Road to Elsewhere, Excerpt #30: The Titanic wasn't the Only Disaster in Belfast

Meet my friend Seamus, who somehow avoided being blown up on the train he rode to school every day.

Even though I failed to fall in love, or in bed, with anyone at the Alliance Française, I did make significant connections. I could make friends—if not love—all day long, and I found one for a lifetime during a dinner of wine and sarcasm at our cafeteria table. 

On September 19th, I marked my calendar: “Great talk with Seamus!” His verbal parries met my thrusts. Touché!

Seamus Cillian Thomas was barely 18, on an extended walkabout from his home in Belfast, Ireland. He had a deferred admission to Cambridge in his pocket, and was spending a year sharpening the language skills that would soon be tested by the dons. Clearly, he was brilliant; it would have been so easy to dismiss a lad from across the Channel. 

Over our first dinner in the cafeteria, Seamus joined me in a group of our fellow students. He was already being cling-wrapped by an instant inamorata from Spain. I understood her attraction to him; Seamus had bright, sad eyes, a suggestive smile, and an earnest manner. In a James-Joy…