Page 32 of The Circle

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;the valiant never taste of death but once.” Quite the writer he was, that Shakespeare oke.

However, for all his talent and skill, I have always believed that quote to be flawed. I know, blasphemy to suggest that the great William Shakespeare wrote anything less than perfect. (Or whoever it was who wrote the plays we credit to Shakespeare.) But it’s not the quote itself that’s in error.

It’s the premise.

It’s altogether too binary.

It implies that cowardice and valiance are separate. Not integrated. Mutually exclusive.

I would suggest that they are not. That one is not only cowardly or valiant. Fearful or brave. Honorable or villainous.

We—all of us, all of humankind, of the womb born—contain multitudes.

Anyone who is but one thing, possessing but one set of qualities, only knowing how to paint with one color or sing with one note, is not to be trusted. Because if that is the way they project to the world, they are hiding myriad other qualities.

If I die today, I will die content in the knowledge that at least I was interesting.

I see him up ahead. The Lynch oke. Looks almost exactly like his late uncle. Red hair with streaks of grey and white. Not quite as tall or yet as weathered, but on his way. Sporting a bit of a denim motif. I appreciate it. There aren’t many who can pull off denim on denim successfully, but this Brasil appears to be one who can.

Good on him.

Ah. I see he’s brought some others along. Good. I’d hate to think this would go as requested or planned. If things go too much to plan, it makes me suspicious.

As I did earlier at his uncle’s warehouse, I start to play through possible scenarios for how this might unfold. But then I stop myself. Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens to me in all this. All that matters is that Andra is returned safely home to her mother and that Christine and Danny are happy together.

If that happiness includes me, fokken brilliant. If it doesn’t, well, I hope they’ll think about me occasionally when they’re in the throes of passion. Perhaps they’ll get some type of giant dildo, name it Alec, and use it from time to time.

The idea that my essence could possibly be distilled down to becoming a dildo seems oddly appropriate. I suppose I’d be fine with that.

Once my foot hits the bridge, Lynch and the two gents with him tense and step some number of feet in my direction. They stop walking as I continue onward. I suppose they’re expecting me to proceed all the way to them. This is an incorrect expectation.

I stop at the exact midpoint of the bridge and wait for them to come and meet me. In a negotiation, one must define one’s points of acquiescence and those hills upon which one is willing to die. Me handing myself over to this fokker without forcing him to do at least a little work is one of those hills.

He stares at me for a beat, then approaches.

“Van den Berg?” he asks, all gruff and salty-seeming.

“Correct.”

“Feck’s Danny?”

“Where’s my daughter? And her uncle?”

“Your daughter?” he asks. When I don’t answer, he follows up with, “I feckin’ told ye all, I don’t have anyone’s daughter.”

I inhale a deep breath. Let it out. “Then we have nothing to discuss. You can explain, when you are left to eulogize your entire family, that it was because of you.”

I turn and start to walk back from the direction I came, but he grabs my arm.

I do not like it.

“Feckin’ wait,” he says.

I look down to where he holds me and then up into his eyes. He releases his grip.

We look at each other like that for a long moment before he breaks the silence.