Chapter 39

Act III, Scene I 

As the lights come up, Thomas McGrew III and IV have reversed positions on the slide. Thomas McGrew IV stands far to the left, a few feet from the proscenium. He is naked, hairless, covered in scabs, gaunt as a war prisoner. He stares offstage, down the slide. Thomas McGrew III sits to his right, on his stool, his cane at his feet.  He is reading a worn copy of the Douay-Rheims Bible. 

TMGIII: “And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.” 

He looks down at the emaciated back of Thomas McGrew IV.  Thomas McGrew IV does not move or acknowledge him.

Thomas McGrew III leans his forehead on his hand, sighs.  He lifts his head, takes a deep breath, returns to his bible. 

TMGIII (flipping the pages, then stopping): “He said again to them: Fear not, neither be ye dismayed, take courage, and be strong: for so will the Lord do to all your enemies, against whom you fight.”  Do you hear that? 

He looks at Thomas McGrew IV, watches his back for a moment, looks down at the bible again. Thomas McGrew IV is starting to slide slowly forward, towards the proscenium.  He is not walking, rather gliding as though riding a conveyor belt. 

TMGIII: “For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible to you.”  So you see, it means, if you truly believe…

He looks up, sees Thomas McGrew IV sliding towards the edge of the stage.  

TMGIII (gasps): Son! 

He drops the bible to the ground and grabs his cane.  He tries to stand, trips over the bible, falls hard to the ground.  Kneeling, he reaches his cane down the slide towards Thomas McGrew IV. 

TMGIII: Grab it, son! Turn around and grab it! Turn away from the end! 

Thomas McGrew IV finally seems to hear.  He turns his head, looks over his shoulder at Thomas McGrew III on his knees, cane extended.  Their eyes connect for a moment.  A hint of apology passes over Thomas McGrew IV’s face. 

TMGIII: Son. 

Thomas McGrew IV turns towards the proscenium again, continuing his slow descent. Thomas McGrew III crawls his hands forward, reaching the cane farther and farther out in front of him. 

TMGIII: It’s not too late! Son!  Turn away from the end.  Turn away. 

He has stretched himself so far that his belly is flat against the slide.  Thomas McGrew IV glides slowly to the edge of the proscenium, passes it, and disappears. 

TMGIII (sobbing): Turn away.  Turn away.  (His voice becomes a whisper) Son. 

He lies on the floor, bible at his feet, cane in front of him, staring down the slide. His face is crumpled in pain. He shakes, mostly silent, occasionally emitting long, hollow retching noises.  He never drops his head. 

After five minutes, the lights fall. 

* * *

Gavin ran his fingers over the leather seat of the couch, crossed his legs one way, then the other way, tried to remember what it was that he usually did with his legs when he sat.  

Jeremy Frick was on the other side of the office, making espressos with a little machine on his desk.

“I’m supposed to cut down on caffeine,” Frick said, carrying two tiny black mugs on tiny saucers over to the coffee table.  He set them down on either side of a wrapped present that was already on the table. “I got you something. To celebrate you finishing your dissertation.”

The paper was scarlet with perfectly folded corners.  A book, probably, and probably wrapped by Kat.  It was the last thing Gavin wanted, a gift, something to make him feel guilty and indebted.  What he really wanted from Jeremy Frick wouldn’t fit in a box. 

He wanted Frick to convince him to move to New York. That’s why he’d come here.  He would present the evidence, the pros and cons, remaining cool and disinterested.  And Frick—the maverick, the hip professor who swore and took recreational Adderall and dated his students and talked nonstop shit about the department—Frick would tell him to run, go, follow your heart! 

“Should I open it?” Gavin asked.

“Business first.”  Frick sat in the chair across from Gavin and crossed his arms over his lap. He was looking a little extra tired, not in the attractive way anymore, just plain old tired, with watery eyes and cheeks that sagged a little over his jawline. “So. Kansas.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said.  “Kansas.”

“Have you accepted yet?”  Frick took a sip of his espresso, pointed at the little mug in front of Gavin.  “Drink.”

He picked it up, tasted it. The flavor was dark and direct, like it could cut through pleasantries and bullshit and get right to the heart of things.  He put the cup back down on its little saucer, click. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

“You should accept. No point dragging it out.”

“The thing is.”

Frick waved his hand in the air, dismissing whatever Gavin was about to say.

“You don’t want to move to Kansas. I know, it fucking sucks.  But you'll only be there three years. Five max.”

“Right, but.”  He breathed deep, took another sip of espresso.  Swished it in his mouth, glanced up at the picture of Frick at the MLA convention, glowing with the confidence of new celebrity.  He looked away, quick, swallowed the espresso.  Here we go.  “Kansas is kind of a mess.”

Frick leaned back in his chair, pinching the tiny handle of the tiny mug between his finger and thumb.

“I mean the school is a mess,” Gavin said. “The chair basically told me not to work there.  They don't even have any English majors. The department is in a trailer.”

“You really don’t want to refuse a job offer,” Frick said.  “Not in this economy. If you stay here, we might not even be able to offer you a teaching position next year.”

“Well. I was thinking about moving to New York.” 

New York.  Gavin watched Frick’s face, waiting for the smile, the nod, the acknowledgment: what kind of idiot would choose Kansas over New York?  Go, my son, fly from this sad way of life, be free. 

But no, no smile.  A worried twist of the thin lips, a furrowing of the eyebrows.

“Do you have something you’d be doing there?” Frick asked.  “A job?”

