. Maybe I have hopes that sharing my grief will stop these images…stop the shaking.
It’s ten hours after the fact, and I still feel the “boom” that shook my trading room.
I can still see the bodies falling from the first struck tower, one after another, as we gathered by the window in shock and confusion.
I can still hear the screams in my office “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” as the second plane hit…and the image of that fireball rolling toward us will forever be etched in my mind.
I often write that “this too shall pass,” but I will never be the same. Maybe that’s a selfish thought, as tens of thousands of people won’t have the opportunity to put this behind them.
Each time my phone rings and I hear the voice of a friend who I feared was lost, I break into tears.
Every time I get a call from someone who “just wanted to make sure” I’m still here, I’m reminded of how lucky I am to share relationships, memories and a past.
I know many of you read my column to make money, but do yourself a favor and surround yourself with loved ones this evening.
Some of the wealthiest people I know don’t have two dimes to rub together, and a few of them will never see their children, parents or friends again.
More than anything else, I wish I’d kept my date to share a drink with my good friend at Cantor Fitz.
I was tired, opting to grab a good night’s sleep rather than down a couple of apple martinis with my sage friend.
I’m sitting by my phone, brother, waiting for your call.
Drinks are on me.
Picking Up the Pieces
People who shared a similar 9/11 experience dealt with their grief differently. Some left the business entirely, opting to enjoy a life where bells didn’t bookend their days. Some married, and others divorced as the specter of death shifted their path in life. Still others fell into drug and alcohol addictions, with hopes that self-medication would dull their pain. We each did what we could; we all did what we had to.
I was numb and relied on instincts to make it from hour to hour and day to day. CNN asked me to appear on television that weekend, and while I didn’t want to be in the public eye I decided that my message needed to be heard: Stay calm, don’t make emotional decisions, and remain patient. I believed that the downdraft that would inevitably occur when global markets reopened would ultimately provide a better entry level than exit point.
I arrived at the television studio mentally prepared to communicate a coherent stream of thoughts. While I had been on television a number of times, I was nervous, not because of the national audience, but because of what my mind and spirit was trying to reconcile. I kept telling myself that September 11th was just another day, but deep within, I knew that wasn’t true. I sat in the green room talking to Senator Chuck Schumer before my segment was scheduled to air, and was impressed by how personable he was. He was a kind man with gentle eyes, I thought to myself, a ray of hope in what was seemingly a hopeless situation.
A producer ushered me to the roof where they were filming, and downtown Manhattan provided the backdrop. A hazy smoke drifted in the background as the putrid smell of burnt flesh and melted steel continued to haunt me. They put a microphone on my lapel and began the countdown. At the last second, they told me they had to cut away for an emergency message from Donald Rumsfeld.
“Hey, if I’m getting bumped, at least it was for the Secretary of Defense,” I said as I forced a smile at the producer, hoping that some levity would ease her obvious stress. There were no words in return, no acknowledgment, no eye contact. Everyone was in a state of shock. It seemed like everyone was going through the motions.
I walked across town and made my way home as volunteers raced toward the still smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. Many of my friends had given blood or assisted the fire department with moral support and words of encouragement, but I never found my way downtown, perhaps a subconscious admission that I wasn’t ready to face the newfound reality. Instead, I focused on familiar escapes: the markets, our hedge fund, and my writing.
It’s been said that something good comes from all things bad, and while there was no way I could tell at the time, that one thing for me was perspective. It would be a long, painful, and expensive lesson, and one that almost left me littered on the side of the road.
Focusing Anew
The markets were closed for the week following September 11th and that gave Jeff, Matt, and I an opportunity to map our strategy. We knew there would be a process of price discovery since there was no historical context to lean against, and existing paradigms no longer applied. “The market was extremely oversold heading into this event,” I told my partners as I pointed to numerous technical indicators. “The selling panic will provide an opportunity to make some savvy purchases.” I took comfort in the familiarity of my trading acumen, a lucidity and instinct that I had learned to trust. We would be looking at large losses in our portfolio when the markets reopened, and I knew the first snapshot of our P&L would be ugly.
To make matters worse, our office telephony was severed during the attack, and we had no command center to execute our protocol. Jeff found a space in Rye Brook, an hour north of the city—three hours, when there was traffic—and we set up shop. Instead of eight screens and a telephone turret with direct lines to our brokers, we planned to take on the world with makeshift equipment. It was far from optimal, but it could have been worse—it could have been a lot worse.
We discussed swallowing a bitter pill once the markets opened and flattening our portfolio, which would have still been up close to 10% for the year. “Ten percent isn’t shabby,” I said. “Our investors will understand that given what we’ve been through, we need to retrench before assuming new and different risk.”
The decision was made to forge ahead, and once it was, there was no looking back. The market opened the following week and quickly chopped 4% from our gains before our first trade was executed. We fought with everything we had and left it all on the field, before attempting to recover at night. This process was repeated day after day after day.
I didn’t want to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, vivid nightmares jolted me back to a reality I didn’t want to accept. The feelings of guilt began to build, which was strangely my predominant emotion. How could I be so upset when others lost so much more? Why did I cry each night after putting on a brave face for my staff and on TheStreet.com? How long would I be able to shoulder this load when I was melting from the inside out?
I wrote columns that expressed my opinion that equities would rebound sharply after the initial plunge, and we operated with the same plan, carefully picking our spots and adding layers of exposure as a function of price. History validated my view, but it took much longer than I expected, and the market fell much farther than I thought it would.
Our performance slid into the mid-single digits and I twisted the knife into myself, wanting to suffer, somehow feeling that I deserved it. Still, as consuming as our losses were, they paled in comparison to the gaping wound that opened in my soul. Someone had once told me that energy isn’t created or destroyed, it is simply transferred from one reality to another.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, that process was already in motion.