***

Summer, 1998. Excited to live in the big city, I reached out to an alum from my high school that I knew lived in New York. We hadn’t met in person yet, but I knew of him thanks to the internets. His name was Scott.

Though I was but a green college freshman and he was already a few years out into the working world, having gone to the same high school meant we already had a lot in common. He took me under his wing as both friend and mentor and introduced me to the New York he knew, despite the great wilderness that separated us (Central Park), despite my gross inability to foot my end of the bill. It was the city of incredible cuisine, the city of immense culture. His love of the city was infectious. I’ll forever have this chronic disease of missing New York (and a love of Guinness and an appreciation of Scotch) because of him.

During those many days and nights spent out on the town, he would pass on to me the life lessons he’d learned, colored in no small part by the health problems he was born with and the recent breakup with his fiancée. When I knew him, he was a self-proclaimed evangelist of the bitter, and our shared pessimism and cynicism was doubtless a reason we were good friends, but the way he led his life betrayed his inner self–a more tempered realist, I think, with streaks of optimism that compelled him to do good. Whether these qualities that I also see in my own self were because of him, or it was because we also shared this same unspoken philosophy beneath the protective layer of the cynic that we got along so well, I can’t say. Maybe both.

Scott drifted out of my life rather literally, packing his things for Arizona to seek the love that had been missing from his but which in turn meant leaving the city he was so fond of. It wasn’t that long after he left that the towers came down, and I know a part of him hurt. Not only out of concern for the friends he had left behind, but also because his city was hurt, and, quite possibly, the fear that he, too, might have perished if he were on shift with the city’s emergency operations management located in 7 WTC. That was probably the last time I kept in regular touch with him. Although some years later we both found ourselves back in the Midwest, we managed to meet up for dinner only a couple of times.

***

Christmas, 2009. Possibly because he was still relatively sprightly when we both lived in New York, possibly because he (back in the day) hid his physical impairments so well, it was easy to forget that every day spent with him was a day his physicians weren’t predicting him to have. And so while it wasn’t completely unexpected when I got the call about Scott’s deteriorating health, it was still jarring. At first, I believed it to be just another fight he’d successfully win, but that soon turned out not to be the case. In those last days, though… to see all of the people that came to visit (and as it turned out, say goodbye), to see everyone who was touched by Scott’s presence in their lives, was truly incredible. To see the friends he made at IMSA that spanned multiple generations was remarkable.

Scott passed around 7:45 pm, on 11 January 2010. It was a quiet night in Streeterville, and a light snow was falling.

***

On one of the many days spent visiting him in the hospital, I remember jokingly chiding him for not waiting until I became a doctor to get sick. Fast-forward to two years later, almost to the day he left, and I’m a first-year medical student learning about the heart. In anatomy lab, we dissected those same structures that caused so much pain for him, and I couldn’t help but spare a moment of anger at how such a crappy manufacturing process that gave rise to such ridiculous defects that afflicted Scott would even be allowed to exist. But it was that same flawed design that informed who he was, and though I’m not given over to believe in invisible hands, I couldn’t help but think there was a reason why I should be holding a human heart so close to the anniversary of Scott’s passing…perhaps to remind me that, despite it all, I and all of his family and friends are lucky to have had him in our lives for as long as we did. Thank you for all you’ve done, Scott, and wherever you are, I know you’re walking carefree.

“Did you have classes on September 11?”

“Yup.”

“When were you supposed to be in at school?”

“I wanted to be there at 12:00.”

“What day was September 11?”

“Tuesday.”

“Did they cancel classes?”

“Eventually.”

Some things you can’t remember.

I can’t remember if I tried to call any of my friends to see if they were okay.

I can’t remember if I tried to call anyone, for that matter.

I can’t remember who called me or tried to call me.

I can’t remember whether anyone who tried to call would have been able to reach me, anyway.

I can’t remember when I finally turned off the TV.

