Arc of the Comet

by Greg Fields

  His father would have teased him about a guilty conscience, but that was not the reason. He kept waking during the early morning hours, his mind racing across the details of the days looming ahead and sorting them out as they arose. Finnegan’s obsession plagued him ceaselessly. In time he started to look it. His face showed his fatigue, eyelids slightly heavy and hanging a bit lower over languid eyes, cheeks drawn, tiny weblike lines curving around his mouth. His social habits, too, had suffered. On most days he ate lunch at his desk alone, or grabbed a quick hamburger from the dining room. Sometimes he would eat the plastic food from the fast-food outlets as he drove around the city to see his people. He spoke rarely to his colleagues, even his friends among them, not because he felt alienated but because he didn’t want to spare the time. He phoned Glynnis twice a week and unburdened himself to her for half an hour at a time, but that was the only indulgence he allowed his coiled spirit. He looked forward to spending a weekend with her, although that would have to wait until the task at hand was put away, presumably with overwhelming success. He was counting on it.

  Finnegan arrived at the office early, shortly before 7:00. He liked to be among the first ones in. Those early moments when the cluttered suite was unusually empty soothed him. All this was his for now, and he relished the claiming of it. Possession was nine-tenths, he mused. It was calm then, before his colleagues filed in, before the lobby jammed with tourists looking for Senate passes or maps of the city, before the pressure really started and the suite became lost in a swirl of ringing phones, rushing bodies and the ceaseless clack-clack-clack of keyboards. Finnegan arrived, hung up his coat and set the coffee brewing. He sat at his desk, and in the quiet reviewed the Washington Post.

  As he read the thick newspaper, Finnegan realized how horribly tired he really was. The walls sagged in on him and he did not have the strength to push them back. From an unseen corner an old radiator hissed wetly. Finnegan lost himself in the sound of it as it entered his ears and seized him. All he heard was the singular hiss. He floated with it across the room, entranced, oblivious to any intrusive sight or smell. For several minutes he did not move, saw nothing, felt nothing. He rose with the steam to the top of the suite and tucked himself into a corner where he hovered hypnotically.

  Steve Krall broke the trance as he walked into the room. “Morning, Conor. Coffee brewed yet?” Finnegan looked at him for a second or two as if he were an anachronism, the court jester or a Greek bard. His thoughts refocused then, and he was away. But God, how tired he felt.

  Finnegan spent that morning reviewing the proposed remarks of an assistant undersecretary at HHS regarding the previous year’s public housing starts and median rents. Finnegan resented that he had been unable to get someone higher than a midlevel minion from a government body inextricably linked to the problem. Obviously, HHS did not share Finnegan’s enthusiasm concerning these hearings. Finnegan had had to overcome a number of bureaucratic roadblocks even to procure this lowly soul. The department no doubt feared appearing callous or indifferent, thought Finnegan, but that’s what they were. This witness was a straw dog whose testimony would be skewered by those sad faces who saw no benefit from these statistics, whose humble circumstances could never be remedied by sterile numbers reflecting the sterile construction of sterile buildings whose interiors they would never see.

  Around 11:00 Finnegan was buzzed by the senator’s secretary and told that the man would like to see him. He gathered his folders on the hearings and headed down. Another briefing, he thought, and was glad of it. He enjoyed holding the senator’s ear. Joyce motioned him in, and he closed the door behind him.

  “Good morning, Conor. Have a seat.”

  “Good morning, sir,” he replied as he took his place in one of the thick leather chairs across from the senator’s desk.

  Usually they conferred at the table across the room. There they could spread out their papers and work side by side. This morning, though, the senator remained behind his desk. “I take it things are continuing to move along smoothly,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. I think both days are completely in order now. Is there anything in particular you want to review?”

  “No, Conor. In fact I called you in to let you know that we have a problem, and I’m sorry for it. I’ve been asked to address the State Association of Manufacturers in San Francisco on the 20th. I’ve agreed to do it. You’ve done a commendable job on this project, Conor, and I’m grateful, but unfortunately, our hearings are cancelled.”

