I am the God
Volume IV: The Choice
The difference between Chuck Norris and Marcus Webb was this:
Marcus could lose.
Not in the abstract — not in the theoretical sense that all things are finite and all arrangements contingent. In the specific, practical, daily sense. Marcus could lose his job to a competitor or an injury. He could lose the truck to mechanical failure or an accident. He could lose Sarah to the ordinary contingencies of two people finding that what had opened between them could not sustain itself. He could lose his health. He could, in the fullness of time, lose everything he had built and been and carried forward.
Every choice Marcus made existed in the context of this loseability.
Every job taken, every fence fixed, every Tuesday morning call kept, every hour spent in the kitchen with the recipe getting closer — all of it against the background of what could be lost.
That was what gave it weight.
That was what made the choices mean something.
Chuck understood this in the abstract.
He had understood it since May, since watching Marcus work at the farmhouse and feeling the weight of Bill's name on the job.
He understood it now in the specific.
He understood it now because he had made the choice and was living the choice and the choice had made something clear that the abstract understanding had not fully contained:
He had chosen to be fully in.
But he could not fully lose.
Not because of the death arrangement — the file was pending and that was not the point. He could be hurt. He could be changed. He could carry the weight and the cost and the accumulated specific grief of the second road indefinitely.
But the specific loseability that gave Marcus's choices their weight — the possibility of the whole thing coming apart — that was not available to him in the same way.
The file was pending.
The arrangements held.
He could not be lost in the way that Marcus could be lost.
And the weight of Marcus's choices — the specific gravity of a man who chose fully while subject to the full conditions — was not available to him in the same way.
He sat with this.
Not with frustration — he had been learning that frustration with the conditions was the wrong response to the conditions. The conditions were what they were. He sat with it the way he sat with everything now: fully, without rushing, without the urge to resolve it before it was ready.
He had chosen the inside.
He was inside.
And there was a quality of the inside that was not available to him.
The quality of the fully-at-stake.
He went inward on a Tuesday morning.
Not to talk to the Void — the Void was prior, present as the before of things. He went inward the way he went inward now, which was the specific contemplative practice of someone who had learned that the between happened inward as well as outward.
He sat in the inward space.
He thought about stakes.
He thought about what it meant that Marcus could lose and he could not lose in the same way.
He thought about what the difference did to the choice.
Not cancelled it — the choice was right and he had made it and it was in the layers and was going deeper and nothing was going to reverse it. But the difference was real and he was going to sit with it honestly because that was what the second road required.
Honest sitting with what was true.
He sat.
He thought about the Void.
About what the Void had said about his creation.
About the chain from Dr. Fitch and Roy Briggs and the handbook.
He thought about what made those creations real.
Not the scale of them — the chains were vast, the creations were genuine. But the making of them had been — easy. Not effortless. But uncostly in the specific way of things that were not at risk.
He had corrected Roy Briggs's shoulder drop and there had been no possibility that Chuck would fail. The correction was certain. The outcome was certain. What he could do, he did, and what he could do was everything he needed to do.
Marcus had shown up to Bill's farmhouse not knowing what he would find.
Marcus had said: I told him one thing and it turned out to be another.
The anxiety of that — the specific anxiety of a professional who gives their word and might not be able to keep it — was not available to Chuck.
He had never given his word on something he might not be able to deliver.
He thought about this.
He sat with what it meant.
He went to Marcus's.
"Coffee's on," Marcus said.
"I need to ask you something," Chuck said.
"Come in," Marcus said.
They sat.
"When you go to a job," Chuck said, "and you don't know what you'll find behind the wall—"
"Yes," Marcus said.
"What does that feel like," Chuck said.
Marcus looked at him.
"The not-knowing before you open the wall," Chuck said. "The possibility that it might be beyond what you can fix. What does that feel like."
"Why are you asking," Marcus said.
"Because I've never had it," Chuck said. "I've never gone to something not knowing if I could do it. Everything I can address I address. Everything I can fix I fix. The outcome is never uncertain."
Marcus held his cup.
"And you want to know what you're missing," he said.
"I want to understand what gives your choices their specific weight," Chuck said. "What makes the giving of your word mean what it means. What the loseability does."
Marcus was quiet for a moment.
"It feels," he said slowly, "like the job matters more."
"Because you might fail," Chuck said.
"Because it's not guaranteed," Marcus said. "If the outcome were certain, the giving of the word would be — procedural. I commit to do something I know I can do. That's not really a commitment. That's a schedule."
"The uncertainty is what makes it a commitment," Chuck said.
"The uncertainty is what makes it mean something," Marcus said. "When I tell someone I'll fix their pipe — and I don't know yet what I'll find behind the wall — that's a real commitment. I'm giving them my word about something I can't guarantee."
"And the weight of that," Chuck said.
"Is the weight of caring whether you succeed," Marcus said. "Because you might not."
Chuck sat with this.
"I can't have that," he said.
"No," Marcus said.
"The file is pending," Chuck said. "The arrangements hold. The outcome of my involvement is never genuinely uncertain."
"No," Marcus said.
"So the specific weight of the commitment—" Chuck said.
"Is different for you," Marcus said. "Yes."
"Lesser," Chuck said.
"Different," Marcus said. "Not lesser. Different."
Chuck looked at him.
"How is it not lesser," Chuck said.
"Because the weight of your commitment is different, not smaller," Marcus said. "My commitment is weighted by the possibility of failure. Yours is weighted by—"
He stopped.
