by Greg Fields
“Good night, Conor. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
***
There are times in our lives—remote, Romantic, long-dead times—when our existence falls into a pace so comfortably natural that our daily patterns are devoid of all struggle. We do not notice it at the onset, and sometimes, if we are very unlucky, we do not notice it until it is gone, disrupted by the call back to the bleak, exhausting nature of coping with a less-than-ideal humanity.
In the end, we cannot escape the conclusion that life breaks our hearts and our spirits, that it grinds us into bony gristle incapable of fitting into close space without thrusting a jagged edge into the soft rims around us, that humanity labors under the cruelest, most heartless death sentence imaginable. We cannot avoid the impression that existence offers little in the way of lasting fulfillment but at the simplest level, and that we are constantly teased by the specters of glory, ease and wealth beckoning to us just beyond our outstretched fingertips. We cannot lose sight of the perpetual and recurring disillusion, the chronic loneliness, the empty sense of abandonment, the crushing depersonalized inhumanity of a society carried by artificial values and desensitized souls. We cannot avoid any of it; we cannot escape it. The best we can do, if we are most fortunate, is to forget it for a time and set about the enjoyment of the haunting glimmers of harmony that fate occasionally conjures and that we, in our misguided hubris, interpret falsely as permanent, the logical state of things that come to us as a fitting reward for our planning, our hard work, and our basic decency.
Conor Finnegan, Tom McIlweath and their friends embarked upon their final year of college well in step with their surroundings. It was a rare time. They plunged through the autumn months and into the winter confidently assured that life’s bounty had been reserved for them above all others, that their existence here and evermore would be a series of challenges met, conquests justly won and glories accrued. All aspects of their lives harmonized during these euphoric months. There were no conflicts, either within themselves or among each other. They pushed blindly on, silently assuming that the rarefied atmosphere of youth fulfilled would surround them the rest of their lives.
Finnegan and McIlweath worked on their honors projects with genuine intellectual curiosity. They researched and translated, wrote and edited with a fervor approaching the religious. Both enjoyed infinitely the realization that they were educated men, that the breadth of knowledge earnestly stalked was growing each day and that, in the process of understanding what was put before them, they were learning that rarest of talents: the ability to think critically. They had become intoxicated.
Rosselli and O’Hanlon pursued their independent study projects with a plodding acceptance that hid any intellectual excitement they may have truly felt. They had devised their projects not from a love of knowledge, but for personal gain. But their motivations really did not matter. They were locked into the responsibilities those projects created; it was up to them to identify their own satisfactions. Both young men regarded themselves as among the elite of the elite. At the same time, they reassured themselves that their inherent pragmatism set them apart from the boringly vacuous intellectuals that usually chased these types of projects.
Socially, too, these few months epitomized all that had come before. Conor saw Glynnis every weekend, sometimes in Philadelphia, sometimes bringing her to New Brunswick. They remained enamored of the simple pleasures—long walks, afternoons in the student center, the occasional play or movie. Sometimes, when no one else was around, they would just sit in a chair in the living room, Glynnis on Conor’s lap, and hold each other. There was nothing sexual in this. It was an acknowledgement of each other’s presence, this gentle grasping of the firmness of both their bodies and their minds. Often they would walk to the pond in the park across the river to feed the ducks. As the weather turned colder, they became more conscientious about this. They had begun to feel paternalistic toward the forgettable waterfowl, who seemed too docile to make it through the coming cold.
While Conor Finnegan cultivated his rich affection for Glynnis Mear in simple human ways, Tom McIlweath clung tenaciously to Anne Newbury. She too clung to him, although that was not nearly so obvious. McIlweath remained overly solicitous of Anne’s wishes and needs. He saw her daily, and after he returned to the apartment at day’s end he would phone her before he went to bed. He would call her prior to running to the market to see if she might need anything. He drove her to her classes across town. He bought her small, meaningless presents. They spent most of their time at her home and rarely ventured out. Only seldom did he bring her to the apartment. Oddly, though, he drew tremendous pleasure from this limited routine. McIlweath protected Anne as he would a valuable gem or a family secret. He convinced himself that he must be constantly attentive of her or else she would fade away from him. For her part, Anne was quite receptive to McIlweath’s indulgences.
Concurrently, Lanny O’Hanlon and Dan Rosselli had no use for female involvement except of the most physical kind. They did not miss the Romantic allure of fidelity, nor did they believe their emotional natures to be underdeveloped. Let Finnegan and McIlweath take their chances. Their rewards might be temporarily greater, but so was their cost. Instead of romance, O’Hanlon and Rosselli sought the sensual pleasures. That, of course, was much simpler. They knew women on campus who felt likewise, and, if none of those were available, they knew where others might be found. From week to week they sought their quarry and indulged in mutual pleasures that were often very sweet. Neither had any qualms about it. There would be plenty of time later to inundate themselves with responsibilities and obligations. For the time being, this was the way for them to go, and they were both inordinately happy.
