You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [49]
“That’s a good question, Ariel,” Silver said. “Can anyone answer it?”
I took a breath to speak.
But then Colin turned to her and said, coldly, slowly, emphasizing every word, “Shut your fucking mouth. Shut the fuck up.”
Silver stood up and said sharply, “Colin,” and then again, “Colin, stop now.”
His eyes dark and mean, Colin turned toward Mr. Silver as if he couldn’t understand why he’d been interrupted. What was there to say? What could Silver want at that moment?
“Colin, go,” he gestured toward the door with a slight nod of his head.
No one moved or spoke. The two of them locked eyes. Then Colin stood up and turned to Ariel. Her eyes were bright with anger. She was impossibly pretty. Colin looked directly at her. I saw her face. I saw her weaken, saw her eyes reflect something like fear. I watched the blood beating through her long neck.
“Colin, now.”
“You’re nothing,” he whispered in that thick, comical, menacing Dublin accent. “Nothing, right.”
He took his things and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
WILL
I taught seminar last period that day. They’d read Camus’s lyrical essays over the weekend and I was looking forward to the discussion. I hadn’t had time to prepare and I imagined that perhaps reading Camus again might provide me some sense of calm.
Gilad and Colin were sitting next to each other when I walked in and when I saw them together I felt an immediate thrill of paternal pride. Gilad, who’d been so isolated since the beginning of the year, might now have a friend. And Colin, who’d pushed me so hard, was so deliberate in his belligerence, had, nearly overnight, become interested almost to the point of obsession, in every word I spoke. Seeing the two of them sitting side by side buoyed me. And it wasn’t only those two: there was Lily and her braids, her natural demeanor, her easy laugh. Hala, who could have passed for a thirty-year-old lawyer, whip smart, sarcastic, and funny, her pure disdain for Abdul. Cara, her dark cynicism, her silence, her detachment, and her unabashed disregard for assignments, long black hair in her eyes, her occasional flashes of interest. Jane, having abandoned her purple hair and angel wings, rising up through the mire of adolescence. And Rick who’d been so aloof, had taken to crushing and precise retorts to Ariel’s various commentaries and diatribes. Suddenly there was an enthusiasm for the class, for me, for philosophy, and there was an alliance, a building sense of unity as if, in a moment, all the pieces had fallen into place.
There had been a day, weeks before, when I’d stopped talking altogether, when, in discussing the last act of Hamlet, I’d let go entirely. They took off, making connections themselves, listening to one another, pushing one another, laughing. There was that rare upswing, a growing excitement, entirely driven by interest, by their own enthusiasm for the play. They were beyond the classroom, they were sailing as I stood in the corner. I could have slipped out the door, could have left them to it. But I wanted to watch. I wanted to see it. It was the best thing, better than any love, any passion, any meal. It was the truest, rarest, sweetest thing I knew and for whatever it was, five minutes, ten, we were all out there together. They carried me.
But Ariel couldn’t allow it. She cut it off. We were all fools. She claimed to be offended by the notion of suicide as a viable choice, as a choice at all. And the whole thing fell apart. Colin lost his temper. That kid, a straining mass of muscles. He might have hit her. It didn’t seem impossible in the moment. I had to send him out. As much as I sympathized, I couldn’t let it go.
Later that afternoon I walked with Colin around the field.
“You understand right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“O.K., I wanted to make sure. While you didn’t choose the best way to say what you felt, I do know you weren’t the only