Arc of the Comet

by Greg Fields

  He sat, but he did not relax. He tried watching television again, but that did not distract him, so he turned on his music. Nothing worked, and no word from Anne. By 10:00 he was pacing again.

  McIlweath had not gotten the name of the inn where they were staying. He cursed himself for his carelessness. It must be over by now. The clock said 10:17. Heats in all events were scheduled only through 9:30.

  What’s done is done, but there was no way to find out exactly what that was. McIlweath felt abjectly frustrated. By midnight he had resigned himself to the fact that there would be no call tonight. Something must have happened, he reasoned, either exceptionally bad or exceptionally good. His confidence in the order of things shaken, he had no idea which was more likely. McIlweath’s entire weight had sunk through him to his ankles. Few moods are emptier than misspent anxiety. He would have no answers tonight, and, if not tonight, then possibly not tomorrow either. He felt robbed, and twist of resentment spiced his considerations. Why hadn’t she called?

  McIlweath crawled into bed at 1:30. He did not pull up any covers because it was another hot night. At 1:45 he heard Lanny O’Hanlon come up the stairs. O’Hanlon walked down the hall to the bathroom, then a few seconds later back to the other bedroom. He heard him throw his coat and tie onto his roommate’s vacant bed, then flop down onto his own.

  Where was Conor Finnegan this evening, and what was he doing? Tom McIlweath felt like talking to someone.

  The next morning, Saturday, as McIlweath sat at the kitchen table eating his breakfast, O’Hanlon, hair disheveled and wearing only shorts, stumbled into the room in search of food. “Morning, Mac.”

  “Rough night, Lanny? You look shot.”

  “A few lagers with the boys from the attorney general’s office. Maybe more than a few. I need eggs,” and he pulled a frying pan from a compartment beneath the stove.

  “I heard you come in. You weren’t very late.”

  “Not by normal standards.” O’Hanlon took a carton of eggs from the refrigerator and broke four of them into the ungreased pan. “But we’d been drinking since about 6:00. We went out right after work. Christ, I can’t even remember if I ate anything. I’m starved.”

  McIlweath finished his cereal and got up to put the bowl into the sink. He poured a tall glass of orange juice.

  “You want some of these?” asked O’Hanlon.

  “No, thanks. You look like you need them far more than I do.”

  O’Hanlon stood over the stove stirring his eggs with a fork. McIlweath went into his room and got dressed. When he returned O’Hanlon was sitting at the table devouring eggs and toast.

  “How’d Aqualass do last night? You haven’t told me yet.”

  “That’s because I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t she call you?”

  “No. No word. Something must have come up.”

  “Right.” O’Hanlon looked up from his plate with wry eyes. “You expect she’ll deign to call you today?”

  “I don’t expect anything. She’ll do what she wants to do.”

  “Do I detect a note of bitterness, pal?”

  “Not at all. She doesn’t owe me anything.”

  O’Hanlon took another bite and shook his head slowly, his thin lips curling into the hint of an amused smile. “Mac, after all your attentions she owes you big. Out of common human decency, if nothing else. She’s turning you into a God damn lap dog.”

  “You’re wrong, Lanny, but I don’t want to get into it. I do things for her, she does things for me. You don’t see all of it.”

  “You’re a big boy, Mac. You know what’s best. Just don’t let her rape you, though.”

  “Rape me? She’s not that type of girl,” replied McIlweath with a forced laugh.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, friend. I don’t mean physical, for God’s sake. But the other kind . . . Jesus, they’re all that type. We might have the power to violate them physically, but they do other things to us that are just as bad. Maybe worse. And when they’re done with you, you’ll never be the same. You’ve been violated, only maybe you don’t know it, and she walks away with a part of you you’ll never regain. Before you even feel it she’s used you, and she’s gratified herself in a way you’ll probably never understand. You cater to her, you do everything she wants even before she asks for it, you throw yourself on the floor so her God damned feet don’t have to touch the soiled earth beneath her. That’s conquest, Mac, not love. I’ve yet to meet a woman who won’t take advantage of that if it’s offered, and you’re offering it daily. It’s an act of violence. And when she’s had enough, after she’s had her fill of what you have to offer, then she’s gone, and you sit behind with a hole poked in you that’ll never grow back.”

  “And you’re just warning me?”

  “I’m just warning you. I’ve seen it happen too often. I see it happening now.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Lanny, okay? I know Anne, and I don’t need any warning. Especially one as cynical as that.”

  “Sorry, pal. No offense intended.”

  “Are you going to be around today?”

  “I thought I’d drive down to the shore and see Rosselli. You want to come along?”

  “No thanks. I think I’ll stay close to home today. Do some reading, maybe.”

  O’Hanlon put his empty plate in the sink. He turned on the tap to shoot a spray of water over it, then turned out of the room and down the hall. “I’ll give him your regards. But I think a day at the beach might do you some good.”

  “Right. I don’t get enough sun and water as it is. I’ll pass.”

  Lanny O’Hanlon left an hour later. Tom McIlweath had, in the meantime, run down to the corner store to get the Times. He was halfway through it when O’Hanlon opened the door to leave. “I may not be back tonight, Mac. Depends on what we do.”

