May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel

by Peter Troy

  Bruddera mine, ’tis a foine dreamin’ sorta lad y’are, Sean says, as he stops in front of the Rose of Shannon. Come on, would th’noble young Squire deign to sip a pint or two with the unwashed?

  I’m not going in to see the Dean after a pint, Seanny. Ya want me to fulfill every idea they have about us?

  Why, do you mean they might think ill of us poor workin’ men? Seanny says, taking the mocking tone Ethan had used just minutes earlier. After all we went through in the Old Country … wouldn’t you think—

  Oh shite, Ethan interrupts him, looking over Seanny’s shoulder. Here’s yer boy Cormac. I gotta go before he challenges me to another arm wrestle.

  And Ethan’s gone up Baxter Street without even shaking his brother’s hand, offering just a thanks for the suit as he goes. Cormac calls after him, something about an arm wrestle of course, but Ethan just tips his cap to him and keeps going.

  He arrives at the Dean’s office at ten minutes to two and is shown into his office by a young man around Ethan’s age who must be his assistant. The next few minutes are spent wide-eyed and open-mouthed as Ethan admires the vast collection of books, each of them bound in fine leather, and filling the shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling on every wall but one. It’s as if the Brodericks’ entire library back home was somehow squeezed into a room a third as large, and he begins to feel as out of place as he did when he was twelve and Aislinn sneaked him in to see the original.

  But when the Dean arrives a few minutes later, Ethan’s fears are allayed by the very look of the man. He has no flowing academic robes or four-cornered hat and spectacles, and his wrinkled white shirt seems practically held together by a tie that fits loosely around his neck. He doesn’t carry any books but does have a hammer and chisel in his hands.

  Mr. MacOwen, is it? he asks.

  Yes sir, Ethan MacOwen, Ethan replies and extends his hand toward him, forcing a frown to the Dean’s face and requiring him to move the chisel into his left hand so he can give Ethan a limp handshake. He walks around his desk and sits down, adjusting the hammer and chisel in each hand.

  What is the nature of your inquiry? he asks, looking at a side drawer on the desk rather than at Ethan.

  Well sir, Ethan replies uncomfortably, put off a little by the Dean’s indifference. I’m interested in becoming a student here for the next term.

  The Dean says nothing in response but inserts the chisel into the seam between one of the drawers and the frame of his desk. He hits the chisel twice with the hammer before hitting his finger with the third swing.

  Dammit! Confounded piece of … Joshua!

  The door opens and the assistant steps in. Dean? he asks.

  Come over here and get this damn thing open.

  He hands him the chisel and hammer and Joshua taps at it awkwardly.

  You’re chipping the wood there! the Dean shouts.

  Yes, Dean. Are you sure it’s not locked?

  Well of course I’m sure! It’s broken. Stuck.

  Joshua continues tapping at it as the Dean looks on with an expression of anguish and for the minute or so it takes them to pry open the drawer, neither of them seems to even be aware of Ethan’s presence. He doesn’t volunteer his assistance lest they get a look at his heavily calloused fisherman’s hands, so he’s forced to sit quietly and watch them struggle.

  Ahh … there. And Joshua pulls the drawer and it slides unwillingly open.

  Good, the Dean says. That’s it, leave it now. Good. Take those things with you. Go.

  Joshua walks out of the office carrying the tools with him while the Dean fumbles through papers, as if doing an inventory to see what might’ve vanished while the drawer was tightly closed. After the contents apparently meet with his approval, he slowly closes the drawer almost all the way and pulls it open as a test. When it passes inspection, he closes it again without removing anything and looks back up at Ethan, seeming almost surprised that he is still there.

  So what was this now? he asks.

  Well sir … I was hoping you would give me some information on how I could enroll for the next term as a student, he says with great attention paid to pronouncing each syllable completely.

  You what? You want to be a student?

  Yes, sir.

  The Dean looks at him full of doubt.

  From where have you come? he asks.

  Brooklyn, sir. Brooklyn Heights.

  Originally. Where were you brought into this world?

  Had he slipped? Ethan thinks. Did he pronounce something with enough of a hint of a brogue that the Dean has seen right through him, even despite the silliness of introducing himself as Ethan Mack-Owen?

