The Man I Never Met Read online

  I did not know that many of Joe’s friends thought he was the most impressive person they had ever met. Some of them assumed he would survive the attack on the World Trade Center—not out of hope or denial but because he was Joe Maio. To them, he was invincible.

  One of Joe’s best friends, Adam Gordon, heard the news about the plane hitting the tower and kept working, even as everybody else in the office stopped. Adam had stuff to do. He knew Joe worked at the World Trade Center, but he still was not worried about Joe. Joe would be fine. He always was.

  Another friend of Joe’s, Casey Cummings, expected to see Joe emerge from the flames of the building, like Superman, carrying another person to safety. It was illogical. Casey knew that. But he still expected it.

  Joe’s charisma was so powerful and his presence so magnetic that he would hover in his friends’ lives long after he had passed. Even now, they talk about him in a way that does not seem real, and they know it. They know they sound like they have polished his image, to make him seem more interesting or more beloved than he actually was, as people often do with the deceased. But they swear this was Joe. This was real. Nothing is exaggerated. Nothing is glossed over.

  Jordan Bergstein, who was going through a depressive phase when Joe died, decided immediately that he would live the rest of his life like Joe would have. He still talks about Joe in the present tense. Another friend says Joe’s death is what spurred him to reevaluate his on-again, off-again relationship with his girlfriend and get married. Another friend who had fallen out of touch with Joe would say, sixteen years later, that she thought of him almost every day. And another friend says that after Joe died, his mind erased most of his childhood memories that didn’t include Joe.

  So many people would be profoundly changed by Joe Maio’s death.

  Right near the top of that list, behind Sharri and Devon and Joe’s parents and brother, would be me.

  Of course, I did not know that as I sat on the couch in my living room in Denver, feeling as alone as I’d ever felt in my life. I just knew I was shocked and devastated—and, as strange as it was, I felt as if there were some sort of force pulling me back to New York.

  3

  Since this is, at its heart, a September 12 story, let’s begin there—on September 12, 2001. My mom had spent the previous night with Billy Esposito’s wife, Stevie, at their house. They kept hoping Billy would call or maybe even walk through the front door.

  I was in Denver, worrying about Billy and trying to figure out how to live my everyday life. I did a radio show. I went to the gym. I did everything I could to escape but found myself thinking only about Billy. I ate my pineapple and vanilla yogurt for breakfast and read the newspapers. William Safire of The New York Times wrote a column headlined NEW DAY OF INFAMY. The news was all so fresh. Even experts were struggling to figure it out. Safire wondered:

  Who has been recruiting airline pilots and brainwashing them with dreams of eternal glory?

  Two sentences in Safire’s column really terrified me:

  The next attack will probably not be by a hijacked jet, for which we will belatedly prepare. More likely it will be a terrorist-purchased nuclear missile or a barrel of deadly germs dumped in a city’s reservoir.

  Even rereading that now makes me shudder. It was the most powerful and disturbing thing I read that day. I called my mom, and she gave me the news: Nobody from Billy’s company, Cantor Fitzgerald, had survived the attack. It was not an official declaration, and some families still were searching and praying for miracles, but they believed that Billy was gone.

  It was hard to process that we never would see Billy again. The Saturday night before the attacks, he had gone out to dinner with my parents, and then, three days later, he was gone forever. I spent a lot of time over the next few days thinking about Billy and sobbing.

  Memories flooded my brain. I loved talking to Billy, and sports were often a driving force in the conversation. He was a big fan of the Wisconsin Badgers and the New York Mets. My hometown of Bellmore is on the South Shore of Long Island. There are two peninsulas on the south part of the town, and every year on Thanksgiving, we used to play a Turkey Bowl football game at John F. Kennedy High School between families who lived on each peninsula. The Espositos were on one side. We were on the other.

  I tried calling Stevie, but she and her daughter, Susie, were in no shape to talk. Billy and Stevie’s son, Craig, came to the phone instead. I tried to comfort him, but I was sobbing too hard. He ended up having to comfort me, which was embarrassing.

  I was more than 1,700 miles from New York but felt so close to it. The whole country was in a state of shock. Nobody knew what would be next. Everything seemed to remind everybody of 9/11. One day, I heard air force planes above my apartment building at 4:30 A.M. Another day, I found out that a friend had lost a brother in Vietnam. I’d had no idea. People were sharing experiences they had never shared before. I held a white candle at a vigil and read newspaper stories about those who had died. I wrote in my journal:

  Now they’re putting names to numbers and you hear these people’s death stories and it’s real sad.

  The week after 9/11, the NFL postponed its games, something it didn’t even do in the week when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The NFL commissioner at the time, Pete Rozelle, always remembered how that was his greatest regret. This time, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue did not make the same mistake. The games were, rightfully, postponed.

