May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (16 page)

Ubi studebas?
The Dean repeats a little more insistently.

Ethan recognizes the Latin he’s heard in Mass since he was a boy, but doesn’t know exactly what the Dean has asked.

I’m sorry sir, I am not proficient in Latin, he admits.

Yes, you Papists sit and listen to your damn priests speaking Latin all the time and you never bother to actually learn the language! Well Mr. Mick-Owen, in what
are
you proficient?

I have read a great deal sir, he begins. Most of the classics … Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Homer, Dante …

Ahhhhh … you’re a
reader
, the Dean replies, sarcasm dripping from the word.

Yes sir.

And your education? Were you tutored privately or perhaps something a bit more formal? A
school
perhaps?

I learned mostly from my sister when I was young, Ethan replies.

Ahhhh—your
sister
. And she teaches where? Or better still, how was
she
educated?

Ethan pauses. Dean or not, he thinks to himself, this man will not extend his mockery to Aislinn and come away unscathed.

She’s gone sir. She died back in Ireland in The Hunger.

The Dean seems to come to his senses just in time, perhaps responding to something in Ethan’s voice or the look on his face, and quickly backs off his mocking tone.

Well, that is … I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Mick-Owen. Terrible tragedy that.

An awkward silence fills the next few seconds.

But I’m afraid that this is not the institution for you, he finally adds. We have quite rigorous academic standards and I don’t believe you are the kind of young man who would find himself comfortable here.

I don’t know the Latin sir, but I learn very quickly. I—

Greek? The Dean asks.

Sir?

Have you studied ancient Greek?

No sir.

Mathematics? Natural science? Rhetoric?

Well, I have read some of Newton’s work, Ethan offers, and I’m reading Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason
, and I’ve also read—

Yes, you’ve read, you’ve
read—
but have you
studied
, Mr. Mick-Owen? Do you know algebra and geometry? Have you conducted any scientific experiments of your own?

Well, no sir. I’ve only lately taken much of an interest in natural science, that is—the past year or two. But I have read all the classics sir and I—

Yes, you’ve read the classics, but you don’t know Latin
or
Greek. You have no formal education and now you wish to be admitted to this
university
. But this is not how it works in the world of academia, Mr. Mick-Owen. I think you can see that this is not the place for you.

I would like the chance to—

Perhaps there is a
Catholic
institution somewhere that would consider you more suited to their standards, the Dean says, although without Latin, I would say you stand little chance. He stands up and extends his hand toward the door, and with finality in his voice adds, but I know for certain that
this
institution is not for you.

BY NOW HE’D TAKEN THE
ferry ride from New York back to Brooklyn maybe a thousand times, but never in a suit like this to be sure. It was officially a gift from Mam and Aunt Em, but only Seanny had the sort of money to buy clothes such as these. Seanny, who’d been against the idea from the start, telling Ethan how there wasn’t room for a Mick amidst those ivy-covered walls. Still, Ethan had to try, and Seanny was a generous enough sort to spring for a suit to fit the finest Wall Street financiers, just in case it’d do anything to conceal
th’mappa d’Old Country
splashed across Ethan’s face. Clearly, it didn’t.

So here was Ethan left to ride the ferry back home, new suit and all, and carrying with him now the guilt and shame for having put them all through it, for having made his Mam and Aunt Em, and even Da too, go to the trouble of hoping for such a thing that Seanny’d told him was not meant for them.
Plennya jobs for smart fellas like you down at Tammany
, Seanny’d said. He’d even told his little brother that they
needed some good Micks down on Wall Street lookin’ after certain of our investments
. But Ethan’d never been interested in following in his brother’s footsteps.

And so the ferry ride to Brooklyn took on a different feeling than it ever had before, like a banishment of some kind, like it’d been back in the Old Country. Only there, at least people knew straight off where
they stood from the moment they were old enough to tell the difference. All it took was one look at the Brodericks’ manor house, with twenty servants for four residents, and then a glance at the tiny cottages along the Lane, with four or eight or twelve people living piled on top of each other, for folks to know exactly where they stood. It was all nice and organized with stone walls and iron gates to
keep
them exactly where they belonged. Back in the Old Country, that was.

