*
After nearly two hours in the mostly deserted diner, James swallowed the reality so prominently before him. Owen was never going to come. The friend he thought he knew—the one he had defended all these years—was no longer, if ever he was at all. He thought of all the times Owen had mocked him for being naïve. Having too much optimism to see the inherent selfishness of human nature. “It exists, Jimmy,” he said. “In droves. Why do you think we’re here? Everyone needs a moral structure, a pillar to lean on for support. Otherwise, we degenerate into animals.” Maybe Owen was right. Maybe human beings were no better than wild beasts, as desperate, vicious, and self-serving as any animal backed into a corner. Or maybe James had made Owen what he wanted him to be in his mind, not what he actually was. But as long as such a thing as free will existed, he couldn’t buy Owen’s argument. He had to believe that no matter how far down a road you got, you retained the ability to choose to continue in that direction or turn around.
He stood up and lumbered to the door, the weight of disappointment visible in his shoulders. He paused once more to look around the diner and felt in his pockets for everything he needed. The keys to his car in the alley. The keys to his apartment in the Jesuit residence hall at Ignatius. And the phone where his last communication from Owen would live until the university had his service formally discontinued. When he finally finished with his fastidious checking, he peered out the window once more, as though the additional two minutes would provide the magic moment for Owen to show up at last. But he did not appear.
Stuffing the ends of his scarf deep into his down-filled coat and zipping it all the way to the top, he tucked his chin under the flap and took a deep breath to prepare for the wintry blast. His steps fell lightly, slowly as he walked down the stairs to the street. His gait continued haltingly as he walked the length of the sidewalk and turned down the alley to his car, hoping as he dragged his feet that he’d run into Owen along the way. He didn’t. After one last glance around, squinting into the beam of the alley’s security spotlight, he turned and disappeared into the desolation of the alley, the shadow cast by his body growing long and lanky until it seemed as large as the influence he’d wielded over everyone who met him.
*
Owen noticed this about the shadow from where he was sitting across the street from the diner in the warmth of his rental car and the shadow of an office building. There was no chauffeur this time, no taxicab from the Metro-North. This time he had driven himself, feeling certain he would need the privacy before the night was through. He’d been sitting in the car for the last two hours, trying to will himself to go in. Beside him on the passenger seat lay the envelope James had given him and told him to provide to the victims’ lawyers. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, but he couldn’t bring himself to face James either. Despite the heat turned up high, the windows had fogged from the cold. Wiping away the moisture, Owen had observed James through the diner window. Witnessed the way he checked his watch multiple times, the jolt of his body every time someone entered the shop, and his concerned expression when he peered into the darkness from the warmth of his red vinyl seat. Owen kept telling himself to go in. To turn off the engine and just walk the easy twenty feet to the diner, where James would forgive him like he always did. Because he’d explain it and James would understand. Because he was Jimmy Ingram, who didn’t have to agree with you to believe you were worthy of his friendship and devotion.
James’s shadow stretched taller and thinner with every step until at last he disappeared from view and took his shaded twin with him. Owen’s pulse quickened. He felt he was watching his window of opportunity close. That his assumption he could skip tonight’s meeting and things would go back to the way they were was deeply miscalculated. Even if he couldn’t tell James what he wanted to hear (Yes, I turned the evidence over to the attorney), he needed to go to him, if only to buy more time.
*
James continued to walk to his car, his mind cluttered with emotion. His thoughts swirled with a vision of him and Owen at age fifteen, wandering along the railroad tracks by the Harlem River at 225th Street. A memory of the two of them clambering to the top of a huge rock outcropping there, painted with a pale blue C by the Columbia University crew team, and jumping feetfirst into the rushing depths below. Of one afternoon when he felt himself get caught in a current, swimming as hard as he could against it, but not hard enough. The big blue C swiftly grew distant as the tide carried him toward the whirlpools by Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, until he felt Owen tug on his arm and yank him with surprising strength from the current’s grip.
How, he wondered thinking back on that moment, had he been unable to fix all this despite his best efforts? He climbed into the driver’s seat and reached for his seatbelt. His coat, always so bulky, would not be contained by it. He shifted one way then another but could not fasten the buckle and still reach the steering wheel. Popping the trunk, he stepped out of the car. With the trunk propped high, he stripped off his coat and tossed it in the trunk before turning to race back to the driver’s side, to escape the biting cold that had seeped into his bones in mere seconds. The trunk hood didn’t take. It bobbed up, cushioned by an errant sleeve of the coat. He lifted it fully open again, stuffed the sleeve in, and this time gave the hood a great heave as he slammed it down. The right heel of his shoe lost its grip on a patch of black ice with the effort, swinging up and wildly off-balance. His legs clattered against the bumper, and his body fell with a thud, the base of his skull battered by the impact with ice and macadam.
*
Across the street, Owen remained in his car, working up the nerve to follow James down the alley. To have it out right then and there, if that’s what it was going to take. His right hand remained on the ignition. He told himself he wanted to turn it off, exit the car, and jog to James before he got too cold, but his hand wouldn’t turn. Whatever Owen was telling himself or needed to believe, like in so many moments in his life, his thoughts and words failed to translate into action.
