I would get settled for the day and the phone would ring, a New York area code.  Ed, again.  In the beginning, Ed called to complain about the bugs in the office coffee carafe.  Couldn’t I call the maintenance department or something?  I was amazed the bugs had made it all the way to the 110th floor.  As the months went by the calls became less about the bugs and more about life, children, his recent vacation to Hawaii with his kids.  This is him in his Hawaii shirt.

That morning we talked about the bugs, chatted a little and went on with our day. 

He called back “What’s going on?”  They were evacuating the building. 

“Plane hit the building next to you – just evacuate.” 

He grumbled but started down the stairs.  Then he called again “What the hell is going on?”  People heading back up the stairs were telling him to go back to his office, everything was okay.

 “We don’t know what’s going on – just evacuate.  What floor are you on?”
 
He kept grumbling even though I could hear he was getting out of breath – “89th  Floor, 88th ….”  A few swear words peppered in between.  Then silence.

 
I met his children and other members of his family not long after that phone call, I knelt in the Brooklyn church he had said his prayers in, and I heard the stories he had told me being retold by the very characters I had gotten know over all those morning coffees with Ed.   I knew then as I know now how terribly he would be missed.