But five days after the attack, 21-year-old Chris-who was working his way through night school at Bronx Community College to qualify for a firefighting job like his dad and brother-is still missing. On Monday, he left the 23rd Street job for a two-day stint on the 107th floor of WTC 2, the south tower. His sister Kelly, excited that he would be working so near her office, made lunch plans with him for Tuesday. That morning, she got on the train to work. Confused when it stopped at City Hall near the Brooklyn Bridge and went no further, she thought the Catholic-school teachers’ strike was holding up traffic. “They just told us they weren’t going to Fulton Street,” she said. “They didn’t say why.” She found out when she climbed out of the station and saw both towers on fire. “It was absolute mayhem-people crying, running everywhere,” she said. “And I knew he was in there.” She was horrified-but she still hoped he was alive.
At that point, he may have been. Minutes after the first jet hit WTC 1, the north tower, he called his girlfriend, Sara Navarro, at her office. But her train to work was running a few minutes late, and she missed his call. The receptionist’s message, taken at 9:02 a.m., said that he was still in the south tower, he was OK and that he loved her. That was the last anyone heard from him. Moments after the call, a plane hit the south tower. At 9:50 a.m., Tower Two collapsed.
In the days after the attack, Chris’s brother and father faced agony: Instead of searching the rubble for him, they were sent home to wait with the rest of the family. Mickey Jr. actually cut his leave short and made it to the rescue site Tuesday, spending all afternoon sifting through the wreckage for survivors. But he wasn’t aware his brother was in the building; no one had called him yet. “I didn’t even know he was working there,” said Mickey Jr. “All the phones were out. I didn’t have any facts, I didn’t have anything.” Wednesday morning, when Mickey Jr. reported for a second day of duty, he mentioned his brother was missing. The response, he said, was: “We already wrote you out. You’re dismissed.” He still wants to return to the site, although he knows it is dangerous-members of his company were trapped for five hours in the rubble when the first tower collapsed. But he has a seven-week-old baby. Chris was going to be the godfather. Mickey Jr.’s wife implored him to stay home.
Mickey Sr. was already at a Bronx fire station waiting to enter “Ground Zero” when he heard the news about his son. He knows Chris isn’t at the hospitals, because he’s already been to them all. For five days, he has been able to do little more than wait with friends, dozens of whom are still dropping by the Kirby house in Scotchtown, N.Y., to offer food and support. Some bring yearbooks and baby pictures of Chris. “I can’t tell you how many firemen have called here, looking to see if we’ve gotten any word, if he’s all right,” said Chris’s mother, Donna Kirby. “Even retired firemen are stopping by, guys who haven’t been on the force in years. They still feel that strong brotherhood.”
The support sustained Mickey Sr. for five days. But, as he said, “stories and sodas and sandwiches aren’t helping my son.” On Saturday, he decided enough was enough. He went first to the Armory to check one last time, and then to the rescue site to find Chris. “I’ve got to be close to my son, and that’s where he is,” he said. “I don’t think they have to know who I am. I’ll just be another person in the uniform. And I’ll do what I’ve got to do.”