“No. I mean not yet.  A couple of my friends are moving there.”

Frick sipped espresso in his mouth and held it for a second, his cheeks sucked in. More espresso, more cheek-sucking. He tipped the cup upwards to drain the end of it into his mouth, and set it down on the table with a decisive clink. 

“Is this about a girl?” he asked.

“Maybe. Sort of.” 

Gavin finished his own espresso, that bitter sludge at the bottom, and studied Frick’s face.  Doubt, concern, much more the disapproving father than the cool older brother.  He doesn’t get it. That was okay.  Gavin just wasn’t explaining right.  Time to start over.

“I took this DMT.” 

Was that an okay thing to say? He looked at Frick. A slight eyebrow raise, a hmm noise.

“You did.”

“And I had this, um, vision.”

Frick stood up, plucked the two little cups from their saucers, carried them back over to the desk.  He scooped coffee grounds into the top of the machine, pushed a few buttons, and more espresso started pouring out of two spouts at the bottom.  

“You can see some amazing things when you're on drugs.” He moved a stack of books so he could lean on the desk and look at Gavin.  “I mean it.  Really amazing things. But you need to remember: they’re not real.  They’re just effects of your mind being messed up.  They’re interesting and everything, but you can’t put too much stake in them.”

He brought the second round of espressos over.  He didn’t set them back on their saucers, just handed one to Gavin and sat down in his chair holding the other. More espresso was the last thing Gavin needed—he’d already had two and a half cups of coffee at home, just to work up the guts to come to this meeting.  But he took a sip anyway. It didn’t taste as good as the first one, thinner with a layer of oil floating at the top.

Frick leaned forward in his chair, elbows on knees, cup right below his face. “You know what my advisor told me when I was in graduate school? Academia is a test of resilience. The people who make it to the top aren’t the ones with the best ideas.  They’re the ones who can see past all the indignities of the present moment to the greater goal ahead.”

The light from the lamp overhead hit his face, showing a web of tiny red veins covering his cheeks and nose.  His eyes were lined with red, too.  A queasy burst of fear hit Gavin in the stomach. He had never thought to worry about Frick, the pills, the heart attacks that were just one of his many quirks.

“You’re at an intersection,” Frick was saying. “The road is bumpy, and you think a different path might be smoother.  Here’s my advice. It’s just advice, you can take it or leave it.  But for what it’s worth.  Stay on the path you’re already on. The path you committed to. The people who succeed are simply the ones who never got tempted off of the path.”

He leaned back, shrugged, speech over, and pointed at the present on the table.

“Why don’t you open it.”

Gavin knew for sure that it was a book as soon as he picked it up.  A hardcover.  His hands shook a little—all that caffeine—as he tore through the wrapping paper.  The book’s forest-green cover was faded with age, but the binding felt solid.  Gold lettering announced the title. 

Time Slide. 

“First edition,” Frick said, his pale cheeks stretching into a smile.  “Look inside.”

Gavin opened to the title page.  The elongated, loopy signature of Liam Stump.

“This must have been expensive,” Gavin said.

“Read the card.”

It was tucked between pages.  Not really a card, more of a note, written in black pen on a folded piece of creamy stationary.  

My Dear Gavin,

Congratulations on the completion of a truly stellar dissertation. Your explication of Stump cuts right to the heart of his meaning; no analysis of his work has rung more true. You speak for Stump in a way that he could never speak for himself.  I look forward to watching your career blossom, as it surely will, and will take no small measure of pride in claiming you as a student and friend when your scholarship reaches its full level of acclaim.

All the best,

Jeremy Frick 

Gavin held the note between his hands, read it, read it again.  No analysis of his work has rung more true.   

“I mean it,” Frick said.  “Every word.  Look.”  He leaned in towards Gavin, resting his pointy elbows on his knees.  It took his face out from under the light, and he looked a little better, a little more handsome-sickly instead of sick-sickly.  “Soon enough this time of uncertainty will be forgotten.  You’ll have your career as a professor and everything will be settled.  You’ll look back and you’ll almost miss this time of youthful confusion, when everything was so scary and new and you didn’t know how it would all turn out.  But not really, because you’ll have a job, the kind of job you always wanted, and the respect and admiration of your colleagues.  And if it’s girls you’re after, you’ll have plenty of those, too.”

He kind of laughed and Gavin kind of laughed, like it was a joke, but neither of them actually smiled. Nothing about this felt like a joke, not even a little.

“I’m never getting out of here,” Frick said.  “I'm stuck. I’ve been working on the new book, but it’s not going much of anywhere.  I’ve lost the drive.  But you.” 

He slid a little closer, reached towards Gavin’s lap, put his hand on the copy of Time Slide.

“You're going to be a rock star.”

He stood, picked up the empty cups and saucers, carried them over to the cabinet behind the desk where he kept his never-ending supply of glasswear.  Gavin watched his narrow shoulders, the stoop of his back, as he opened the small door to the bottom shelves. 

"Of course it's your decision.”  Gavin could only see his back, bent over in front of the cabinet, rearranging things as he spoke. “Part of being an adult is making hard decisions, decisions that will alter the course of our lives.”  Clink clink, glasses being moved around.  Something fell, clunk, but no shattering. A relieved sigh.

He came back with a little prescription bottle, balanced it on top of the book on Gavin’s lap.

“Xanax, for anxiety,” he said.  He squeezed Gavin’s shoulder, right where muscle connected to bone. “You look really stressed out.

 <Chapter 38 
Chapter 40a>