by Greg Fields
Finnegan felt none of it. Had his circumstances been less demeaning, he might have shared the city’s buoyancy as he had before. As it was, though, a burgeoning cynicism cut short any sense of rebirth. ’Nothing lasts,’ he told himself. ’Nothing survives. And everything we see as wondrous, gentle and complete moves away from us, faster and faster. It’s inevitable, yet we do not see it. We can only sense it, and when we do, we tell ourselves that our senses lie.’
Near noon Griffith Ross walked out of his office and down the corridor to Finnegan’s desk. Even on such a day, Ross wore his customary scowl that usually deepened when he spoke to Finnegan. For a brief while Finnegan had chafed under Ross’s obvious disregard, but now it did not bother him nearly as much. Their contempt was mutual. Finnegan knew the source to be irremediable. It was a clash of two fundamental philosophies, two ways of looking at the world. They had collided on enough occasions to put them permanently at odds. Finnegan was thoroughly convinced that Ross had torpedoed his hearings. Ross was the final arbiter of everything that went on in that office. Because Finnegan could neither change him nor function outside Ross’s purview, he forced himself to be quiescent. Since the cancellation of the hearings and his reassignment to every task that no one else wanted to do, Finnegan had given Ross a wide berth. They spoke only when necessary.
Ross stopped at Finnegan’s desk and gestured down the corridor. “The boss wants to see you, Conor.”
Finnegan put down his report, a mind-numbing review of public sanitation facilities from which he was pleased to be released, although he did not know what was afoot. The senator spoke to him rarely these days, too, and then usually just to review or confirm a point of fact that might have surfaced in a position paper or press release. Finnegan’s heart quickened just a bit. The thought leapt into his head that another reassignment might be at hand, something to get him back into what was meaningful. He would have to be cautious this time, he knew that. But he was anxious to wrap his arms again around something that mattered. ’I’ve spent my time in purgatory,’ he thought. ’I’ve done my penance.’ The prospect caused a glimmer of anticipation to run through him.
“What’s this about, Griffith, do you know? Should I bring anything?”
“You don’t need anything.” Customarily terse, thought Finnegan. The bastard. Not a pleasant word to be found. The two men walked down the corridor at Ross’s brisk pace without saying anything at all.
Ross walked into the senator’s office with him and took one of the chairs adjacent to the large desk, behind which the senator sat with his fingers arched together at the tips. The young man, wary now, sat in a chair directly opposite the senator’s desk. Joyce shut the door behind them. Finnegan sensed himself at the point of an uneasy triangle, exposed and vulnerable. His anticipation made a kaleidoscopic change to apprehension, opposite shades of the same color.
“Conor,” the senator began, “I’ll get right to the point. Last week I spoke with the majority counsel to the Joint Committee on the Library. He has an opening for a research assistant. You’re going to fill it.”
As Finnegan’s mind frantically assembled the implication of these few words, the contours of the room melted into a jellied mass, in the midst of which swam the firmly set expressions of the two older men, one marked by something close to boredom, the other scowling deeply but with a hint of a smile cornering his lips.
The kick struck Finnegan between the eyes. His brain exploded in confused, stunning pain. He sat motionless as the blood drained from his face. His eyes, widened at the impact, could only stare at the senator’s face, languid now for all this, and moving feature by feature in the slowest animation.
“You have talent, Conor,” the senator continued. “There’s no doubting that. You’ve got a quick mind, you’re organized and you write quite well. You’re also a bulldog. Once you get hold of something, no force on earth can tear it away from you. That can be an asset if you use it selectively.
“But you’ve got a great deal yet to learn, my friend. A great, great deal. We can’t afford the luxury of teaching you while you go about stirring things up. We fight enough battles just trying to accomplish what we want for ourselves. It’s too exhausting to have to fight internal ones as well. We have to act as one body which, for better or worse, I lead. At first you surprised me with your boldness, and I was impressed. That bulldog in you, a very striking quality. But you have to know when to let go, Conor. I’m sorry, but I won’t have a renegade on this team, no matter how well intentioned.”
