Then You'll Spread Your Wings And You'll Take To The Sky
It's a gorgeous summer evening in Connecticut, the damp, warm air filled with cicadas and the strains of music drifting into the blue evening from different porches. 16-year-old Josh comes home late from an afternoon at a friends house, a lazy, hazy day full of swimming in the pool and haphazardly flirting with the girls coming over, playing basketball in the shade and sipping Dr. Pepper, feet dangling in the pool, trying not to stare at the way droplets of water shine like diamonds on Susie Edelstein's face, trying harder to still to keep in mind that this is Susie Edelstein, for god's sake, whom he's known since elementary school.
He smells like chlorine, sweat and sunblock, his hair is damp from swimming and his t-shirt comfortingly cool against his skin still radiating the days heat. It's summer, he's sixteen, and even if he did get into an argument with Susie's perky and opinionated best friend Liz about Ulrike Meinhof and the German terrorists, the future that he thinks, dreams about, waits for every day of the school year seems a long way away. And it's a good feeling- like life is pausing for a second, like the intermission of a concert. Time to get a snack, chat a little bit, before the conductor reaches for his baton again and urges him forward, forward.
He parks his Mom's car in the driveway as dusk settles around the neighborhood, and sits there for a second, trying to clear his head of the image of Susie's body being hugged by her white dress, and the way she smiled at him like she knew every secret he'd ever had. Smiling ruefully, he grabs his backpack from the passenger seat and ambles inside the house.
There's a light on the back porch that shines into the dark garden, reflecting on the white-washed wall of the shed, and when he walks into the kitchen he finds his mother putting out cheese and crackers and puttering around the counter. "What's going on?" He asks, dumping his wet towels into a corner, on the pristine kitchen linoleum, and reaching for a bowl of cereal,
"A friend of your father's," his Mom explains, fretfully. "Dropped by, I had no idea, we were just going to have sandwiches for Dinner, I mean, if I'd known, I'd have made some steak or something at least-" she frantically shoves him out of the way as he's getting milk out of the fridge and peers past him - "nothing here, I swear-"
"Aw, Mom," he grins at her, angling past her and pulling a carton of milk towards him with the tips of his fingers. "It's not like they need anything but scotch."
"You take that back, young man," she says sternly, arranging some olives on a silver serving bowl. "Now, take your laundry into the basement, and then bring this out. I mean it!" Hands on hips, eyes sparkling, he knows better than to argue with her, and because he's sleepy and filled up with a wonderful day, he doesn't want to, either. When he returns from the basement, she hands him a tray of cheese, crackers and olives, as well as a plate with a turkey sandwich and a can of Coke.
"I don't want you eating cereal in front of our guest," she says sternly. "Now, go bring those out and say hello. Go!" She ushers him out of the kitchen with a wave of her hand, and, feeling slightly resentful at being treated like a serving maid, he makes his way onto the back porch.
His father and a stranger are sitting there, engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke, laughing hoarsely. He hovers on the inside of the screen door for a moment, studying the two men- his father with his bright eyes, handy gesticulating wildly, his tie dangling loosely from his neck, laughing at what is no doubt one of the bawdy jokes he likes to tell because it makes him feel respected. "But," he once told his son as they drove from a bris where most of the male conversation had been made up of dirty stories and business negotiations, "son, you don't talk like that till you got your own fortune to huckster and your own wife to give you grief about the jokes you tell, understood? A good man respects women, even if sometimes you have to pretend you don't."
The stranger looks about ten years younger than his father, and Josh stares at him, thinking -and the thought is one of the swift, throbbing kicks in the stomach he still gets once a day- that if Joanie were here, she'd be feasting his eyes on him, probably. Even Josh can tell that he's a good-looking man, with a loopy grin and a suit just as elegant -and probably expensive- as his father's. Wondering where in the name of everything holy his father picked up this guy, Josh opens the screen door. The faint creaking is lost in Noah's full belly-laugh and the stranger's chortle. Josh clears his throat awkwardly, and his father looks up.
"Josh!" He says, apparently delighted to see him. "Nice to see you still come home to sleep, at least."
"Mom asked me to bring these out," he mumbles, feeling positively emasculated as he sets down the cheese and crackers.
"Josh, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Leo McGarry."
"Nice to meet you, Sir," Josh mumbles, focusing on a point around the stranger's shoulder as he holds out his hand.
"Good to meet you," the man replies with a serious nod, shaking his hand so forcefully Josh very nearly winces.
