The Instructions (129 page)

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

school. ‘Damage’ as the graffiti would have it. The Cage doesn’t fail them so much as they fail the Cage. The rest of you—and I
am
counting you among the rest (though exceptional among the rest, which I’ll get to momentarily)—the rest lack true malice. You all have good intentions, you want to be good, but the one percent has filthied up your environment, has not only made school
feel
unsafe, but has
made it
dangerous, and you can’t help but respond with dangerous behavior, for dangerous behavior begats more of the same. It does so by means of undermining trust in authority.

You look around at all the dangerous behavior… You look around and feel unsafe, and you think, ‘The school is failing to protect me. I must protect myself. I must blend in with my dangerous surroundings.’ And when you get in trouble for it, for blending in, when you get in trouble for engaging in what seem to you to be acts of self-protection, you think, ‘Not only is the school failing to protect me, but it is attacking me. It is as hostile toward me as those who initially made me feel unsafe.’

“And this is the kind of thinking I want to put a stop to. I
must
put a stop to it before the damage becomes permanent. So I’ve decided that, along with a few other measures, a goodwill gesture on my part is in order. A gesture to show all of you that the school
is
on your side,
is
here to protect you. That we are not here to punish you for acting in ways that you feel you must act in order to remain safe. Thus: amnesty. Amnesty to show all of you that
I
know—that
Aptakisic
knows—that you are in a compromised position, that you are not acting out of malice, but rather attempt-1216

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ing, however misguidedly, to survive. A goodwill gesture to show you that we understand you: that is the beginning. That will grant us all a fresh start. And I believe this schoolwide rash of misbehavior, the fistfights and detention-skipping as well as the graffiti, and this nonsense with the scarves—because they have
not
for the most part been committed by the malicious few, but the endangered many… I believe this misbehavior will cease. By the end of next week, the graffiti will have been cleaned up, and by the end of the month we’ll have security cameras installed throughout school. Those few malicious students who are causing all these problems will be neutralized, if not expelled. The good ones will feel safe again.”

Here, Brodsky popped a toasted-coconut donut hole. He chewed it vividly behind an all-lips smile, nodding his head with each clench of his jaw, his chomping and swallowing way louder than necessary. I knew it wasn’t possible to like donut-holes that much, but what I wasn’t sure of was whether he was he trying, with his dumbshow, to infect me with enthusiasm, or if he meant to cue approval from me that he believed already imminent. Either way, he was taking too much for granted.

I said, Why’d you just tell me all that stuff?

He showed me his pointer and his Adam’s apple bobbed. He sucked a flake of stuck coconut off the front of his teeth. “I thought you’d be happy to hear it,” he said.

Why would I be happy to hear it? I said.

His big pink head deluminesced a little, but except for that 1217

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loss of candle-power, the question didn’t seem to deflate him like I wanted it to. “To begin with, as I began before, you played a big role in my decision-making process, and credit is due to you. If I failed to express that—”

I didn’t ask you for amnesty, I said. I said, I definitely didn’t ask you for cameras.

“Not by name,” said Brodsky, “but in spirit, I think. I’m not certain, here, why you want to deny that. I heard how you helped out in the Cage yesterday, and your actions speak volumes.”

What exactly do you think my actions say?

“They tell me you want us to be on good terms, that you want—as we discussed at our meeting yesterday—you want to help me. That you want to make Aptakisic safer.”

I think my actions might’ve bumbled their lines a little, I said.

What I did yesterday was demonstrate that I
could
help you—that if you get rid of the Cage, I
will
help you.

“Did you not believe me when I said I wasn’t bargaining, Gurion?”

He seemed more entertained by this than he should have.

That was before you knew I could do what you pretended to believe I could do, I said.

“No, Gurion. I pretended nothing yesterday. I reached out to you, and I did so in good faith. I was honest with you.”

Reach out by getting rid of the Cage.

“It can’t happen.”

Fire Botha, I said.

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“Your biggest backer?” he said. And laughed. “Mr. Botha admires you, Gurion.”

Tch, I said.

“After school, yesterday, after I’d discussed with him what you and I had talked about regarding Scott Mookus, he described what you’d done in the Cage. He said he’d never before seen the students behave so well.”

He acted more like he’d never seen them behave so badly, I said.

“He said that, too. He even admitted some culpability for the chair-scooting, but claimed that you, Gurion, and I am quoting directly, ‘have shown him the error of his ways.’ I was, I think, even more surprised than you look right now. Mr. Voltz and Mrs.

Sepper were also impressed. But where they left off, Mr. Botha did not. He suggested that you might be ready to move on. He thinks you no longer require what the Cage has to offer.”

I nearly jumped from my chest, but I swallowed me down.

My voice stayed level.

He just wants to be done with me, I said. I said, He’s trying to railroad me.

“Railroading usually leads
toward
locked rooms, Gurion.”

Are you in on it? I said.

“What a way to speak. Back up a second. I understand you believe yourself and Mr. Botha exist in some irrevocable state of enmity, but I’m certain you’ve got it wrong. After we discussed Scott Mookus, and after Mr. Botha finished praising your 1219

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behavior, he, without prompting, explained that he understood the reasons behind this scooting thing you were all doing.”

You guys understand a whole lot, I said. There’s so much understanding going on—

“He said that yesterday morning, during announcements, Scott had told everyone that he would be singing with Boystar, and Mr. Botha had not believed it—he thought Scott was confused. And he had assumed that the rest of you had thought so too. But. He said that now he realized that all along, the lot of you had known that Scott would sing, and that that was why you had reacted with the scooting behavior when he took away your pep rally privileges. And
then
, Gurion,
then
Mr. Botha told me that he thought hearing Scott sing at the pep rally could only be good for the morale of the rest of the Cage students, and so he would allow all of you to go to the pep rally. And I did not prompt him to say any of these things. He said it all out of the goodness of his heart. What do you think now?”

