by Greg Fields
“Usually $50 each week. Whatever I have at hand. They have no set amount.”
“That’s $200 a month. You’ve not gone to the police, I take it.”
“Of course not. They told me they’d hurt me terribly if I went to the authorities. I’m certain they would. And they’d know, too, as soon as an officer came to my door or snooped around any of them. Besides, I don’t really know who they are. They’re just neighborhood boys.”
“Agnes, you’ve got to do something. Why don’t you let me go to the police for you?”
“No,” she said firmly, and then softer, “No. The police would have a hard time catching them.”
“Perhaps you could arrange to have an officer nearby when they come to collect.”
“I never know when they’re coming. Even if they were to be caught, I’d have to face them again eventually. They’d be back on the streets soon enough to do their damage. No, young man. Let it be. There’s nothing I can do.” And then the woman gave herself over to her sadness, and silently flowed copious tears, the convulsive, dangling paeans to a once-proud existence, now reduced to its lowest denominator. Finnegan fought back his own tears. He stayed with her the remainder of the afternoon and when at last he left, his depression overwhelmed him. It seeped like melting snow into every crevice. Reductio ad absurdum. Reductio ad nauseum.
Finnegan continued his investigations. Everywhere he found the plights of Moses and Agnes duplicated with their individual nuances. He found the elderly living in fear, in hunger, in filth, in poverty so pervasive it stifled all hope, in the hollow emptiness of existence for its own sake, of existence without substance and with minimal form. The more articulate among them he evaluated as witnesses. Theirs were the stories to be told. And while most had no interest in trudging up to Capitol Hill to expose hardships of which they were horribly embarrassed, Finnegan found a few who still maintained a combative spirit. Those few who still had the power to assert their dignity with pride and conviction came forward as potential witnesses.
One, an elderly gentleman named Arthur who lived alone within a mile of Finnegan’s office, said, “Hell, I can’t wait to get up there. It’s too much for me to take to be pissed away like this, the bastards, after all I’ve lived. I should be a national treasure, God damn it. I’m plenty mad, boy, and I’ll tell the whole world why. You don’t mind me using bad language, do you?”
“Say whatever you like, Arthur. The senator should see some anger. It would do him no end of good.”
“Well, then, I’ll be angry. I can’t help but be angry for being pissed away like this. I live in a rat hole.”
At home in the evenings, with Dan Rosselli still at campus, Finnegan listened to his music and pondered his conclusions. What, after all, had these poor people done to merit their situations? Merely grow old, an inescapable process. But growing old had made them weak, depriving them of any social or economic leverage in a fluid, dynamic society. They had become prey, rabbits in an open field under the gaze of circling falcons. Not enough money, not enough friends, no place to go, with nothing to trade, they cannot resist the falcons.
Finnegan’s conversations brought home to him the realization that society ran by buy-and-sell, with precious little room for simple compassion. We are, all of us, mere products in a grand marketplace. How easily, how conveniently, how devoid of conscience as we devour our own.
In time, Finnegan sat down with the senator to review his progress in putting all this together. He had prepared a complete two-day schedule and had begun to fill in the slots with specific names. He had typed a paragraph summary of each witness—name, address, circumstances, likely testimony. For those slots still open, he indicated the type of individual he would be looking to fill them. He had saved for last the witnesses from social agencies and government bureaus because they would be the easiest to secure. For now, he wanted to show his boss the slate of private citizens he was lining up who could forcefully state a case of which the senator was only dimly aware.
The senator perused Finnegan’s synopsis while the younger man sat silently in a chair opposite the great hardwood desk. He looked pensive as he read: his brow furrowed and he poked the paper with dartlike eyes. His mouth contracted into a small round nut.
“What will you have for media coverage?” he asked, turning to Finnegan in his swivel chair without taking his eyes from his reading.
“I’m arranging it with Peter. I’d like to get the majors, certainly.”
“What did Peter say?”
“Definite coverage by all California majors—L.A., San Francisco and San Diego prints and electronics. Possible on the networks, at least for a blurb on the evening news, provided we come up with something worthwhile, but it’s too early to be sure. The Post and the Times will be there.”
“Good. I’ll want summaries from each of these witnesses well in advance, and a complete line of questioning for each. I won’t tolerate any surprises up there. And when you talk to them, try to drag out the most lurid side of things. That stuff piques interest. Now, how about the other witnesses?”
“I’ll be getting them in line this week. They’ll be no problem.”
“You might want to trim back two or three of these old folks. See what their testimony will be first, but I think we’ve got too many street people. We don’t want to be repetitive. If we turn the media off the first day, they’ll never come back the second. Just take the best.”
“Senator, these are the best. I’ll have a hard time cutting them back.”
“See what you can do. You’ve got no one from HHS slotted here. Why not?”
“I saw no need. You said you wanted stories rather than facts and figures. Besides, aren’t they the eventual target of all this? That’s where any legislation will most likely be aimed.”
“I’d still like someone on the slate. Creates a balance and helps keep the administration from getting too pissed. They can always deflect criticism by saying that they were part of the process.”
“I’ll get somebody, Senator. An undersecretary, probably.”
