by Greg Fields
After a time he straightened himself and waited for the strength to flow back into his knees. Even then he still sagged at the joints. His body could barely carry itself, but at least his breathing had returned to normal. His sweating had ceased. Finnegan wiped his forehead with a paper towel, opened the door and found his way out to the street where the sun blinded him, a hot fist thrust into his face. He reeled, leaned against the building which was hard and grainy. While the tag-end of a Washington day walked by, he regurgitated the last few bits in his stomach onto the cracked pavement at his feet.
CHAPTER XXV
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
—Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Tom McIlweath sent most of his belongings ahead. He had taken several days to clean out his apartment and box up the relevant materials he wanted with him in Ireland, mostly books and personal effects such as letters, swimming awards and clippings from the student newspapers. What he did not want he either discarded or sold. His limited wardrobe he packed into three suitcases that he would take with him when he went.
When he went. While the concept had intrigued him and had reinvigorated again his spirit, the reality loomed, if not menacingly, then at least as something worthy of the highest respect. His Romantic detachment had been shelved in favor of the logistical details to be addressed.
His parents had come to visit him before he left. He had been gratified by the gesture but he found that they had very little to say. John McIlweath, who had traveled a similar path years earlier, behaved sullenly while his wife lapsed into a weepy sentimentality. Their admonitions, cautions and encouragements sat poorly with their son, who saw in his parents for the first time a subtle pressure of expectation. Although bystanders now, they retained ideals for their son that this most radical of acts obscured. Not that they opposed it. Rather, they did not quite know what to make of it, especially because its eventual value was not clear. They were merely visiting their son because they had not seen him for too long, and the next meeting was uncertain. Such were the limits of their interpretation of the young man’s exile.
The McIlweaths had stayed a week. Tom showed them as much of Boston as he knew, and the rest of the time they spent in the apartment or going out for meals, talking or not talking depending upon their moods. Mrs. McIlweath fussed with Tom’s clothes a great deal, repaired some things and helped him sort through his books. John McIlweath took no part in his son’s preparations. He watched a fair amount of television and kept to himself. Not once did father and son speak alone at any length. The younger man waited, anticipating either a benediction or a curse. Nothing came, and at the end of the week Tom bade them a relieved goodbye. His mother wept and his father offered only a handshake. They climbed onboard their plane and flew west as their son stood below to watch the gleaming white cylinder as it shrank to an imperceptible sliver. His lack of sadness puzzled him. He felt guilty; he might never see them again.
It was early August, the thick part of the year. McIlweath’s apartment had been emptied of all but the furniture that came with it. He sat at the kitchen table and watched a late afternoon sun spill in the window and paint his floor in butterscotch. Kathy Keane sat opposite him. She had helped him load his car, although there was not much to do since he was taking so little. They were finishing glasses of iced tea.
“It’s so hollow here,” said Kathy. “When you speak it echoes.”
“This place has always been hollow. I’m glad to leave it.”
“But you can’t be sure you’re going to anything better. You might end up in a huge stone room with a high ceiling and bats flying over your head. Drafts might come in through the cracks. They have those things in Ireland, you know,” she said with a soft smile.
“The cold winds off the south coast.”
“And a ghost. You’ll most likely have a ghost. Or several, perhaps. I hear every corner of Ireland has its own ghost. How old is this college of yours?”
“Mid-nineteenth century. A Johnny-come-lately as European colleges go. Built as a sop to wealthy Brits stuck among the savages.”
“Nonetheless, it’s probably thoroughly haunted. Why is it that old countries hang onto their ghosts so much more fiercely than we do?”
“They’ve had more time to cultivate them. And they’re no doubt proud of them. Ghosts give up their world reluctantly. So if you have them running about, then there’s probably something around that’s difficult to leave. Something unfinished they want to be a part of. I’m sure there’ll be ghosts in my rooms, but not all of them may be native.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll be bringing one or two with me,” McIlweath replied with a thin smile. “Maybe more.”
“I assume I’m one of them. Tell me without being maudlin.”
“Yes. You’re one of them.”
“Good. I’d hate to think I could be so easily forgotten. I confess you’ll be lingering with me for a good while, too.” She paused, then turned serious. “Yours is a marvelous spirit, Tom. You deserved to be saved.”
“If indeed that’s what’s happening. Sometimes I think about what might have occurred between us under different circumstances. If I had met you ten years from now when you’d be truly ready for me. I think we might have saved each other then, and allowed ourselves some genuine happiness in the process.”
“Put away those thoughts, Tom. There’s better for you than me, that I know. We’d kill each other before we knew it and spend the rest of our days like zombies. You know that as well as I do. You’ve already gone past me and there’s no room for regrets. I’ve been your catapult, and now you’re airborne. I’m awfully proud of myself for that.”
Beads of condensation ran down their two glasses. McIlweath ran a fingernail across the moisture on his tumbler, drawing an abstract design. Before he could make any sense of it, more drops flowed over it and washed it away.
“I’m not afraid of what comes next,” he said. “I’m not apprehensive about going someplace foreign. It’s foreign here, but we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that we fit where we are because of the accident of where we’re born. Temperament transcends heritage, though. It’s all been foreign, to me. It’s been foreign for years.”
