The Instructions (147 page)

“None of this is solving your problems,” Brodsky said.

I have no intention of killing you, I said. I’m not planning to do you any more harm. I’ve brought you to the Cage to keep you out of harm’s way. No one who’d hurt you has keys to this Cage. Understand me, though: If one of you somehow does get mobile enough and pulls that alarm on the wall—and I don’t see why you would, since you looked outside when we passed the front entrance, saw that the cops have already arrived, and you’ll be happy to share that information with the idiots in the bathroom—if, though, for some reason you pull the alarm anyway, it will give me a headache, and we
will
kill Boystar.
I’ll
kill Boystar, then I’ll kill BryGuy. Right, BryGuy? I said.

While I was speaking to Brodsky, the Five and the Ashley had gotten there with Maholtz.

“Please, Mr. Brondsky,” Maholtz said.

“Show some mercy,” said Brodsky. “You’re better than this.”

You guys get his phone? I said to the Five.

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“Eliyahu’s got it,” The Levinson said. “We got something else, too,” Glassman said. “Show him, Mr. Goldblum,” Pinker said.

And chinning air at Shpritzy, Mr. Goldblum told me, “The lov-erboy’s got it.”

Shpritzy had his hands in the Ashley’s back pockets. He took one out, reached into his own back pocket, and produced a mint-tin. I opened it up. It was jammed with pills. One kind was small footballs, orange-flavor-Pez-colored; another was generic Adderall caplets; the third kind was horsey and white with a split.

What are these pills? I said to Maholtz. He could barely stand up. His knees kept touching.

“Which pillns?” he said.

All of them, I said.

“The white one’s a paindkiller—hydrocodone. The caplets, Adderall, are speend. The footballs’re Xanax. You take those for paningc.”

He wasn’t lying about the Adderall.

How strong is the first one?

“Four’ll knock you out.”

Knock who out?

“Anyone,” he said.

There were twenty in the tin.

How many you want? I said to Mr. Brodsky.

“Three,” he said.

Atop Botha’s blotter, next to a coffee-mug—koalas playing tennis, Australian flag background—a bottle of water was sitting 1396

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unopened. I brought it to Brodsky and, one at a time, I fed him the pills. The third time, I spilled a little water on his shirt.

Sorry, I said.

“It’s okay,” Brodsky said.

We left the Cage with Maholtz and locked it down.

How about one? I asked Maholtz in C-Hall.

“How about one what?”

Pinker socked his shoulder.

Hydrocodone, I said.

“One’s pretty strong.”

“
How
strong?” said The Levinson.

“It’ll make you feeln happier.”

What about pain?

“It depends on the pain.”

Shpritzy smashed him on the cheek.

“What?” he whined. “What do you want to know?”

Look at Benji’s hand.

Maholtz looked. All of us looked. The hand was so swollen, the pinky- and the ringfinger-knucks were lineless.

“Stop looking,” Benji told us.

“Take four,” Maholtz said.

Four’ll knock him out, I said.

Glassman hit him.

“You’re right! It will! What can I tell you? It’s not my faulnt!”

Pinker socked him again.

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“Maybe take the Xanax? It makes you not care much. Your pain seems dindstant; you don’t really mind it; take one for ‘a feeling of warmth and well-being’; the pain’s still there though… If he can stand
some
pain, and doesn’t want to be too happy, I’d take two hydrocodone instead.”

If he passes out...

“I understand,” said Maholtz.

It’ll hurt a lot before you die.

“I know,” he said. “It hurts a lot now.”

You want some of these drugs?

“Please,” he said.

No, I said.

I held the open tin out to Benji.

“Maybe later,” Benji said. “I’m too dry to swallow.”

“You can chew them,” said Maholtz. “Or crush ’em and snornt

’em would be evend better. Either way’ll taste bintter, but they’ll work a lot faster, hit a lot harnder.”

“So helpful all of a sudden.”

I told a soldier called Feld to fish a chair from the pool and bring it to Cody at the Side Entrance.

Feld said, “Thank you for the mission, Rabbi.”