“Conor, strike these two slots for association representatives you’ve got on the second day. We’ll hear from two on the first day. That should be plenty. They tend to be a bit too academic anyway.”
Finnegan had not found them so. In fact, he had enjoyed his contact with the lobbyists and he knew that they expected to be heard. Cutting their time in half would ruffle some feathers. “I’m not certain that’s a good idea, if only for political reasons. These people carry some pretty good clout, and their associations are huge.”
“I don’t want these hearings to be repetitive in any way, Conor. Edit out two lobbyists. We can’t be saying the same things over and over. We’ll cripple our coverage if we do.” The senator flipped the schedules onto his desk. “Other than those suggestions it looks fine so far. Keep Peter on top of the media and talk to me again at the end of the week. I’d advise you to fill up that schedule as soon as you can. We may need to do some rearranging yet. Keep me posted, Conor.”
Finnegan did not rise at the obvious dismissal. He had come to this briefing prepared to raise a point. In the face of what he had uncovered during his investigations, he thought it important to do so, even at some risk.
“Senator, one more thing. You’ll notice that I’ve got three slots marked ’Open’ and I explain in my notes that I’d fill them with appropriate witnesses from groups not represented elsewhere.”
“I presume those will be witnesses from community groups. Possibly a social worker or two.”
“That’s not exactly what I was considering. Senator, I’d like to bring in some witnesses from nursing homes.”
“Out of the question.”
“But Senator, that’s a big portion of the poorly housed we’re discussing here. And conditions I’ve seen there are nearly as bad as the majority of private housing. Worse, if you consider what they’re paying to be abused like that.”
“It’s too damn risky, Conor.
You start raising testimony like that and you create the impression that the entire industry is corrupt. Everyone focuses on the renegades. They create so much of a stink that even the good ones start to smell foul. There’s no need to chance offending an industry that’s probably 95% clean.”
“Assuming you’re correct, should we sweep the 5 percent under the rug for the sake of keeping things tidy? There are some definite problems with our long-term care facilities, Senator. If we look at housing for the elderly without mentioning those problems, then we’re not doing our job.”
“Our job, my friend, is to get re-elected so we can all keep these comfortable positions for another six years. On the scales of relative electoral importance, the elderly are damn near too light to be counted. I don’t want to risk offending anyone we needn’t offend, especially for such a low payoff.
“If we produce these hearings correctly,” the senator continued, “they’ll have a broad appeal beyond the elderly themselves. Old folks don’t vote, Conor, but their families do. There’s a ripple effect. And people tend to vote on the basis of emotion rather than logic, that’s very clear.”
“So these hearings are to create an image rather than address a substantive issue?”
“The issue is part of it. But don’t ignore the fact that we can’t address the issue on any level unless we generate some broad-based sympathy for it, and that’s emotional.”
“But we can’t be thorough, we can’t be truly substantive, if we ignore this part of it.”
“If anything, this aspect would belong in separate hearings on health and health care, not housing. If we got into that it could be a package in and of itself. And all it would accomplish would be to get people angry, or scared. Who wants to throw grandpa down a sewer hole?”
“Senator, I think it’s important that we—”
“I don’t give a God damn what you think, Conor. Forget your little cause. We’ll all be happier if you do. Get on with what you’re supposed to be doing. Don’t think. Don’t try to strategize. Just do your job.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry if I was out of line.”
The senator smiled. “You were, but apology accepted. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”
Finnegan left the office without feeling chastened at all. ’At least the man knows I can come up with a few ideas if I have to,’ he thought. Nor did he discount the possibility of working on this issue surreptitiously by placing one or two witnesses on the docket who could address it under the guise of another topic. He would have to think that one through, but he was fairly confident he could pull it off if he wanted to. If he did it cleverly enough, the senator might not even notice the subtle shift in focus.
The young man had minimal respect for his boss’s intellectual capabilities anyway. He had considered himself to be sharper, more versatile and better able to formulate original concepts. Even though the senator’s educational pedigree was outstanding, Finnegan saw scant evidence that it had done any practical good. Finnegan, although not purely contemptuous, rarely took the senator’s pronouncements seriously. The man seemed to be a compilation of impressions rather than ideas, shaped by q-factors and public relations. Too, Finnegan had noticed that the senator had virtually no hard and fast convictions of his own. He followed the better arguments, those usually constructed around expediency, rather than any innate belief or principle. That in itself made him vulnerable.
Finnegan returned to his desk and looked through the revised agenda. On one point at least, the senator was correct: it was time to get to work.
***
The conflicting currents and eddies that swirled through Glynnis Mear intensified by the day. Where once she viewed her reconstructed existence with a quiet, placating serenity, there now churned a maelstrom without direction, a centrifugal turbulence that pushed one way, then another and left her farther away from her nexus than ever before. She swam through the waves of doubt, of remorse, of stubborn resolve to keep herself intact.
When first her uncertainties appeared at some indistinct point several months ago, she had expected them to be settled of their own accord. All the while she assumed that the result would be clear, that she would indeed cast her fate with Conor Finnegan as soon as she came to her senses enough to realize her prize. She blamed herself for her hesitancy, felt guilty about it, and tried to suppress it. She forced herself to be patient and lived in secretive dread that her lover would tire of the distances she imposed as she waited for enlightenment.