For Tom McIlweath there was his swimming. When autumn dawned he began his workouts again in earnest. His body sharpened—muscles seemed stringier, bones seemed lighter. McIlweath swam hard to build himself back up, and by the time the season opened in late November he was in superb condition. He swam many different events, three races each meet. He did not come close to losing any of them. Against his traditional instincts, McIlweath allowed himself to feel proud of his records. Athletic recognition was no longer necessary for him, but it provided an extra dimension, a measurable excellence, to his increasingly well-honed character. Tom McIlweath was proud of his swimming, to be sure, but he was prouder of who he was becoming.
For all four young men, this was a year of smoke dreams borne of a Romantic finality. Each had grown supremely confident of his own worth, the people around him and his destined place in a complex world. The four of them had fallen into step with their expectations. They perceived their unique fortune silently, and the shared realization drew them closer together. Their lives orbited around each other like a distant solar system set off by itself. They reacted to each other’s moods—if one were depressed, they all ached. Similarly, the elation of one could pull all of them along, and some nights were spent in mindlessly random laughter triggered by nothing at all and sustained for the sheer joy of it. And through their symbiotic humors each recognized the thick cable that held them together and would never break—even if assaulted by the gods themselves—a cable woven of friendship and youth, of the limitless excitement of limitless potential, of dreams crafted in each other’s presence, of communal pleasures and communal frustrations, of wit, of power, of time itself.
They analyzed their special relationship and considered each other as close as brothers. In the drunken euphoria of youth that has known no destruction, of youth that perceives the world as its own, to be shaped and sculpted in accordance with its own grand design, they believed to the very fiber of their souls that their kinship would never end.
CHAPTER XIII
It was ours, this sun, we saw nothing behind
the gold embroidery
then the messengers came, dirty and breathless,
stuttering unintelligible words . . .
You told them to rest first and then to speak,
the light had blinded you.
You’d forgotten that no one rests.
—George Seferis, Our Sun
A driving bass rhythm pounded off the thin wooden walls and reverberated through whatever lay in its path, objects animate and inanimate alike. Behind it rode the sound of harsh metal and over it a throaty voice screamed a tale of dissipation in barely distinguishable lyrics. The thumping rhythm mingled with the diverse jumble of humanity jammed into the too-small room and down the hallway. Footsteps bounded up and down the hollowed stairs, doors opened and shut. An identifiable voice occasionally rose above all others, either in greeting of someone new, or when some discussion became excessively animated. Otherwise everything blended into a cramped, sweaty closeness that spoke of a contorted, impressionistic miasma.
April had broken through the monotony of late winter. Spring had been delayed by unknown factors. March remained cold and damp, causing a certain irritability among those who had expected winter to have dispersed by then. To change their frayed moods, the young men of Rutgers had planned a party. As if in benediction of what they were about, the day had dawned warm, and as it wore on it grew warmer. The four had spent most of it outside, playing tennis and running, the season’s first excursions into the physicality they relished. Their pores opened again and they drew their breaths deeply. At once the dusty, dormant mantle that had subdued their spirits the preceding months had been ripped apart and joyously trampled. They were, once again, children at play.
The day’s heat rose to the second floor and made the apartment too warm even before any guests arrived. Once they started to troop in, the place became stifling. The bathtub had been packed in ice and filled with beer. That alone was cool; everything else swam with heat.
By mid-evening, groupings had become apparent. Despite the flow of people back and forth between conversations, certain patterns crystallized. Diverse types had been invited, although not in the traditional sense of the word. Word had been spread that there was a party on Huntington Street, see if you could come and bring whomever you wanted. As a rule, there were always unexpected people who happened by, but no one cared. The greater variety made it livelier. That was something to be prized.
But patterns did develop. That, too, was predictable. In one corner of the living room members of the swim team sat slouched in a semi-circle, drinking heavily. There were five or six men and only two women, all of whom swam together daily. Lapsing frequently into inside jokes and making reference to their peculiar passion, they tended to be too specialized for outsiders. The swimmers felt comfortable together and did not look for new people.
Opposite them in the corner furthest from the front window, a group of Dan Rosselli’s friends held an animated conversation about sports cars and commented furtively on the women who were there. Most of them, like Dan, had applied to medical schools and would be waiting for replies. Undertones of uncertainty manifested through their braggadocio and intermixed with their banter. They had grown friendly through a shared competition, and now they regarded themselves as survivors worthy of each other’s company.
Around the kitchen table sat four young women, friends of friends, and standing next to them, entertaining them with his Boston accent, was Lanny O’Hanlon. He alone moved easily into conversation with attractive women. O’Hanlon was never intimidated. He knew how to accentuate his distinctive character once he drew their attention with his smooth wit. Everyone who knew him and saw the scene assumed that O’Hanlon’s partner for the night sat somewhere within the apartment, even though she herself might not yet be fully aware of what was in store.
In the hallway, two on each side, stood a group of Conor Finnegan’s friends, relatively unkempt and radical in both social and political thought. There were two men and two women, all with hair of approximately equal length and texture. The men wore stubby beards, and one of the women had a chipped front tooth. Finnegan had gotten to know two of them in a literature course. He was intrigued by their nihilism, and spoke to them outside of class whenever he was in the mood for a friendly argument. Here, though, they did not argue. No one sought to interrupt them or to join their conversation. They were oddities here, if such there could be at a party like this, and viewed with mild discomfort by those who did not know them.
