Arc of the Comet

by Greg Fields

  “We are, sweet lady. But in the midst of despair we may yet find some beauty. You are here with me tonight, and we are alone. There is no Conor. There is no tomorrow. There is only Michael and Glynnis.”

  “You’re a bit of a rogue to take advantage of a woman so perplexed,” Glynnis teased. But her sadness sunk into her like a toxic vapor. It grew inside her. Her limbs thickened, her breathing deepened as a depressive miasma wafted in and around the small room. There was no avoiding it.

  Glynnis knew what would follow. There was no avoiding that, either. From the first realization of Michael Halcón, it had been as inevitable as the seasons, as incontrovertible as the laws of gravity. She could not change it, neither by her strength of character nor by dint of her own expectations. She did not want to change it. No pleasure was involved; it was an act devoid of excitement. But it was necessary, that much she could see.

  As the lights flickered off and the only illumination sifted through the windows from the outside streetlamps, Glynnis recalled the cold, shocking, fetid waters of the Raritan. She resurrected the tingle along her back and legs, the rush of cool air against her naked breasts. The rustling of her clothes as they dropped to the floor echoed the same sound, this time upon a softer ground.

  ***

  The seed of despair sends forth deep roots; the cracked vessels pour out their waters and feed them. The waters seep through the indifferent dust, find the hungry tubers and are drawn up. It is as timeless as Man himself and as powerful as God. It grows strong, it grows strong, and ever it seeks the tender flesh. In the tendrils are carried the sharpest blades, the finest hooks; the flesh cannot resist, and it is torn asunder, carrion for the crows.

  And in the vapid, desolate silence left behind, we can hear the eternal ringing of the exquisite agony that constitutes our humanity.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Always do that, wild ducks do. Go plunging right to the bottom . . . as deep as they can get . . . hold on with their beaks to the weeds and stuff—and all the other mess you find down there. Then they never come up again.

  —Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck

  What now? What shall I do now? The question was as old as time, as immutable as the cruel snows of winter. In a finite world, old formulas cease to function, old certainties disappear.

  The currents that flooded through Tom McIlweath and swept him along in mysterious directions had lost their force, changed their bearings, and left him blinking into the sun on dry land, the tampy residue of surging swells clinging to his skin and hair like a mucus. He stood there where he landed, wondrous now at the absence of compulsion and resoundingly strong because he felt nothing pushing against him. He was amazed that he could no longer perceive any pressure.

  It was the same sensation as when he stepped out of the pool after a particularly hard workout. The last few laps always seemed interminable, the water turning to molasses. He clawed and pulled and flailed, losing form and rhythm in a manic obsession to make his muscles respond, to finish it all now that he was so close. And when at last he touched the wall and let himself fall backward to float for a few seconds, gazing at the ceiling of the natatorium, the water regained its buoyancy. He would pull his aching body out of the pool and stand at its edge, his muscles throbbing. What a marvelous release he felt then, a serene elation that he had indeed come through the hostile water and conquered it. His spirit would fall into a counterbalance against the desperation of a few moments before. The absence of pressure, his muscles poised by rote to meet what would no longer be coming against him. He felt that now.

  Yet McIlweath also knew it to be temporary. The currents would return, perhaps subtly at first, lapping at his ankles and running between his toes, but then stronger. He would welcome them because he believed at last that he was strong enough to ride them in the directions he chose, and not be swept along like seaweed. He could master them now, these currents. He could navigate the powerful ebbs and flows to position himself for whatever advantage they allowed. The horrible, smothering days in which he clawed for the breath of approval he had put behind him. They had been necessary, but now they were gone.

  But the question haunted his peace: What shall I do now? Where shall I go? For Tom McIlweath acknowledged that he could not remain in Boston. His relationship with this place had been artificial, and there was less to validate it now. Had it not been for Anne Newbury, he would not be here. She colored the classrooms, the sweeping old college yard and the musty corners of the library. The fine dust of her image settled over his apartment. It rose from the harbor and floated over the narrow downtown streets; it perched atop Faneuil Hall and strolled along the Fens. He could not escape it, nor did he particularly wish to try. She had defined Boston for him, defined his life in this great city. In the absence of that definition it seemed be pointless to stay. This university, this city could be a glorious backdrop, but not for him.

  Against the confusing ramble of his younger years McIlweath had sought a sanctuary. He has sought acceptance, stability, a sense of belonging. That was such a simple thing, wasn’t it? To be in tune with those around him, to be in harmony. The idylls of his undergraduate years told him that it could be found, at least in glimpses. But where to find it now, and how to make it last? Where shall I go now? What shall I do?

  Seeking a point of ballast, he thought of Conor. McIlweath imagined his friend now as he had always been: active, a participant rather than a reactant, casually accepting of his blessings and committed to putting them into motion. And always there was that air of excitement about him. He drew from what he did, it invigorated him and stifled the dark, brooding humors that must somewhere exist within him. McIlweath envied Finnegan now, just as he had since they first met. Of all the people he had ever known, Finnegan best embodied that esoteric harmony McIlweath wished to create for himself. That he had been won over by Finnegan’s genuine affection had not decreased his envy. McIlweath, in watching his friend through the years, took comfort in knowing that what he so avidly sought was indeed attainable.