But here in America, it was all a taunting, torturing mess, without enough stone walls or iron gates to keep things separated the way the Good Lahrd had seen fit to make them in the first place. Why, on his very first day in New York, his Da had marched him past the bastions of power and riches at City Hall and Wall Street, and then a few blocks away into the Five Points, no borders, no priests wagging their fingers telling a lad to mind his proper place in the Lahrd’s Creation, nothing to delineate the change … except maybe the smell. And worst of all about it was the way newspapers were always saying that democracy meant any man could pull himself up by his bootstraps. Sure hadn’t the great John Jacob Astor gone from being a lad off the boat to the richest man in America and founding public libraries and such?

Ethan’d stared at the great man’s portrait in the lobby of the library named for him, trying to find the key to climbing so far in a single lifetime, and there were moments when he swore Mr. Astor almost seemed to nod his head at him, telling him that a lad could make it from the Lane back in the Old Country all the way to Wall Street. But now he knew the truth behind that nod. A man could, sure enough, and hadn’t Seanny been doing the very thing with his lads at Tammany Hall? But they’d never let you in through the front door. So it was all about smashing windows the way Seanny and his lads did, the way even the great Mr. Astor must’ve done along the way. And Ethan wasn’t sure if he had the stomach for such a thing, or if Wall Street would ever matter enough to give up the part of his soul it’d take to get there.

Stepping off the ferry at Fulton Street, he didn’t even stop to look back over his shoulders at New York the way he usually did. Instead, his first steps were turned south toward Red Hook, figuring he could help Da wash the salt off the skiff, rather than go straight home to deliver the bad news to Mam and Aunt Em, who were likely to be up to their
elbows making a special meal for the occasion. There were a few familiar faces along the way and some of them saying what a fine suit it was and such, but thankfully none of them seemed to know what it was for. Once he was there at the mooring dock, it wasn’t much of a wait before the familiar sail came into view, and his Da smiled and waved at him as he approached the shore. They worked in efficient silence as they always did, Ethan mooring the boat as his Da folded the sail. When it was time to lift the barrels up onto the dock, Da handed him the first but didn’t even bother with the second. Ethan lifted the lid off the first one and saw just three medium-sized fluke floating listlessly in the water.

Wasn’t much of a day as ya can see, Da said as he climbed up onto the dock. Then the broad smile of just a few minutes earlier exploded over his face in anticipation and he extended his hands as if to touch Ethan on both shoulders, but stopped just short.

Don’t wanna ruin that suit now that yer gonna be needin’ it evr’y day, Da said. So tell me how’d it go at
th’New York University
?

There was a reverent tone to the last few words and a smile in his Da’s eyes that Ethan hadn’t seen before. It was different from the relief that was there when he’d first come over, or when Mam and Aunt Em finally made it themselves a year later. It was different than the contented glisten after a pint, or a good song of a Saturday night, or a catch to fill both barrels right to the top with no room to spare. This was more childlike than any of those, echoing the hopes that must’ve been somewhere inside him before life on the Lane and in the Points and all the early days here when three medium-sized fluke would count for a great blessing, before life had done its work on him. And Ethan couldn’t bear to tell him straight out, letting pursed lips and the slightest hint of shaking his head side to side do the dirty work for him, as his Da’s face deflated back to its normal state, like th’Good Lahrd’s Natural Order of Things being restored right there on the dock in Red Hook.

Was it yer name? Da asked.

Seanny’d been the one to tell him to call himself Ethan Mack-Owen and drop his brogue, so he could pass himself off as a Scotsman. Didn’t matter how he got in the door of the place, so long as he was in, Seanny always said.

I dunno Da, he replied now. The Dean did ask a few questions about where we were from an’ how long we’d been over—but I dunno if that made the diff’rence.

Well didya talk about all th’books ya been readin’ all these years, all th’Shakespeare an’ Newton an’ … what’s th’Froggy names again … the—

I told’m about readin’ Descartes an’ Voltaire and all the rest Da, Ethan said.

So what was it lad? Is it like Seanny said how dey’ll never let an Irishman go to one o’ their foine colleges so lahng as dey can help it?

