You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [46]
“Girl,” he said laughing. “For sure a girl.”
“O.K., in walks the most beautiful woman Colin has ever seen. Suddenly he’s paralyzed. What is it about her? Her eyes? Her hair? He doesn’t know. Oh, but she’s magical, glowing from within, and so on.”
Silver was pacing, loose and wild. Nodding his head, laughing. Drawing the scene, presenting this imaginary beauty with his hands, framing her, forcing us to see. “Here she is standing at the punch bowl. He wants to talk to her. He needs to talk to her. My God, she’s beautiful. Look at her. All alone. Look at those eyes. That sparkle. But. But, Colin? What’s wrong, Colin? He can’t cross the room. Oh he wants to, the pull is so, so strong. But no. Oh how he wants to. But he can’t do it. The tragedy, the—”
“I’d cross the room,” Colin said, arms crossed, chin raised, chest out.
“Oh, I’m sure you would, Colin. Because you’re a man. But for the sake of argument let’s just imagine, shall we, that you don’t. Are you man enough to pretend?”
Colin smiled.
“So, why wouldn’t Colin cross the room?” Silver stopped pacing, raised his eyebrows again and scanned the room, his hands upturned, shoulders shrugged. “Why?”
“Because he’s a punk?”
Everyone laughed.
“And why is he a punk, Rick? What makes him a punk? You don’t mind do you Colin? It’s all hypothetical.”
“No man, whatever.”
“Did you just call me man?”
Colin met Silver’s eyes, then after a pause, said, “Not you, just, it’s just a figure of speech.”
For a moment Silver looked angry and then it was gone. Was he kidding? Which was the thing about him. You never knew. Only he could push. You couldn’t push back. Not too hard anyway. Everything turned on that tension. You never knew what you’d get.
“Rick?”
“He’s a punk because he’s a coward. Because he just can’t get himself to walk over to her. To talk to her.”
“Fear?”
“Yeah. Fear.”
“Yeah.” Pause. “Fear,” Silver repeated. “That’s the thing isn’t it?” Searching the room for our eyes, digging for the unmitigated attention of every single one of us.
“Fear. That is what separates the hero from the common man. It’s crossing the room. It’s not complicated.”
“So what? Heroes talk to girls?”
“Some of them do, Cara, I’m sure. But that’s hardly the point. Come on. Push. Gilad, what’s the point?”
I looked up from my notebook, my heart beating fast. “You do the thing anyway,” I said.
Silver smiled his big smile. “Say that again.”
“You do the thing anyway,” I said louder staring down at my notes.
“You do. The thing. Anyway.” Silver wrote it on the board. He leaned against the edge of his desk, crossed his arms and said again nodding as if we’d just discovered the answer to everything, “You do the thing anyway. Yes. Yes. You do it in spite of fear. You do the thing anyway. No matter what. Because you have to. Because you know it’s right. Because you believe in it. Because by not doing it you’re betraying yourself.”
His voice was rising and he had us all. Even dim, defiant Abdul looked up to stare curiously at Silver as he came off the desk and was moving again.
“You do it because it matters and how do you know it matters?”
“Because it scares you?”
“Don’t ask, Lily. Tell me.”
“Because it scares you.” She smiled.
“Because it scares you. You do it because it scares you. That’s the core of it all. That’s the center. That’s how you know. That’s the heart of the whole thing. The heart.”
“So, I should jump off a bridge because it scares me?”
“Do you want to jump off a bridge, Abdul?”
“No, but you said—”
“Come on, Abdul. Think a little bit, O.K.? Come on. Give me something, man. Dig. Push, Abdul. Push. Let’s go back to Hamlet. What does any of this have to do with this