by Greg Fields
This night, though, the view was not a view, but a smear. All he could make out was the river. Beyond it hung a liquid blackness punctuated only occasionally by a light from one of the cars making its way on River Road, passing in and out behind windswept trees, now visible, now gone, sparse, erratic and dull. Nonetheless Finnegan leaned forward on the ledge, looking out. He stayed that way for a long while. He did not let himself be disturbed by the elevator, the voices, the slamming doors of people returning from dinner. Finnegan held his pose, staring into a black, wet nothing.
Finnegan let himself feel nothing, no wetness, no cold, save the creeping desolation of hopes grown timid. ’Perhaps I’ve been fooling myself,’ he thought.
Transfixed, he stared into the womblike void. Staring ahead he was, yet staring behind him, too, his eyes trying to penetrate a depth that had no depth, searching for a core that did not exist except in his fertile imagination. His thoughts repeated themselves without expansion, the same words racing around his mind until they became a litany. The blackness, the echoing words—they numbed him. There, in the dim light, looking outward, looking inward, Finnegan stood suspended, stunned by a reality that, for the first time in his life, had no soft edges.
Lanny O’Hanlon broke Conor’s trance when he opened the door quickly, as he always did. There was nothing subtle or halfway about Finnegan’s roommate.
“What do you say, roomie? What’re you looking at?”
“It’s raining,” answered Finnegan slowly, “and it’s black out there.”
“No shit. You eat yet?”
“No. I’m not real hungry. Maybe the sandwich man’ll come by later.”
“I don’t know, Slick. He went through last night. He usually doesn’t hit two nights in a row.”
“No big deal. I’ll get some candy from the machines or something. The food in this place will kill you anyway.” Finnegan had at last turned away from the window. He frowned unconsciously as if disturbed by O’Hanlon’s intrusion.
“How’d your class go? Economics, right? The one you hate.”
“Shitty, friend. Purely shitty. A ’D’ on the midterm.”
O’Hanlon had taken off his raincoat, hung it on the back of the door and sat at his desk. He leaned back now, right foot propped on the desk’s edge. “Jesus, Conor. That’s not like you. I must be corrupting you, I’m afraid. McIlweath says I am. Leading you down the path of sin and perdition, as any good friend would.”
“It’s not you doing it, Dice. It’s me. I’ve never gotten so low a grade before. On anything, let alone a midterm.”
“You’ll live. At least you didn’t fail. Nobody up here is what you’d call a genius, pal. We’re not supposed to be. Not yet. Some of us never want to be. Too much pressure, no room to screw up. I’ll pass on the privilege. Trust me, you’ll have more fun being ordinary.”
“I don’t want to be ordinary, Lanny. That’s not why I came here.”
“Christ, roomie, loosen up. Be thankful you’re doing as well as you are. Look at Reg Coleman. At last count he was failing four out of five. Only French is keeping him from a perfect record, and he had three years of that in high school. Reg doesn’t let it bother him.”
“How can you tell? Maybe it’s eating him up inside, you don’t know. Reg isn’t the world’s most talkative guy. “
“No, Reg doesn’t give a damn. And neither should you. Reg’s like the rest of us. He knows he’ll come out all right in the end.”
“I’m not so sure, Lanny. I mean about me. It’s such a goddamned struggle sometimes. I didn’t expect it, that’s all. I’m not convinced I’m as ready for it as I thought I was.”
“Get used to it, friend, because it’s not going to get any easier. How could it? We’ve had the world by the balls ever since we were weaned. The only way to keep it easy is if we don’t expect too much. That’s the only way. Otherwise we’re going to find ourselves on the short end at one point or another. It’s inevitable. Don’t let one lousy grade get you down, for Christ’s sake. Everybody slips up. You’re not perfect, roommate, I hate to tell you. Today it might be your economics midterm, five years from now you might get fired, ten years from now you might get divorced. That doesn’t make you a failure.”
“Yeah, but goddamn it, Lanny, that’s not what bothers me. I didn’t do well on the midterm, sure, but why didn’t I? I worked as hard as I could have for this. That kind of leads to doubts, you know? That maybe I’m not smart enough, or quick enough . . . or just good enough.”
“Jesus God Almighty, Conor, don’t give me that shit. You’re as smart as anyone around here. Besides, what the hell difference does that make? What do you want out of this place? Ask yourself that. It seems to me that the only goal should be coming out of here better than when you came in. I’ll tell you one thing right now—you’re better off for getting that low grade. If you thought you’d sail through a school like this without a hitch, then you’re much better off. You’re no superman, pal. This could be the best thing in the world for you. It might give you a kick in the ass, or it might even lower your expectations, and that couldn’t hurt. I’m sorry, Conor, but I’ve got no sympathy for this particular line of self-pity. I’d much rather reserve it for the sad fact that you’ve had almost no contact with anything feminine since you’ve been here. The rest of it just doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.”
Finnegan moved from the window ledge and sat down at his desk as O’Hanlon spoke. He responded, again speaking slowly. “I don’t know, Lanny. It seems to matter. To me, that is. I want it to matter.”
