Arc of the Comet

by Greg Fields

  Toward evening they sat in the flat and drank a single glass of whiskey. That apparently had become his grandfather’s ritual, a prelude to dinner, an exercise in making it more palatable. Conor would be leaving the next day. Over them both hung a somber pallor based on their common realization that this would most likely be their last time together in this earthly vale. Even the grandest of old men must pass, and young men age to take their place.

  They sat there then, in the gloaming of a cool night, the last shred of daylight permeating the tattered room through dusty white curtains. The television droned out the news, but neither wanted to hear it. Long silences passed between them, not awkwardly—as if one or both believed that conversation was essential to fill a dead time, but respectfully, each weighing the presence of the other’s life on his own. It was an evening for balances, a night for final reckonings.

  Conor saw in these quiet moments why he had come here, why he had sought the company of his aged grandfather. He hoped for an osmosis, a transfer of strength and perspective. By breathing the same air as the one whose boldly confident yet charming character had been the stuff of legends throughout his childhood, Conor hoped for a transformation. He might discover an insight he had overlooked, a nuance he had discarded, the Conor Finnegan that had died. He might find it though his grandfather’s words, but then again, it might be in one of the cautious movements of his old body or in the arrangement of his furnishings. It might lie in the couch cushions like a lost coin. It had to be there, this mysterious power, this life-giving ingestion. His own grandfather, the drying flesh of his own flesh, the thinning blood of his own blood, had to have it for him, whatever it was. This would be his last chance, his final opportunity. Conor Finnegan, a supplicant to the Oracle at Delphi.

  In the silent night, after a long break with no speaking, no street noise, no sound at all, the old man sipped his whiskey with an audible slurp and asked, “Where do you go from here, Conor? Back home?”

  Conor smiled with a sadness borne of whiskey upon the indomitable press of time. “Home. That can be a rather ambiguous concept, don’t you think? Yeah,” he sighed. “I’ll be going back to Washington.”

  “But with none of the joy that should belong to you. Only you know why. I couldn’t begin to understand it even if you should explain. It’s a personal matter, whatever it is that’s sucking you dry like this. But it’s obvious that there’s something. I know the feeling, Conor. Believe me when I tell you that. That’s why I’m here, dying in this grimy old flat, and that’s probably why you’re here with me now, isn’t it?”

  Conor sighed again, this time very deeply. He took a long draught of his whiskey. He waited for the flame to rise up within him, burning outward from the vault of his stomach, but it did not come. When he spoke, the words were released with the measured pace of resignation.

  “I have a friend,” Conor began slowly. “My age, essentially my background. In most respects just like me. In fact, we went to school together, both high school and college. To look at him you wouldn’t think much was there. Tall and scrawny, not terribly attractive but not unattractive either. Just something of an Everyman at first glance, and if you talk to him he really doesn’t belie that. He’s quiet. Most of the time he goes out of his way to avoid making any kind of fuss. To be honest, I never paid him much attention. It wasn’t until we went away to college together that I really got to know him. I got the chance to reach behind that unassuming exterior.

  “And Grandpa, this shy person that we all pretty much ignored, or even felt sorry for, this cipher that we never saw even when we were staring right at him, turned out to be wiser than any of us. Tom is his name, and I love him like a brother. I haven’t seen him in three years.

  “Tom was going along like the rest of us, trying to make some sense out of the hand he’d been dealt. Only he didn’t like it much. In fact he hated it. He hated what he was doing and who he was doing it with, and even why he was doing it at all. For quite a while he didn’t think there was anything he could do about it. Like the rest of us, he’d been pulled along by circumstances that others were dictating. He’d been trying to do the right and proper thing, trying to meet everybody’s expectations but his own. Tom had no expectations. He hadn’t allowed himself any. So he felt trapped in a situation he’d let other people create for him, and he was miserable for it. Absolutely wretched.

  “But,” continued Conor, “Tom was too smart, too strong to let it eat him alive. He broke away, Grandpa. Just when he was feeling as helpless as he had ever felt before in his life, he broke away. He threw everything aside, wiped the slate clean and started over again on his own terms. And God, I love him for it.”

  “What did he do?” asked the grandfather.

  Conor smiled. “He went to Ireland. The south coast, in fact. Cork.”

  And the old man smiled in return. “Ah, Lord,” he said. “I think I’d like this lad.”

  “You would. Immensely. He’s more your grandson than I am. He went over for a year and found he loved it there. He’s been there ever since. I get letters from him occasionally. He’s teaching at the college there while he finishes his doctorate. I suspect he’ll be married soon, to an Irish girl he makes reference to with increasing fondness. He’s writing now in terms of permanence and he’s happier than I’ve ever known he could be. I don’t think he’ll ever come back to this country. And why should he, really? He’s got everything he ever sought, and he did it totally on his own, in his own manner. In the process he found what was inside him that no one else ever recognized or valued. He defined Tom McIlweath.”