But Ethan couldn’t hold on to that same sort of anger his Da and Seanny had any longer. So he told him the truth, about the Latin and the Greek, about how this wasn’t the way things worked, much as he’d wanted to disprove what a million Irish fresh off the boat knew to be true. They’d never let you in through the front door.

I wish I coulda done more for ya lad, his Da said. If things’d only been …

And his voice drifted off as he squinted in a way a man would only do when there was the sun staring straight at him or when the water was in his eyes.

Ahh … fook ’em, Da said. And Ethan couldn’t help but stand in shocked silence hearing his Da say that word for the first time.

Da walked past him and pulled loose the aft knot he’d made in mooring the skiff, another
fook ’em
or two mumbled under his breath as he did the usual work. Ethan pulled the fore rope loose and they walked the skiff up onto the shore past the high-tide line. And it
was
as if order had been restored, as Da went for the fish barrel on the dock and Ethan pulled the scrub broom out of the skiff and dipped it into the rainwater barrel a few feet away. There was his Da, back turned toward Ethan, standing at the edge of the tiny dock and looking across the water at New York like it was the Brodericks’ manor back in th’Old Country, and the East River right there serving as all the stone walls or iron gates the gentry could ever hope to build. Quickly Da brushed his palm across one eye and then the other, then kicked one foot up to the brim of the fish barrel and spilled its contents, three medium-sized fluke and all, back into the bay. Before Ethan could turn away, his Da
looked up and saw his son staring at him. Da shook his head a few times and lifted up the empty barrel.

Leave it lad, he said. A day’s wert’ o’ salt isn’t gonna kill ’er.

It’s all right Da, really it is, Ethan protested, and began to wash the salt water from the tiller.

But then his Da dropped the barrel right into the skiff and took the scrub broom from Ethan’s hands.

Leave it lad. Yer Mam’s got a steak from th’butcher an’ a cake from th’bakers, too, he said, reaching his arm around Ethan’s shoulders and pulling him close, new suit and all. But I could go fer a pint at Feeny’s first, what d’ya say?

Sure Da, Ethan answered, and patted him on the back before his Da let the embrace go.

They walked quietly up the short slope, leaving the skiff for another day, and Ethan surveyed what was left of the fields that had been his first home in America. The cabins were mostly gone by now, replaced by more substantial two- and three-room buildings that looked like they had a much better chance of surviving a good storm than the old places did. There were a dozen brick houses across the road covering much of what had been their baseball field just ten years ago. And the oddity of a single thought came over Ethan just then, offering some consolation in the form of a warning. Perhaps it wasn’t good for a man to stray
too
far from anything that he’d ever known as home, lest he be left to drift on the seas for an entire lifetime. Perhaps Brooklyn Heights, by way of Red Hook, by way of the Lane outside Enniskillen, was enough travel for one man in one lifetime. And wouldn’t there be generations to follow to carry on with the traveling, until maybe one day the McOwens would find themselves on the other side of those stone walls and iron gates? Yes, perhaps this was enough after all.

THERE AREN’T MANY LADS DRESSED
in suits at Feeny’s, and none of them with one as nice as Ethan’s to be sure. Feeny’s is the sort of place that from the inside could almost pass for any pub down any lane back in the Old Country, and almost all of its patrons have spent at least part of their lives along one of those lanes. Wearing his suit now, Ethan worries that the lads who know him’ll be full of questions about how
the meeting with the Dean went, and the lads who don’t will take him for an uppity Mick. But he and his Da step straight to the bar and order their pints same as they would on the days when there were two barrels’ worth of fish to toast. Only, minus the day’s fishing to recount, neither of them seem to know what to say to each other.

So Mam’s got a steak? Ethan asks by way of easing the silence.

But his Da only nods, not relieved at all, and still has that look of uneasiness when Feeny brings their pints. Ethan picks his up same as always, but stops when he sees his Da holding his glass up as if to make a toast, as if they’d just caught enough fish to turn Saint Peter green with envy. And it’s awkward for him to see his Da this way, struggling to find words of consolation, when it’s Ethan who feels he’s the one who should do the consoling since he’d been the one to let his family down and waste a good steak dinner and a cake from the baker’s.