I can’t remember when they let us back below 14th Street.

I can’t remember when I finally let myself go below Houston Street.

Some things you wish were not even a dream.

Passing a carload of girls in a left lane immobilized by a few people ahead turning into the zoo parking lot (who knew that so many people were trying to go to the zoo?), one of whom was, I assume, desperately trying to get the attention of anyone in the right lane to let them in so they could get out, I thought to myself she’d do better by rolling down the window and sticking out her arm while the driver simultaneously merged right.

The trip down memory lane was complete when a brash cab driver used the flimsiest excuse of space in front of me to nose in, prompting a protest by horn sadly weakened by years of suburban driving.

Dammit, don’t wonder why we called.

We love, and then we were afraid we lost.

–Scott Swanson, 11 September 2002.

i remember not knowing what to do with myself that afternoon. stuck in queens. going to the nearest hospital to donate. directed to a blood center on long island. getting there. a man asked me if he could borrow my cell phone to call his family. he was heading home from manhattan. long line. couldn’t get to all of us today, come back tomorrow. wrote an email. went to church. the songs. that was the last day i could sing them.

school was closed since access to everything below 14th street was cut off. in the spirit of carrying on, sachin and chuck and i ate at daniel. 65th between madison and park. that damned stench carried all the way uptown. later that week we hopped on a bus to sachin’s parents’ house in eastern pa for the weekend. subway service was spotty. suspicious packages and whatnot being called in. a guy working for bell atlantic was waiting for the bus. said they finally restored service to lower manhattan. said the commuter lots along the way would be full of cars waiting for their drivers who would never return.

on the notesfiles. “thank god no one we know was there.” except one of us did have someone. i’m so sorry, matt. i won’t forget.

later. the memorials everywhere. flyers and posters on seemingly every available space seeking information on loved ones. anger. sadness. fear. but also thanks and gratitude. new york’s finest and bravest. friends who were in class on that day. friends who lived blocks away from the towers. friends who were stuck in traffic on the williamsburg bridge on their way to school, conscripted to bear witness. all of us getting calls from family and friends present and past wondering if we were okay. we don’t live or work near the towers. kind of surprised.

But don’t you understand? For those of us who lived in NYC, conducted our business and our lives in that place, we know how often life seems to inexorably draw us to that area. The subways, the sheer number of companies in the buildings, the hotel with its conference rooms… How many meetings, seminars, visits did I have down in WTC? How many times in the last week, the last month, the last year I was there?

And now I was 3000 miles away, in a land of eternal sun and blasted heat and rebirth and death and constant nothing and all of the sudden my friends were in danger and I had no idea about their lives, where was class today, who had what meeting where, was somebody meeting someone for an interview…

And I had to know, then, right then. Was Tony okay? Was Sendhil okay? Were Bill and Laura okay? All my friends, all my compadres of five years that I barely even remember anymore… the mass death, the totality of obliteration, and who the fuckall knew who was alive and who was dead and who was dying and who was trapped and….

The City is a big city, but it’s also a meshed city. You can be anywhere. One hour you’re at Lincoln Center enjoying a string quartet and the next hour you’re at dba slugging down beers made by monks in a country you forgot existed.

Dammit, don’t wonder why we called.

We love, and then we were afraid we lost.

Scott was also attached to the Office of Emergency Management in addition to his employment at CTW. The operations center was in 7 WTC. Much later, he would confess to me his own form of survivors’ guilt; that he thought, had he still lived in the city and been on duty that day, he would most likely have died then. Scott, I hope you are taking care of all of them.

Sometime soon after that day, the call came for amateur radio operators to help provide communications support at Ground Zero. Rather obviously, they wanted hams with handheld radios and enough battery packs to last at least a full shift. I couldn’t go. I only had my mobile radio in my car. There I was, in the very situation I wanted to be prepared for, to be able to help…and I couldn’t.

I will never be as unprepared to help as I was that day.

