cut it!
SYRACUSE, or Why I Hate NWA
(the rough cut)
by Jeffrey James Keyes
So I was flying back from Denver yesterday morning after spending a week at the TCG Conference and expecting to arrive at La Guardia at 7pm after a layover in Minneapolis but arrived in Syracuse late last night. I’m still in Syracuse, I’ve been moving around with a group of Chinese and Belgian tourists who speak no English and am currently helping them, serving somewhat as their airport guide.
Let me go back to tomorrow night. I was took a nap on the plane right before we were supposed to take off on our flight. I woke up an hour later to realize we hadn’t taken off yet (always a good sign.) The pilot came on and informed us there were storms in New York and we would be delayed in the Twin Cities (I got a little excited thinking about potentially catching up with a high school friend Claudia, who had posted multiple Facebook messages about a Hipster Carnival going down in the Twin Cities that night. Although hipsters are very 2002, I thought it might be fun to hang out with her if the layover was longer than a few hours.) Just as we were about to exit the plane and go back to Concourse “C” the pilot came back on and informed us he was going to “take a chance that the storm would be over by the time we reached the East Coast”. Two hours and a tube of $3 Pringles later we started our “descent into La Guardia (no Hipster Carnival but joy at potentially sharing dinner with my boyfriend in our Washington Heights living room).
Well, that descent turned into an ascent and more cloud circling. I looked down and instead of seeing the Chrysler Building dark storm clouds dominated the air. The guy sitting next to me was snoring so I put my headphones back on. Three Bjork songs later the pilot came back on and informed us that he didn’t realize we were so low on fuel so we were going to have to make an “emergency landing in Syracuse”. Syracuse. I know. Of all the cities on the Eastern seaboard he selected Syracuse as the destination to refuel. Apparently there isn’t fuel in more glamorous cities surrounding New York. So…we landed and another hour after refueling our lovely pilot came back on and said ‘we have fuel but I’m into a 14-hour day and can’t dip too far into overtime so you’ll all have to take a 5-hour bus to La Guardia (He said there were no available hotel rooms in Syracuse). Hahaha…BUT when we got out of the plane there were no actual Northwest Airline people in the terminal (go NWA!). Instead, a stiff front desk guy was flipping through a phone book trying to call a bus to send the 150 of us to New York City…
THREE HOURS LATER I was still standing in line waiting for a bus (in that time two Jet Blue flights left for New York and both the United and American flights that came in around the same time as us boarded luxury-style tour buses destined surely for gorgeous hotels and spas with pools, Jacuzzis, and chocolate mints on the King-sized pillows. There I was feeling like I was waiting for millet and quinoa in a third world country (The United Empire of Syracuse) when they decided to put us up in a hotel. (One teenage girl turned to me and said ‘wow, do you think Northwest built a hotel in Syracuse while we were waiting here?’…We were all impressed).
I was directed to very special yellow cab with two other girls. The 350-lb taxi driver named Holly had two black eyes (She said she fell off her son’s bicycle?) and was chain smoking and offered to take to Mcdonalds on the way to the hotel so we could get some food…anything was appetizing at this point. I offered to buy her a cheeseburger and she looked at me and said “What, you think Miss Piggy needs another cheeseburger?” The rest of the cab ride the ladies behind me gabbed about going to see Legally Blonde the next day and I went to town on my Big Mac in the front seat. I think something about me eating a Big Mac turned on Holly because she dropped a hint about heading over to the pub across the street from our hotel after dropping us off. I kind of played dumb but she looked at me and gave me that unmistaken wink and smile. I slurped my Mr. Pibb and played it off like I’d think about it. Big Holly then went on to tell me that she was a psychic and was good at guessing what people did for a living. She guessed first that the ladies in the back seat were teachers (she was right! They were!) and then looked me up and down and said “you’re a playwright”. I chuckled at her psychic skills and wondered if she realized I was a homosexual playwright but just ignored that fact. Perhaps she doesn’t come into contact with too many homosexuals in Syracuse. I asked her how she knew I was a playwright and said “I can smell it on you. I’ll tell you more of my secrets at the pub, Jeffy.” I haven’t been called “Jeffy” since 1986 without giving someone a piece of my mind. She then made three sniffing noises quickly as if to smell me and said “mmm”. I took a big bite of my Big Mac. We reached our destination and she winked at me and licked her lips.
While I was waiting to check in the door jingled behind me and Holly grabbed my right elbow. I figured I left something in her cab: maybe my St. Christopher pendant, or the “Twin Cities” Starbucks mug I bought for Chris over my layover. I was wrong. She pulls me in tight and whispers in my ear “In case you’re lonely tonight, give me a call Jeffy.” and puts a piece of paper with her phone number and a scrolled “Call me – Holly” into my hand. She then smacked me on the ass and turned out the door. Poor Big Holly.
I did not meet Big Holly last night. As I brushed my teeth I thought of her sitting at a table with an ashtray full of Virginia Slim ash and butts, a sea of Coors Light bottles covering the table. I wondered what my life would be like in Syracuse with Big Holly. Breakfasts of pressed Ham and Swiss flatbread sandwiches, cartons of cigarettes, and taxicab dispatcher parties galore. I tried to write an open letter to Big Holly before going to sleep but couldn’t focus, didn’t know what to say, what would I say? I looked at that yellow paper she gave me and contemplated calling her, at least she’d know, realize that it “wasn’t her, it was me” but decided it would be best to just go to bed.
At five in the morning a cabbie that couldn’t hear out of his right ear picked up a pair of elderly Chinese tourists and myself in front of the Clairon hotel and drove us to the airport. I helped the couple through the Check In, through security, and eventually to the terminal. . They keep showing me their boarding passes and saying ‘La Guardia’…even though all of our boarding passes say Las Vegas/Phoenix. Apparently, our boarding passes from last night are supposed to serve as today’s boarding passes and the Vegas/Phoenix boarding passes they gave us at the Check-In are just so we can get through security.
A few Belgian friends realized I was resourceful and joined my airport posse. I wish I could explain all of these things to my new Belgian and Chinese friends but I’m sure they have their own ideas about what is happening as we wait for the plane. The stewardesses and pilot have strolled into the terminal and a man just announced they are doing some work on the plane and we might be even more delayed. With groans all around my posse grew restless.
I think the Chinese man asked me if I’d look after his wife while he goes to take a nap on one of the benches on the other side of the room. We just smiled at each other and she said a few nice things to me in Mandarin and I said a few nice things to her in English.
I just reached into my pocket and pulled out Big Holly’s scrap of paper and smiled. She looked at the paper in my hand and up at me and raised her eyebrows at me then rummaged through her purse and pulled out a few pictures of people who must be her grand children. I looked at them and told her how beautiful they are. I think she understood me because she nodded her head in approval and looked down her pictures with pride.
Isn’t life interesting?
This was taken at Finca la Mirandilla in Gerena, Spain. It’s a quick jaunt outside of Seville and well worth the afternoon trip. It’s so cool, you go up into a truck like you’re going on Safari in Kenya. I sat on a few squares of hay with my comrades and we learned all about how they raise the bulls that will eventually fight in the ring. This picture is of a bull that is only four years old. Note the cactus in the background, it serves as the best fence because the bulls can’t get out and danger cannot get in. 
Walk from Washington Heights to Battery Park City – try it sometime.
(sorry about the bad image, I had to check my actual camera but snuck this blackberry photo)