"Pull up a chair," Noah says encouragingly. Josh's shoulders sag. All he wants to do is go back to his room, listen to Paul Simon and think about Susie's bright eyes and the way her wet hair shines in the afternoon sun. He certainly doesn't want to sit here for hours, watching his father and this stranger empty a bottle of scotch and talk shop. But, he knows better than to argue with his father when he's got company, so he obediently sits down on a chair next to his father, cracks open the can of Coke and attempts to blend in with the mosquito screens.
His father embarks on a meticulous listing his merits, and Mr. McGarry listens politely through all of it. When his father finishes with "and two years from now, he's headed to Harvard," he nods, as though satisfied, and says, "and what are you going to do then, Josh?"
Josh stares into the dark garden, the trees rustling as though trying to fill the silence.
"Go on," his father encourages. "You tell him. Lord knows I think you'll grow out of it."
"I want to," Josh shrugs. "I want to work in politics, actually. Public service. The government. Whatever."
"Really?" Mr McGarry nods, slowly, and Josh raises his head incredulously when he notices the missing derision, the absent skepticism or dubiousness. "Can I ask why?"
"'Cause," Josh mumbles, staring at the tiny droplets of water forming on the blood-red steel of the can of Coke in front of him. 'Cause I want to fix everything in the world. 'Cause I want to make it right again. 'Cause I want Susie Edelstein to think I'm cool, and not just the nerdy awkward boy from AP government. "'Cause someone needs to want to," he finally says.
Mr. McGarry sighs, draining a glass of scotch in one. "I was like you once," he says, and his father laughs, sadly. "I want to help people. Ask not what your country can do for you, that sort of thing. Of course, in my day, people like that joined the army." He lets out a short, thoroughly unamused laugh. "That didn't turn out so well."
"Leo was a pilot," his father explains. "In Vietnam," he adds, superfluously.
"I'm still a pilot, you know," Mr. McGarry explains to his father. "I train at least once a year and everything. You don't stop flying Thuds just because you're not flying them. Anyway, yeah. I felt like you did -young, idealistic, pie-in-the-sky- and I decided to join the Air Force when I was in my sophomore year in college." He refills his glass of scotch, drains it, refills. Josh stares at him, torn between thinking that he's never even seen his father drink like this, and drinking in every word this stranger is saying. He's not used to be spoken to like this- not like a moody teenager expected to grow out of most of his ideals and not understand the rest, but like… well. Almost like a man. He sits up a little straighter.
"Were you sorry?" He asks, before he can stop himself. "Did you stop… believing in the stuff you believed in?"
"Josh!" His father interjects sharply, but Mr. McGarry just waves a hand and shrugs.
"Did I stop believing in what I believed in?" He exhales pensively. "Not really. I hope I'm not as much of an idiot as I was then, but, on the whole…" He grins. "I'm sorry I got shot down and was in pain for the better part of a year of my life, but I'm not sorry I went, no."
Josh nods.
Mr. McGarry suddenly laughs, stuffing a cracker in his mouth and catches his eye. "You keep doing what you're doing, son. Can't hurt to have pie-in-the-sky idiots taking over, right?"
His father joins in the laughter, and so, reluctantly, does Josh. Seems to him that he shouldn't be laughing at this until he's got his own ideals to huckster and a better plan for his future to give him grief about the jokes he's laughing at. His father embarks on one his favorite long-winded anecdotes about screwing government officials with their pants on, and Josh self-consciously nibbles his sandwich, but the white slabs of bread seem to stick to his palate. He goes to bed soon after, as the bottle of scotch empties rapidly, and the indigo night grows darker and heavier around them.
Lying in bed, the heavy scent of nicotine mingling with the summer skin smells and the starchy cotton of his sheets, Josh stares at the ceiling, watching his fan rotate blindly. Something, something about that strange, young Mr. McGarry and his hoarse laugh has, for a night, wrenched him out of his state of midsummer limbo, and his future, his future he can't picture clearly but that he still knows will be everything he ever wanted it to be, seems a lot closer to him as Susie Edelstein and the curves of her body and the glimmer of her wet hair.
He sleeps in late the next morning, walks downstairs. Eats two bowls of cereal for breakfast, and only reads the sports section of the newspaper.
By the time Jeff has called him to ask if he's coming over for some basketball, Josh isn't even thinking of the previous night for.
It's a hot Connecticut summer, and he's sixteen, and he's got nothing but his own pie-in-the-sky ideals to huckster. And he's trying his best to grow up to be a good man.