“You’ve never really fit in, Conor.” Griffith Ross spoke for the first time. His voice penetrated Finnegan’s ears with a shredding, threshing rasp, and Finnegan felt violated by it. “And you never really kept to what you were expected to do. You’re paid to do research and to write a few speeches when we tell you. You’re paid to remain quiet until we ask for your insights. This may shock you, but I’ve never given a tinker’s damn about your convictions. I’ve never cared for what you thought our policies should be or how you wanted to pursue things. That’s not your place, but it’s obvious that you’re not comfortable with being a follower. All along, you were a piece of something more complex than you chose to understand. You were a part of the machine, not the steam behind it. But you never seemed to accept that.”
Finnegan shook his head from side to side. What burned within him he could not identify, but he knew it to be hot, as torrid as anything that ever flamed inside him. When one mixes the most potent liquors, each strong in its own right, he creates something toxic. If he should manage to choke it down, it renders him senseless. It rips apart the delicate tissue there, it robs him of self-control and hurls him randomly in whatever direction offers the least resistance. Conor Finnegan could not sort through the passions that pulsed through his bloodstream, a concoction of his strongest, most intoxicating substances—rage, humiliation, frustration, futility, impotence, guilt. But as they swirled together within him they created a sublime fury surpassing reason itself. As one drinking that odd mixture of intoxicants, his subconscious screamed a desperate warning that his indulgence would make him miserable when it finally came to rest. It was ignored, this warning, overwhelmed by the massing torrent that unleashed itself.
“We want you to start there Monday. Take the rest of the week to tie up what’s outstanding, and coordinate your work with Steve so that we can reassign it,” Ross went on in his grating, authoritative snarl. “And try to stay in line over there. I doubt there’s much potential for damage in such a remote outpost, but you never know, what with your ideals and all.”
The senator began to tell Finnegan where the committee office was and who his superior would be, but Finnegan heard none of it. His eyes riveted on the smug face of Ross, now thoroughly enjoying all this, relishing Finnegan’s banishment.
Finnegan’s torrent at last broke free.
“Ross, you God damn son of a bitch,” he bit off the words with a perverse pleasure, enunciating each syllable. His voice began as a hiss, then rose as he went on, more and more of his fury escaping, greater chunks of the damming wall washed away.
“Now listen, Finnegan . . . ”
“No, damn you, I’ll listen to you no more. So you’ve won. Congratulations, although I never realized we were at war. You’ve reconfirmed your absolute control over our man here, and all of us who work for him. You must feel wonderful, you heartless bastard. But take a good look at what you’ve won. And take a good look at why you’re squeezing me out. You can’t stand a conscience, can you?
“What the hell is anyone to you except a vote? Neither one of you bastards has the slightest notion of responsibility, or, God forbid, service. You don’t know the meaning of those words.” Finnegan stood up now, his voice rising to something close to a shout. Both Ross and the senator rose, too. Ross took a step forward, and the senator walked out from behind his desk, his previous expression of casual boredom replaced now by a look of uncertainty. Ross maintained his scowl.
“You
sit up here in your comfortable offices,” Finnegan continued in a rush, “and push papers around and shake people’s hands, and tell yourselves how important you are. You’re surrounded by a bunch of bleating sheep. ’Yes, Senator.’ ’Of course, Senator.’ ’Thank you for your time, Senator.’ But it’s all a ruse. We put forth an image of public respectability, and we talk about the right things without ever intending to do anything other than protect what we already have. We protect ourselves, and to hell with anyone else. So I’m a threat to you because I don’t buy that illusion. I believe that if the idea’s there, then we have to make at least some small effort to put some meaning behind it.
“You talk about idealism like it’s some kind of disease. But I’m not an idealist at all. I’m more of a realist than either of you because I see what’s out there. I see the squalid, rotten things that you take such care to insulate yourselves from. And I see what we have the power to do about raising those issues. But you deny that power. It’s your ideals that preclude it. You two, with your precious role of the devoted public servant, are far more idealistic than I could ever be. And your idealism is perverse. It’s grotesque. You serve no one but yourselves.