  It was odd, thought McIlweath, how such opposites should be so strongly attracted. Their friendship had been an unexpected benefit of his undergraduate years. He recalled how he had blanched when he heard that Finnegan, of all people, would be going to the same college he had so carefully selected to be his refuge from an identity, a persona, that he wished to bury. It had been a non-identity, really, and he had feared that Finnegan would play to that, that he would carry it with him to distribute among the potential friends McIlweath so desperately needed at the time. He had feared that, after finally dropping the soiled and tattered cloak from his shoulders, Finnegan would pick it up and return it to him with the best of intentions but with the worst of results.

  How foolish those fears had been. They had formed the closest friendship of McIlweath’s life, a bond of shared emotions and shared reactions to a shared process. Finnegan’s basic decency, his honest compassion and his great good nature had blasted apart McIlweath’s apprehensions. In the panoramic love affair Finnegan had with the world at large, there was room for a struggling, shy young man lacking all self-confidence. McIlweath had found a degree of the acceptance he had sought in a place he had never thought to seek it. Finnegan’s boundless optimism, his unwavering belief in his own quality, his appreciation of the gamut of human experience and his intense, joyous demeanor had won McIlweath over completely. Finnegan had been counselor, confessor, agitator, entertainer, provocateur. McIlweath assumed he had reciprocated in kind. They grew together naturally, and the singular result had been unlike anything else McIlweath had come across. Now, as he deliberated a next step, he wished that his friend were with him.

  What shall I do now? McIlweath could not say; the point had been lost. He vowed not to repeat his mistake. This time his choice would be his alone, and made for legitimate reasons. He wrote letters endlessly and completed applications for scholarships and awards. He scoured scholarly journals and periodicals for notes of either professional op
portunities or chances for further study in places better suited. He met with faculty to discuss government fellowships or research grants. At the root of it all he sought to maximize his options. Something would come along that would clearly be right. He could not say what it would be, but he would know it when it came. McIlweath thought of teaching, he thought of pursuing a doctorate, he thought of private employment, and he made corresponding applications in all directions. Something would come, of that he was certain.

  What shall I do now? He would go away somewhere. He would leave this place for something new, something his own, something in tune with a nature he was just beginning to understand. He looked around himself and perceived only a brief respite in a general desolation. There was nothing for him here. Nothing at all.

  ***

  Had Conor Finnegan had the time to reflect on his friendship with Tom McIlweath, he might well have come to the same conclusions about its evolution. Even though he still could spend time with Dan Rosselli, Finnegan missed the peculiar empathies that he shared with McIlweath and no one else, not even Glynnis. McIlweath had been the closest of the close. Rosselli, wrapped up in his studies and, to Finnegan’s thinking, lacking the capacity for self-evaluation, did not have it in him to answer Finnegan’s more introspective persona. The two shared good times; when they were forced to deal with the bad, they did so alone. As such, their friendship had become more superficial after their undergraduate years. Finnegan missed McIlweath in those randomly spare moments when he had the chance to feel his absence.

  Those moments, though, came less frequently as the winter drew into spring. Finnegan, partly in frustration with Glynnis Mear’s growing distances and increasingly mysterious humors, immersed himself in the preparation of the senator’s hearings. They became for him both a catharsis and an animus. He saw in them a justification of the ethos that had led him to embrace this position from the start and, through periodic crumbs of gratification that had come his way, kept him energized.

  His research had taught him that the problem to be addressed was more severe than he had anticipated. It compelled an answer. Through these hearings it would at least grab a bit of public awareness. That was the first step. From there, means of remediation might become more apparent. In any event, the best social and legislative minds would have had the chance to take notice and to formulate their own reactions. What eventually would come of this? Finnegan could not say, but he was convinced that, once begun, the process would necessarily lead to something positive, simply because it had to. There were too many good people of sincere intention involved for the issue to lie fallow. Finnegan sought to strike the right chords during these two days, to blend the vibrato of cold hard data with the trill of the emotional. He wanted those notes to share the pathos he had come to feel himself.

  Finnegan worked hard, harder than he had ever worked before. He interviewed and reinterviewed his witnesses, he checked his research, he confirmed press contacts and media coverage, he retraced the logistics dozens of times, he read whatever he could find, took notes and evaluated new aspects of standard assumptions, he devised a thorough line of questioning so that the senator could draw out the best of each witness. Over and over he replayed in his mind how the two days would fit together, how one would progress into the other seamlessly. He made absolutely certain that no detail was overlooked, no point unmentioned, no argument underdeveloped. He had become obsessive.

  The very concept of what he was doing thrilled him to the core. This was the practical application of the ideals he had nurtured, a manifestation of human compassion, evidence of the institutional response to human suffering, the central focus of how he intended to conduct the remainder of his professional life. He felt, not for the first time but certainly most deeply, the exhilaration of that rare juxtaposition of personal recognition, power and altruism. Finnegan was pushing along his part of the system with a clear-eyed, heady vision.

