by Greg Fields
“The money, asshole. All you got. Give it to me easy.”
McIlweath pulled his wallet slowly out of his back pocket. His fingers clasped hard around the solid leather, thick with pictures of family and friends, thick with identifications, thick with the proof of his survival. He felt its weight and clenched his fist around it as tightly as his rapidly ebbing strength allowed.
“Hurry up, you little shit.”
McIlweath swung around in a flash, spinning in a whiplike motion to his left, his arm still pinned hard against him. Pain drove hard into his shoulder. The old man tried to pull back but he was not quick enough. The years, the alcohol, the dissipation had made him slow. McIlweath’s free right hand, backed up by the thick wallet in its grasp, smashed into the hard bone of the old man’s face. The impact made a muffled crunching sound. The attacker released his grip, and McIlweath ran as hard as he could back to the street and down the block, dodging the still-oblivious figures ambling this way and that. As he broke away, he saw out of the corner of his eye the old man slump to the sidewalk. He had hit him as hard as he could.
He ran back up the streets he had come down, not stopping even after he cleared the tawdry, bawdy streets of Hades. He ran past the jazz clubs, and past the restaurants, not smelling the rich scents of food being prepared and cooked well. His running attracted the stares and startled the hearts of others, but that did not, could not, matter. He ran, and ran hard. The city had lurched forward as an evil thing breathing menace with the same intimate vulgarity as had his attacker. He must escape it at once, run past and away from its violating grasp and fetid whispers.
McIlweath ran to his car and unlocked it awkwardly, his hands still trembling, his lungs heaving and burning. He threw himself into the security of that old machine, then reached frantically into the back seat for his gym bag. He pulled out a towel and scrubbed the back of his neck. Most of the old man’s spittle had dried. His shirt stuck to the skin along his back where it had run down. He reached back and scrubbed hard, scraping off the skin. The sensation of the wet, mucusy saliva would stay with him for days, and he would never be able to forget its feel completely. Years from now that spot of skin would tingle with the horrid memory, branded forever.
As McIlweath drove out of the city he calmed himself through many deep breaths. His powers of rationality returned. Even in the short time of the drive back, the marvelous salves of time and space had begun to work their wondrous cures.
He had, after all, felled the man with one blow. The man was old, and while he had no doubt done this before, he could not be counted upon to match strength with a much younger man. He relied upon intimidation, terror and surprise. McIlweath, once he had overcome his shock, had dismissed him easily. ’The poor bastard,’ he thought. ’He must have taken more than his fair share of blows through the years. I’m not the first to deck him.’
McIlweath parked his car and went back up to his darkened apartment. His mood had oddly brightened. There was, it seems, life out there, even if a bit shady. He had seen it, and that, after all, was what he had sought. The city, for all its muck, presented a counterweight in the cosmic scheme of things to the stodgy, boring environment to which he had been consigned.
He took a hot shower to wash thoroughly the drippy run of saliva. Steam filled his lungs and he breathed it deeply, the warm vapor flowing down deep within him where it commingled with a burbling resurrected wellspring of . . . what, courage? He will do what was needed, to protect himself, to define himself, to make himself whole. He will not suffocate here nor anywhere else. These empty days are merely another rite of passage, nothing more than an incubation. It dawned at once, then, glorious, reassuring and indomitable, the joyous promise of the spirit’s inevitable triumph over circumstance. All that he needed was a bit more time.
CHAPTER XVIII
There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it, it got even stronger . . . It never said a thing except, I want, I want, I want.
—Saul Bellow, Henderson The Rain King
Tom McIlweath awoke the next morning with more enthusiasm for the simple tasks of his life than he had had in weeks. The fragile reaffirmation of the previous night was still in place, a revival of sorts, and so perhaps destined to come sooner or later. McIlweath relished it.
What did his temporary failures and frustrations matter, as long as he remained mindful of who he was and the responsibility that came with it? If he wanted, he could climb into his old car this morning and head in any direction he chose, abandoning this sullen way of life to find something new, something more in step with the unarticulated pulse of his deepest character.