“You sit there and tell me that that’s the way it has to be, that’s the way the game is played. I say that’s bullshit. You can be as forceful as you want to be. You can raise the uncomfortable things, and try to do something about them. And yeah, there are risks involved, but that’s why you’re here. There are supposed to be risks. But instead, you circle the wagons and assume a bunker mentality. You stay where you think it’s safe, where no one can get at you to see how shallow, incompetent and callous you really are. For all you accomplish in that real world you boast of knowing so thoroughly, you may as well be cardboard cutouts. There’s no dimension to either one of you.
“So exile me to some damn meaningless committee. You’re right, Ross, you fat bastard, I don’t fit in. Too principled, you might say. So you perform a minor operation to remove the only pang of conscience either of you has to face.
“But let me tell you this. You can continue to weave your little illusion all you want. There’s no one to stop you. There never was. But at some point you’re going to have to be answerable to people who won’t be taken in by a winning smile and a firm handshake. You’re going to have to justify yourselves to those same people you’ve ignored. And when that happens I pray to God they have the good sense to flush you two bastards away like the garbage you are.”
Finnegan whirled around and with his forearm swept clear a table near the door. Framed photographs, glassware and a small lamp scattered over the carpeted floor. Something broke: a tinkling of glass upon glass crinkled above the muffled crashings.
In an instant, Griffith Ross sprang forward and pinned Finnegan against the wall. His left hand wrapped Finnegan’s shoulder and his right arm pressed against the young man’s throat hard enough for the suggestion of strangulation. Finnegan’s chest rose and fell with his furious breathing. His face flushed bright red.
“You little son of a bitch,” hissed Ross. “I feel like breaking that thin little backbone of yours right here. I feel like crushing your skull between my fingers.” Tiny droplets of spittle rained on Finnegan’s face. The tip of Ross’s nose brushed against Finnegan’s, and his lips curled back in a repulsive hate-filled sneer. Finnegan was so close that he could see the tiny red lines in Ross’s eyes, and the pores of his face.
“You don’t know enough to back down, do you? You don’t know when you’re beaten. You want to be humiliated, too, is that it?” Ross clamped down hard on Finnegan’s collarbone. Pain shot down his spine. “If you so much as open your mouth to cough I’m going to smack your face into a bloody mess, you understand me? Then I’ll have your ass arrested for threatening assault on a United States senator. You’ll have about six months in a federal prison to ponder those wonderful ideals of yours. Is that what you want?”
Finnegan swallowed hard through a constricted windpipe. His rage had spent itself in the blind act of sweeping the table. He had had no control, although he did not completely regret that, even now. But his rationality had reasserted itself. His senses were fully alert to any subtle gesture, any tensing of any muscle that Ross could interpret as hostile. He knew he had to be cautious. His margin of error had been erased by his own violence, and Ross clearly meant his threat.
“I don’t want to see your face ever again, Finnegan. If I so much as see you walking down the hallway to the dining room, I’m liable to punch you out on the spot. I’ve already had so much more of you than I ever thought I could stomach. You’re the biggest fool I’ve ever met, and you’re going to be ground into dust before you know it. I wish to Christ I had the pleasure of finishing off that process myself. Now get the hell out of here, you whining son of a bitch.”
Ross took his arm from Finnegan’s neck and opened the door. His other arm dropped to Finnegan’s chest. With a quick and powerful shove, he thrust Finnegan backward out of the office with such force that the younger man lost his balance and fell on his side, his head narrowly missing the corner of Joyce’s desk. Two or three faces stopped their work and stared down the corridor at Finnegan’s demise. Joyce stared with naked surprise at the body that had been flung toward her. Ross stood in the doorway with an oily smile creasing his lips. He looked at Joyce, then back down at Finnegan.
“Conor’s balance isn’t too good these days,” he said evenly. “Get up, Conor. And try to be more careful where you fall. You’re liable to damage the furniture.”
