Syracuse, New York never mattered to me.
I lived far away from this Rust Belt town, knowing little about it aside from the tragedy that its namesake university and I shared. This place never registered for me, with the exception of maybe a week of my senior year of high school, when I considered applying to SU under the theory that I would basically be a shoo-in for acceptance.
I would have made a strange type of legacy admission.
Until 15 months ago, I never felt the need to visit this city, but that changed when I started doing research for this project. In the two decades since Syracuse University lost 35 students, the school became the de facto headquarters for preserving the legacy of those lost, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 holds its annual meeting on campus during Remembrance week, and the school’s Bird Library contains the definitive archival collection on the topic1.
In the past 15 months, I’ve visited this place three times. I’m still not sure how I feel about this.
During my drive from Buffalo, it occurs to me that, as far as I can tell, Syracuse shares its problems with every other city in the region—the declining relevance of the Erie Canal hit this whole region hard over the last century. Syracuse itself is a little small for my taste, but on the plus side, I discovered possibly my favorite coffee shop in the world, a place called Funk ‘n’ Waffles, during my first visit here.
After I settle into my hotel room, I strap on my messenger bag and head out, swinging by the post office to mail my taxes and then the coffee shop to write a portion of this very narrative. I feel tremendously weird about doing such pedestrian things in a town where I’ve spent less than a week of my life—I’ve never even been to my own post office2, but I can find the one for Syracuse University with no problems.
From the post office, it’s literally a 30-second walk to Funk ‘n’ Waffles, where I order a latte and a waffle and sit down with my laptop to try and catch up on everything I’ve missed.
I do not miss this, I think two hours later and two doors over, as I sit in a college bar with a book in one hand and a Blue Moon beer in the other. Honestly, I don’t know how I could miss something I never really experienced before. While I spent six months frequenting college bars after my return from New York to Seattle, I went exclusively at night, with a particular group of friends who cared mainly about playing pool and discussing how they were theoretically going to hit on the cute girls surrounding us any minute now (and, on rare occasions, even doing so.) I never sat in a college bar reading or studying, and I can count the number of times I’ve gone to a bar and drank alone in my entire life on one hand.
The anti-nostalgia afflicting me at the moment results from the music coming from the bar’s jukebox, a collection that somebody may have copied from my high school-era Napster account: Goo Goo Dolls, Eve 6, Third Eye Blind—everything is thoroughly represented.
Like everything else, inspires me to contemplate my own mortality.
For years now, I’ve told people that I expect to be dead by age 35. This started around the same time I liked this music, because 35 was a semi-arbitrary age that represented the three truths that a) my father was killed at 35, b) I was obnoxious enough that I somewhat expected someone to beat me to death, and c) it was not unusual for my sustenance for a day to consist of a two liter of Coke and a bag of tortilla chips3. Over the years, even as b) and c) became less and less the case, I’ve grown more certain that my prediction will come true.
I simply can’t imagine getting old.
Never mind the physical. Never mind that, with the collection of ailments to which I’m genetically predisposed, I’m somewhat shocked that I’ve made it this far. I can’t imagine growing old because I’ve never been able to handle moments like this one, where the tiniest detail in a bar sets off a feeling of crippling dejection (or perhaps disgust). Already, my life feels full of these things, these moments when the sight of a Walgreens triggers a wave of remorse or a chance encounter during a birthday celebration makes me spend the rest of the night fearing a sucker punch.
Theoretically, I will grow out of these things. My older friends keep telling me, explicitly or implicitly, that these are the most tumultuous times of my life, that I’m still learning to fend for myself in this big, scary world. I’m supposed to be navigating the minefields of the dating and professional worlds, and this is supposed to be the source of my everyday anxieties. The truth, though, is that I’m barely dealing with the former and ignoring the latter. The world has been handed to me on a platter and I’ve chosen to let it sit and go bad while late-90s alternative rock reminds me of times I’d like to forget.
I foresee this growing worse. I visualize myself growing more bitter as I age, as things get ruined for me. I’ll grow angrier as more and more of my friends settle down, become successful, have kids, and leave me behind, stuck in a thirtysomething version of my mid-20’s malaise.
And then, one day in late 2018, I will pass away as a result of a tragic toaster malfunction. As I lay dying, I will probably think about how I’m not ready to die yet, even though the previous two decades had been spent anticipating my death at exactly this age in exactly this manner. My last thoughts will be of this book, of these words, and I will think to myself, Who would’ve expected my ridiculous prediction would be so accurate? My body will be found on the kitchen floor of the house I live in alone, several days after my death, and the investigation arrive at only one conclusion. Cause of death: Wanted a bagel.
It will be only the second most improbable death my family has suffered through.
On the topic of disenfranchisement leading to improbable and semi-premature deaths, there’s this: The United States Navy shot some pirates yesterday.
In all the excitement of yesterday’s international (mis)adventure, I somehow missed this news, but it’s true. For the past several days, Somali pirates held the captain of an American cargo ship hostage, and after negotiations failed, the Navy brought in snipers.
Jon Stewart recounts the details as I work out in the basement of my hotel, and I believe him—the news is far too silly for him to make up. He’s having a field day with this, and I see why: The whole scenario feels like something out of a video game, as though as soon as the pirates were shot, a 14-year-old boy from San Diego would scream a homophobic slur into his headset microphone, accuse someone of hacking, and quit the game before the next round.
But unlikely as it seems, this really happened. If I doubted Stewart, those doubts would have been wiped away by Letterman’s monologue as easily as I wipe the sweat from my brow with a mini-towel on my way out of the gym.
The only thing about this whole scenario that I find surprising is that I don’t find it surprising at all. Of course there are Somali pirates and Libyan terrorists and renegade toasters. If there’s one thing this world is good at, it’s finding ways to get us out of it.
- Originally, the Syracuse Archive only included general documents and items related to the school’s students who were killed, but it expanded in recent years to include anything related to the bombing.
- In my defense, the post office that handles my mail is not the closest post office to my home.
- The store at which I spent most of my time playing Magic sat next door to a Walgreens.