  Your accent doesn’t sound like anything I’m familiar with, the Dean adds, and I am an expert in dialects.

  So he’s done it so far, Ethan thinks, knowing all that was necessary now was to fill in the details of a Scottish father and perhaps a German mother and accents mixed together but him born here in this country and his parents both well-to-do and educated and …

  Ireland, sir, he confesses as if by instinct, unable to do such a thing to the memory of Mr. Hanratty and the Heroes of ’98 and his brother and Da and … himself. But we’ve been here for some time now, he adds.

  I see. Ubi studebas? the Dean asks.

  Ethan’s eyes open broadly before he catches himself.

  I’m … sorry sir?

  Ubi studebas? The Dean repeats a little more insistently.

  Ethan recognizes the Latin he’s heard in Mass since he was a boy, but doesn’t know exactly what the Dean has asked.

  I’m sorry sir, I am not proficient in Latin, he admits.

  Yes, you Papists sit and listen to your damn priests speaking Latin all the time and you never bother to actually learn the language! Well Mr. Mick-Owen, in what are you proficient?

  I have read a great deal sir, he begins. Most of the classics … Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Homer, Dante …

  Ahhhhh … you’re a reader, the Dean replies, sarcasm dripping from the word.

  Yes sir.

  And your education? Were you tutored privately or perhaps something a bit more formal? A school perhaps?

  I learned mostly from my sister when I was young, Ethan replies.

  Ahhhh—your sister. And she teaches where? Or better still, how was she educated?

  Ethan pauses. Dean or not, he thinks to himself, this man will not extend his mockery to Aislinn and come away unscathed.

  She’s gone sir. She died back in Ireland in The Hunger.

  The Dean seems to come to his senses just in time, perhaps responding to something in Ethan’s voice or the look on his face, and quickly backs off his mocking tone.

  Well, that is … I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Mick-Owen. Terrible tragedy that.

  An awkward silence fills the next few seconds.

  But I’m afraid that this is not the institution for you, he finally adds. We have quite rigorous academic standards and I don’t believe you are the kind of young man who would find himself comfortable here.

  I don’t know the Latin sir, but I learn very quickly. I—

  Greek? The Dean asks.

  Sir?

  Have you studied ancient Greek?

  No sir.

  Mathematics? Natural science? Rhetoric?

  Well, I have read some of Newton’s work, Ethan offers, and I’m reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and I’ve also read—

  Yes, you’ve read, you’ve read—but have you studied, Mr. Mick-Owen? Do you know algebra and geometry? Have you conducted any scientific experiments of your own?

  Well, no sir. I’ve only lately taken much of an interest in natural science, that is—the past year or two. But I have read all the classics sir and I—

  Yes, you’ve read the classics, but you don’t know Latin or Greek. You have no formal education and now you wish to be admitted to this university. But this is not how it works in the world of academia, Mr. Mick-Owen. I think you can see that this is not the pl
ace for you.

  I would like the chance to—

  Perhaps there is a Catholic institution somewhere that would consider you more suited to their standards, the Dean says, although without Latin, I would say you stand little chance. He stands up and extends his hand toward the door, and with finality in his voice adds, but I know for certain that this institution is not for you.

  BY NOW HE’D TAKEN THE ferry ride from New York back to Brooklyn maybe a thousand times, but never in a suit like this to be sure. It was officially a gift from Mam and Aunt Em, but only Seanny had the sort of money to buy clothes such as these. Seanny, who’d been against the idea from the start, telling Ethan how there wasn’t room for a Mick amidst those ivy-covered walls. Still, Ethan had to try, and Seanny was a generous enough sort to spring for a suit to fit the finest Wall Street financiers, just in case it’d do anything to conceal th’mappa d’Old Country splashed across Ethan’s face. Clearly, it didn’t.

  So here was Ethan left to ride the ferry back home, new suit and all, and carrying with him now the guilt and shame for having put them all through it, for having made his Mam and Aunt Em, and even Da too, go to the trouble of hoping for such a thing that Seanny’d told him was not meant for them. Plennya jobs for smart fellas like you down at Tammany, Seanny’d said. He’d even told his little brother that they needed some good Micks down on Wall Street lookin’ after certain of our investments. But Ethan’d never been interested in following in his brother’s footsteps.