I think he warped everything that happened yesterday, I said, including the basic sequence of events. I think he just wants me out of the Cage. I said, He’s trying to wash his hands of me.

“And I’m sure you’re incorrect, but let’s say you’re right. That you’re right about his motives. What if I remove you from the Cage, anyway?”

Now you’re threatening me? I said. I said, I thought you were reaching out.

“And I thought I’d just offered you a bargain. What quarrel 1220

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could you possible have?”

It’s no bargain to keep me from my friends, I said.

“Maybe it is,” he said. “From some of them. Maybe some of your friends hinder your education, put you at risk. Your father seems to think so—that’s what he told me over the phone the other day. I think separation from them will be good for you.

You’ll make new friends.”

I can make new friends whenever I want, I said.

“Be sensible,” he said. “Who’re those pastries in the napkin for?”

They’re donut holes, I said.

“They’re for your girlfriend. She’s very talented, by the way, June Watermark, a very intelligent girl. And more to the point: she’s not in the Cage. She’s in all of the gifted classes we offer for seventh-graders, classes you would certainly be placed in, were
you
not in the Cage.”

I said, You can’t use June against me.

“
Against
you, Gurion? If anything, I’d think she’d play carrot to the Cage’s stick.”

Don’t give away your carrots, I thought.

I said, Stop trying to arrange me.

“I’m offering you an incentive to be good,” he said. “Yes,”

he said, slapping the desk, “I wasn’t certain before, but talking through this with you—now I see I was right. You need an incentive, not a deterrent. Deterrents backfire with you. They make you resent us. This is the right incentive. It’s all over your face.

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You should see yourself. I’ll file the papers this afternoon. You’ll be out of the Cage on Monday. You won’t be going back in, either.

And we’ll put you on the regular STEP system. We will no longer damn you with our low expectations.”

I said, I’ll get expelled by the end of the week.

But the words sounded obligatory, even to me.

“I hope that’s not true,” he told me. “I believe that after the weekend, after some time to think, you’ll see this is a good decision and you’ll be a mensch about it. That said, I will not tolerate you holding yourself hostage. If you try to get back in the Cage by misbehaving, you
will
be expelled. I’ll explain that to your father, and he’ll be fine with it, I’m certain.”

I stared speechlessly at the wingnut on his desk. It shined bright without meaning, and my thoughts spun, tractionless.

Hold myself hostage? Was that even possible?

Brodsky opened the door for me. “Ms. Watermark,” he said.

June rose from her chair. We brushed wrists as we passed, and she whispered in my ear: “The Israelites live!” Then she looked at Eliyahu and he turned up his thumbs, and only then did I realize June had spoken in Hebrew.

Smiling, Eliyahu said: “Nice girl, this redhead, who tells you you’re smart and handsome in the language of the patriarchs.”

He was sitting at the desk nearest Pinge’s. While Pinge wrote my hallpass, he took off his hat and flipped it upside down. Two rolls of pennies were hidden in the sweatband. Affixed to the crown by tape was his weapon.

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“He’s a pretty good buddy, this guy,” said Pinker. “He’s no shmeckel.”

SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING

SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING SCAFFOLDING

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

F F F

F F F

O O

O O

O O

O O

T

T

T

T

I was glad. There was no way around it. There’d be no more tapelines. No more Face Forward rule. No more blindsiding wings extending from the walls of carrels. No more carrels. I could make out with June at recess. We could trade notes in classrooms where only one robot presided. Steal kisses. Make faces at each other across aisles between desks.

Wasn’t I glad? Was there no way around it? Why was I looking for some way around it?

Why
should
I care what Botha intended? Why should I care if he got to save face? If he behaved in a way that was to my benefit, what did it matter if it was also to his? Wasn’t that the ideal, anyway?

Wasn’t it better to make allies of your enemies than it was to defeat them? Maybe
allies
was overstating the case, but even still: wasn’t it better to achieve a steady détente with your enemies than it was 1223

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for the two of you to suffer? And maybe
détente
was overstating it, too, steady or no—but a ceasefire? Not so much a de-escalation of hostility, but an end to
hostilities
? No more hostile acts? That was
under
stating it, actually,
ceasefire
. This was better than a ceasefire.

At least a little. It was more secure. The lines we’d have to cross to bring new hostilities weren’t abstract—they were walls. The same walls inside of which we’d been trapped with one another for ten weeks. Now they’d be between us, physical blockages. I’d rarely see him, if ever. The Cage, after all, was a cage.

It is true that my exile would leave the Side of Damage lead-erless, at least til someone else stepped up; and true that Botha would almost certainly regain the ground he lost on Thursday, ground now occupied by my friends. That was the suck of it, but this was the thing: what could I do about it? That was the thing.

What could I do about it? Brodsky wasn’t bluffing. I would not be allowed back into the Cage. It wasn’t up to me. It was either expulsion or June, and expulsion would be good for none of us.

So why did I want to resist it, this gladness? Why, in Main Hall, was I dragging my feet as if beaten? Was I faking it? For whose benefit? For my own benefit? Was I playing a role, like Brodsky’d implied? Can you fake yourself out? I
did
feel fakey, but I did not believe you could fake yourself out. I’d never believed anyone could fake himself out. You could be misinformed, you could fail to see the truth, but I didn’t see how it was possible, logically, to fake yourself out, especially not while suspecting yourself of doing so…

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My thoughts kept spinning, and I wasn’t solving anything, only getting H. I needed to do something, or maybe to prove something—something concrete and simple, something effective. I needed something to focus on, something to focus me; I needed to take aim at something and nail it. The clock in the gym.