“Then you’re only punishing yourself, Conor. No need to do that, but it’s up to you. You going to study here tonight?”
“Yeah,” Finnegan sighed. “I don’t want to go out again into that slop.” Finnegan knew full well that if he stayed in the room he would study very little. Their room was one of the floor’s most popular, and people would be stopping in all evening. The thought didn’t particularly bother him.
“Roomie,” said Finnegan after a few minutes of thumbing through On the Road, assigned for completion the following week. “On second thought, I don’t feel like doing anything tonight. What do you say we go see who’s around?”
***
The rain fell throughout the night. After a while the wind died down so that the drops no longer whipped diagonally to sting whatever they met. The rain, like the wind, grew calmer. It fell straight down through the blackness without urgency. Hard, steady, unrushed, it would fall forever, or so it seemed. The wet, cold night would go on forever, as black and dark as death.
November in New Jersey, and the best of the year had been wrung out. What remained was only the musty, clammy underside prior to year’s end, prior to the inevitable demise.
Down the hall that same night, Tom McIlweath wrestled with a calculus assignment. McIlweath of late had become self-disciplined to the point of regimentation. His days carried a regularity which strengthened him. He could compartmentalize his thoughts and program his reactions for the standard blocks of time allotted to each. Swimming had had no small role in this, for it ate up three hours daily. McIlweath realized that, if he wanted to swim, he would have to eliminate the fat from his day. And so Tom McIlweath prohibited himself from wasting time. His days swung past in tidy blocks: classes, meals, study, swim, study, sleep. On weekends he studied less and allowed himself some play. Weekdays, though, were confined to the tasks at hand.
He had expected that such an approach would be burdensome. When he arrived at college his ambitions were rather simple: to do well academically, to swim competitively, to make new friends, to carve a new self-image. Concentrating on these basic ends would cleanse him. Like all gestures of this sort, it would probably be somewhat harsh, or so he thought. The end result, a new Tom McIlweath, wiser, more assertive, truer and less encumbered, would be worth the effort.
But McIlweath made the mistake of focusing solely on the mechanics of the process while ignoring the substance. He soon found
that the various pieces of his life fit together wonderfully to create not a brutal regimen of self-denial but an exciting panorama of intellectual, physical and emotional gratification. McIlweath grew more content by the day as he immersed himself into this new life.
His studies stimulated him constantly. The intricacies of calculus fascinated him, as did the give-and-take of economics. English literature and political science lifted veils from the full range of human experience. And Latin . . . ah, sweet Latin, aroused a monumental timelessness and a supposition he wished to explore, that man may have progressed materially over two thousand years but his best, purest, and truest means of expression were well behind him. McIlweath’s studies became deeply personal. He delved into areas of humanity he had never recognized before. The resultant invigoration was as profound as anything he had ever experienced.
Swimming provided a pause from this. In the pool he existed purely as a physical being, and so revived his mind by letting it dangle. He felt his body grow leaner and stronger. He swam well, better than he had anticipated and better than most of his teammates.
McIlweath found, too, that he made friends easily. His naturally quiet manner did not drive people away or give them an excuse to ignore him. In the dormitory he had been tossed in with hundreds of young men of diverse character and personality. On his floor alone there were fifty-five other residents, and he had come to know them all. Everyone approached each other predisposed to friendship. It was easier that way, since they were all in this together, sharing space and sharing experience. Part of it, too, was based on the assumption that everyone, simply by being here, had something to offer. Tom McIlweath relished it all. It did not matter that he still saw himself as quiet and skinny, with thick glasses. He was well accepted here. People took the time to know him, and he reveled in the community of it all.
And so, that Tom McIlweath should be at his desk late on a rainy November night, grappling with differential equations, should have surprised no one who knew him. It was merely a part of the routine, one which imbued his life with a cherished richness. There was nothing else he could do, nor would he have chosen to do otherwise.
McIlweath’s roommate had not yet returned from the library when Reg Coleman knocked on the door and sheepishly opened it before McIlweath could answer. Coleman saw that Rick Murdoch was still out. His timing had been good. Unlike Dan Rosselli, Coleman’s own roommate, McIlweath possessed a sincerity of purpose that Coleman found attractive and comforting. McIlweath blended friendship with detachment. If Coleman felt restless and wanted to talk, he could do so, then retreat to his room afterward. The opportunity for a cooling-off period, that was it. That, plus McIlweath’s quiet empathy, tacit though obvious.
“Hey, Mac. What’re you up to?”
“Calculus, Reg. But I can tell it’s time for a break.” McIlweath rose from his chair and plugged in the small hotpot that sat on a shelf above his bed. “Some tea? I don’t have any coffee.”
“Yeah. I probably won’t sleep too much tonight anyhow. What kind do you have?”
“Nothing caffeinated, so no worries there. I picked up some herbal tea at the health food store downtown,” said McIlweath, tossing him the box. “It’s not bad stuff.” Coleman caught the box, looked it over once and placed it on top of McIlweath’s dresser. He sat down on Murdoch’s bed, steel-framed and low to the ground like all the others, leaned back against the wall and let his feet dangle from the narrow width.