  And so the ferry ride to Brooklyn took on a different feeling than it ever had before, like a banishment of some kind, like it’d been back in the Old Country. Only there, at least people knew straight off where they stood from the moment they were old enough to tell the difference. All it took was one look at the Brodericks’ manor house, with twenty servants for four residents, and then a glance at the tiny cottages along the Lane, with four or eight or twelve people living piled on top of each other, for folks to know exactly where they stood. It was all nice and organized with stone walls and iron gates to keep them exactly where they belonged. Back in the Old Country, that was.

  But here in America, it was all a taunting, torturing mess, without enough stone walls or iron gates to keep things separated the way the Good Lahrd had seen fit to make them in the first place. Why, on his very first day in New York, his Da had marched him past the bastions of power and riches at City Hall and Wall Street, and then a few blocks away into the Five Points, no borders, no priests wagging their fingers telling a lad to mind his proper place in the Lahrd’s Creation, nothing to delineate the change … except maybe the smell. And worst of all about it was the way newspapers were always saying that democracy meant any man could pull himself up by his bootstraps. Sure hadn’t the great John Jacob Astor gone from being a lad off the boat to the richest man in America and founding public libraries and such?

  Ethan’d stared at the great man’s portrait in the lobby of the library named for him, trying to find the key to climbing so far in a single lifetime, and there were moments when he swore Mr. Astor almost seemed to nod his head at him, telling him that a lad could make it from the Lane back in the Old Country all the way to Wall Street. But now he knew the truth behind that nod. A man could, sure enough, and hadn’t Seanny been doing the very thing with his lads at Tammany Hall? But they’d never let you in through the front door. So it was all about smashing windows the way Seanny and his lads did, the way even the great Mr. Astor must’ve done along the way. And Ethan wasn’t sure if he had the stomach for such a thing, or if Wall Street would ever matter enough to give up the part of his soul it’d take to get there.

  Stepping off the ferry at Fulton Street, he didn’t even stop to look back over his shoulders at New York the way he usually did. Instead, his first steps were turned south toward Red Hook, figuring he could help Da wash the salt off the skiff, rather than go straight home to deliver the bad news to Mam and Aunt Em, who were likely to be up to their elbows making a special meal for the occasion. There were a few familiar faces along the way and some of them saying what a fine suit it was and such, but thankfully none of them seemed to know what it was for. Once he was there at the mooring dock, it wasn’t much of a wait before the familiar sail came into view, and his Da smiled and waved at him as he approached the shore. They worked in efficient silence as they always did, Ethan mooring the boat as his Da folded the sail. When it was time to lift the barrels up onto the dock, Da handed him the first but didn’t even bother with the second. Ethan lifted the lid off the first one and saw just three medium-sized fluke floating listlessly in the water.

  Wasn’t much of a day as ya can see, Da said as he climbed up onto the dock. Then the broad smile of just a few minutes earlier exploded over his face in anticipation and he extended his hands as if to touch Ethan on both shoulders, but stopped just short.

  Don’t wanna ruin that suit now that yer gonna be needin’ it evr’y day, Da said. So tell me how’d it go at th’New York University?

  There was a reverent tone to the last few words and a smile in his Da’s eyes that Ethan hadn’t seen before. It was different from the relief that was there when he’d first come over, or when Mam and Aunt Em finally made it themselves a year later. It was different than the contented glisten after a pint, or a good song of a Saturday night, or a catch to fill both barrels right to the top with no room to spare. This was more childlike than any of those, echoing the hopes that must’ve been somewhere inside him before life on the Lane and in the Points and all the early days here when three medium-sized fluke would count for a great blessing, before life had done its work on him. And Ethan couldn’t bear to tell him straight out, letting pursed lips and the slightest hint of shaking his head side to side do the dirty work for him, as his Da’s face deflated back to its normal state, like th’Good Lahrd’s Natural Order of Things being restored right there on the dock in Red Hook.

  Was it yer name? Da asked.

  Seanny’d been the one to tell him to call himself Ethan Mack-Owen and drop his brogue, so he could pass himself off as a Scotsman. Didn’t matter how he got in the door of the place, so long as he was in, Seanny always said.