Perhaps Anne was correct about his lack of direction. But she did not understand what this really was. She was incapable of such understanding. McIlweath never lost sight of the fact that any commitment had some finality to it, and that had to be considered, which, McIlweath thought, few people ever did. Most were willing to rush headlong into what seemed to be the right path, and in so doing gave up a bit of themselves, and maybe more than a bit. For his part, he would not be coerced into fulfilling someone else’s expectations. He had done that, and tasted ashes. In the end, he sought to create his own expectations and attune himself to them. He would do what contented him, in a place where he felt comfortable. And if that wasn’t what was now at hand, then so be it, as long as he could keep moving toward it, whatever it was.
In this way McIlweath reconciled his loneliness and restored his delicate confidence. But as the day wore on, the ennui of the pattern of his current fallow existence set back in. He might be cognizant of his potential for self-determination, but the reality of his day-to-day lifestyle was still with him. It stifled him; it squeezed him dry. Morning crept into afternoon. He tried to read a critical study of Roman tragedy. His work had fallen drastically behind, but he could not concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. His eyes bounced from the book to his drab apartment, crammed with other books equally dull, and he daydreamed endlessly.
He took himself back to his undergraduate days and thought of his three roommates, recreating incidents he remembered clearly—a party, a football game in the park, nights watching television together, even something as mundane as fixing a dinner on the weekends. He took himself back to the pool, to the cheers. He remembered the thrill of tremendous pride when he saw his name go up on the swimming record board. He took himself back to his first meeting with Dan Rosselli. It was a boisterous session—they had sat in the dormitory lounge until 2:00 in the morning swapping stories in the infusion of excitement born of a new friendship in a new place. He took himself back to his drive across country with Conor Finnegan, the first rite of passage, and the peculiar mix of apprehension, wonder and burgeoning self-confidence as the country and their innocent youth passed before them en route to a new, marvelously unknown corner of their lives. This was his earliest recollection; he did not care to examine anything before that.
McIlweath accomplished little that day. He grew restless with his inability to study. His lack of focus caused him to read no more than two or three pages at a time before putting down his book. He walked around the tiny apartment, then walked around it again. At one point he dropped to the floor and did thirty pushups, then flipped over to do fifty sit-ups. He wanted to be in motion and still, he spoke to no one. His despair returned, more gently than before but present nonetheless. It glossed his renewed convictions, it glossed his resolve. His day clouded over, the mist in front of it growing thicker as the afternoon waned.
Once again, an impetus to action called him forward. He needed to do something, to see something, to be with someone. Last night’s frenzy put the city out of reach, but still he needed a place apart, something different.
In late afternoon he remembered his conversation with Joel earlier in the week, and the loose invitation to a party. Maybe that was it. He knew he was due to meet Anne for di
nner around 10:00, a date which promised nothing different than all the other times they got together. Perhaps, before he met up with her, he might stop in Joel’s party for a bit. He’d enjoy the noise. He’d enjoy seeing if he could talk to someone new. There was, too, the consideration of his relative anonymity. Most of the people there he would not know. No expectations, and if he were extremely lucky, he might even have a good time. He saw few risks in taking Joel up on his invitation.
McIlweath let the afternoon die and ate a tasteless meal in front of the television. He watched the news and felt foreign. Nothing he saw had any bearing on him at all. He found himself to be envying Conor Finnegan once again. How exciting it must be to be in the midst of things, to sense that one’s actions had some impact on other people’s lives, to possess at least a dollop of influence. McIlweath discovered that his knowledge of current events, never comprehensive to begin with, had evaporated during his time in Boston. Names and places issuing from the television were mostly unfamiliar. Ironic, he thought, that he could name the rulers of Greek city-states twenty-five centuries ago but could not name the Greek president today.
At 7:00, hopelessly bored and more than three hours away from Anne Newbury, McIlweath pulled on a jacket and headed out the door. It was the first time he had stepped outside his apartment all day.