“So it doesn’t really matter where you go?”
“No, I don’t suppose it does. As long as I’m the final judge of everything that follows. I’m fortunate to be able to see that now.”
“The loneliness doesn’t scare you?”
“Kathy, until you surfaced I’d been lonely almost every day of my life. Any loneliness there will be of my own choosing. You’ve dismantled my insecurities, Kathy. There’s a dimension of choice that overrides anything else. I’ve learned that. I don’t know what I’ll have there, and in one sense it doesn’t matter. But for the first time in my life, in my life, I’ll be working with raw material. I’m desperate to do that. Loneliness is only one factor, and it’s a minor one at that. There’s something greater at play. And if nothing else, this indulges my spirit of adventure.”
“It’s wondrous, this potential we have,” said Kathy wistfully. “It’s one of our greatest tragedies: that so few of us ever try to capture it. You and I are among the fortunate ones, I dare say. I include myself, Tom. I think that’s probably why I was attracted to you from the start. You pricked something in my subconscious. I’ve just never felt compelled to go so far afield.”
They were both silent. Random street sounds wafted up through the window, the sounds of Boston at sunset on a hot summer day—the press of traffic, the grating hoarseness of short tempers, the dull thudding shuffle of tired legs. The ancient city had been that way for generations; it would be that way for countless more. Ethnic or social character made no difference. Immutable Boston. Immutable Man.
“You’re going south tomorrow, right?” asked Kathy after some ti
me. “To Washington to see your friend.”
“Yes. I have to see him before I go.”
“You’ve told me about him. The heroic one.”
“He’s been on my mind a great deal lately. I haven’t seen him in more than a year. We’d been as close as brothers.”
“Will you stay with him long?”
“A day or two. Long enough to re-establish ourselves before we separate again. It hurts, Kathy, being apart from him. For years, he was my rudder. We spent our best years together, and I always took my lead from him. He gave me his best without ever knowing it. I’ve got to see him again.”
“Well then, I can’t blame you,” she sighed. “Come on. We have one last night together. Let’s begin it now.” She rose and took his hand. McIlweath took a final look around the stark apartment. When he left it he felt as if he were stepping out of a tomb, Lazarus saved by an unseen power to embrace his own Magdalen.
***
The drive south the next day was gloomy. The night had brought in a heavy layer of clouds that pressed down on the landscape in colorless sobriety. It did not rain. McIlweath wished very hard that it would, and be done with, but the clouds did not unlock. They hung low and solid, sealing in the heat, making it palpable and smothering the entire seaboard. Perhaps it was only fitting, he thought. Forged in ice, freed in fire. His spirit hung motionless, as heavy as the clouds.
McIlweath had left in the early morning. With his body screaming its reluctance, he had disentangled himself from Kathy for what he knew might be the last time. The finality of it depressed him, and as he ate a vapid breakfast he spoke only a little. Kathy, too, had nothing to say, so they completed their brief morning tasks in an air of eerie silence. Their courses were set; too many words might weaken a determination so wrenchingly established, or, more likely, invite regret. They did not want to tempt themselves with pointless words. Sweet comforts they had shared would be resurrected later.
When the actual moment of leavetaking came about, it was necessarily swift. Kathy in her robe walked McIlweath to his car. There, on the empty street, they embraced. To the young man’s astonishment tears spilled from Kathy’s eyes. Then she was gone—forever, or long enough to seem so.
The long, tedious drive deepened his depression. New England’s scenery which had once seemed so charming became monotonous in the gray light. McIlweath noticed chips in the pavement on the Turnpike, and near Chicopee a construction project narrowed the road to one lane. He was annoyed at the delay. When he reached Springfield he left the Turnpike to head south into Connecticut on I-81, which had neither tolls nor construction. He perceived an oily, sooty smell from the nearby factories, and it disgusted him. He drove on in a sullen, trancelike state and paid heed only to the road in front of him.
McIlweath skirted New York’s urban web and passed through the flatlands of northern New Jersey. He recalled the first time he had come to the city as a freshman at Rutgers. The city held such unbelievable romantic magic then. He had seen New York as a microcosm of the human condition—all aspects of his real or potential experience, for better or worse, were contained there. It was the doorway to an inner universe, the perch from which the most comprehensive views of humanity had issued. Whitman and Wolfe, O’Neill, Fitzgerald, Crane, Lardner, Langston Hughes—they had all known it to be so, and that was why they came. He had come, too. God, it had been so glorious.
But then they had all gotten hopelessly drunk, and Conor vomited in the restaurant lobby, and on the walk back to the car they had run into some hookers. He had stayed away from the city after that. The power there, reverberating through the air itself, had been too much for him. It had sullied all of them, he and his friends, dragging them away from anything Romantic or grand. That night had alarmed Tom McIlweath, even though his friends always alluded to it thereafter with good humor. As they recounted stories of that night in the months and years to come, its significance diminished for them. But McIlweath feared what had taken hold of them then.