  I dunno Da, he replied now. The Dean did ask a few questions about where we were from an’ how long we’d been over—but I dunno if that made the diff’rence.

  Well didya talk about all th’books ya been readin’ all these years, all th’Shakespeare an’ Newton an’ … what’s th’Froggy names again … the—

  I told’m about readin’ Descartes an’ Voltaire and all the rest Da, Ethan said.

  So what was it lad? Is it like Seanny said how dey’ll never let an Irishman go to one o’ their foine colleges so lahng as dey can help it?

  But Ethan couldn’t hold on to that same sort of anger his Da and Seanny had any longer. So he told him the truth, about the Latin and the Greek, about how this wasn’t the way things worked, much as he’d wanted to disprove what a million Irish fresh off the boat knew to be true. They’d never let you in through the front door.

  I wish I coulda done more for ya lad, his Da said. If things’d only been …

  And his voice drifted off as he squinted in a way a man would only do when there was the sun staring straight at him or when the water was in his eyes.

  Ahh … fook ’em, Da said. And Ethan couldn’t help but stand in shocked silence hearing his Da say that word for the first time.

  Da walked past him and pulled loose the aft knot he’d made in mooring the skiff, another fook ’em or two mumbled under his breath as he did the usual work. Ethan pulled the fore rope loose and they walked the skiff up onto the shore past the high-tide line. And it was as if order had been restored, as Da went for the fish barrel on the dock and Ethan pulled the scrub broom out of the skiff and dipped it into the rainwater barrel a few feet away. There was his Da, back turned toward Ethan, standing at the edge of the tiny dock and looking across the water at New York like it was the Brodericks’ manor back in th’Old Country, and the East
River right there serving as all the stone walls or iron gates the gentry could ever hope to build. Quickly Da brushed his palm across one eye and then the other, then kicked one foot up to the brim of the fish barrel and spilled its contents, three medium-sized fluke and all, back into the bay. Before Ethan could turn away, his Da looked up and saw his son staring at him. Da shook his head a few times and lifted up the empty barrel.

  Leave it lad, he said. A day’s wert’ o’ salt isn’t gonna kill ’er.

  It’s all right Da, really it is, Ethan protested, and began to wash the salt water from the tiller.

  But then his Da dropped the barrel right into the skiff and took the scrub broom from Ethan’s hands.

  Leave it lad. Yer Mam’s got a steak from th’butcher an’ a cake from th’bakers, too, he said, reaching his arm around Ethan’s shoulders and pulling him close, new suit and all. But I could go fer a pint at Feeny’s first, what d’ya say?

  Sure Da, Ethan answered, and patted him on the back before his Da let the embrace go.

  They walked quietly up the short slope, leaving the skiff for another day, and Ethan surveyed what was left of the fields that had been his first home in America. The cabins were mostly gone by now, replaced by more substantial two- and three-room buildings that looked like they had a much better chance of surviving a good storm than the old places did. There were a dozen brick houses across the road covering much of what had been their baseball field just ten years ago. And the oddity of a single thought came over Ethan just then, offering some consolation in the form of a warning. Perhaps it wasn’t good for a man to stray too far from anything that he’d ever known as home, lest he be left to drift on the seas for an entire lifetime. Perhaps Brooklyn Heights, by way of Red Hook, by way of the Lane outside Enniskillen, was enough travel for one man in one lifetime. And wouldn’t there be generations to follow to carry on with the traveling, until maybe one day the McOwens would find themselves on the other side of those stone walls and iron gates? Yes, perhaps this was enough after all.

  THERE AREN’T MANY LADS DRESSED in suits at Feeny’s, and none of them with one as nice as Ethan’s to be sure. Feeny’s is the sort of place that from the inside could almost pass for any pub down any lane back in the Old Country, and almost all of its patrons have spent at least part of their lives along one of those lanes. Wearing his suit now, Ethan worries that the lads who know him’ll be full of questions about how the meeting with the Dean went, and the lads who don’t will take him for an uppity Mick. But he and his Da step straight to the bar and order their pints same as they would on the days when there were two barrels’ worth of fish to toast. Only, minus the day’s fishing to recount, neither of them seem to know what to say to each other.