“Don't forget the bow. We have the recital next week.” she shouts, her voice burrowing
deep in his brain where it will spend the next few minutes bouncing around
until it sinks into the hidden recesses to fester there with all of her other
commands.
Without responding, he gets in the car and closes the door. He
watches her on the porch, her hands on her hips, her hair, make-up and clothes
all perfectly in place, her mouth solidly in the position of disapproval that
she wears when he's around. His son, Edgar, stands next to her. Small for his
age, carrying his violin case, wearing a too-large suit even on this hot
September morning. They are his family. Words written on official papers that
had never found a place in his heart. The feeling was mutual, he thought, he
was not part of their tight little circle of two either. He drives off,
relieved to be leaving them.
The early
morning Boston traffic is heavy and he panics realising that he might be late
for his flight. He knows how important the meeting in Los Angeles is for the
company. “Mess this up Eddie, and you’re
out!” Mr. Cleaver had screamed in his face the day before.
Company finances meant that he had to make
this early morning flight, land in L.A. at 11:00 and be ready for the 1:00 pm
meeting. After the meeting, he’d get straight back on the evening flight to
Boston, expected back in the office tomorrow morning.
“God I hate this job,”
Eddie says to no one.
“Hey,
drive your car, stupid!” he shouts at the grey sedan in front of him. He
glances at his watch. Twenty minutes to get to the airport. He’ll never make
it. Swerving into the fast lane, he ignores the honks of the discontented
behind him. He has to make this meeting. It was a huge deal with a new
California hotel chain - all the fittings for all the hotels. It would save the
company and, hopefully, his job too. Mr. Cleaver had reminded him it was “an
opportunity that they just couldn’t miss.”
He pulls
into the parking lot at 7:45, he has fifteen minutes to get through the gate.
Grabbing his briefcase from the back seat of the car, he runs for the door of
the airport. Inside he quickly scans the information boards and finds his
flight, United Airlines Flight 175. He dashes left to the terminal.
Five
minutes, the big, plain-faced clock on the wall says. He throws his briefcase on the counter and
steps into the metal detector. It beeps.
"Damn. Please, it’s just my watch.
I’ll miss my flight,” he begs the officials. Just then the loud speaker
announces the last call for Flight 175. Eddie turns to the officials in
desperation.
A fat man
who appears to be the boss smiles and says, “Okay, go through.”
He reaches
the gate, his breathing heavy from the unaccustomed run. “Please, that’s my
flight,” he shouts at the prim young man who has already closed the door and is
packing up his papers to move to the next terminal.
Pointing
out the big window, the man says, “They’re leaving. Just on time 7:59. I’m sorry but
you’ve missed it. You can take the flight at noon.” He smiles at Eddie and
turns and walks away.
Eddie
walks to the window, pressing his face against the thick glass. He wonders if
he somehow managed to get out to the
runway, would they open the doors for him? If they did, it was so high up, how
would he get on? He decides he's thinking crazy. There's nothing he can do.
He has missed the plane. He will not make the meeting. He will likely lose his
job. He will not buy the violin bow for his son’s recital next week. His wife
will be furious and his son, as usual, will be disappointed in him.
He knows full well that the responsible thing to do is to call Mr. Cleaver. Let him
know that he has missed his plane. Maybe the meeting could be postponed, maybe
he could take the next flight, maybe he would still be able to buy a bow. But,
instead, he heads for the airport bar.
Three
people sit at the bar despite it being only a few minutes past eight in the
morning. Eddie sits down next to a man
about his age and nods a hello. “Give me a scotch, a double, on ice,” he tells
the bartender. “Waiting for a flight?” he asks the man next to him.
“Yeah, I’m
leaving for Thailand. I got a job there taking tourists out on boats.” He
smiles at Eddie.
“That
sounds great. How long you staying ?”
“I don’t
know. As long as I want. I don’t like keeping schedules. Just take life as it
comes mostly,” he answers.