June bit my shoulder to keep herself from giggling.

You’re welcome, I said.

Feld wanted high fives. We gave him high-fives. He ran to the pool. We continued up C-Hall.

Maholtz asked me, “Why do you hate me?”

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I said, Everyone hates you.

“I know,” he said. “I know that,” he said, “but they hate me cause I scarend them or had what they wanted. You weren’t ever scarend of me. You never wanted what I had. Except for the sap. And then you took it, and now I don’t have it, so why do you hate me?”

Maybe it’s your accent.

“I’m from Pinttsburgh,” he said.

Maybe you shouldn’t be.

“I can’t help where I’m from.”

We turned at Main Hall. Feld was talking to Forrest Kenilworth and Cody. The chair sat dripping in front of the door.

So maybe it’s your face. The way you look at girls like you’re scheming to corner them.

“I was borng this way, though. I can’t help how my face loonks.”

So maybe it’s all the banced things that you say.

“They just come out of me. I’m hated, I feel it. I say those things without thinking, from hurnt. I can’t help that either. It’s not my faulnt.”

I guess, then, I hate you for being so helpless.

The Five tied him to the chair with his belt and his laces.

“What now?” said The Levinson.

Head back to the gym, I said. Stick by Eliyahu.

The Five took off with the Ashley.

“Should we follow them?” Feld said.

No, I told him. I’ve got more work for you.

“Yes!” Feld said. “You hear that, guys?” he asked the other 1399

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nine Israelites who’d helped carry Brodsky. “There’s more work to do!”

“Calm down,” Benji told him.

“Sorry,” Feld said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Benji said. “I’m just saying: stay stealth.”

“Stealth,” Feld said.

“Stealth,” June whispered.

“Stealth,” whispered Feld.

Maholtz twisted in his chair to see me. “Goo-ree-ing,” he said. “I’m the same as you, Goo-ree-ing. I’ve acted real bandly, I know I’ve acted bandly, but I’m the same as you. We’re all the same as eanch other. Hating me’s the same as hating yourself.

Look in my eyends.”

I looked in his eyes. In his eyes I saw irises, pupils, red whites.

You’re an object, I told him. We determine your purpose.

“I’m a persond,” he said.

You’re part of a weapon.

Understand what we’re doing? I said to Forrest.

“Cops come we hurt him, call you on the celly. He’s our side-entrance Boystar.”

Right, I said. I’m leaving three more of these guys here for presence.

I told Feld he should stay and picked two more soldiers.

Listen to Forrest, I told them. He’s in charge of you. Ben-Wa by the front door’s in charge of all of you.

“We can’t watch TV?” “We want to watch TV.”

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“TV-shmeevee!” Feld shout-whispered. “This job’s important.”

I’ll rotate you back to the gym soon, I said, but we need to be more visible or the cops might get ballsy, so don’t leave this post til I send three more soldiers.

“Just two,” Feld told me. “I’m here for the long-haul. I’m here to do a job.”

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RICK STEVENS: This just in from our Milwaukee bureau: Iris Fine, the grandmother of a boy in Kenosha who used to go to school with Maccabee, claims to have discovered an email that was sent last night to her grandson Sandford in which Maccabee allegedly invites his former schoolmates to come to Aptakisic Junior High School to perform some kind of unspecified religious ritual. We’re currently working on acquiring a copy of that email from Ms. Fine. Right now, we have her on the line from Kenosha. Ms. Fine, this must be trying for you.