  “Your friend is indeed a rare man,” said the grandfather, “and a courageous one. He’s authored his own course of things, his own contentments. There’s precious few among us who can say the same. I daresay you’re not one of them.”

  “And I’m terribly envious,” replied Conor. “But there’s nothing I can do. Unlike my unassuming friend, I fear I lack the strength to turn everything over.”

  “Conor,” said the old man, quietly and with deliberation, untapping now one of his last remaining reservoirs of conviction. “Long before you were born I was dying. I had years left to me, but they wouldn’t have mattered. They would have choked me with their barren dust, choked me into a grave I would have welcomed. My life there made no sense to me, it had no point. What would I have been but what my father was, and his father before him, and on before that? What possible difference would it have made if I had come into this world or not? Man isn’t meant to live like that, just occupying space. It was no one’s fault, but that was how it had all built up. The easiest thing in the world, though, would have been to stay, running one step ahead of poverty and two steps ahead of starvation in what everyone else thought to be the natural order of things.

  “We’re like a magnet, Conor, dragged through the sand. We pick up little bits of filings, tiny shards of metal, without feeling them on us. But in time they weigh us down. Their heaviness accumulates until we no longer believe we can move at all. But Conor, we have to. Your friend had the strength to shake them away. It can shatter your heart and cause the flesh of your soul to bleed with a thousand wounds, but it’s the only alternative we have.”

  Liam Finnegan was not a gentle man, but neither was he brutish. He regarded his grandson, read the haunting echoes of death in his eyes, and prayed he was mistaken. Yet the premonition that followed him that evening remained with him the rest of his days, and the morbid fear that the sins of the father had been visited upon his heirs never left him until they lowered his casket into the silent earth.

  Conor, the grandson of Liam, finished his whiskey, kissed his grandfather on his ancient head, and went to bed for a night of unsettled, tormented slumber, the kind of night to which he had lately grown accustomed. He rose the next morning with nothing changed.

  It would take more time than that.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This novel came to life after a long and intense gestation, with a number
of midwives. When I began the writing of it, I had little idea what I was doing. But I knew I needed to do it, that I needed to try making sense of the maddening and unfathomable processes that make us who we are. Along the way I had more help, counsel, support and encouragement than any writer could ever want.

  Pat Conroy showed me early on how the written word can dance in lyrical gyrations that create music and carry truths like fresh winds. I did not know him well, but I’m proud to say that I knew him, and that he encouraged the early stages of what became this book. Pat made me brave enough to do this. His passing robbed us all of the most passionate and generous of writers. I’ve drawn from the brilliance of many other writers whom I have no illusion of approaching – Niall Williams, Colm Toibin, Owen Thomas, Fergal Keane, Amor Towles and countless others whose work elevates language and thought to the highest planes. I am deeply grateful to all of them for their craftsmanship and inspiration. But Pat Conroy has always been my brightest beacon.

  My great good friends Tom Cierzan and Kevin Johnson were the first to read the manuscript. Their honest reactions helped move the book along and give it focus. Gerry and Marlys Evans, my second parents, took the time to read the rough draft, as did Ruth Shiltas. David Welch read the final draft with amazing care and attention to detail. His insights lent a critical perspective in shaping the final product. And Caroline Jam Miller, whose sensitivity, humor and kindness nurture everyone who knows her, encouraged me through the final stages. She remains one of the most insightful people I have ever known.

  Bill Evans and I, who grew up together playing baseball and following the Dodgers, discovered a couple of years ago that we were both writing books. He’s an amazing storyteller. Bill has been an essential partner as we’ve navigated together the confusing and intimidating waters of creating words for others to read.

  John Koehler had the courage to publish this novel despite its length and the pretentions of its author. His care for and nurturing of writers should be the standard for every publisher. I’m immensely grateful for his faith and encouragement.

  Joe Coccaro and Elizabeth Marshall McClure buffed and polished a manuscript heavy on words and sometimes lacking precision. They’ve sharpened the finished product in ways I never could.

  But none of this would have mattered were it not for Lynn and Michael. Lynn’s beauty, intuition, and strength have sustained me for more than two decades, from the day she rescued someone desperately lost and confused, and showed him that there might actually be someone worth treasuring. She saved my life, then together we raised a son, who has infused that life with immeasurable joy, purpose and pride.

  This book, and whatever worth it might hold, is for them.