WTC Drop Out

Paul McNally sat on a motel bed September eleventh and stared at the television as they replayed the news footage of a passenger jet crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Center, tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it ablaze - and then the second plane crashing into the south tower. He watched the fire and smoke coming from the building where he had worked.

His boss had said they each could do what they thought best, but he had recommended they wait for word of whether to evacuate. After all, the fire was far above them. Who knew that the whole building would come down? Paul had left immediately. He wasn't going to wait around like a caged animal waiting to be released.

Ever since taking the job, he had looked for every opportunity to get out of that office, anyway. The promotion had meant more money and Jean liked money - more than she cared about Paul being happy. His kids barely spoke to him. He was the breadwinner for the family and little else.

Still, he should have called his wife the minute he got out, he thought as he watched the television screen replaying the collapse of the south tower. Why hadn't he? The images on the screen were hypnotizing: a massive cloud of dust billowed up and drifted away from the building - the building he would have died in if he had stayed with his co-workers.

He had walked for a while in a daze, unable to gather the wit to decide what to do next, but all the while putting distance between him and the life he had known. Jean would be worried, even the kids would be worried. Paul had known that then, even through the confusing swirl of thoughts spinning around in his mind. But he put off calling her - for some reason that hadn't been clear to him -- until it was simply too late. What reason could he give his wife for the delay? He couldn't tell her the truth - the truth that was only now coming into focus. He hadn't called Jean right away because somewhere in the back of his mind, Paul had wanted to consider his options. When he checked into a motel that evening under a fictitious name, he must have known on some level what the probable scenario would be. He hadn't allowed his thoughts to go there, though -- not consciously, until now.

Paul turned off the television. There was so much to think about. His job was gone, that was clear. It wasn't his fault, of course, but without a paycheck his value to the family was gone. The pressure of working at a job he hated had been nothing compared to the pressure Jean would apply if he were unemployed. The only man who might give him a decent recommendation was likely killed in the blast. Paul was worth more to his family dead than alive, thanks to a sizable life insurance policy Jean had insisted upon. His family would get over the tragedy, and they would get along fine without him. They might even have to pretend to grieve. He would be a fool to miss this opportunity to start living for himself for a change. He'd spend eighteen years trying and failing to give his wife and children what they wanted. Nothing was ever enough.

Well, he'd finally had enough. There's nothing like nearly dying to put things into perspective for a man. Paul could see things clearly now. Life was too short to chase material things - too short to be tied to people who are never satisfied. Home should be a supportive and nurturing place where your loved ones care about you. His family hadn't been that for years, and even less since they moved into the new house. That's when things really had begun to fall apart for him. He had foolishly thought that Jean would finally be contented, but now she wanted vacations to Europe like their new neighbors, and the kids wanted - well they wanted everything the other kids had. There would always be something else. He would never be able to give them enough; he could see that now.

Paul had had enough of materialism for a lifetime. He didn't need much to be happy. There would never be another time when he could provide amply for his family and, at the same time, live the simple life he wanted for himself. It would be easy. All he needed to do was disappear. Everyone would assume he died with the others when the south tower collapsed. No one would question anything. He had enough cash on him to take him far away -- where he could reappear, take a menial job to make ends meet until he could reinvent himself. It was decided. In the morning, Paul would walk out of the motel, take a cab to the bus station, leave the rat race behind, and buy a ticket to a new life somewhere in the Midwest.

Sleep didn't come easily that night. He lay in the darkness and remembered the way it had been with Jean in the early days of their marriage. Paul had never loved another woman the way he loved her during those first few years. He had enjoyed giving her things back then - until she began to require them. It wasn't even so much that Jean took him for granted. Somewhere along the line she seemed to quit seeing Paul as a person. She acted as though he was just a necessary part of the life he provided for her, a part she only tolerated. The kids had been a joy when they were small. He and Jean had spoiled them, he supposed, but they had grown into demanding and ungrateful teenagers who behaved as though they hated him. Well, maybe they would like him better dead. Maybe Jean would, too. At any rate, there was no turning back the clock. They were not really a family anymore, and perhaps the kindest thing to do for all involved would be to bury the past under the rubble of the twin towers.

Paul woke up the next morning strangely reluctant to leave the motel room. It was a big thing he was doing, and not a thing to rush into. There had been no time to plan, though, no time for any of the usual things a person does when he makes such a momentous change in his life. He dressed and went down to the lobby and came back to the room with a cup of coffee. Paul turned on the television and sat on the unmade bed to see what was happening to the city he would soon be leaving forever. There would be no opportunity to say goodbye or touch base with his fellow New Yorkers after the catastrophe that changed everything in so many lives. But he would watch the images again, and listen to the rest of New York trying to salvage their lives after the tragedy.

A newswoman was interviewing family members who were on the street anxiously looking for their missing loved ones. An old man, frantic to learn of his son's whereabouts; a young woman with a photograph, hoping against hope that someone had seen her brother. They were holding handkerchiefs over their faces to keep from breathing the smoke and dust still hanging in the air, but their fear was unmistakable even on the television screen.

And then, incredibly, Paul saw his own son and daughter - just a glimpse, but they looked terrible. The reporter was motioning them over to speak to them, but there was a lot of confusion and some man stepped up and the newswoman interviewed him instead. He heard a voice off camera yell "Mom" and thought it sounded like his son. Paul stared at the television, hoping to see Jean. He wanted to see her one last time, hoping that he could see something in her eyes or manner that would make what he was doing easier.

What he saw was not that. Jean did come on camera. The children had called her over to show a photograph of Paul to the camera. She had been stopping people, asking everyone who would look at it, if they had seen her husband.

"Why are you down here this morning, Ma'am?" the reporter prompted.

"Because we have to do something - even if we don't know what to do," Jean answered. Paul thought he saw genuine fear in her eyes. "My husband worked in the south tower and we haven't heard from him since the first plane hit the building. Some family members got to say goodbye over the phone to some of his co-workers before the building collapsed, but we haven't heard anything. I just have to believe that my husband is still alive. It can't be too late." Tears welled in his wife's eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but could not.

"I know it's hard," the reporter said, and hesitated for Jean to compose herself. "Did you have something else you'd like to say?"

"I just wanted to say that I've got too much I need to tell Paul. He has to be alive - he just has to. Everything changed yesterday for me when I heard about the towers collapsing. I changed. I guess maybe a lot of people did. I know I suddenly realized what is really important to me, and what isn't. And I'm so afraid that now it might be too late."

There were tears in Paul McNally's own eyes as he reached for the phone.

THE END