Yet the process she had envisioned had not come about. Her hesitancy deepened. Conor, as she had foreseen, was indeed becoming more impatient. Each time he spoke of some form of commitment, even the most tentative and reversible, she grew defensive. Her character, the distinctive essence of Glynnis Mear, came to be more rigidly protected than ever she had predicted it would need. Sacrifices to time and convenience became less frequent. Conor expected her very soul, but it became more difficult for her to lend him even a piece of it. Conor’s expectations, unspoken and so innocently preserved, she came to resent.
Perhaps, she considered, the doubts had been there all along, overwhelmed at the start by the pungent intoxication of her young man’s devotion. Conor was, without question, the most compassionate, diversely intelligent and Romantic man she had ever known. That he, with his unique perceptions and brimming heart, should have pursued her with such ardor and, in so doing, developed a rich affection for what he had regarded as her unadorned simplicity, touched her deeply. It also obscured the perilous state of her singularity. Now that his attachment to her was intractable, she realized the potential cost. Had she not always realized it, but kept her fears tamed because Conor himself was an uncertainty? He was secured now; she had license to think of herself.
Her time with Conor became increasingly strained as, each weekend, she insisted upon a Saturday return to the world of Glynnis Mear. Conor’s assumptions had been overturned. Unclear of the specific reasons despite Glynnis’s halting efforts to articulate them, he reacted petulantly. Glynnis remained stubborn, and they enjoyed themselves in each other’s company less and less. The unspoken tension that pervaded even their most tender moments weighed them down like a steel net. Each was reluctant to address it. Their discussions resolved nothing and only led to a festering resentment, and quiet heartache. The tension grew now as a single-celled creature, pulling apart and doubling its strength as the soft, cushioning plasma in which it swam incubated it.
Conor’s hearings served to distract him. He threw himself into them headlong, and spent his evenings mulling over his problems there instead of evaluating the challenging nature of his lover. In light of the pressures put upon him in constructing this project, he expected his time with Glynnis to be more precious than ever. It was a compensation, a counterbalance to the week’s less-subtle struggles. The project agitated him; it stayed with him as a viscous, clinging substance that could not be washed off.
Such were their states when Conor picked up Glynnis, once again at Union Station on an early Friday evening. Finnegan recounted the week’s progress and problems as they drove to his apartment. Glynnis saw him to be animated, consumed with what he was doing. He had, as always, come directly from the office, and he could disengage himself from it only slowly. Glynnis sat quietly, saying little as Conor told his tales.
When they arrived at the apartment, Dan Rosselli, dressed in a sport coat and slacks that fit poorly on his still-expanding girth, was pulling on his overcoat. Rosselli had some destination in mind, although Finnegan never kept track of his friend’s coming and goings. On the weekends when he didn’t go back home to the Jersey shore, Rosselli made himself scarce in accommodation of his roommate’s romance. He would either dine with some friends or spend the evenings studying at some neutral site. Sometimes he would go to a movie alone. Always he was solicitous of Finnegan’s unspoken requests for privacy. When he came back from his wanderings, with Conor and Glynnis already in bed, Rosselli made no noise. The next morning, when the you
ng lovers finally rose, he would often be gone again. Rosselli, who genuinely liked Glynnis, would have preferred to spend some time with the two of them, but he respected Conor’s privacy too much to intrude. For this added consideration in an already deep friendship, Finnegan loved Rosselli all the more.
“Hey, you two,” said Rosselli as Conor and Glynnis opened the door. Glynnis greeted him warmly and kissed his cheek.
“Danny boy, what’s up? Where you off to?”
“A friend and I are going out to dinner and a film. I’m not sure where we’re going or what we intend to see, but it’s something to do.”
“Do you have to run right now?” asked Glynnis. “I don’t get to see you enough. Stay and talk for a while.”
“Yeah, come on, Dan. Join us for a drink. I’ve barely seen you all week myself. All I see of you lately is a trail of discarded clothing leading to your bedroom.”
“And my coffee cup in the sink.”
“Are you working hard, Dan? Of course you are,” said Glynnis. “That’s a silly question.”
“Not for Dan it’s not. You never saw this guy operate in college. Danny’s the only college student I’ve ever known who could keep a full primetime television schedule. Each night he’d be flopped down in our old chair, watching some garbage, eating popcorn and dressed in his underwear.”
“Those were surgical greens,” replied Rosselli. “And as I recall, we watched together most nights.”
“Only documentaries and PBS.” Finnegan had taken Glynnis’s bag into the bedroom and hung up their coats. “What do you say, roomie? Stay for an aperitif?”
“If you don’t mind.”
Glynnis squealed a girlish “Good,” and then said, “Come sit down next to me. Conor can play bartender.” Rosselli did so and Glynnis slid her arm around his shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re staying.”
“What would you guys like?” yelled Conor from the kitchen.
“White wine, hon,” said Glynnis, and Rosselli asked for scotch.