Joel’s party was an unknown quantity with unknown possibilities, and McIlweath’s timidity reasserted itself. He would, he told himself, just drive by and see if he might want to stop in. No commitment to go, just a little scoping out to see how it looked. Besides, the cold air would do him good. Before he left he combed his hair, splashed himself with cologne and put on a pair of his best slacks with a clean sweater. If nothing else, he was prepared to meet Anne.
McIlweath drove to the side of town where Joel lived. He found Lexington, then slowed his car to cruise past 134. It was an old house, probably built right after the second world war. At first glance it reminded McIlweath of the place in New Brunswick, wooden and warm, thoroughly comfortable. Forms moved behind the front window. Even though the curtains were open and the lights were bright, McIlweath could not tell how crowded the place really was. Old houses had a way of distorting space. Cars were parked thickly on both sides of the street.
He sped up gradually and drove around the block, still undecided. He glanced at his watch—7:23. He might stop in, he reasoned, and stay a few minutes, just to say hello to Joel. It had been, after all, an unexpectedly friendly gesture to invite him. They barely knew each other. If he found someone to talk to, he could stay longer. He would still be able to meet Anne at 10:00. This would just kill a bit of the gap between now and then.
McIlweath returned to Lexington and found a spot to park near the end of the block. As he neared the house he saw that indeed there was a good crowd. Figures moved in both the upstairs and downstairs windows. On the sidewalk in front he heard music and voices, not loud or garish but assertive, pleasant, altogether friendly, the sweetly rich resonance of youth which he had not heard in months. The sound created a subtle stir within him. He walked up the wooden porch, fully curious now to see and to feel what was inside.
A sloppy handwritten note was stuck above the door handle: “Don’t knock. We’re too drunk to answer.” McIlweath opened the door and stepped inside, and, upon entry, he returned once more to the realm of the living.
Joel spotted McIlweath as soon as he was inside the room. He had been standing in sight of the door speaking with a slightly built, darkhaired fellow. They both came up to greet the newcomer. “Tom McIlweath. Hey, I really didn’t expect to see you.” Joel shook McIlweath’s hand warmly, and with force. “Glad you could come, thanks for coming. This is one of my roommates. Doug Fleming, History Department, this is Tom McIlweath, Classics.”
The other extended his hand with an equally warm smile. “Pleased to meet you. We’ve got beer, wine and liquor in the kitchen, food in the living room and drugs wherever you can find them. Help yourself. Here, let me take your jacket.”
“Thanks,” said McIlweath, and his jacket was taken away by Joel’s roommate, whom he did not see again for the rest of the evening.
“We’ve got an interesting mix of folks here tonight, Tom. You’ll find them pretty entertaining, I think. How’ve you been?” Joel walked McIlweath to the kitchen to see that he got something to drink. McIlweath recognized several of the faces in the crowded living room although he knew none by name.
“Fair. I wanted to get out tonight and be with some new people. It gets lonely sometimes.”
“You live alone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Big mistake, especially in graduate school. You find yourself sinking into your studies and not doing what you have to do to stay alive. You’ve got to waste some time doing mindless things, and you’ve got to have people around. At least that’s the case with me.” They had arrived at the small kitchen, equally as crowded as the living room. McIlweath pulled a beer from the refrigerator and popped it open.
“You’re right. I lived with three guys as an undergraduate. I miss the hell out of them. But I didn’t know anyone here, so I got a place by myself.”
“You should have held out. There are plenty of guys around here looking for roommates. You run the risk of ending up with a slob or a geek, but at least it’s company. Keeps the costs down, too. This city is wicked expensive. Come on, let me introduce you to some folks. You probably don’t know anyone here.”
Joel took McIlweath to two young men standing near the passage between the kitchen and the living room. Both were tall and thin, one with blond hair, the other with black hair complementing a well-trimmed beard. Both had the sunken, sallow faces of students—undernourished, removed from sunlight and divorced from all forms of exercise. They halted their conversation as Joel and McIlweath approached.