  “Or how you do, girls on the beach being what they are. I won’t count on you.”

  “See you later.” The door shut, a graphic division between the cavalier and the contemplative. McIlweath settled back into his chair and finished the Times in hollow, echoing, measured and measurable silence.

  He did nothing with his day. There was nothing he could do. Tom McIlweath found he could not function with the unknown. His dissatisfied curiosity dominated him completely. After so many weeks of preparation, after focusing on this event mentally and emotionally as much as Anne had done physically, McIlweath felt cheated by having to wait for his culmination several hours after Anne had met hers. If nothing else, it felt like a breach of loyalty. His emotions ranged from frustration to anger to pity to fear, but he was in no condition to reflect upon that odd composition. He could only wait.

  Near 6:00 that evening it came. The phone rang at last, and McIlweath bolted across the living room before the echo of its first bell had subsided.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Tom. It’s Anne.” A sullen and distant voice mouthed plastic words. At once, the secret was out.

  “Anne, where are you? What happened?”

  “I’m home, Tom. We came home this morning.”

  “You didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”

  “No. I didn’t come close.” Anne’s voice plodded through the line. It was an effort for her to speak at all, a labor she obviously would have preferred to skip.

  McIlweath pressed forward gingerly. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I finished third in my heat. I was never in it, Tom. I was so tight and I couldn’t breathe. I started out slow, then I panicked and lost my pace altogether. Maybe I overtrained, I don’t know. Or maybe I just choked. I was more nervous before that race than I’d ever been.” She told McIlweath her time, and he knew it to be a half second slower than her best.

  “Maybe we just put too much into this, Anne. We never relaxed.”

  “There was no other way to do it.”

  “Do you want some company tonight? I could come over, we could talk. You might feel a bit better.”

  “Nothin
g could do that, Tom. I’m tired and I’m depressed and I let everybody down. I just want to go to bed.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is. Call me tomorrow, in the afternoon. Maybe I’ll tell you the whole story then. There were some good races. Mine just wasn’t one of them.”

  “I’m sorry, Anne. You know I thought you’d make it.”

  “Then we were both fools. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  McIlweath went to the kitchen for something to eat. He knew, of course, why Anne had not called earlier. He could imagine her state after her heat. She finished third, so she would have had to wait a short while to see if her time might have been fast enough to qualify for the finals. If they ran four heats, they’d take the winners plus the next four fastest. But with the time she swam, she must have known there’d be no chance. She must have been absolutely miserable. He imagined that she might even have broken down and shed useless tears.

  He felt disappointed, but less upset than he should have. His first reaction was relief in finally knowing Anne’s fate. The jumbled mix of emotions he had felt before her call vanished at once, and he now regarded that blue funk distantly.

  McIlweath fixed a sandwich and returned to the living room. He turned on the evening news. For the first time in two days, he felt the urge to do something. Anything, it didn’t matter. He wanted to be with people, and get out of this apartment.

  After finishing his sandwich he called an acquaintance he knew from the club. They arranged to go to a movie in Princeton. McIlweath drove, and they rode down with the windows open. The wind sweeping across McIlweath’s face cooled him, and he breathed deeply, relieved to be able to breathe anything at all.

  CHAPTER XII

  I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of my nation. In my very self, I am part of my family.

  —D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse

  Conor Finnegan drank down the last draughts of his days in Washington with the slow, savoring relish a gourmand reserves for his finest dishes. Classes resumed in early September, the final classes of his final college year. He would be leaving soon. Finnegan thought of the places that had defined this remarkable summer, the sites he had visited with Glynnis, the monuments and memorials, the restaurants, the parks where they had walked to escape Washington’s smothering heat and find some green space.

  The site of deepest meaning remained Conor’s upstairs bedroom. That Conor and Glynnis returned to it every week, reenacting and expanding their initial act, using that same bed to explore new levels of a tender sensuality, deepened their sense of passage. In the evenings they would climb the stairs quietly, hand in hand, saying nothing. Afterward, in the panting decline of their passion, they would strip away all defenses, all pretenses, lying there together as exposed emotionally as they were physically. A reverence crept over them. Conor, a Catholic who had somehow escaped any strong notions of guilt, vaguely equated what he felt in these moments with a deep spirituality. The warming quietude, the sensation of peace, the conviction of universal acceptance reminded him of what he often felt at the end of Mass.

  Even during the week, when Glynnis was miles away, Finnegan regarded his room not as his alone, but as Glynnis’s too. He kept it neat and made the bed daily, things he had never done at college.

  In late August, during the last week, came a series of days cool and dry. The breeze blew not from the south but from the northwest, launched from Canada, the humidity lifted, the sky rose to a rich opaline blue. Summer for a while had broken and crisp autumn appeared for the first time at a distance, far off still but present and beckoning. The autumn mood snapped Finnegan into a deeper contemplation. He acknowledged the graphic passage of time, for when the sultry swelter returned again to this city he would be well north of here, adopting another, more basic persona. Autumn in any form, with its penetrating winds, brightly dying leaves and smoky haze, moved him to introspection. Premature autumn in a place far away thrust him violently into self-account. He was not displeased.

