Donal Mannion walked the afternoon streets of Washington in a dead humor. A leaden heart pumped his thick and dull blood through limbs that did not want to move against the freakish late October heat and the humidity that pressed his skin like a wet, warm cloth. He walked in small steps. No rush to it, because there was really no place to go.
Across from the Treasury Department, the Old Ebbitt Grill pulled him like a magnet. In this deadened afternoon comfort could best come from the familiar places. Donal stepped through Lafayette Park to H Street, then around the corner on 15th. A block and a half to the classic pillared doorway, where he wrapped a tired hand around the great golden handle and pulled it open, Cold air slapped his face, he breathed in the scent of leathers and wood, then claimed a seat at the long bar.
“Scotch, neat. Johnny Walker Red,” he said as the barman came his way. With a silent nod, the older man grabbed the relevant bottle. When the drink arrived, Donal raised it first to his nose and breathed in the rich, smoky aroma of days gone by. He sipped fire into his throat and felt its burn match the fury of his troubled soul.
So many times here, this, his favorite place to decompress after long days on the Hill. Most often he would be with friends, and they would digest the day’s events, argue about politics, disparage their colleagues who weren’t there with them, and, if luck combined sufficiently with a cavalier attitude born of too much alcohol, cheat on their wives. That last act become less and less uncommon as time went by. The Ebbitt had its share of young women who came for the same reasons.
Donal Mannion sipped his drink quietly. A drink was a drink no matter when he might have it. He relished the calm this one imparted to his unsettled thoughts, drank it down, then gestured for another.
As he received it from the still-silent barman, Donal turned to his left to look into a face he had not seen before. A young man about his age occupied the seat next to him. Donal had not seen him enter, had not heard him sit down, had not felt the jostle of another body so close to where he sat.
The young man had his own drink, Scotch, or so it appeared. He raised his glass and smiled over the rim of it.“I hope I’m not disruptin’ ya here,” he said. “This seemed to be the place for me to sit.”
Donal regarded this stranger with a silent eye. The newcomer had a glint of mischief about him, a twinkle in his soft smile. About his height, sharing the same slight build, the same shock of dark hair, and nothing remarkable in any of it. Donal turned back to his own drink without a word.
“I don’t mean to be presumptuous, lad, but it seems as if you might be in need of a friendly voice.”
Donal sighed. “Don’t really know what I need. Maybe some space. Maybe just another drink.”
“I’ve seen you here before, I believe. Not recently, mind you, but a few times a while back. Seemed you were never alone then. And it seemed you were having a grand bit more fun than you are now.”
Donal turned to study the other. “You look familiar.” He nodded. “But I can’t really place you. Didn’t notice you here. But it’s a big place, and lots of people come and go.” He sipped again at a drink now a bit more necessary than it had been a few minutes prior. “Maybe I’ve seen you.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Donal. Donal Mannion.” There was reluctance in his reply. A conversation it would be, then, and apparently no getting away from it.
“A fine name. And how did you come here to be drinking by yourself on a summer’s afternoon? That’s not your habit, I’ll wager.”
“It becomes a habit when there’s nothing else to fill the time. I come here. It’s as close to comfort as I find these days.”
“Not how it used to be,” said the other. “I recall you drinking, and laughing, and making a grab at the lasses. Good fun in those days, no?”
“Good fun. But nothing lasts forever.” Donal finished his drink quickly, and another appeared before him, seemingly of its own merit. He looked at the Scotch, then back to his new companion.
“I took the liberty,” he said.
Donal sighed once more. “Nothing lasts forever. Not even good Scotch.”
“So you’re drinking alone now. I’ll dare to ask what happened.”
“I took myself too seriously. Thought I was the hottest ticket ever to work on Capitol Hill, and no one could possibly know more about what I should be doing than I did myself. Not even the Senator I worked for. I knew the issues better, I knew the heart of his constituents, I knew everything he needed to do. I was smarter than he was, too, or so I thought.” Donal set into his new drink, his head lighter and his heart grown darker.
“One day I told him all that. He had cancelled a project I had worked on for three months, another in a long line of stupid moves. So I unloaded on him – every insult I thought I had suffered, every ridiculous, hypocritical move he made, every time he acted like a pompous ass.” Donal sipped again. “He didn’t like it much. Let’s just say I’m ‘between jobs.’”
“Ah, but there’s more to it than that, am I right?” replied the other.
Donal chuckled a mirthless laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “A bit more. Turns out at the same time that my darling wife of ten years came to the conclusion that I had been unfaithful. Probably a rumor she heard. She came down here one night when I wasn’t on my best behavior. I didn’t expect her.” He sipped again. “She left with my son the day after I lost my job. I haven’t talked with her since, although I’ve tried. She won’t answer her phone, or any texts. I expect I’ll be hearing from a lawyer quite soon.”
“Sad, Donal. Truly sad. But it seems you’ve dealt your own hand.”
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Someone said that once,” and he drank again. At length he turned to the newcomer and said, “Do I detect a bit of Ireland in you?”
“More than a bit. I was born there. Came to this country when I was nineteen.”
“I’m Irish myself. Two generations. My grandfather came over and married an Irish girl. Never met him. Their son is my father. Dad named me after the Old Fella.”
“That’s how it happens. We seek out our own, especially when we’re lost and a bit afraid. And I was certainly both of those things. As you are now.”
“More than a bit lost, my new friend. And most definitely afraid.”
“But I’ve come to tell you this. It gets better, Donal. It has to, or else we die. No matter how fast you sprint from all the shite, you can never outrun yourself. You’ve done what you’ve done, and that’s placed you where you are, but that’s not all there is to it. You face it, and it gets better. Ask yourself where you need to go. What you need to do. You’ll learn the proper answers.”
“And you’re telling me this.”
“I see it. Give yourself about three months. You’ll be amazed. New job, new woman, and a very precious, new humility that will keep both of them with you.”
“You seem pretty confident in your predictions.”
“They’re not predictions, Donal. As I said, I see it. Janey will be a painful memory, and you’ll be missing Tommy the Lad fiercely, not seeing him grow up the way you want to. You’re broken now, Donal, but you’ll grow stronger at the broken places. It’ll all be fine in the end. And, if it’s not fine, it won’t be the end.”
Donal turned in his seat to face his companion. He stared into a face still hinting mischief. Still hinting a secret wisdom.
“You say you were born in Ireland. Where?”
“In the small town of Schull, County Cork. The western part, not far from Mizen Head.”
Donal Mannion’s heart beat a quick tattoo, and small beads of perspiration formed at once near his temples. “You know my wife’s name, and my son’s, but you’ve not told me yours.”
The companion smiled. “You know my name as well as your own, lad. And it’s time that I go. But you’ll see me again, to be sure.” With these last words Donal Mannion’s gaze clouded over, and a fine mist painted his vision with a delicate and fair whiteness. He closed his eyes against the glare.
When he opened them, the seat next to his was empty. He reached over a shaking hand to feel its leather, and found it cold to the touch.
Where can a man run or where can he hide when he looks behind him and sees that he is only pursued by himself?