FINE: You don’t know the half, Mr. Stevens. Sandy is a good boy, and he’s been through so much, and done some not so nice things since his parents were divorced, but he always loved his bubbie, which is to say me, and since he’s moved in here we haven’t had an incident, not even one, and then I see your program, and you talk about this Maccabee with the self-hating father who’s apparently too busy making the world safe for antisemites to teach his son not to murder Gym teachers and torture young singers, and I get a sinking feeling that Sandy is involved, 1401

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for when Sandy lived in Chicago he used to talk of this Maccabee with so much affection, with the affection of a son for his father he spoke of him, and I call up his school and they condescend to so-called remind me, old lady I am, that I called my grandson in sick just two hours earlier. I did no such thing, Mr. Stevens. No such thing. And now? Where is he? On his way to this suburb by train is my guess. In a different
state
. Likely already he’s gotten off the train and is walking alone through suburban Chicago, and it has been hailing, I see, and by the parkas of the policeman, I can tell it’s very cold there, and here in Kenosha it’s not so bad, an otherwise pleasant autumn morning, and Sandy he left home in a hooded fleece sweatshirt, and his parka is hanging on the coat-tree by the door. My grandson should get pneumonia for this? And you, Mr. Stevens, should question my integrity? I heard what you said. I
claim
this about
alleged
that. I’d like to speak to your manager, Mr. Stevens.

I
told
him I couldn’t find my glasses.

STEVENS: Your glasses, Ms. Fine?

FINE: Do not take that tone with me unless you want I hang up and call ABC News instead, and forward
them
the email when I find my glasses. Where did I put them? When I read the email, I was wearing them… Then. Then I arose, verklempt, from my chair…

I paced around the kitchen… I called the police and was put on hold… I had a butterscotch from the cupboard—

STEVENS: Did you leave them in the cupboard?

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FINE: You think I haven’t checked the cupboard? Wait! Here they are.

STEVENS: You found them? Where?

FINE: I’d rather not say. What I would like to say is what I called to say to my Sandy: Sandy, if you’re watching, and I sincerely hope you are because that would mean that you’re somewhere inside and warm where you should stay and call us from and we’ll send your uncle to pick you up and feed you and bring you back here, you’re a good boy, a nice boy, a boy who loves his bubbie, and this Gurion Maccabee is bad, Sandy. He’s troubled, I’m sure, I’m sure he’s had his share of troubles, but he’s murdering people, and maybe to you this seems like Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers, but if you behave like he does, you will be considered a terrorist. You should have heard the tone the policeman used when I called to help him. Like
we
were the criminals. That’s how bad this is. I will love you either way because that is how strong my love is for you, Sandy, but I will be very, very disappointed and even ashamed if you become a terrorist. It’s not nice at all. It’s just not nice.

STEVENS: Any chance you’d be willing to forward us that email now, Ms. Fine?

FINE: Did you broadcast what I said? My message to Sandy?

STEVENS: Yes, Ms. Fine.

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FINE: I’ve just put the little arrow on the the SEND button and I clicked.

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So far so good: both entrances covered; Benji at my side, soon to go to the nurse’s; June at my side, forever in love with me; seven Israelites behind us because I was their leader; a less-outnumbered Side of Damage in the gym; scholars presumably approaching the school. What else needed doing? Those seven Israelites were standing there, about to start playing slapslap.

I could send them back to the gym to watch TV and potentially cause the Side to feel smaller, or, better yet, I could beef up security.

I sent two of the seven to bolster Ben-Wa’s crew, and the last five I took to the library. The library’s east wall had a giant picture window, highly visible to the cops and the media outside. It was just the right spot to display another hostage—a fake one this time. Even if the cops got desperate enough to convince themselves that they could lightning-strike Forrest’s or Ben-Wa’s crew before Maholtz or Boystar could be done deadly harm, this third displayed hostage—too far from either entrance to be gotten to quickly—would keep them in check.

I halted our march just outside of the library, and I said to the smallest, most nervous-looking soldier, who said his name was Fox, though (he told me as quickly as he possibly could) he 1404

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spelled it Focks when he signed his poems, which were “poems about the difference between language and noise, which all poems are, just not so overtly, not that I’m an expert, I’m really an amateur, but that’s my project, which I can only hope is better than me, something to grow into, something to master before I die, I hope”: You’re the prisoner, Fox. They’ll bring you in with your hands behind your back and sit you in a chair in front of the big window. Keep your hands behind you the entire time, and look as scared as you possibly can.

“What if I itch?”

Tell the others in a crying voice, as if you’re in pain, and they’ll pretend to rough you up, but really they’ll scratch you wherever you itch.