“Gentlemen, I want you to meet a delegate from the Classics Department. Tom McIlweath, this is Owen Lee, English, and Kieran Mulrooney, Political Science.” They exchanged greetings and McIlweath tried to remember that it was Mulrooney with the beard.
“I’ll leave you folks to your interdisciplinary discussions. I’ve got more guests to greet. If you need anything, flag me down. Tom, the bathroom is up the stairs when you need it,” and with that Joel was gone.
“I’ve seen you on campus many times . . . Tom, is it?” said Owen, the blond. “You study in the library quite a bit. As do we all, I suppose, graduate school being what it is.”
“Yes, I believe I’ve noticed you as well. How far along are you?”
“Doctorals this summer, writtens in June and orals to follow if I pass. I look to have the degree in four years. How about you?”
“I just got here. This is my first year, and to tell you the truth, it may well be my last. I’m not all that taken with the scholarly life these days.”
“Oh.” Owen audibly shrank, as if McIlweath had committed a faux pas too obvious to ignore and too gross to be commented upon, like hitting on the host’s wife or walking about with a slip of toilet paper jutting out of his pants. Owen tried to pass over it with as much grace as he could muster. “Well, to each his own. Do you have any prospects?” He said this last word with something of a hiss.
“Not at the moment. I don’t know what I’d do. Perhaps,” said McIlweath, recoiling a bit, “I’d do well to stay here and finish my degree. That would be the logical course, but I’m not certain I have the heart for it.”
“For myself, I can’t imagine a better way of life than what we have here. It’s rather idyllic, you know. We can surround ourselves with great books and great ideas and people with common temperaments. Our needs are few. We content ourselves with the simplest of gratifications, those of the mind, something we can always indulge very simply but which only a few people are able to do. I believe we are the elite. We live by our minds, we follow our curiosities. Our only responsibility is to learn, and if that is our passion too, then how could we be happier?”
“You’re maki
ng me feel guilty,” McIlweath said with an awkward chuckle.
“Perhaps you should be. We really have been favored, you know. We are grandly fortunate to be here. I’d stay here for the rest of my life if I could. My dearest hope is that I get a solid teaching position in a similar environment after I complete the degree. But such things are quite rare.”
“But don’t you feel somewhat isolated here?” McIlweath suggested. “We really are apart from society in general. We build our own little universe here. Unless we make a special effort we hear little of what goes on in the world. I saw the news tonight for the first time in a month, and I found I miss it. Here, our whole world is introverted. It’s as if we’ve been cut off from the remainder of mankind and told our sole purpose is to swell our knowledge, but that no matter how much we learn, there’s only a tiny fraction of it we’ll ever really share, simply because we are so cut off.”
“And what’s wrong with that? When you do have cause to observe ’the remainder of mankind,’ as you put it, what do you see? Belligerence, bloodshed, intellectual mediocrity or worse, bigotry, greed, self-absorption. Whether it’s an international conflict or someone stealing a loaf of bread from the convenience store down the street, it’s all so apparent. We are a sad, sad species, I fear. We’re self-devouring. Why on earth should you be remorseful at being cut off from it to a degree, particularly when you can indulge your own intellect in ways so comprehensive that you’ll never get to the end of it? The only chance we have at elevating ourselves is through pursuit of the highest ideals and the best thought, like we do.”
“I have a friend,” replied McIlweath, “who’s one of the few people I’ve ever known whom I would call truly brilliant. He has a clever, intuitive mind that can grasp an idea immediately, before you’ve even articulated it or understood it yourself. We went through college together. He never took his studies very seriously. Not that he didn’t want to do well, but he always said that there was too much else he wanted to do to devote himself to the books. He studied only as much as he had to in order to get what he wanted, and he came away with as many academic honors anybody could attain, including Phi Beta Kappa. I did well myself, but I always got the impression that he was much happier than I ever was because he wasn’t isolating himself. He never built walls around his intellect. He had a lot of friends, he was a good athlete, he had a beautiful woman, and he was able to indulge himself, too, in the ways you described.”