by Greg Fields
Ross now leaned back in his swivel chair, legs crossed, and flipped absently through the twenty-four page memo that sat now on the great mound of his lap. He was not reading it, not at the moment. He had already done that. Now it was as if he were looking for an impression he could articulate, a word or a phrase that might leap up from the page and stir a thought. Across from him sat Conor Finnegan, the memo’s author, who tried to feign a businesslike demeanor while struggling to control both his excitement, which flamed at the potential this meeting carried, and his nerves, which warned him that that potential might as easily be negative as positive.
Ross reviewed the memo without speaking for several tense minutes. The silence pressed the moment down hard upon Finnegan’s delicate confidence; it seemed like an hour. All he could do was sit attentively, notepad in his lap, left arm propping his head pensively.
Griffith Ross at last broke the heavy silence. “So?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“So,” repeated Ross, then continued with a paced deliberation, “What do you want me to do with this? Or, I should say, what do you want to do with this?”
“That’s why I’m here, Griffith. You tell me.”
“Some graphic things in this, if it’s all true.”
“It’s all true. It’s all verifiable. I saw those conditions myself, and from what I’ve heard, this place is hardly unique.”
“Of course it’s not unique. But what can we do, Conor? What do you suggest?” Ross spoke without any discernible emotion. His questions same out flat, almost disinterested, like asking his wife when he should mow the lawn.
“I’m not sure, Griffith. I thought you’d have some insights. Here’s a facility that takes almost all its patients from Veterans Affairs, which is consequently deriving most of its revenue from federal sources, and it’s not providing livable conditions. Hell, it’s not even coming close. It seems to me that some action is in order.”
Ross grunted and leaned back even further in his great leather chair. His face twisted into a deep frown. “Conor, do you know that there’s already a series of laws on the books mandating sanitation and recreational standards for any eldercare facility that gets a dime of federal money, and that’s damn near all of them. Everything’s covered, from space requirements per patient to the caloric content of their daily diet. There’s probably a clause in there about the amount of toilet paper they have to stock. We can’t add anything to that. This strikes me as an enforcement issue rather than a legislative one.”
“Well and good, Griffith . . . then those laws aren’t being enforced. At least, not in this case. And people are suffering for it, and I’ve been able to verify it. If you want me to get some hard data to back this up, I’ll do that, too, although God knows what that would be.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt the veracity of your report. I’m certain conditions are just as grim as you paint them. My question remains, what do we do? If legislative standards are in place, our work is done. We’re not the executive branch, my friend. We only make the laws; we can’t do a damn thing about enforcing them.”
“But can’t this report be the basis for some additional legislation to put some bite into the enforcement? Penalties can’t be very severe if violations are so widespread. Or we might look at . . .”
“Enforcement is provided by the states,” interrupted Ross. “All the federal agencies do is rubber-stamp state certifications. We can’t go beyond that unless you want to create some huge, sprawling agency or add another layer to an already overblown bureaucracy. As much as I bleed for our elderly brethren, it’s just not worth the effort.”
“Couldn’t violations be written into the federal code?”
“As it stands, failure to meet established health standards results in a cutoff of federal monies. What else can we do?”
“Prison terms.”
“The courts will no doubt be extremely happy to add to their caseloads for this. Besides, gross violations or repeated offenses already carry the threat of license revocation. That’s worse than jail for these guys. Any other suggestions?”
“Obviously I haven’t thought through this all the way, but . . .”
“Obviously you haven’t,” snapped Ross, leaning forward now with his thick arms on top of his desk.
“What I’m saying,” Finnegan continued doggedly, “is that this report points out some grave failings in the manner in which we administer long-term care through VA-supported facilities. At the moment I don’t have any specific legislative solutions, but my report might well be a topic for discussion and a basis for further investigation. Ultimately some course of action might arise from that, but we’d have to see. That’s the usual path for such things, isn’t it? I’m not willing to dismiss this so quickly, Griffith. We’re doing a huge disservice if we do. We’d be turning our backs on a serious social wrong that we might have the power to remediate, at least in part.”
“How? What power? Waving our magic wands and conjuring up the Nursing Home Fairy? In case you haven’t been paying attention, all legislation is compromise. We devise some type of bill to address the situation you describe, and then watch what happens. First of all, it disappears in committee for the remainder of this session. We’re not dealing with a very sexy topic, you know. Then, if it ever gets on the committee’s agenda, probably after we reintroduce it next year, it’s likely to die there, or, in the extremely remote chance it comes to a vote, it’ll be amended and diluted so much you won’t recognize it. Once it gets past committee, then we all stand aside and let the lobbyists have at it. The whole process will end up taking years and accomplishing nothing. You’re pushing an issue that everyone thinks is already thoroughly covered, that may not lie in the legislative province, and that has limited voter appeal. As I see it, Conor, what you’re proposing is a serious waste of the senator’s time.”
“I don’t see it that way, Griffith, and I think you’re being overly harsh. There is . . . well, there must be something we can do.”