  My first flight after 9/11 was the following week, to Phoenix for a Broncos-Cardinals game. When I got to the airport in Denver to fly out to that game in Arizona, two security guards stopped me, as they did with every car. They heard a hint of my New York accent, and one of them said, “Give New York my love.” That stuck with me. But there was a new reality at the airport, with security guards the likes of which we never had seen before. They were checking all people, all bags, making sure nothing got past them. Yet I was disturbed that the razor blades in my toiletry got through security without anybody stopping me. Like most Americans, I was on edge.

  When I got back to Denver after the game, I found the longest security lines I had ever seen. I had to get in one of them, because I had another flight. This time, Denver was just a layover. And a few hours later, I looked out the window and saw the southwestern tip of Manhattan, across from the Statue of Liberty. I saw some smoke coming up from where the World Trade Center used to be. After two of the dreariest weeks in our country’s history, when it felt as if there were a perpetual sadness that never would lift, I was back in New York for Billy Esposito’s memorial service.

  * * *

  My parents picked me up at LaGuardia Airport. LaGuardia is usually incredibly busy, but when I walked out of the terminal, there was an unusually rare sight: Their car was the only one waiting outside. The only one. It was eerie. The country, especially New York and the surrounding metropolitan area, still had not come back to life.

  The night before the memorial service, we visited the Espositos. We all wanted to help in whatever way we could. My brother-in-law, Mike Barone, an attorney by trade and a giver by nature, helped Craig go through Billy’s papers. Craig pulled me aside and told me he had not written anything to say about his dad at the service. He asked me for advice.

  Craig had been a solid student, but he felt like this was the only time in his life when he had to get an A. He thought that whatever he said at the memorial service would not be good enough. He asked me for help because I was a writer.

  I wasn’t sure what wisdom I had for him. I just told him to speak from the heart and to list the attributes about his dad that he admired most. I said that would carry him through, but his question hit me hard. It made me reflect on everything Billy was to his family, my family, and anyone who knew him. On the ride home that night, I broke down again.

  The memorial service, at St. Barnabas Church in Bellmore, New York, was excruciating—a stream of people I had known for most of my life, almost all in tears. There was a loose-leaf
binder with the names of people from the 9/11 attacks who were missing or dead. It was fourteen pages long.

  My mom gave a beautiful eulogy to the more than one thousand people in attendance. Billy was a great family man, a great father, beloved at home and at work. My parents often would travel with Stevie and Billy, taking pictures of the heavyset Billy in unflattering positions. Everyone could laugh at him, but he could laugh at himself. My family had spent many holidays with the Espositos. At those gatherings, conversation almost always reverted back to sports. Billy made me think about sports issues in a different way. He helped fuel my passion. After I was fortunate enough to break into the sports field, he and his family even came to meet me in Washington one year for a Redskins-Broncos game.

  Later, Craig Esposito would get a large tattoo on his back. It is a likeness of his father. Above it are two words: My Hero.

  No one who knew Billy ever could or would forget him. The Espositos’ home became a shrine to Billy, with pictures of him everywhere.

  I was scared and lonely. I felt a longing for home. My parents were in New York. My sister, Marni, who is three years younger than I am, was there. My brother, Jordan, who is five years younger than I am and has joined me at sporting events since I was in college and he was in high school, lived in an apartment in Long Beach on Long Island.

  I wanted to be closer to all of them, but I wasn’t really sure what to do about it.

  I had a job at The Denver Post, covering the Broncos. It’s pretty hard to do that from New York. And I didn’t want to give up my job. When my parents drove me to the airport that night, with my fears of what was happening in New York and not knowing what was next, I suggested they move to Denver. They declined. They did not want to leave New York. They did not want to leave their family, friends, and life.

  I flew back to Denver with a lot on my mind. Billy was only fifty-two when he died. Craig—with whom I remain close to this day—was twenty-five. Billy’s daughter, Susie, was twenty-three. Billy didn’t get to see their weddings. He didn’t get to see his children have children of their own. He missed out on the golden years that were waiting for him as a reward for the life of taking the Long Island Rail Road from Bellmore, New York, to New York City every weekday.

  Sometimes I thought about how awful the final minutes of his life must have been, at the top of a burning skyscraper, with smoke rising and no way out. When I would be in a steam room at the gym, and it would get too hot and kind of uncomfortable, I would think about how it wasn’t one-millionth of what Billy Esposito experienced when the smoke filled his offices. I thought about him trying to breathe in his final waking moments. That vision haunted me. It still does.

  The Esposito and Schefter families had been incredibly close for a long time. We spent Jewish holidays with the Espositos, even though they weren’t Jewish. I even babysat for Craig and his sister, Susie, once. I am nine years older than Craig and eleven years older than Susie. It was hard for me to believe they had lost their dad. I tried to imagine their pain, but I struggled to do it.

