Brokedown Palace

Reflections on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

"It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago; mama, mama many worlds I've come since I first left home " Grateful Dead

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 mindful moment, a pause to reflect on the beauty of the world and my place in life.

That was the first thing I remember about 9/11, how sharp the horizon was as dawn illuminated lower Manhattan. I had hundreds of trading positions and millions of dollars in risk waiting for me downtown but none of that mattered as my driver navigated the FDR and I soaked in the scene.

I was the president of a $400 million hedge fund and as bearish as we were on the macro landscape, we were positioned very long heading into that fateful day. As I settled into my turret and downed my second cup of coffee, Nokia pre-announced a negative quarter and the stock shot 5% higher.

That was our signal the market was washed out, proof positive traders were caught short and scrambling to cover. We pressed our bet, buying SPY and QQQ hand over fist, twisting the knife into the bears that had overstayed their welcome.

The first boom shook our office walls, causing everyone to stop what they were doing. "What the hell was that?" One of the analysts yelled "The World Trade Center's on fire!" as we turned to see flames raging / black smoke billowing into the clear blue sky.

At 40 Fulton Street, we were a few blocks away from the towers 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 turned to share the news 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."

As the initial shock began to fade and the futures swung wildly in 10-20 handle clips, we made some sales; but when reports emerged that a commuter plane had crashed, we scooped our inventory back as our eyes fixated on the scene outside.

I've since learned the reason we couldn't look away was that our mind had no way to process the information; that, no matter how hard we tried to mentally digest what our eyes were seeing, there was no place to "file" images of human beings holding hands and jumping off 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 I never saw.

We huddled by our window with our mouths open as somebody repeated "Oh, my God!" behind us.

An airplane approached from the distance and circled behind the second tower, entering it from behind. In slow motion, the ka-boom again shook the foundation of our building as the fireball exploded directly toward us.

I thought, "This is how I'm going to die" as we gathered our staff and ushered them out the door and down the stairwell.

I raced back to my turret before leaving and quickly wrote "We’re evacuating our building..." and sent it to my editors, unsure if they would get it.

The Duck and Cover

Once outside, we instinctively ran toward the Seaport. I remember thinking that worst case, we could dive into the East River and take our chances there.

We overheard someone say that the Pentagon was attacked. The Pentagon? Wasn’t that air space protected? With no cell phone or internet service, we had no access to information; we were cut off from the world.

My mind raced as I thought about friends who worked in the towers and resisted the urge to find them. We knew we were under attack, but little else, with all of us packed together in lower Manhattan.

The crumbling began with a whisper and grew to a growl as the first tower imploded; we scrambled, scattering our team among the thousands of people as the smoke and debris began to billow through the streets.

I don’t know how my partner and I found each other but we somehow connected and ran north along the river. I watched the water to our right as a precaution; it was an option I wanted to keep open as we broke into a sprint.

We flagged down a taxi that was occupied by a young woman, hysterical and confused. My partner offered the cab driver $500 to drive us away from the chaos while I tried to calm this stranger who was now hyperventilating.

Between sobs, she told me that her boyfriend worked in an office that was high up in the towers and as I looked out the back window and saw that one was already gone, I was at a loss for words.

How could I ease her pain?

What was happening to our country?

Was this really happening at all?

I eventually found my way to my home on 57th Street navigating the lines that had already formed at convenience stores. 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, my friends, myself. I needed to understand what happened and establish a framework of relativity, a place where I could begin to assess and digest what had just happened.

A half-hour after I arrived home, my mother crashed through the door and held me tighter than I've ever been held.

Close friends began to gather at my apartment. Five at first, then 10, then 20. It was the other side of disaster, a dose of humanity in a sea of horror, a refuge of love in a maze of confusion.

I found myself at my desk, looking for a semblance of normalcy and a familiar setting. Instinctively, I began to write the column below, which was published that evening on TheStreet.com.

The Day the World Changed

By Todd Harrison

09/11/2001 8:33 p.m. 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 10 hours after the fact, and I still feel the “boom” that shook our 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 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 Bill Meehan 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

Friends who shared similar experiences all dealt with their grief differently.

Some left our business entirely, opting to enjoy a life where bells didn't bookend days.

Some got married and others divorced as the specter of death made them rethink life.

Some fell into drug / alcohol addictions hoping self-medication would dull their pain.

We each did what we could. We all did what we had to.

My personal path was reflexive and subconscious, guided by motivations I didn't fully understand at the time. I spent one more year with the fund, which lost our offices in the attack, before stepping down and shifting course.

Most people thought I was crazy to relinquish such a high profile / lucrative position and maybe I was. I wanted to do more with my life and create an existence where self-worth wasn't dictated by P&L. Trading, for all it’s many benefits, can also ring hollow.

When people ask me when I started researching cannabis, I tell them that it was after Sept. 11, 2001. That was the catalyst, although I didn’t realize it for almost a decade. I knew something powerful had shifted within me that day but never knew what PTSD was or how it would manifest.

I began to suffer from depression, even if it took some time to see it. I worked non-stop and the few times I took a break, I locked the door, turned off the phone, closed the blinds and climbed into bed. I didn't see friends or seek the comfort of family; I just wanted to be left alone.

I also smoked a fair amount of weed, which I told Dr. Julie Holland during one of our sessions. I started seeing Julie after 9/11 and unbeknownst to me at the time, she was an expert on cannabis. So when I mentioned that I felt guilty because of my cannabis consumption, she told me about the science behind the endocannabinoid system.

Thus began my journey down that rabbit hole for the intellectually curious and I’m talking about all of it: the 30K yr history (10K as medicine), how it was weaponized as an immigration tool and the science, which boggles my mind at this early stage.

I’ll say this, too: Julie was right. Despite all that propaganda about how this is your brain on drugs and I learned it from watching you, Dad, cannabis has been used as a remedy for cultures / societies for as long as there have been cultures / societies.

But this isn’t about that; just some context amid the remembrance.

Back to the Future

It’s been twenty years since first responders showed us what true heroes looked like. 20 years. A lots happened since then; misguided wars, financial bubbles and busts, political divides, the devolution of social mood, the evolution of managed markets, and all sorts of agendas across the societal spectrum.

It hasn’t been easy but it’s been super-rewarding despite, or perhaps because of, the failures, lessons and disappointments that have littered my journey. The polarity of life across two decades on full display, reduced to a snapshot on this day of reflection.

I’ve learned a few things; most notably, my capacity to absorb an immense amount of pain and pressure and come through the other side. There’s a lesson in that; a hard-won lesson that has sustained me since. “If I could get through that…”

They say experiences define our reality and that’s true; but it’s the perception of those experiences that really moves the needle. What we did. How we reacted. How we changed. And how we incorporated that into our life and the lives of our children.

I’m not going to say I’ve got anything figured out bc I don’t. I’m much more pleasant on the page than in person, I still struggle to manage my moods, I still get startled by loud noises; and I still cringe when I see an airplane fly behind a building.

But I also believe that hardships, no matter the source or depth, forge character, and that character defines us as people. Someone once said, “self-growth can only found outside your comfort zone,” and I suppose there’s some truth in that.

I don’t know what the next twenty years will bring but if the past is a prologue, there will be two sides to the ride. As time is the most precious commodity, I find myself genuinely grateful for the opportunities ahead and equally determined to defeat any obstacles that might get in the way.

There are things we can read in a book and lessons we must learn for ourselves and as the greatest wisdom is born as a function of pain, it’s incumbent upon each of us to find our sources of strength that will sustain us through the inevitable dark days.

Because there is no good without bad, no highs without lows; no winning without loss.

May peace be with you.

R.P
B.M