  Finnegan heard thunder in his brain. It drowned out the words that had to coalesce into some type of response. Great ringing peals clapped up from the base of his skull and pulsated the length of his body. He sat dumbfounded until the ringing subdued enough to permit him to arrange his thoughts.

  “I’m sorry, Conor,” continued the senator. “I know you’ve worked terribly hard, but, frankly, this is more important to me. To be honest, I’m not sure I liked the direction these hearings were starting to take. I think they may have become too sensational, too emotional. It’s best we cancel them for now and take some time to reconsider exactly what we want to do with them, and what we want them to do for us.”

  Finnegan heard the senator’s words, and knew what they meant. He heard in them all the base, dispassionate pragmatism he had come to loathe. He saw the pathetic underside of the human condition, and those who lived on its margins, cavalierly dismissed because it lacked utility. He saw thousands of people abandoned, once again, because they lacked the leverage to redirect an inert system. He saw the smug image of Brandon Carrecker. He saw the anguish of Agnes and Moses and dozens of others like them.

  And ultimately, Conor Finnegan saw an illusion—pounded, bruised, twisted, stabbed and battered but somehow kept alive—now suddenly shattered into dust. In one gesture he had been rocked to the core, his Romantic ideals all at once invalidated. He had been cast to the sidelines. He had never in his life felt so cheated.

  As the thunder died, rage swelled up to take its place. His fatigue robbed him of discretion. A frothy anger bubbled outward and could scarcely be contained. Finnegan tried, to be sure, fighting with himself to maintain composure in the face of such bitterness. But the Irish temper whose beneficence could be so sweet reared up in a black fury that could not be stemmed.

  “And so that’s it,” he said at last, in something of a hiss. “A few words and the problem is swept away.”

  “I’m afraid so,” the senator replied sternly, aware of the young man’s humor.

  “But of course how could I have expected anything different, given the way the scales tip. But God damn it, Senator, you can’t do this.”

  “It’s already done, Conor. There will be no hearings.”

  “So you can suck up to some more of your moneyed friends? You’re turning your back on a problem that involves real people in real situations, can’t you see that? Is every issue weighed solely in terms of votes? You’re supposed to serve the great unwashed, too, or don’t you remember? Because they lack influence doesn’t mean you can ignore them. That’s immoral, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Immoral?” The senator shot forward in his chair, and his voice rose to meet Finnegan’s. As he spoke he jabbed a finger in Conor’s face. “Let me tell you something, pal. The only morality I care to recognize is whatever it takes to get re-elected. If you can’t handle that, then get the hell out. I don’t need some smartass kid lecturing me on morality. People only expect me to be moral with them and theirs. After that they don’t care what I do for the other guy. You’ll be carved up in this profession if you don’t come to understand that simple fact. All your high-minded morality does is piss people off. People don’t want to hear it.”

  “And you don’t want to waste your time on an issue that provides only a marginal political return,” countered Finnegan, still hot, “when you can pander to that sentiment and collect some campaign contributions. If that’s your brand of morality, then what the hell’s the point of even holding office? Th
ere’s no point.”

  “The point is that if we’re not re-elected we can’t do anything for anybody. We can’t . . .”

  “But we’re doing nothing now! If you do nothing with your office, then you shouldn’t be re-elected. Those people you’re going to address in San Francisco don’t need you. They want to trot you out like a show dog and make you do tricks for them. At the end they throw you a bone and scratch you behind your ears. But while they jerk you around to feel important and you lick their hands to feel loved, there’s an issue you’re ignoring that calls for your attention. You can do something about this. Maybe not everything that needs to be done, but something. And by pretending it doesn’t exist because the people it affects don’t vote in great numbers or can’t pitch huge sums into the campaign chest, you’re dismissing your responsibility. What are you here for, then?”