  4

  The memorial service for Joe Maio was held at Church of the Presentation in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. The facts of it were more than the crowd could bear:

  Joseph Daniel Maio

  Dec. 21, 1968—Sept. 11, 2001

  In the days after 9/11, Joe’s father, brother, and uncle had gone around New York City, looking for Joe. They were like a lot of families in New York at that time, clinging to hope because hope was all they had. George kept telling himself what he wanted to hear: Joe is alive … he is unconscious … he is in a hospital and hasn’t been identified yet. Then, one day, George went to a support meeting for Cantor Fitzgerald families. Somebody said that nobody from Joe’s floor had made it down.

  The Maios were devastated. No body had been found, but now they knew: Joe was gone.

  On September 24, the paid death notice ran in The New York Times, a paragraph hopelessly trying to sum up a life:

  Beloved husband of Sharri (née Setty). Devoted father of Devon Maio. Loving son of George & Paula Maio. Dear brother of Anthony Maio and his wife Carmela and their three daughters, Nicolette, Dominique, and Julianna …

  By October 9, Joe was considered legally dead.

  As his friends and family gathered for the memorial service, the feelings inside them were too still raw to process, and the world around them was still too chaotic to understand. The nation was still stunned by the attack. War seemed possible. New York felt like a shell of itself. Envelopes containing dangerous anthrax spores were being mailed to media outlets and two U.S. senators; five people would die, and it was unclear who sent the envelopes or who would receive one next.

  New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani had been praised worldwide for going around New York and consoling his city. On September 11, Giuliani had walked two miles north, covered in white ash, for a press conference. He solemnly warned, “The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately.” It was customary for elected officials to attend the funerals of every police officer or firefighter who died in the line of duty. Giuliani tried, but attending them all was logistically impossible.

  “There are too many,” he said.

  President George W. Bush had announced, in a nationally televised address on September 21, that “our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution.” This may have been true of the country as a whole, but the people who knew Joe Maio were still trapped in grief. They had questions they couldn’t answer, starting with Why?

  Just three years earlier, many of the same people had gathered for Joe and Sharri’s wedding. It was hard to believe that they were together again for his memorial service, but here they were.

  * * *

  Sharri rode to the memorial service with her parents, Chuck and JoAnn Setty. It was a gray day. Sharri felt sick to her stomach as they drove over the bridges from Long Island. There were constant reminders that Joe’s death, as tragic as it was, was part of an even larger tragedy. One of Joe’s bosses, Danny LaVecchia, could not even attend the service because so many Cantor Fitzgerald employees had died, and he couldn’t attend every service.

  At Sharri’s request, the Creed song “With Arms Wide Open” was played at the memorial service. Chuck talked about how accomplished Joe was at such a young age and said, “In all the time I knew him, he never once bragged, boasted, or belittled anyone—and he could have easily been tempted to, because he many times found himself in competitive situations.” He said two words defined Joe: quiet dignity.

  Sharri got up to speak. She had written her eulogy in the form of a letter to Joe. It was a perfect mix of humor, honesty, and emotion, and it captured the Joe she loved and the Joe that everybody there knew.

  “Let me start off,” she said, “with the really important items.”

  She said: “I have not driven your car, which I know you will be thrilled about, and I have not backed up into a single concrete pole in the last week.”

  And: “I recently found $1,500 in your car ashtray. The bad news is, Barneys had a year-end shoe sale.”

  And: “I am sorry to tell you this, but your most treasured possession, your bug vacuum, is broken. I have decided to use your golf clubs in its place.”

  And: “The dry cleaner has finally figured out how to press your shirts properly, but they still refuse to hand-press your boxer shorts.”

  There were more than a thousand people there. Every single one of them would have understood if Sharri broke down and couldn’t finish, but she got through it. Her sister, Robyn, watched and thought, I can’t believe how composed she is.

  Sharri told Joe that there had been a scorekeeping “mistake” at Tam O’Shanter, and Joe was actually the club champion.

  “I would very much appreciate,” she said, “if you could come back to pick up your trophy.”

  From there, she shifted from humorous to heartfelt. She talked about “how sorry I am for not telling you more often how I feel about you.” S
he thanked Joe because he was “always there to listen, and always a very big shoulder to cry on. You achieved more in thirty-two years than most people ever do … you will always and forever be my hero.”

  And she thanked him for “two wonderful things: the chance to have experienced a love that would bind us for life, and our most precious gift: Devon. He is strength, beauty, and kindness. He has a sense of humor that amazes everyone and a presence that takes your breath away.

  “I look at him and will forever see you.”

  * * *

  The service was like a series of concentric circles with Joe in the middle—everybody tried to console somebody who was in a circle closer to Joe. Acquaintances hugged his good friends, his good friends hugged his closest friends, and his closest friends looked at his family and were overwhelmed.

  They had all lost a man they loved, but they lost something else, too: the remaining arcs of their relationships with him.

  Sharri missed a chance to raise Devon with Joe and to grow old with him. She read a poem at the service called “Funeral Blues,” by W. H. Auden.

  Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

  Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

  Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

  Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

  Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

  Scribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead.”

  Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

  Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

  He was my North, my South, my East and West,

  My working week and my Sunday rest,

  My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

  I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

  The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

  Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,