by Greg Fields
“Come on in, Mac. Give me your bag. Jesus, it’s great to see you. Let me put this down and get you something to drink. God, you must be beat.”
McIlweath obediently followed Finnegan into the apartment which, in its casual clutter, was exactly what he would have expected. What he had not expected was the change in his friend. At first glance, McIlweath could see a subtle alteration in both physical appearance and aura. After so much time together over the past several years, the two shared an instinct to read each other thoroughly and implicitly. McIlweath saw now a vague resignation that would have been imperceptible to anyone else. Where a stranger might see a proper, ambitious young man—warm, enthusiastic, intelligent and complete—McIlweath saw someone subdued. The face lacked a little of its usual vibrancy. Finnegan’s eyes did not dart about as they usually did, eager to sight everything he could and not miss a glimmer of what was around him. Instead, they seemed tired, and, despite the tenor of his greeting, so did his voice. The lilt that made nearly every sentence he spoke a kind of song was not there. One of the few constants in his life had been Conor Finnegan, but some inner alarm told McIlweath that this constant had shifted.
“Nice place, Conor. Of course, now that you’re a rising young professional I’d have expected nothing less. Where’s Dan?”
“The school. He’ll be coming home any time. Mac, you wouldn’t believe the change in him. He’s become responsible.”
“Our lost friend Dan?”
“Has become a man. He’s thoroughly in love with what he’s doing. I think he’s finally built himself some respectability. In fact, I rarely see him. Between med school and this new woman he’s found, he’s never home.”
“You told me about this woman. Has our boy at last grown up?”
Finnegan was in the kitchen opening two beers. He raised his voice to answer. “He says he has. Apparently he’s been, shall we say, consummated. She’s rounded him out. Her name’s Julie. She’s a Georgetown undergrad, which means she comes from richer blood than ours. School of Foreign Service.”
“I assume she’s gorgeous.”
“Like a lingerie model. Thin, fresh, and with an hint of innocence. Brown hair, blue eyes and dimples. Dan says he might actually be tempted to get serious.”
“The worse for him. Sounds like that’s the last thing he needs now.”
“You have gotten rid of Anne, haven’t you?” said Finnegan, returning to the living room and handing McIlweath a full glass. “That’s quite a turnaround from the Tom McIlweath we used to know. The one who clung to a woman’s security, despite all costs.”
“A phase I’ve outgrown, Conor. Sad but necessary. Anne was the keystone of it.”
“And without her you’re back on the road to self-assurance. You’ve got your balls back. She weighed you down, Mac. You know that now, don’t you?”
“Yes. You and Dan and Lanny saw it so clearly. To your credit, you guys were always decent about it. I saw it myself, but I never let on. I was too afraid.”
“That’s behind you now, thank Christ. There are other things to talk about. After a year and a half we shouldn’t introduce a conversation with the subject of Anne Newbury. Or Glynnis Mear, if you’re thinking about asking. Those are serious topics we can work up to.”
“How is Glynnis? You haven’t written me much about her recently.”
“Ask me again around midnight after we’ve had enough to drink to make me honest. As I said, a serious topic. For the record, she’s fine.”
“I hope I haven’t touched a nerve.”
“You couldn’t help it. It’s dangling there exposed. Let’s move on to some harmless small talk, such as where in hell in Ireland you’re going. Start with that, and when we deal with why you’re doing it, we can get into Glynnis.”
McIlweath told him and stayed clear of anything deliberative. Finnegan’s implication was obvious to him. This was what McIlweath had wanted, and he felt quietly relieved that his friend would not prove evasive. McIlweath needed a final accounting, an inspection and evaluation of his own course. That was why he had come. Conor, he presumed, would reciprocate. The result would be one of those exhausting sweeping discussions that left both of them drained yet intuitively and permanently wiser. Finnegan, of course, was correct. They would have to work up to it. But beforehand they would enjoy one another again in less stressful rhythms, the simple company of a parallel soul.
After they had been talking for half an hour, heavy thumping clomped up the stairs. “That could only be Dan,” said McIlweath.
“Some things never change.”
A key in the lock, the door swinging open and the glowing form of Dan Rosselli. His smile was incandescent, a huge Cheshire-cat grin that radiated pure joy.
As McIlweath had perceived an alteration in Finnegan, so he perceived a similar yet opposite transformation in Dan Rosselli for whom the pendulum had swung the other way. McIlweath had never seen Rosselli so alive. That was obvious to even the untrained eye. The conflict between expectations and reality that had eaten away at McIlweath in Boston, and that now seemed to be affecting Finnegan, was nowhere to be found in Dan Rosselli. Dan had always relied somewhat on what McIlweath had identified as an Etruscan fatalism. More than any of them, Rosselli had been content to go with the flow, dipping his oar into the water only now and then to direct a general course. Perhaps, then, his expectations had been limited. If so, then the satisfactions that he had found in his current state had exploded into his mind, and into his heart.
“Mac!” shouted Rosselli, and the two men came together in the middle of the room to embrace. Rosselli threw an arm around McIlweath’s shoulders and hugged him to his side. “You old son of a bitch, how’ve you been?”