Now, as he drove past the huge towers and belching factories on a gutted roadway, the city and its surrounding fiefdoms repulsed him. He saw nothing romantic here anymore. There was only a grotesque ugliness to which most were immune. But today he saw it as the souls of the people living there turned inside out, cast in steel and stone.
Near New Brunswick, McIlweath was tempted to turn off the highway and drive through campus one last time. He toyed with the idea, then dismissed it. There was nothing to be gained. He did not want to sentimentalize his attachment to the place. Besides, there was no one there he cared to see. The ghosts would remain healthy and vibrant without him.
From there McIlweath lapsed back into a dank boredom. South Jersey, the neck of Delaware, Maryland’s rolling rhythms, the distances between them all—it meant nothing. It was all indistinguishable, subtle shades of ink all run together on one sheet of paper. He stopped once to eat and twice for gas. For most of the day, he drove without thought or reaction.
As he neared Washington, clouds thickened again, enough to block the light of the setting sun, building a premature darkness. His blood began to pump, and his senses sharpened. Here at last he was reaching the end of this purgative journey. Conor Finnegan was only a few miles away. The day’s heat lifted somewhat and a cool breeze blew through the open window. McIlweath’s fatigue lifted, too, and his boredom with it.
The wooded hills south of Baltimore gave way to residential areas, the highway widened. By the time McIlweath turned on to the Beltway, lights in the houses, offices and stores had begun to come on. He looked forward to catching glimpses of the great monuments in the dark. Finnegan had told him that it was all beautiful after nightfall. Living there, his friend had said, he had begun to take it all for granted, but it still could take his breath away sometimes. It could be truly inspiring if one were given to such things. When McIlweath caught sight of the Capitol Dome, illuminated by spotlights that tinted its pristine whiteness with a gentle gold, he felt the rush of awe that Finnegan had hinted.
Perhaps it was not just the Dome itself, but the fact that Finnegan was a part of it. His friend had always seemed tailored for this city. He had been completely adaptable to its power and glamor. What McIlweath admired in Conor, this city amplified: the elegance, the command, the sense of control, the restrained enthusiasm channeled to positive action, and, in the end, the compilation of those traits into a single strong, attractive, irresistible entity. If hubris crept into it, that was to be expected and forgiven. It must be incredibly difficult to remain subdued when such obvious blessings had been bestowed.
McIlweath knew that, of all the people he was leaving behind, he would miss Conor Finnegan most fiercely. He had missed him terribly during the year they had already been apart. McIlweath could not have counted the nights he ached for the steady reassurances and insights of his friend. Had Finnegan been present then, perhaps McIlweath would not be doing this. Conor had been the constant embodiment of those distinctive qualities McIlweath sought for himself. With Finnegan, there had never been a question of acceptance or belonging. His exuberant self-confidence was infectious; it had stabilized McIlweath all the time they had been together. Finnegan lived his life with an unflagging passion for the infinity of his possibilities. In reflection, during the time they were apart, McIlweath realized that Finnegan confirmed the potential of youth itself, and that, at least in his own mind, Conor Finnegan lived in harmony with his own capabilities.
Where did that harmony come from? McIlweath did not know, but at least he could devise a theory. It existed because Finnegan assumed it did. He had spent his young life with the pretext that what he was and what he did reflected the best that the fates could possibly offer. Finnegan’s life echoed an unarticulated collective longing for purification. Man was still pulling himself out of the muck, and if Finnegan was to be a part of that, then so be it. He assumed that what he claimed for himself and what he perceived as natural attributes merely fit in with that evolutionary pattern. Nothing
had occurred to dissuade him, so, for Conor Finnegan, that simple assertion still held. All those assets he had amassed for himself were part of a greater process in which his life was destined to play a role. How could one not be in harmony with that?
McIlweath had no problem finding the right street. He pulled into the tiny lot behind a high brick apartment building and saw Finnegan’s car. At seeing that familiar object his excitement leaped. He had reentered his friend’s sphere, and here was proof. He noted, too, that Dan Rosselli’s car was nowhere to be seen. All along, McIlweath had subjugated the notion of seeing Rosselli to the greater purpose of seeing Finnegan. Rosselli was an added benefit that he too often overlooked. The three of them back together for a night or two . . . it would be like stepping through a time portal, the brothers reunited again in a different context, strong again by being together, and able to put aside their singular struggles and frustrations and loneliness.
He hopped out of the car and headed for the door to Finnegan’s end of the complex. McIlweath rang the bell below a piece of tape that said ’Finnegan/Rosselli’, and a harsh buzz signaled that the door was now unlocked. He opened it and faced two stairways. Apartment D. He took the one on the right and by the time he was halfway up it, the door at the top swung inward and Conor stood beaming before him. McIlweath ran up the last few stairs.
Finnegan reached out his hand, and McIlweath reciprocated, but even the firmest of handshakes could not contain their affection, or could bridge the gaps of loneliness. They embraced there on the landing in a great bear hug, pounding each other’s back and feeling the heft and strength of one another’s shoulders. In retrospect, months later, McIlweath came to recognize that what he grasped there was more than just his friend. In the gesture he embraced the breathless final moments of his own receding youth. A long time would pass before he could sort through the emotion of that moment.