“Conor,” replied Ross, less stern, almost conciliatory, “if we pursue every worthy issue, we’ll achieve nothing. Congress doesn’t work that way. We have a limited amount of time to attend to all of the nation’s domestic and international situations. It’s too much for this body to handle, so we pick our spots. The worst thing the senator could do would be to go off after every noble cause. For one thing, he’ll offend too many people, and for another, he’d lose all credibility with his colleagues. He’d become a cartoon.
“But,” he continued, “I don’t want you to be discouraged. You’ve shown some real initiative here. If you want, pass this report onto the VA and see if they want to take any action against this place. And, if you can think of some specific, like practical legislative steps we can take in light of what you’ve found, then outline them for me in some detail. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough, Griffith. I’ll see if I can come up with anything.”
“And Conor, I want you to know that you’ve uncovered nothing new. Violations of health standards by long-term eldercare facilities is old news. But if you can make something useful of it, you have my blessing.”
“Something useful, then. That’s the key?”
“That, my friend, is the way we live in this peculiar profession.”
***
Tom McIlweath scaled the rickety stairs of his newly rented flat in a sour humor. He carried with him a box of his books, the last such box he would have to tote up these fragile old stairs in completing his move from New Jersey.
It was not the process of moving that had instilled his grim mood. He did not know what, precisely, had brought about his surly outlook. He had not bothered to analyze it. The drive to Boston from New Brunswick, boxes of his belongings crammed into every nook of his old car, had bored him thoroughly. He found nothing quaint or picturesque in his sojourn through the New England countryside. All he had noted was the hot, flat solidity of the turnpikes and the sooty grime of New York City and the industrial
Connecticut suburbs, which he chose to notice instead of the office buildings and tidy residences that were equally visible. On the solitary drive he had not bothered to delve into his reactions to the new situation into which he was about to drag himself. His thoughts, mostly banal observations of the passing scenery or the music from the radio, repeated themselves monotonously. Wind—the stinging wind of passage—blew through the front seat and tossed over the flap of his winter coat sitting atop a pile of clothes next to him. The wind did not cool him. The late summer had been unusually hot and humid. The weather beat Tom McIlweath about his ears and brow; he perspired freely, but the wind dried it immediately, making him tacky and stale. He drove on numbly.
There had been no spirit of adventure, no sensation of discovery in this short trip. McIlweath had returned to California with his parents for several weeks. He had done nothing there, passing his time reading Latin and Greek, swimming occasionally and seeing the few people he considered worth seeing. He missed Anne. More so, he found he missed Conor Finnegan and the settled combination of security, intellectual challenge and excitement his life at college had been. He missed it terribly, and he had a hard time reconciling himself to the fact that, upon his return east, neither Finnegan nor any of his friends would be there for him. Only Anne. Before it had ever been finally dispersed, before its final echoes had ceased their reverberations, the camaraderie, the brotherhood that had set apart McIlweath’s last four years from all other periods of his life had become his sweetest nostalgia. He did not really dread his impending new existence in Boston, or so he told himself. Even so, its prospect hung over his summer with a damp, leaden melancholy.
He had come to believe that his sole reason for setting his course northward was Anne. Certainly he looked forward to continuing his studies. He had never ceased to be fascinated by the literature of antiquity but, all things considered, he might as easily have done that at Rutgers, or back in California (so warm and bright), or in any of a dozen other places. It would be the same processes he had adopted years ago repeated on a higher level, that was all. There was something comforting in that; a tie, perhaps, to the surety of more stimulating times. Anne, too, provided security. It was her special certainty, the expanded dimension she brought to his self-definition that drew him on.
She waited now at the top of the stairs leading to the small flat Tom McIlweath had rented. She had spent the summer in Boston living off her father’s largesse and acclimating herself to her new surroundings. Anne had, in fact, found this place for Tom. She herself had settled into university housing near campus, a clean and modern apartment complex whose rent was figured into her fees. With her own logistics in place, she had set about to mold Tom’s, but she found that housing in the city, particularly in college areas, was exorbitant. After three weeks of daily phone calls to prospective landlords, she had discovered this one-bedroom flat on the upper floor of an old, old wooden house a mile from campus. It sat on a busy commercial street at the edge of a predominantly Italian neighborhood on Boston’s west end. Anne took one look, found it charming, and arranged a lease for Tom to sign, which he obediently did upon his return. He had no choice.
Anne held the door open for McIlweath as he tromped up the stairs. He walked into the square living room and put the heavy box down in one corner. “That’s the last of it.”
“Tom, isn’t this place wonderful? I’m so glad you finally have a decent place to live.”