  One evening, a Thursday, Finnegan went for dinner at a restaurant with sidewalk tables, a place where he and Glynnis had sometimes gone for a simple meal. He was alone, but he had long since rid himself of the awkwardness dining alone in a public place could instill. He could afford to do it now and then. It was a platform from which he could look down and around, or, if the mood was right, he could be alone and think. Finnegan took a small table under the awning on the sidewalk. Although the evening carried a slight chill, it was still pleasant enough to be outside. A couple sat several tables removed from him near the white railing that surrounded the patio. They were the only ones there.

  Finnegan ordered a scotch and, when the server returned with his drink, a modest dinner. He had come directly from his office, hopping off the bus a few stops early then walking northward the seven or eight blocks to the restaurant. He carried his Post under his arm. To all the world he looked the part of the young and rising government executive.

  He mused as he sipped his scotch. Washington, with its stolid marble hallways of power, its illusion of influence, its cultural and social glitter, its southern gentility, its northern ruthlessness, its legends and its glories, had seduced Conor Finnegan thoroughly. He had expected this in part so he was not completely surprised. Perhaps he had even created a self-fulfilling prophecy. But no matter. What’s done is done. This was where he wanted to be.

  Finnegan reviewed the life he had led these past few months. He marveled, truly marveled, at his successes. He had maneuvered himself onto a Senate staff, a position of service reserved for only a handful, and he had worked in areas that fascinated his young mind, that placed him on the near periphery of issues impacting the tenor of national life. He had written speeches on the conflicts in the Middle East, drafted legislation on Medicare, given talks before community groups. Government, he had seen, could be more than ennui and red tape. It could work, albeit slowly and reluctantly, and it could work in the interests of good people. He, Conor Finnegan, might be able in his own way and to the limits of his diverse abilities help make it work. There was a role he could fill, and now, with some experience behind him, he might fill it a little better. The thought that he could come to this realization, and come to it at so young an age, made him giddy. This indeed was where he wanted to be. There was no place else.

  When the senator had first interviewed him two and a half years ago, he had asked Finnegan what he wanted to do with his life. Finnegan recalled now that whole nervous scene and his pretentious answer, “Some good.” He blushed at the recollection. What must the senator have thought then in hearing Finnegan’s naiveté spread out before him in just two words? But he had hired him anyway, perhaps because he had had to. The senator might conceivably have thought that a few laps around the track would knock Finnegan’s idealism into a more realistic context, and teach him that the goal of one’s life should not be to do some good with it, but to survive it.

  And Finnegan had taken some knocks, that he could not deny. He recalled the aspiring congressman two years ago in Los Angeles who had offered him a large donation to the senator’s war chest if he were included in a round of hearings for which Finnegan was coordinating presenters. He recalled times this summer when, tired and frustrated, the senator would utter a racial or ethnic slur. And he regarded a colleague who had jumped staffs to a senator across the aisle, one whose politics were on the opposite end of the spectrum, for a marginally higher salary. But politics reflected humanity in all its forms, the most noble as well as the most ignoble, the selfless and the self-serving.

  He knew that power was a seductive allure and that some men and women would do anything to maintain their grip on it, regardless of the cost in human terms. They sought power for its own sake, and saw no need to consider the ends for which it might be used. These people were truly dangerous, and
they could be found in every government corridor, of that he was certain. Yet their prevalence, their willingness to trample any cause or any human need for the sake of a vote, compelled Finnegan to cling tightly to his own idealism. He thought of the old politicians in the late nineteenth century who sought to break the labor unions, and who catered to every exploitive whim of the business sector because that was where the money was, and he thought of the Jim Crow politicians of the twentieth century South who disowned an entire race. They had their analogies today, and the motivation remained the same: power. What’s mine shall remain mine, and what’s yours might end up being mine as well.

  Yet despite this realization (or perhaps because of it) Finnegan believed that his own brief stint of government service had yielded some positive results. He had thrown himself headlong into the issues assigned him. He had read everything he could find on the topics that interested him; he spoke to anyone who might know something he didn’t. The senator had wanted Conor to work with the elderly, to serve as the liaison with the great national organizations that represented that demographic. He had done so, but he had not stopped at the level of those slick, highly paid lobbyists who hung around the office corridors. Finnegan might have been sympathetic to their causes, but they were not the people who captured those sympathies or who designed those causes. Finnegan wanted to see and hear the problems of the aged firsthand. He toured nursing homes, mostly under the watch of defensive administrators, although often he would break away to find some lucid patients who wanted to talk with him. Then he would sit by their beds or their wheelchairs for long stretches of time listening to their reminiscences and hearing their complaints. Their eyes haunted him. Their eyes carried age, and wisdom, and sometimes almost unbearable pain and loneliness. He had been moved to tears by one old woman, bedridden, with whom he had sat and chatted for nearly an hour. When he rose to leave, her bony birdlike hand clasped Finnegan’s forearm and tears filled her imploring eyes.