Eddie looks at the man. He wears jeans and a T-shirt
with a leather jacket hanging at the back of the bar stool. Eddie wonders how a life like that would be,
nobody expecting him to do anything. He picks up the glass the bartender sets
in front of him and takes a long, burning drink. In moments, he feels better.
What did it all matter anyway? So he’d lose his job? He’d find another one. So
his wife would be angry? She always was anyway. And he’d long lost hope at
being his son’s friend, they were too different to ever find a way to make that
connection.
Time
passes as Eddies finishes drink after drink idly talking to the man next to him,
quietly envying the man's uncomplicated life.
They are
interrupted by the television.
“Breaking news. It appears that an airplane
has crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. At
this point details are sketchy about what could have caused such an accident.”
Eddie and
the others in the bar become quiet listening to the newscaster. In moments, the images appear on the screen. A
tiny toy-like airplane flying directly into the massive building, black smoke
billowing behind.
Eddie’s new friend turns to him. “Jesus, what do you think
could have happened?”
Eddie
shakes his head. Just as he is trying to say something the newscaster breaks in
again.
“Oh my
god, I’m getting news.... news from New York that another plane, it appears to
be a United Airlines flight, Flight 175 out of Boston, has been hijacked and is
heading toward New York. This looks like a planned terrorist attack.”
Eddie
suddenly goes blank as his eyes watch the plane he should have been on crash
directly into the top floors of the south tower of the World Trade Center. He
feels ill. In perplexing slow motion, the building collapses like so many
houses of cards. He hears screams coming from inside the terminal. He turns to
his friend.
“That’s me, my plane.... the one I missed.....I’m supposed to be on
that plane.”
His new friend pats him on the back. “Oh man,
are you okay?”
Eddie
feels numb, he feels cold and hot, and, as the realisation sets in, he is
surprised to find himself crying. His new friend pats his back again, repeating words
that Eddie can’t quite hear. Time stops
as they watched over and over the image of how his life could have ended.
The rest
of the day Eddie and his new friend sit together at the bar watching, wondering
what to do. Evening arrives and, now both properly drunk, his new friend turns
to him.
"What you gonna do man? You need to call someone, let them know you’re
okay. They’re gonna be thinking you’re dead.”
Eddie nods
his head. He’s right. They’d likely be relieved to hear his voice, but still he
stays sitting, unable to do anything, mesmerised by the unending news coverage,
by his paralysed thoughts.
His friend
gets up to leave. “Well Eddie, I gotta go. There are no flights taking off
today. Listen, if you find yourself in Thailand look me up.” He takes a slip of paper out of his pocket
and writes his address and phone number on it then hands it to Eddie.
Eddie
slips the paper into his pocket. He reaches out to give his new friend a hug.
“Thanks for staying.”
Eddie sits
alone at the bar watching people coming and going in different levels of shock
and sadness. His mind slowly creeps through the events of his life up to this
point. His happy childhood full of so many dreams, his typically problematic
teenage years, his dismal performance at university that led to a series of
dead end jobs he hated, and his marriage.
His wife, always critical; he would never be good enough, not for her.
Eddie wondered what went wrong? Where did he stop being that happy, sandy
haired boy who would one day grow up to be a cowboy, a police officer,
Superman? What if he had died today, what would that boy have thought of the
life Eddie had lived for him? Would he have been proud or disappointed? Eddie
hardly needed to ask the question.
He sits
drinking until the orange light of morning pokes through the big windows behind
him. A new day. Eddie thought of going home to his wife and son, to his life,
and he realises that he can’t. He’s made some wrong choices in life and fate
has offered him a second chance. That thought alone gave him a surge of energy
and hopefulness. For the first time in years, he looked forward to this new day
and all of the excitement that it would hold for him. He pays off his tab and
heads towards the exit.
At the
airport door, Eddie spots his car in the parking lot. He takes his heavy key
ring out of his pocket. For a moment he looks at the familiar keys: to his
house, his office, his life, then he drops them in the dust bin and heads for
the train station.
THE END