“Great, Dan. You look super. You’ve lost weight.”
“I’ve been eating Conor’s cooking. That would take weight off an Ethiopian refugee. Speaking of which, do we have dinner plans or are we just going to drink all night?”
“I want to take you two out somewhere,” said Finnegan. “To celebrate our reunion, brief as it is. There’s a Spanish restaurant on Connecticut that I like.”
“When did you become so generous?” asked McIlweath.
“Don’t question it, Mac,” replied Rosselli. “Conor’s making a pretty good dollar. He can afford it.”
“Right. The largesse of our rich Uncle Sam. Actually, it’s because I’m the only one of us who has a respectable job. I have to spend my money somewhere, so it may as well be on food and drink with my lost brothers.”
“There were times this past year when I would have given five years off my life for a night like this,” said McIlweath.
“You were pretty alone up there, weren’t you?” asked Finnegan, suddenly serious. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”
“Yeah, I was alone, Conor. And I certainly didn’t anticipate that. Even with Anne, I was completely alone. Until the end, that is. I got some relief toward the end. That’s why I was able to leave, I think.”
“You cleared your accounts?”
“I couldn’t leave under the circumstances that existed for most of the year. I wouldn’t have been able. But that’s too complex to go into now. I’d rather eat. Let’s go,” and the three of them filed back down the stairs and out the door, their voices commingling in excitement, their very souls once again overlapping as they had done for so many years.
The restaurant was a short drive over the Wilson Bridge, then up 18th to Connecticut. Thankfully short, to McIlweath’s thinking, for he had suddenly become extremely hungry, as hungry as he could remember. It came on in an explosion, and a burning flare ate away at his stomach and crawled up his ribs. His depression had been shattered, and with it his body’s subdued response. All day he had merely been going through the motions. Relieved now, his system erupted back to its normal state and required compensation. McIlweath wanted to eat anything he could reach.
They ordered from the menu and started in on the imported beer that came first. McIlweath de
voured handfuls of the thin tortillas placed in front of them. Because his stomach was empty (or hollow, as he might have considered it) the beer took immediate effect. A warm glow rose up from his core and radiated down each limb, sapping away whatever tension lingered. He thought briefly of the Prodigal Son.
The evening for all three of them turned into a reclamation. Qualities of their youth had slipped from them without notice or recognition. Now, in the complexities they each had assumed, they realized that what they had lost could only be regained with each other. There was no other way. The simple physical comforts they enjoyed that night, the food and the drink, revived them and confirmed what they had once been. The meal was a sacrifice, a Eucharist laid out on the altar of a common passion. What would ensue for the remainder of their lives would only reshape the possibilities they all had shared at a distant point. And so, on this haunted evening, infested with the silent ghosts of past lives, they commemorated that quickly fading point, that diminishing dot on a broad horizon, that would never disappear entirely but was destined to become so remote that its contours would become amorphous, shifting and therefore mythical.
They stayed at the restaurant several hours, eating a huge meal and drinking the thick, dark European beer they preferred. Through it all, McIlweath and Finnegan kept clear of the weighty topics that, by their earlier implications, would be the meat of the discussion to come. Rosselli, though, ignored all bounds. He carried the conversation, his obvious excitement with the course of his own life providing the constant theme. Rosselli relished the evening; he relished the presence of his friends. He had fallen hopelessly in love with the conditions of his existence, conditions he had not imagined as they had developed, and so the harmonious sweetness of his life was deepened by its serendipity.
At one point, McIlweath remarked, “Dan, I can’t believe how happy you are. Not that you were unhappy before, but now you seem to be so much more complete.”
“And I can’t believe how well everything has fallen into place,” Rosselli beamed in reply. “It’s like I’ve been singled out. You know, I used to be envious of you two.”
“And now you’re not?” said Finnegan playfully. “Have Tom and I made such a mess of things?”
“Not at all. But in college you guys held all the cards and I didn’t think I had anything to match them. I mean, here’s Conor Finnegan, America’s Golden Boy, honor student, outgoing, personable, good athlete, with a gorgeous woman on his arm, and there’s Tom McIlweath, intelligent, albeit a bit insecure, captain of the swim team, honorable mention All American, squiring around a woman of his own, even if it was only Anne. And what was I then? A struggling pre-med, looking for a good time. I was never certain anything would come of me. I was always afraid my ambitions were out of reach. I was never quite sure that I was good enough for med school, that I was smart enough or had enough discipline to put myself through it, even if I could get accepted.”
“You hid that pretty well,” said Finnegan. “You always struck me as confident to the point of being smug.”
“A smokescreen. You two had the discipline. You had the intelligence and you had the guts. By contrast, I was scared. I was afraid I’d end up as some frustrated mechanic working in a garage on the Jersey shore, married to an Italian girl growing fatter by the day.”
“Instead,” said McIlweath, “you’ll be a well-known surgeon with a huge manor in the suburbs and a summer house in North Carolina, married to an oversexed blonde who gave up a career as a fashion model to be your wife, driving a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, and with at least two mistresses on the side.”