  With the confidence of his own convictions, Finnegan became inflexible and argumentative. He saw the problem more precisely than anyone else, and only he knew how the hearings needed to be structured. He knew the issues, the language, the people. Suggestions from those less informed put him off. He told the witnesses what to stress and how to stress it. He demanded reports from HHS or NIH be produced on quick timelines and delivered as scheduled. He sidestepped the senator’s press secretary more than once to discuss the type of coverage he wanted, and to tell the media what was coming and what they might want to feature. He badgered Griffith Ross to get more time out of the interns to help him with the legwork, the mundane running around to distribute testimony outlines or to fetch hard copies from the libraries.

  At one point in pressing what he wanted from the other staffers, Finnegan snapped at Ross, “Damn it, Griffith, you’re not giving me the support this project needs. Doesn’t anybody around here give a damn about this?”

  “Apparently not as much as you do, Conor. You’re coming awfully close to making a fool of yourself. Peter tells me you’ve gone behind his back more than once to follow through with the media on your own. That’s unprofessional, friend.”

  “I had to, Griff. Peter doesn’t know what the hell this show is all about. He doesn’t know what to feature.”

  “He knows what we tell him. He knows the view from the top, and that’s all that matters. Most importantly, he knows enough not to go running off on his own.”

  “But he hasn’t given this nearly enough attention. What’s he done, a few phone calls? You know and I know that that’s not enough. If you want to get the big boys out, you’ve got to tell them what to look for. You’ve got to badger the hell out of them. He hasn’t done that, Griff.”

  “Finnegan, you keep this up and you’re going to find your ass in a sling.” Ross’s voice rose in annoyance, and he pointed his finger directly at the younger man. “You’ve been stepping on a lot of toes lately, including mine. I don’t much like the notion that you’re going behind our communications man’s back, one, and, two, that you’re complaining about his performance. We do other things around here besides setting up these little extravaganzas. Let people do what they’re paid to do. And if you’ve got a complaint or a suggestion, you come to me first. You don’t go around doing other people’s jobs.”

  “But, Griffith, that’s not what I’m trying to . . . ”

  “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you’re trying to do or what you’re thinking.” The conversation was loud enough now to be overheard down the corridor. Staffers at other desks slowed what they were doing. Conversations ceased, time ceased. The angry words of Griffith Ross rang forth, incensed darts flung heatedly to penetrate the young man’s insolence.

  “You come here, fresh out of college, and you think you’ve got all the God damn answers. I’m sick of it, Conor. Everyone is. I’ve had it with your God damn self-importance. You’re not the senator, even though you seem to lose sight of that little fact. Maybe someday you’ll get the chance to run for office yourself, and maybe you’ll win. But until that unlikely day, you don’t make policy. You don’t decide what’s important. You’re at the bottom of the food chain and that’s where you’ll stay unless you start to play a team game. I’ve got no stomach for prima donnas. Am I clear, friend?”

  Ross’s eyes glimmered hotly as he finished. His square jaw set pugnaciously, and a slight red flowed up his cheeks to points just in front of his ears. Finnegan blushed deeply, his face lost behind a crimson veil. The prickly sting of humiliation shot through his limbs and paralyzed them. He knew everyone was watching, that everyone had heard.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied quietly. “You’re quite clear.”

  “Now get to work,” barked Ross. “And watch yourself.” Finnegan rose slowly, wordlessly, and went back down the corridor to his desk, head down, eyes down. He dropped to his seat and buried himself in a report which he could not read. He saw words but they did not register. No one spoke to him the rest of the day, fearing the taint of guilt by associatio
n.

  The next day Finnegan continued his work, slightly daunted but still convinced of the essential rectitude of what he was doing. This work was critical, there could be no doubt. And if Ross’s pragmatism trivialized it, so be it. In the end Finnegan would prove himself. The issue was such that even a coldhearted practicality could not stifle it. Finnegan resolved, though, to be more careful about staying in line. Ross’s anger had been real, and he was not a man to be crossed. Finnegan was not accustomed to being upbraided, although he believed in his heart that what he had done had constituted no sin at all.

  The hearings were scheduled for March 19th and 20th. The week before, Finnegan had worked himself into a nervous snit in putting together their finishing touches. Glynnis had not come down at all that weekend, but Finnegan barely heard her excuse. He was consumed by what lay immediately ahead. There would be time later for Glynnis. He could not have done her justice anyway. He would have been too distracted, and too irritable.

  As the dates approached, Finnegan met with the senator almost daily to review each witness, to prepare specific lines of inquiry, or to confirm messaging. The senator occasionally suggested some changes in content, forcing Finnegan to go back to his witnesses and recast the points they were set to make. Finnegan had scheduled what he thought was a compelling slate, amalgamating the logistical with the emotional—government officials citing statistics, representatives of national and local association presenting overviews, social workers constructing theories, and the victims themselves repeating their tales of trauma, loss and degradation. Each would add something new. The senator seemed relatively pleased with this lineup as he came to know it.

  Wednesday, March 12th dawned cloudy and cold, a last vestige of winter, a final affront to sensibilities impatient to lose the soggy, frigid malaise of the barren months. Finnegan had not slept well the night before. He had not slept well for several nights.