McIlweath looked around, hands on hips. ’No, Anne, it is not wonderful,’ he thought. ’It is many things, but ’wonderful’ is not among them. It is dark and old and dingy. It is furnished with faded and decrepit items—sofas that sag, chairs that show the outlines of their springs, bookcases with great, wide gouges, a bed that sinks in the center, a bathtub with cracks, a kitchen stove with burns, a refrigerator with a loose handle, ugly curtains that mask the light, threadbare rugs that have various indefinable stains, and pervading throughout, the musty, decaying odor of mildew. It is furnished with age, and pretensions long shattered, and the poignant throb of loneliness. It has chipped tiles in its bathroom and a fractured spirit in its soul. It is faded and decrepit, and it shall make me faded and decrepit, too. This is not a place to come to study, to ponder and to revel in the magnificent potential, the infinite energy, of one’s youth. This is a place to barricade oneself against all life and light. This is a place to come to die. This is not a home. It’s a mausoleum.’ Tom McIlweath finished his review and turned to Anne. “It could use some work.”
“Oh, of course it can, but what place doesn’t need some touching up? It’s comfortable, that’s the main thing. And it’s affordable. You should be grateful I was able to find it for you.”
“I’ve already thanked you, Anne. Many times over, as I recall.”
“Well, you don’t seem so thankful. You seem annoyed. You have all day.”
McIlweath moved to the window and sat down on a box of his belongings. He pulled back the curtain to look down onto the street below. He was across the street from a drugstore that had an old blue-and-orange sign. Its display window carried advertisements for mouthwashes and deodorants. He noticed its doorway had a retractable steel grid.
“Maybe I’m just tired, Anne. The drive up here was long and hot.”
“You should at least be glad to see me.” She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. The gesture seemed to McIlweath artificial, the response to a cue, or the reversion to a proven method of erasing his petulance. The simplicity of it annoyed McIlweath all the more.
“What makes you think I’m not?” he snapped. “But do you expect me to simper and fawn all over you under these circumstances? I’ve had to move everything I own several hundred miles today. I’m in a new place in a new part of the world where I don’t know anybody, not one soul besides you. Please forgive me for being worn out and edgy and probably, underneath it all, a little bit afraid. This isn’t exactly what I bargained for.”
“Don’t you dare take your frustrations out on me,” Anne replied hotly. She had removed her hand and walked back to the center of the room. “I went to a lot of trouble to set you up here. Besides, you’ve made your own decisions. You’re here of your own free will.”
McIlweath twisted his lips into a bitter smile. “Am I now? But you of course had offered your unerring guidance.”
“You’re damn right. Sometimes I think you’re purely incapable of charting your own course. It took you months, months, to decide what you wanted to do with yourself. You should have settled on that years ago. Instead you drifted through college with no direction, no ambition and no goal. Yes, I helped steer you to where you are now and you should be damn grateful I cared enough to make the effort, because God knows it was anything but easy. If it weren’t for me you’d still be drifting, ’trying to find your place,’ or whatever you want to call it.”
“It sounds as if I should be grateful to you for life itself. You’ve never had any sympathy for my perspective, have you? You’ve never understood that someone might not be completely driven to achieve some arbitrary goal, that someone can allow his conclusions to evolve rather than be carved in marble. You’ve never understood for one single minute what’s most important to me.”
“You’re talking like a spoiled child.”
McIlweath snorted a derisive laugh and shook his head.
“I mean it,” continued Anne. “You assume that somehow the adult world is going to take care of you on its own initiative. You think some grand and glorious lifestyle is just going to present itself. That’s nonsense, and you should know it by now.”
“What would you know about the ’adult world’?” McIlweath mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing worth repeating. I can’t count the times we’ve had this same damn discussion. I’ll never make you understand, so there’s no point in trying. We’ll only say things we don’t mean.”
“You always back down when you’re cornered, Tom. That’s disgracefu
l. You don’t defend yourself because you can’t. You don’t have a leg to stand on, and down deep you know I’m right about it. You know it. It’s not a matter of interpretation. It’s a matter of responsibility, and your whole sense of it is ridiculous.”
McIlweath flung a narrow volume of Plutarch across the room. It bounced off the thin cushion of the worn couch and fell to the floor.
“God damn you!” he shouted. “Who the hell are you to talk about responsibility? You’re twenty-two years old and you’ve never left home. Even now you view this whole move like some kind of summer camp adventure, or an overnight senior trip. But Daddy’s just a phone call away so you’re really in no danger, are you? Just another change in your courses and everything’s the same as it’s always been, except maybe a little more expensive. But you needn’t worry about that either as long as Daddy writes the checks. What in God’s name do you even remotely know about responsibility? It’s beyond your range of comprehension, like some Buddhist chant. You stand there so smug and pass judgment using those simplistic little words that you’ve never once called into question. But you refuse to believe that they don’t apply to me or to how I think or to what I want to do. There’s no give in you, Anne, and I’m getting so God damn tired of it.”
McIlweath’s outburst startled Anne to her core. He had never done this, had never been so violent, and by the end of his tirade beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. His eyes fairly burned behind his glasses, fueled by the red heat of frustration, anger and loss. She grew frightened not by his words, which she really did not comprehend, but by the savagery with which he shouted them. She stood across from him, her own eyes wide with surprised, fearful wonder, her limbs weak. She had absolutely no idea what to say. No one had ever spoken like this to her, and she did not want to provoke him further. What else might he be capable of saying?