  “To stay here. My singular responsibility is to myself. I’m answerable to no one’s illusions, Conor, least of all yours. I’m not responsible for your sensitivities, and I won’t let you or anyone like you dictate my job. What the hell do you know about political reality, anyway? You come in here with your esoteric notions of ’morality’ and ’responsibility’ and you try to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. What good is it all? What purpose does it serve when power if the final determinant? Is that your question? The answer is, power for its own sake. There’s enough latitude in that to justify any morality. Face it, my friend: each morality is different, and so they’re all invalid. Nothing works but in the most general sense, and I’m senator for all the people. There’s no room for dogma, so take your preaching elsewhere. I’ve no time for your pious handwringing. Your hearings are dead.”

  Finnegan’s entire body flushed in rage, and his eyes flamed. Everything had evaporated in a matter of minutes. “So this is my lesson in practical politics. Money talks, and the consequences be damned.”

  “Disappointment is part of the game. And get this through your head: you can’t change anything here. You can’t change war, or disease, or poverty, or death. All you can do is dab around at the edges. But the system won’t bend, and the evils within that system won’t disappear despite your best efforts. It’s all self-perpetuating. It’s built up so much inertia over two centuries that no soul, or group of souls, could kick it into a positive motion, or could budge it more than a few inches.

  “But enter Conor Finnegan,” the senator continued, “bright-eyed and brimming with principle, unlike the rest of us. You want to restructure politics and revamp an entire care system. You might even want to revamp the economy. While you’re at it you might take a stab at world peace. Do you honestly believe that two days of hearings would alter the circumstances of even one life, would improve the lot of a solitary individual after our entire social and economic systems have dealt them out? That can’t be changed. We can’t all of a sudden create a new pigeonhole for these folks. The system won’t permit it because there’s no room. If there were, they wouldn’t be on the outside. You’d have to tear it all down and start again from the bottom. All of it—industry, agriculture, education, the government itself—because what you’re really talking about are questions of equal distribution.

  “So what can a single senator do, let alone a junior staffer? Your hearings would have had no effect if God Himself had come down to testify. The odds are insurmountable. It’s all a game, Conor. A game of image and commercialism and marketing. The sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be. Shelve your principles. The world doesn’t want to hear about them.”

  “And nothing we do has any bearing?”

  “Oh, we can do some transitory good, don’t get me wrong. We might help some individuals cut through red tape or convince the administration to throw a few dollars where we want them, but that’s the most we can expect. I’d be grateful from here on if you could remember that and climb down from your mountain. You’re paid to do research, write speeches and shake a few hands on my behalf. You’re not paid to do any thinking. You’re not capable of it. Do you understand me?”

  “You’ve made yourself quite clear, Senator. I understand you more now than I ever did before.” Finnegan’s blood was livid.

  “Good. Now get the hell out of my office.”

  Finnegan forced his legs to move him through his rage. He spun out of the wide office and back down the corridor to his desk. A red-hot prickly fire burned around the edges of his vision; he saw nothing but a few feet in front of him. His heart pounded against his ribs, constricting his breath, and cold perspiration flowed down his sides.

  At his desk Finnegan flung his folders angrily down on top of the clutter. Several loose papers blew to the floor. He sat down and buried his hot, hot face in his hands.

  This, then, was the reality. All his efforts had been nothing more than self-indulgence. They had no meaning, and never could. His sharply defined idealism had been bludgeoned, and he felt absolutely foolish. All along he had been a curiosity, an anomaly, Tom Thumb trying to play serious drama.

  Finnegan sat that way for several minutes until his humiliated rage subsided enough to allow him to move. He wiped his hands across his face trying to draw out the moist heat that rose there. Glancing at his watch he saw that it was not yet noon. Outside, the thickened gray sky shrouded the streets, making the day appear later than it was. Finnegan rose, put on his coat and walked out of the office. He did not return that day. Instead he went back to his empty apartment and collapsed on his bed, given up at last to the exhaustion he had felt all along.

