Page 81 of What We Bury

Nick goes home to the Midwest and writes a beautiful book.

“So,” I start once everyone is settled. “Is Nick a coward or is he an innocent observer?”

Hands go up. One of the adults raises her hand and calls out, “He’s a total coward. He lets Gatsby take the fall for Daisy and doesn’t do shit about it.”

“But he’s not really friends with Gatsby, is he?” a kid at the back says. “He’s just watching.”

“He profits from it,” someone else argues, and then it’s off to the races, the class spooling up like it always does, a mess of opinions and energy, no cross-talk rules or shushing, because I like the chaos when it’s about books.

While they’re arguing, I lean back on the edge of the desk and let it run.

Watching their faces, I see all the twitches and microfrowns, the arms crossed or loose, the glances at phones or the clock on the wall. Every room a read. Every room a risk assessment.

“Okay,” I say, when the engine starts to wind down. “Let’s explore the idea he’s a coward. Now, find me the page where Nick is afraid. Take a minute.”

They flip. The room is quiet while they skim the text, pages turning fast. Then an older guy in the back sits up.

“Chapter seven.”

“Read it.”

He clears his throat. “‘Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair.’”He looks up. “He’s terrified of getting old.”

“Good. What else?”

A teen mom who’s trying to finish her schooling speaks up. “He keeps saying he’s honest. Like, weirdly often. ‘I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.’ Why does he need to say that?”

“He’s afraid of being contaminated,” another student says. “That’s why he goes back to the Midwest. Not because he learned anything. Because he’s scared if he stays, he’ll become as corrupted as those around him.”

I nod. “So we’ve established that he’s afraid of getting old without ever having lived, and of becoming like those around him.” I let that sit. “But does that make him a coward?”

There’s a long pause as the class considers my question.

Oliver, my quietest student, stops moving his pen across his knuckles. “No,” he says.

The class turns. He doesn’t usually speak first.

“Why not?”

He’s looking at his book but I don’t think he’s reading. “Because a coward is afraid of things that are outside their control. A coward sees the fight and is too scared to step in for the person getting hit. The fear is about the gap between what they should do and what they can make themselves do.” Heshrugs. “Nick isn’t scared for anyone. He’s not scared for Gatsby. He’s not scared for Myrtle. He’s not even scared for Daisy. He’s scared for himself. He’s scared of what staying would cost him. What watching would cost him. What being implicated would do to his idea of himself.”

“So what is he?”

TWENTY-TWO

ELI

“He’s selfish.” Oliver looks up. “Every choice he makes is about preserving the clean version he has of himself. He doesn’t intervene because intervention would make him visible. He doesn’t judge out loud because that would commit him. He goes home to the Midwest because if he stays he’ll have to admit he’s one of them. Everything he does is to protect the version of Nick in his own head. To be virtuous and above all others. He doesn’t do shit to stop anything bad from happening, he just watches on.”

I nod. “And what’s the word for that?”

He frowns, shrugging.

“Enabler,” I say, watching their faces digest that. “A coward wants to act and can’t. An enabler doesn’t want to act, because acting would cost him something he’s decided to keep. He’s not paralyzed. He’s choosing to be quiet to save his status and comfort.”

Oliver nods slowly. “Like with Tom and Daisy. They use Nick, sure. They keep him around because he sees what they do anddoesn’t say anything, and that’s worth more to them than a friend who’d push back. Nick enables them.”

I chuckle, nodding. “Exactly. Nick gets to keep thinking he’s the honest one. The enabling is the price he pays to keep his self-image. The fear isn’t gone. The fear is the engine. He’s so afraid of becoming them that he becomes useful to them instead, and he calls that virtue.”