“Where’s Rick?”
“Library. He’ll be there until it closes, then he’ll come back and sleep through his morning class. Happens every week.” McIlweath switched on the radio near his bed, went back to his desk and turned his chair around to face Coleman. He propped one leg over an arm of the chair.
“How’s he doing?” asked Coleman. “Academically, I mean.”
“Not bad, not good. He’s passing everything, or so he says.”
“That’s more than you can say for me.”
“Hang in there. It’ll come sooner or later.”
“Right. You know, Mac, I’ve never gotten the good marks. I mean really good marks. I think the only reason I got in here was because my father graduated from the place. Played football, joined a frat. A real big man. They probably felt the least they could do was accept his all-too-mediocre son.” McIlweath noticed Coleman’s eyes as the other spoke—darker, slightly sunken and flat—and felt uneasy.
“Relax, Reg. You’ll be okay in time.”
Coleman snorted. “Yeah. Sure I will. Can you imagine how dear old Dad would react if his oldest son flunked out of the school he had whipped through? You know, he sends this place five thousand dollars every year. He’s one of the school’s biggest annual donors. He’s got one room, his den, loaded with old pictures and pennants, football trophies, yearbooks. He’s got a rocking chair in there with the college seal on it. Cost him a fortune, and it’s really a piece of rickety crap, but he didn’t bat an eye when he ordered it. He loves this place, more than me, and ever since I was a little kid he’s been telling me how I was going to go here and how great I was going to be. Yeah, I’d say there’s a little pressure associated with all that.”
The water in the hotpot boiled. McIlweath unplugged it and pulled two mugs from behind the books on his shelf. He dropped a teabag into each. Steam rose as he poured the water. “Sounds as if he’s reliving his youth through you. Not a good formula.”
“No doubt. He’s come up this year for every football game. He wants me to get him season tickets for basketball, too. He wants to sit in the student section.”
“Does he know you’re having some troubles?”
“ ’Some troubles’,” Coleman snorted again. “Mac, for God’s sake, I’m failing four courses. That’s more than a few troubles, wouldn’t you say? That’s a total academic breakdown. How can I tell him that? He’d go crazy on me. He’d probably throw me through a window.”
McIlweath pulled the teabags out of the mugs and tamped them on a spoon to drain, letting the last drop of each fall into its mug. When he was done he pitched the bags into a wastebasket and handed Coleman his tea. McIlweath sat down again at his desk.
“Reg, regardless of his motivation it’s unfair to put those expectations on you. And really, it’s unfair of you to accept them. Your problems might be a little self-imposed. You’ve got to do what you can and what you want to do. It’s just my opinion, but maybe you’d do well to take your father less seriously than he takes himself. Let me ask you something: Do you really want to be here?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s something I have to do. If I ever want to get a job or earn any real money, I’ve got to go to college, right? That’s what they tell me.”
“But you could go someplace else.”
“Dad wouldn’t pay for it. For him it was Rutgers or out onto the streets.”
“Ever think about taking some time off and working? You could earn some money and pay your own way.”
“I’ve thought about it. But how long would it take to get what I needed? And once I get out of school I won’t ever want to go back.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Reg. You’re going to have to draw your own conclusions.”
Coleman said nothing, and looked out the dark window. He had not intended to speak of his father, but the topic most likely could not have been avoided in this context. His father hovered over him like smoke. It was his father that was the deep-seated, ineradicable root of his discontent. While his immediate problems revolved around his inadequate response to a new and demanding set of circumstances, he knew too that there were other matters to consider, related but vastly more complex. These he tried to suppress, slamming his interior doors tightly shut as soon as they made the faintest appearance. He carried with him a perception of ugliness he dared not try to articulate. His limited command of the latticework of these complexities haunted his introspection, but he knew that all of this related to his father and the tremendous void his father had created within him, c
reated through emotional distance, through a detached brutality, through incessant demands of activity and thought, through an enforced regularity, through construction of an idealized model he could never hope to match. It was his father at the root of this. His father, and no one else.
“My own conclusions. You’re right, of course. You have a talent for being right, Mac, and that’s why I’m willing to listen. But did you ever feel totally worthless? Worse than worthless. Did you ever feel as if there was something so wrong with you that you were really pretty hideous, even though no one could see the deformity except you? That all the parts didn’t fit together right.”
Coleman’s face flushed, his brow furrowed, his mouth quivered. He was on the verge of digging deeper into himself than he had ever done in the presence of another, and there was pain in this, something painful beyond comprehension. McIlweath, unnerved, remained outwardly calm. He sipped his tea and looked hard at Reg Coleman’s anguished face. If there was something profound here, so be it. He would not try to squelch it.
“I never felt that way, Reg,” he answered slowly. “I’m not perfect, but I think I can define my shortcomings. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“I can define things too, Mac. And I can tell the difference between a definition and a condemnation, even if I can’t do a damn thing about changing the one for the other. That’s what I’m talking about.”