- So I grew up in New York.
In New York you can't drive until you're 17,
and I started my senior year of high school at 16,
which means I still had to take the bus
my senior year of high school.
And for me that was mortifying.
I thought I wasn't cool because I couldn't
drive to school.
And I want to be very clear.
There's a lot of reasons I wasn't cool in high school.
None of them are because I couldn't drive.
So what I would do every morning I would ask my dad,
like, can you drive me to school?
And sometimes he would say yes
and then sometimes he would say no
'cause the guy's got a job.
This one morning I say like,
Dad, can you drive me to school?
And he goes, "No, I can't."
You know, something in my gut was like,
no, you have to be driven to school that day.
So I go outside and I do this thing
that I've never done before,
which is when the bus comes,
I wave it away and I'll miss the bus on purpose.
And I think this is a genius plan.
So I walk back into my house and I say to my dad,
like, now you gotta drive me to school.
And my dad was livid.
He was so angry.
He puts me in the car, right?
He starts just giving me this lecture
about how I'm a brat and how I need
to learn how to take responsibility for things
and how my actions have consequences on
other people's actions and how it's not all about me.
And we get to my school and the last thing
he says to me is, "If I miss this meeting downtown,
"when I get home you are dead."
And I say, I don't care.
And I walk into the high school.
And I have this chip on my shoulder.
I think I am the coolest person on the planet.
And I walk into my first period class
and there's hustle and bustle going on in the hallway,
and something big's going on but I don't
really pay attention.
And I get into my class and I sit down
into AP Government and I look up
and my teacher's got this really stoic look on his face.
And everybody settles in and he looks at us
and he says,
"We're under attack.
"Someone just hit the Twin Towers."
And I don't know what to do with that.
I'm 16.
So my brain tells my mouth to do the only
thing it knows to do.
It laughs.
And Mr. Reno looked at me and said,
"That's really funny, Kim.
"All those people just died."
And that's when my brain puts together
what it's been trying to figure out
for the last couple seconds.
Because my dad has an 8:30 meeting
at his new job on the 75th floor of the north tower,
the tower that's in flames.
And all I keep thinking is is the last thing
my dad said to me is that I'm dead
if he missed that meeting,
and then suddenly that thought is
overtaken by the sound of the Nokia phone
and I answer it and this voice comes over the phone,
and it says three things to me.
He says, "I'm okay.
"I'm coming to pick you up.
"I have to get off the cell.
"They need the service."
And like an hour later
my dad gets to high school.
My dad is a big guy.
But he looks tiny.
And he's white.
Pale.
And he takes me to the car
and he opens the door
and he physically puts me in the car.
And he grabs the seat belt
and he locks me in,
like he's trying to protect me.
You know?
Gets into the car and he sits down
and he puts his left hand on the driving wheel
and he takes his right hand and he grabs my hand.
And that's how we drive for a half an hour home
in total silence.
And we get into the driveway
and he shuts off the car
and he said, "You made me late,
"so I canceled my meeting
"and I went to the Brooklyn job site instead."
He can't talk about 9/11.
He lost so many guys.
But every single year he calls me.
And my dad says, "Thanks for bein' a brat."