Scattered throughout the apartment, in every room and at the distant end of the hallway, stood other pockets of friends, many met during the first two years when they had all lived together in the dormitory. They were part of a shared and very special past; they had helped nurture each other through their weanings. As such, their friendships were regarded dearly, not as much for who they were but for what they had seen, and what they had shared. They all had been different individuals when they first met more than three years ago. Now, as they neared the completion of the process they had set about, as they realized that a final and permanent displacement loomed just ahead, they felt more strongly than ever their particular bond. Some of these friends were closer than others, and some were better regarded, but each stood out by the connections their identity evoked.
Conor Finnegan and Glynnis Mear walked between groups, entering conversations and then leaving them quickly. Finnegan was a politician working the crowd, making certain he spoke with everyone at least once, and greeting all who walked through the door whether he knew them or not. Glynnis, who knew no one except Conor’s roommates, stayed with him at first, although as the evening wore on she regularly left him to follow her own course. In time she entered her own conversations, speaking to those people who interested or attracted her without regard for Conor, who, she knew, would handle himself quite well whether or not she was with him. The wine she was drinking helped feed her quiet confidence.
Tom McIlweath and Anne Newbury worked no crowds, nor did they seek interruption. For them the people wafting through the apartment existed only as disturbances that were best minimized. They sat on the couch, turned enough to face each other, and spoke quietly between themselves. There they stayed throughout most of the evening. On only one or two occasions did anyone dare to violate their space. The intruders acted unwittingly, not cognizant of Anne and Tom’s special dynamic. They were quickly and readily rebuffed, drawing back from their forays into the conversation as a child pulls back from a too-hot burner on the stove. Finnegan saw the two of them establish their turf early in the evening, and he paid little notice to them from then on. Each time he looked their way they were in the same position. He could not be certain what they might be discussing, but he guessed that somewhere along the way they took a dim view of what they were seeing around them. Why had they come, and why did they stay? Finnegan reasoned that it must be nothing more than a sense of duty.
Finnegan came into the living room in the middle of the evening after grabbing another beer from the bathtub. The night was going splendidly. The crowd was a good mix and he had been enjoying himself thoroughly with the diverse range of people here. He had also been drinking at a quick pace. The alcohol relaxed his limbs and he believed it sharpened his perceptions. He usually felt that way when he drank. His reactions seemed more calculated, his immediate recollections clearer. Before drunkenness set in, Finnegan always saw that was happening around him in distinctly memorable outline.
He walked into the living room with his beer and noticed one of his old dormitory friends sitting in a chair next to the couch. Whomever he had been talking with had apparently just left him. Finnegan sat himself down on the ottoman in front of the chair and slapped his friend’s knee affectionately. “What do you say, Ted? I don’t think we see each other more than once or twice a semester anymore.”
“Now that you’ve moved into the suburbs. I miss it. We used to get into some great arguments.”
“You were always my conscience, Ted.”
“It comes with being a philosophy major. We have a habit of falling back onto the ideal. Hegel, Spinoza and the boys. It presents us with some excellent opportunities to be self-righteously obnoxious and
arrogant. I think, if the truth be known, I’ve always preferred your kind of realism.”
“You were a good influence on me,” said Finnegan, “especially since I roomed with the greatest pragmatist of them all. O’Hanlon would be telling me that all success is based on someone else’s failure and you’d be talking about the Moment of Negation or Critical Imperatives. I didn’t know what to think.”
Finnegan’s friend sat back slightly and smiled a feral smile. Ted Rosenbloom had lived down the hall from Finnegan and O’Hanlon for two years in the dormitory. Finnegan indeed had always regarded Rosenbloom’s reactions highly. He had been continually impressed with the sheer power of Rosenbloom’s intellect, the breadth of his reading and his command of ideas or concepts Finnegan found obtuse. Philosophy had seemed a natural course of study for him, with its elaborate constructs and idealistic overlays.
Yet for all the strength of his intellect, Ted Rosenbloom had always come across as disinterested. He sometimes set himself apart for days at a time, and in more than one instance Finnegan had detected an air of condescension. Rosenbloom would smile slyly and look at Finnegan, or whoever might have engaged him, with a penetrating fix that masked a hidden conclusion. His replies could be sharp. When Finnegan and the others moved out of the dormitory, Rosenbloom had made no effort to continue the trappings of their friendship. He had been content to maintain the routine of his own existence as it was, relying only upon whatever chance encounters might occur with the relocated to keep their relationship intact. Finnegan, suspicious of Rosenbloom’s hidden arrogance, had also not gone out of his way to keep in touch.
Rosenbloom had gained weight. When he sat back, a slight paunch appeared roundly above his belt. His face seemed fuller, too, and Finnegan could see a plump curve to his reclining arms. Rosenbloom wore a beard—he had had one as long as Finnegan had known him—and it remained scraggly with gaps throughout that allowed tiny patches of skin to show. Rosenbloom’s hair was parted in the middle and rolled down the sides of his head to the tops of his shoulders. He was not an attractive man, but then, his entire demeanor eschewed the physical.