On an expedition through the old neighborhood after Mass with Mom and Dad, I tried to resist going into Unabridged Bookstore, thinking of the books on my shelves that have sat, neglected; but I failed, driven perhaps by nostalgia for days past in New York spent browsing the many miles of books at The Strand.

Inside, the simple cover of No One Belongs Here More Than You beckoned me closer, testified to by a staff member’s positive, handwritten review posted on the shelf. The title, too, held a promise all its own, hinting that within its pages might be found a resolution to, or at least some brief sanctuary from, my own unshakable feeling of I Belong Somewhere Else: when I lived in New York; I belonged in Chicago; in Pittsburgh, I belonged in New York; and now, in Wisconsin, I belong… anywhere else.

Six years is a long time to be someplace you don’t belong. But–and I’m reminded of a performance of one-acts I did in college–everybody has to be someplace.

If you asked me nowadays, I would tell you that, despite the tragedy of a certain day, I wouldn’t trade my college years in New York for anything. If nothing else, they clarified my love of the city (a term which, by the way, can only refer to one place) and left me with many fond memories–of people, places, and things, and a siren-like call to return.

What I wouldn’t tell you is that when I first started college there, I was not enamored of the place at all, nor of its people: the inhabitants that composed the visual and auditory (and olfactory) concerto accompanying life in the city, and my peers in school. In retrospect, the effects of withdrawal afflicted me: not feeling like I was connecting with anyone and missing the friends I had made in high school (friendships that endure to this day, by the way), I considered transferring to Champaign–a move that, in retrospect, would have caused me to miss out on many defining experiences, not the least of which being making Mr. Swanson’s acquaintance.

I stuck with Cooper, with New York, though, encouraged by words of wisdom one of my friends, Doug, only a year older than I, imparted to me:

Well, the emotional, needy part of me would tell you: “You can always transfer to Pomona, phreak!”

But the part of me that realises its important for you to thrive where you are, gain new experiences, and grow in ways that you need to grow, completely separate from my world tells me to tell you: “Trust me, Anthony. The first semester of college is really hard for emotional people, because you’re used to having those close bonds you developed at IMSA be there for you, and they seem like they’ve always been there; so it’s upsetting when you don’t immediately have them at college.

“And what it’s important to realise, is that -healthy- relationships that most people are used to consist of time, and growing, and getting to know one another slowly, and not -depending- on each other for your necessary emotional base-stability. Andt that takes time to learn and get accustomed to. And that’s okay. And it’ll hurt for a while. And that’s what e-mail to your imsa friends is for. That’s what entertaining the notion of transferring to UofI is for. Those are all there to help you get through the first semester, until the time has passed to when you can really develop stable, real, mature, and healthy relationships with stable, real mature, and healthy people around you.

“So take care and comfort, Anthony. Know that those who were there before won’t desert you, and know that better, closer, and healthier ones will come eventually – but that’s something that has to come, and can’t be hurried or rushed.”

Eventually, those friendships did come, and I stayed on, embracing all that the city offered me. But it could have turned out much differently…I’m glad I didn’t try to find out.

Due up in my mailbox is a trip down memory lane: “Pi,” “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” and “Sunrise.” “Pi” and “Ghost Dog” were some of the first movies I watched at the Angelika my freshman year of college, and “Sunrise” was one of the films we watched as part of the History of Cinema class I took my junior year. Collectively, they epitomize that phase of my life in which I aspired to be a pretentious snob^W^Wconnoisseur of the moving picture. (Which is not to say that I don’t anymore, only that it’s been tempered in recent years by…well, by no longer living in New York.) And there’s a keen sense of anticipation of rediscovering elements of some of the more visceral experiences that used to abound during my college years–not to mention the associated emotions that, to this day, color the reflection of my days as a New Yorker–but are now only faint memories to me.

All this will have to wait until after the MCAT. Less than three days to go.