  ***

  As Conor Finnegan had his conclusions thrust upon him, Tom McIlweath reached his through quiet paces. He had time enough at last to sort things through. He was calmer now than he had been in recent memory, and he reveled in it. For the first time he believed his options to be limitless. He knew, too, that he would most likely never have the luxury of such freedom again. Whatever came next would change all that. A single decision would close the door forever on countless others. That was the way of things.

  And so the fusillade of applications and inquiries he had discharged over the past weeks came back around, some hitting him broadly to capture his interest, most missing altogether. McIlweath had no timetable. His peculiar confidence that, finally left to his own manipulations he would find an appropriate alternative, never left him. More particularly, McIlweath believed that whatever direction he chose for himself would lend him peace. He would find the acceptance he had sought. He knew that he would be able to create it for himself under better, purer circumstances, and that those circumstances need not be perfect. No longer was he in quest of the Holy Grail; no longer was he Faustus, no longer Rachel nor the driven Jason. He could take his time.

  In early April McIlweath received notice that he had won an obscure fellowship for which he had been recommended by one of his senior professors. He had, in fact, forgotten that he had ever applied for it, the endless reams of forms having long since blurred into indistinguishable memories. But the fellowship had come, and it was a good one. A very good one, and completely unlike the others. This one opened strange and romantic doors; it spoke in a lyrical brae. McIlweath let its impact sink in, then he reviewed its possibilities.

  One night, a week or so after receiving his notification, a sleepless McIlweath rose after midnight, and poured himself a glass of wine. He took it to his desk, positioned now by the window that looked out on the dead street. There in the dark he sat quietly, watching nothing, observing the lack of light and sound and movement as if they were animate conditions, positive beings with personalities all their own. In the other room Kathy Keane still slept on her half of the bed they shared with increasing frequency. McIlweath had moved out of it slowly, measuring each step so that he would not disturb her.

  A lack of light, and sound, and movement. A void. That’s what it all was, wasn’t it? What, then, could his expectations be? The base commercialism, the selfishness, the petty, meaningless, transitory gratifications, the mediocrity—that’s wh
at he could expect. Look at this street now, and consider the sleeping forms that haunt it by day. Do I seek to become like them? Shall I define myself by any other standard?

  The huge, indomitable energy of this place, of this old city. Of this old country. How dare I defy it? It overpowers me; I am caught in an avalanche and rolled, blindly suffocating, down a sharp hill. All my life I have been suffocating. I am fortunate at least because I know that it is happening. But most, feeble against the accumulated force of sheer mass, are ignorant of it. What power do we have to stand against the immense, omnipotent sweep of that which seeks to conform us? What power at all? Is that the root of my discontent, this fetid rot that has eaten away at me for as long as I can remember?

  A car drove down the narrow street. Its headlights made two yellow lines that blended together ahead of its hood. They appeared from McIlweath’s right, parted the darkness as a knife through a loaf of black bread, then went on. The engine made a hollow clanking rumble before it grew fainter and disappeared in pursuit of some unknown direction.

  ’I have sought to be in harmony with my surroundings. I have sought to be regarded solely on the basis of my character—its talents, its shortcomings, its peculiar values, its emotional parameters. I have sought to avoid judgment beyond what I have brought upon myself. And I have sought, above all, a way to indulge my mind and fulfill my emotions apart from all imposed distinctions, and to do so in a manner purely consistent with the character through which I will be regarded.

  ’And I have failed.

  ’Perhaps I have been making false assumptions all along. Perhaps I have assumed that what’s around me cares enough to identify my failures. Perhaps I have assumed that it would care enough to take note of my successes, the things for which I have been so hopeful. Perhaps I have assumed that, in crafting a singular identity, I might effect some infinitesimal alteration of an order that has defied me for so long. Am I really any different than Conor Finnegan?