“And,” continued Finnegan, “you’ll publish articles in the best medical journals, join a country club and retain a small army of stockbrokers to manage your investments. However, at the height of your glory, one of your delicious mistresses will slap you with a paternity suit. There’ll be a scandal, your wife will divorce you and the country club will rescind your membership. You’ll be so distracted that in surgery to repair someone’s hernia you’ll inadvertently cut off his penis, thereby destroying your reputation and sending your malpractice insurance into default. To meet your alimony expenses, which will be huge, you’ll have to sell your Lamborghini and take a job in that same Jersey shore garage.”
“What you’re saying,” laughed Rosselli, “is that the pendulum can swing both ways. And that we’re fated to whatever we get.”
“It does swing both ways, Dan. Viciously.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then all I can do is enjoy what I have for the moment. But I don’t expect my allotment to be meager. I’m not going to worry about protecting my flanks. I’m charging straight ahead until I get the things I want.”
“So,” said McIlweath, “part of your current bliss is based on the conviction that you’re on the way to the type of lifestyle you want for yourself.”
“Absolutely, although I do enjoy what I’m doing for its own sake. There are satisfactions I never recognized before. It’s satisfying to have a positive impact on someone else’s life. But in the end we have to secure ourselves before we can think about securing others. That’s what I intend to do.” The exchange with Rosselli was the closest they would come to serious conversation this night. Finnegan and McIlweath each recounted in noncommittal terms the course of their past several months. Mostly they reminisced about the common years of their embryonic emergence, the secure years of anticipation.
“Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you. Do this in memory of me.”
***
They drove back to the apartment several hours after they had left it. Rosselli suggested stopping for a drink, and Finnegan took them to a bar he knew in Georgetown, not one of the loud, cramped, raucous student bars, but a quiet place in one of the better hotels. It had no entertainment, so few people went there on weekends. Finnegan liked it because it seemed so sane. Perhaps, after all, he was aging beyond his years.
Shortly after 1:00 they got back to the apartment. As soon as they shut the door behind them, Rosselli yawned, setting off a chain reaction. “I’ve had enough for one night,” he said. “Mac, where are you sleeping tonight?”
“Conor says the couch.”
“Good idea. We need someone as a first line of defense against the cockroaches. I’m going to bed.”
“You want a nightcap, Mac?” asked Finnegan.
“Yeah. I’ll stay up for a while.”
“See you guys in the morning. You’re not thinking of getting up too early, are you, Mac?”
“No way. I’m beat.”
“Good. I’ll see you guys around noon, then. Good having you here, Mac. Conor’s gotten boring. You’re a welcome change of pace.”
“But I’m boring, too.”
“I know, but I’m not used to you yet. Good night, you guys.”
Finnegan returned from the kitchen with two snifters. He handed one to McIlweath, who held it up to the light.
“Grand Marnier,” said Finnegan. “You’ll like it.”
“You can afford the good stuff now, I see.”
“An acquired taste. One of the few I’ve managed.”
“A reflection of your new and rising prominence?”
Finnegan snorted. “A reflection only of some latent pretensions. There’s a Rossellian strain that runs through me too, I think.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. In moderation, of course.”
“Now, when have you ever known me to be moderate?” asked Finnegan. The night all at once seemed emptier, and Finnegan’s mood shifted to something flatter. McIlweath tried to read it, but it had too many layers. A blend of depression, frustration, and. . .what? Loneliness? Was that echoing in those few words, too? Something new was in there as well, and completely unexpected: cynicism. It was a potent mixture, and more than a little unnerving.
“Well, I’ve never thought of you as extreme,” said McIlweath.
“I’ve never considered myself that way either. Until
recently. I’ve had some evidence that I might push the borders a bit. In retrospect, I may have always been extreme. It’s just that my perspectives had never been put to the test.” He raised his glass in a quick toast. “To Ireland, Tom, and the grand things that go with it.” They clinked glasses, then sipped the heady liqueur. Its fumes raced up McIlweath’s nostrils and pierced his brain right behind his eyes. The thick orange flavor hung on his palate, and his full stomach received the syrup warmly. Little darts of heat ran to his far corners.
“I don’t know if there will be grand things there, Conor. I don’t really know what’s going to be there. It’ll be a sorting out, that’s all. A purgation.”
“Because of Anne?”
“Indirectly. There’s no need to purge what never really penetrated in the first place, is there? Anne’s a symbol, Conor. She epitomizes my subjugation. She played upon every insecurity I ever had. She tucked me into her bag like one of those medical instruments she carries with her now, only I’m not as sophisticated. I’m leaving Anne, that’s true, but I’m leaving more than that. I’m leaving myself.
“My life’s been random for a long time,” he continued. “It’s been predicated on the expectations of other people, so it’s never had the legs to find a direction of its own. That’s my fault exclusively. I’ve let myself be too answerable to people who have no permanent stake. Anne’s been the most obvious example, but she’s not the only one by any means. I’ve been moved too much by impression, Conor, so I’ve lost my bearings. Ireland’s a means of claiming control again.”
“That seems like a fairly drastic step.”