Finnegan rose slowly with Ross watching every move. He drew himself up and paused to fix his eyes intently upon the older man’s scowling face. Finnegan took a deep breath. He became aware of the perspiration that lined his forehead and was cascading down his sides. His fall had dislodged his shirt from where it had been tucked into his pants. He felt completely defenseless as he stood there. What might there be left to consider? What might there be left to do?
Finnegan turned and walked back down the corridor to a desk it would take hours to empty. Behind him, the door to the senator’s office had shut. The mundane sounds of work that had been suspended for a few seconds resumed, but the buzzing in Finnegan’s brain, the relentless angry swarming of a million hornets, would not let him hear it.
For the remainder of the day not one of his colleagues spoke to him. He had become a pariah, and no one dared guilt by association. They were not certain of the crime, but they knew it must have been heinous. They wanted no part of the perpetrator. Finnegan made some outside phone calls to his contacts to inform them that he would be moving on and he would no longer be able to offer any assistance. He sent a brief memo to Steve Krall letting him know that he had free rein to reassign as he saw fit any of the responsibilities Finnegan was leaving behind, confirmed the access to his email accounts, and outlined what was in his files. At the end of the day Finnegan dropped his office key on the receptionist’s desk, pushed his way between two tourists inspecting their senate gallery passes, and walked wordlessly into the austere, colorless hallway.
As he headed down the echoing corridor, nausea swept over him as rapidly as a breath of wind extinguishes a candle. The very building seemed to mock him, the great massiveness of it. The resonance of its reverberating voices, the clacks and clangs of footsteps, dollies and delivery carts, the familiar and nameless faces he had seen every day for the past year. All of it massed around him, a rancid, acrid odor that seared his nostrils and twisted his stomach into a Gordian knot. His head swam in dips and eddies. He became desperate: he had to get out of this haunted and haunting building. He had to get out. He had to get away from the dull sights and monotonous sounds and the common feel of the hard floor beneath his shoes. It had all become invalidated. He had been invalidated. This place was spitting him out like a watermelon seed.
Each corridor curled into another, each looking the same. Finnegan’s familiarity with the pattern ebbed by degrees, then vanished. The mindless anarchy of panic
crept into his veins. His heart raced. ’Which way? What shall I do now? Where shall I go?’
His breathing grew raspy and frantic. He tried a high wooden door that he thought was a stairway, but it was locked. He turned a corner and the corridor ended in a blank gray wall. Footsteps echoed around him. A beautiful long-haired blonde, Glynnis in a wig, walked past him. She raised her eyes and smiled. When Finnegan turned to watch her walk away she was gone, and no one was near.
Finnegan’s desperation doubled back on itself. He had to get out. Which way? He had been invalidated. What shall I do now? He saw himself leaping out a window and making a high, sweeping arc over the city, his pant leg ripped by the headdress of the Indian on the Capitol Dome, and landing with a great splash in the Potomac where no one noticed and the waters closed back over his sinking head and the river went on as if nothing had ever disturbed it. He saw it in an instant, then it vanished, as everything did, leaving only the horrible darkness. He had been totally invalidated.
At the end of the corridor, a sign glowed ’Exit’ above a doorway. Finnegan spotted it through the spinning, blurring vacuum. He broke into a run. This way, and the prospect of at least a temporary certainty. Sweat blinded him, and then the eruption, the heavy thrusting and pumping within him reaching its climax. As he approached the red sign, he saw another door to his right and knew he must use it, use it at once. The thunder in his ears had become a pounding shout, a deep, resonating basso cry that flushed away resistance.
Finnegan dashed through the men’s room door on his right and raced to the sink just fast enough for it to catch his vomit. His hands gripped his sides. The pure white porcelain cooled him and he let the heaving gasps reach their peak, then subside. A silvery viscous thread hung from his mouth. He watched it there, languidly spanning to the brownish mess he had made. He did not want to sever it. After several minutes his panting blew it away. Finnegan turned on the tap and washed the fetid detritus down the drain. He swished the water to each corner of the sink to make sure he got it all, then cupped his hands to capture a good amount. Bending his head near the porcelain, he splashed his face to cool it. To wash away the last traces. No one had come in while he was there.