At last he landed on an answer. Maybe he wasn’t meant to solve the world’s problems with his old friend tonight, but there was always tomorrow and the day after that. There were two ways for James to exit the alley and begin the drive home. If he came out on Owen’s side, he couldn’t help but pass him. It would be a sign that the chance was not gone—that he could still flag James down and talk to him. That their reconciliation was meant to be. A minute passed. Then another. He craned his neck to see if he could make out headlights beaming from the alley, but the glow from street lamps and floodlights perched on the sides of buildings blended into one through the haloed sheen of his windshield. Another minute passed. He waited. Then waited some more. After close to ten minutes, there was still no sign of James.
*
In a crumpled heap not far from the back left tire of his car, James Ingram began to stir from his spot on the ground. He didn’t know how much time had passed. He knew only that he was awakened by the pain in his head and the dull throbbing of limbs that were too cold. He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t listen. The head wound was too great and his disorientation too severe. When he rolled over to his stomach and managed to get to his knees, he noticed the blotch of blood, spread wide in a haphazard stain across the snow and ice. The car was still there and he could see it—even reach out and touch it if his body had been willing to obey his commands—but it was no use. His synapses could not make the necessary connections. He saw the car, but did not perceive it to be a car. He heard the keys jangling in his pocket but did not identify them as such. With a deep breath that ignored the sharp pain in his head, he rocked himself back then pitched himself forward, struggling to stand. He got only one knee off the ground before he lost balance and came crashing down again.
*
Owen waited nearly twenty-five minutes. In roughly the same amount of time he could have been at James’s apartment at Ignatius. He could have noticed that the car wasn’t there and that James wasn’
t picking up his cell phone. But he neither called him nor went to his home. He sat in his car, not willing to face the rejection he felt certain awaited him. Finally, he concluded that James was in all likelihood long gone from the alley and had taken the other route home. That the moment of reconciliation he had built into a groundswell of renewed support and sealed fissures was never going to happen. And maybe, after all he and James had faced together, the vastly diverging paths of their careers—in which one expressed his love for God and other his love for the Church—it was better that way. The hand on the ignition had gone numb from its frozen position. He shook his arm, waiting to feel sensation, its return announced by the sharp pain of pins and needles. The knuckles wrapped awkwardly around the gearshift. He pushed it out of “Park,” released the emergency brake, and drove slowly away.
*
At the far end of the alley, James Ingram lay on his back again, gazing at the sky. Everything was getting dark, but his arms and legs had finally stopped hurting. The bone-chilling cold, the ache that had seeped into his entire body, no longer plagued him. He didn’t feel anything. Just the dizzying spin of fatigue and the weight of his lids opening and closing slowly over his eyes as though brass coins had been placed on them. He stared into the sparkling sky and thought about this world, what it was made of and what we in turn make of it. The life that awaited him—beyond the stars that were growing dim, darkness encroaching from the sides of his eyes and narrowing to a focal point—was one he had built his entire life around. One he used to comfort so many others for so long. But it occurred to him, as he lay there in the freezing night, that no matter what warmth, what bliss awaited him, he would end life as he began it. In a haze of confusion and the inability to know or understand what would happen next. The sky grew darker and darker. The world moving around him became muffled, like the stark quiet of being buried in snow. The last light of the stars disappeared. All became black. And all, including James, was now still.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I started this project, I thought finishing the manuscript would be the hardest part. It turns out that figuring out what, if anything, to do next was equally tough. I’m learning something new every day. I’m grateful to many people who have played important roles in making The Shepherd’s Calculus a reality. To Trina Vargo for a life-changing year in Ireland that encouraged me to write. To Elisa Balestra for her friendship, integrity, and creative way of connecting dots. To Mary Lou Hartman and Cliff Sloan for their example of making a difference in the world and for their feedback and encouragement. To George Heslin and Origin Theatre Company for keeping me connected to creativity in critical ways. To Louise Runge, Heidi Sulzman, and Samantha Housman for reminding us all of the many complex and compelling stories out there to be told. To numerous friends and family who have read drafts and provided feedback: Ginny Buckingham, Malachy McCourt, Laura Gallo, Neil Grunberg, Patricia Hartwell, Kurt Gottfried, Jana Lang, Kathleen Romig Krepps, Greg Palmer, Tom Fox, and Charles Arrowsmith, to name a few. To Emilie Sandoz-Voyer, Laura Whittemore, Meghan Harvey, and Girl Friday Productions for being everything I could have hoped for and more. To the staff at Fordham University’s Edmund J. Walsh Library, where I spent many hours doing research. To Sara Shepard for making that long summer on Wall Street bearable, for making the world brighter with her novels, and for her moral support while I got this project off the ground: Pennsylvania and Penny Super Ponies Forever. To Mark Massa, S.J., Jim Fisher, and Jeanne Flavin for embodying the best of Jesuit education, shaping my worldview, and connecting me to my faith in critical ways. To my father, Gene, for his example of “doing right” instead of “being right,” and to the Pearl River Farrellys for their humor, loyalty, and support. And finally, to my husband, Matthew, for the many cups of tea while I was writing, for reading every draft, for helping me with research, for wrangling Fintan, and for supporting me through setbacks with love and humor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. S. Farrelly is a writer whose career has spanned investment banking, government and international relations, and higher education. Her stage plays have been produced in New York City. The Shepherd’s Calculus is her first novel. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family.
The Shepherd's Calculus Page 24