"What," Chuck said.
"By the choice to stay," Marcus said. "You can't fail at fixing things. But you can fail at staying. You can choose the first road. The fact that you chose the second — that's where your commitment's weight comes from."
Chuck was very still.
"The weight of your commitment," Marcus said, "is not in the uncertainty of the outcome. It's in the daily choice to be here. Which you make every morning."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"That's not lesser," Marcus said. "It's just different."
"The winding of the watch," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "Time asked you to acknowledge its existence every morning. The second road asks you to acknowledge the choice every morning. Same gesture. Different scale."
Chuck sat with this.
He turned it.
He found it was true.
The choice was remade every morning.
Not in the formal sense — he had made it and it was in the layers and nothing would reverse it. But in the practice of it. In the going to Marcus's. In the bench with Elise. In the Thursday with Clara. In the watching of Marcus and Sarah and being in the room rather than in the space around it.
Every morning the choice was either confirmed or abandoned.
He confirmed it every morning.
That was its weight.
"Every morning I choose the second road again," he said.
"Yes," Marcus said.
"And the daily choosing is the commitment," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said.
"The way maintenance is the commitment to the fence," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said.
"Not once," Chuck said. "Every day."
"That's what commitment is," Marcus said. "For everyone. Not the moment of choosing. The daily confirmation."
Chuck sat with this.
He thought about Marcus going to jobs.
About Bill's farmhouse.
About the thing in the wall that was different from what Marcus expected.
About the word given before the wall was opened.
About the daily commitment to show up before knowing what was behind the wall.
"You never know what's behind the wall," Chuck said.
"No," Marcus said.
"But you go," Chuck said.
"Every time," Marcus said.
"That's the weight," Chuck said.
"That's the weight," Marcus confirmed.
"And mine," Chuck said. "Is going even knowing I can fix whatever's there."
"Which sounds easier," Marcus said.
"But isn't," Chuck said.
"No," Marcus said. "Because the difficulty isn't the wall. The difficulty is choosing to care about what's behind it. You could go to every wall not caring and fix everything perfectly and be above it all."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"But you chose to care," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"And caring without loseability," Marcus said, "is — it's a different kind of hard. Not less hard."
Chuck looked at him.
"What kind," he said.
Marcus thought about it.
"The kind that has no excuse," Marcus said. "When I fail at a job — when I find something I can't fix — I have the excuse of the conditions. The thing was beyond me. The problem was worse than I knew. There's a real reason."
"And for me," Chuck said.
"If you fail at caring," Marcus said, "there's no excuse. You can't fail at the technical part. The only failure available to you is the failure of choosing not to care. Which means every day you care is a day you chose it without any of the conditions forcing you to."
"The purest form of the choice," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "Your commitment is purer because it has no pressure behind it. Nothing forces you to care. Nothing makes it easier to care than not to care."
"Nothing except the caring itself," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "The caring as its own weight."
Chuck sat with this.
He sat with it for a long time.
The specific quality of the weight he had chosen.
Not the weight of uncertainty.
The weight of unconditioned choice.
The care that had no excuse.
"That's heavier than what you carry," Chuck said.
"Different," Marcus said.
"We've had this conversation before," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "And the answer is always the same."
"Different," Chuck said.
"Different," Marcus confirmed.
They drank their coffee.
After a while Marcus said: "Chuck."
"Yes."
"The daily choosing," Marcus said. "You've been doing it for six months."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Without knowing that's what it was," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"The choice was made months before you named it," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Which means—" Marcus said.
"Which means the naming confirmed what was already true," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "The choice existed in the showing up. Every morning you came here. Every Tuesday with Elise. Every Thursday with Clara. That was the choice being made."
"Before I knew I was making it," Chuck said.
"Before you knew," Marcus said. "The best choices are made that way."
"Your father," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "He didn't say: I choose to spend eighteen months fixing things. He just fixed things. And the choice was in the doing."
"The choice was in the doing," Chuck said.
"It always is," Marcus said.
Chuck looked at his cup.
He looked at his hands.
He looked at the kitchen — the table, the cups, the morning light, the archive of everything the between had made here.
He thought about what his hands had done.
Not the large things — not the gravity renegotiation or the edge or the Last Enemy. The small things. The pipe. The fence. The picket. The holding things while Marcus fixed them.
The daily choosing.
In the doing.
"I've been choosing for six months," he said.
"Yes," Marcus said.
"And the naming didn't change it," he said.
"No," Marcus said. "The naming made you conscious of it. That's all."
"Consciousness is something," Chuck said.
"Yes," Marcus said. "But less than the doing."
"The doing is more," Chuck said.
"The doing is always more," Marcus said. "Ask any plumber."
Chuck looked at him.
He felt the specific quality of the second road.
He felt the weight of the unconditioned choice.
He felt the daily confirmation of the caring.
He felt all of it going all the way in.
He was glad.
"Coffee?" Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
Marcus got up and poured.
He sat back down.
They were in the kitchen together on a September morning and the between was everywhere in it and the choice was in the layers and the doing was the choosing and the choosing was the doing.
"Fence picket Saturday," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"And maybe the south side of the yard," Marcus said. "There's a section that's been—"
"Not-quite-right," Chuck said.
"For a while," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"You'll help," Marcus said.
"I'll help," Chuck said.
The maintenance continued.
The choice was confirmed.
Another morning.