The Instructions (160 page)

And because what we saw and what we didn’t see—because what they showed us and what they wouldn’t show us—seemed to indicate, when added together, that the fifty missing cops were west of the school and/or in choppers high above the roof, poising to raid us.

And because a willingness to raid us entailed, by necessity, a willingness to risk the lives of prisoners and a willingness to use deadly force against us.

And because everything has to come to an end, and shy of immediate surrender on our part, a raid was the end that the cops preferred most—even if they didn’t quite know it yet—because no news crews were inside of the school, and the story of what 1519

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happened inside of the school would belong to the cops once they raided the school.

And because there were news crews outside of the school.

And because the other armies, through sleet and through hail, had traveled all morning because I had asked them to.

And because the second army was still no less than a mile away from us, and the third army—Feingold’s—further than that.

And because it is better, all else being equal, to be a moving target than it is to be a static one.

All told, there were, depending how you parse them, between nine and twelve reasons I agreed to the plan Emmanuel described to me, none of which included “to perform a miracle,” none of which included “to pray for a miracle,” none of which included

“to witness a miracle,” none of which had fuck-all to do with any miracle.

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OFFICERS:

SHORTLY WE WILL EXIT THE SCHOOL,

HEADING EAST. WE WILL LEAVE BEHIND SOME

PRISONERS AND TAKE OTHERS WITH US. SOME

OF THOSE WE TAKE WILL BE HELD ON OUR

BORDERS AND RELEASED IN WAVES AS WE GO,

FROM ALL SIDES OF US. OTHERS I WILL KEEP

FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER. THESE OTHERS

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WILL MARCH WITH OUR COLUMNS, UNBOUND,

SPREAD EVENLY AMONG US. YOU WILL NOT BE

ABLE TO TELL THEM FROM THE REST OF US.

NOR WILL YOU COME WITHIN THIRTY

YARDS OF US. NOR WILL THE DIN THAT YOUR

CHOPPERS EMIT SOUND IN OUR EARS ANY

LOUDER THAN WHISPERS.

ONCE WE HAVE MET UP WITH ALL OF OUR

BROTHERS AND I HAVE SAID WHAT IT IS THAT

I HAVE TO SAY TO THEM, I WILL FREE THE RE-

MAINING PRISONERS AND SURRENDER.

NO CALLS WILL BE TAKEN, AND NO COUN-

TER-OFFERS. THIS NOTE IS A BINDING CON-

TRACT. FREEING THE MAMZER TO WHOM IT

IS AFFIXED IS A GOODWILL GESTURE IN YOUR

DIRECTION. SINCE YOU LACK THE OPPORTU-

NITY TO RESPOND IN KIND, WE HAVE DONE

SO OURSELVES, ON YOUR BEHALF: COPIES

OF THIS NOTE HAVE BEEN EMAILED TO THE

PRESS, ENSURING THAT IF YOU DECIDE TO

DOUBLE-DEAL US, THE WORLD WILL KNOW

ON WHOM TO PLACE THE BLAME FOR ALL EN-

SUING TRAGEDIES.

YOUR SIGNATURE IS IMPLICIT.

HERE IS MINE:

Emmanuel gave me the note and I signed it. Brooklyn went 1521

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to scan it in the library with Shai, after which Shai took it up to the front, where Samuel had gone with the insurgent, Cory. While Brooklyn sent the scan from my gmail account, Shai pinned the note onto Boystar’s shirt, and Boystar was launched out the door by the guards. Four cops came forward from amidst the barricade and carried Boystar east to safety. Cory was tied to the vacated chair.

We waited for news of the note to break.

I was sitting next to Benji. June held my hand. Jelly wouldn’t look at me, let alone speak. I told her if she wanted I’d change my mind back again, dust all their digits, even the broken ones.

I told her she could do it herself if she wanted. She pulled on her hair. She tore at her shirt. I handed her the sap and she flung it blindly. The coat that covered Benji got jarred, and slipped.

I tried to fix it. Jelly said, “Don’t,” and slapped at the air. June led me away.

The scholars, by then, had imprisoned the insurgents inside the boys locker-room, and posted replacements for the guards at the entrances. The ones without duties leaned on the walls and spoke in hushed tones, throwing me and June glances at regular intervals, chinning the air whenever our eyes met. The Side and Big Ending were gathered on the bleachers. Shpritzy approached as we made our way over there.

“I’m scared,” said his Ashley, her arm around his waist.

“She’s scared,” he said. “We were thinking that maybe—”

“No,” said Emmanuel. He and Samuel had come up behind the two. “Don’t bother Gurion. We told you: No. We need her,”

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he said to me. “We’re short as it is. His friend Mr. Goldblum just talked to this Feingold who says they have yet to get off of the beach.”

“Can you take an ex-Shover instead?” Shpritzy said.

“What’s an ex-Shover?”

“The Jews with the scarves.”

“No,” said Emmanuel. “No real hostages. They might be resistant. It might cause a ruckus. This needs to go smoothly. We can’t invite fire.”

“She won’t get hurt,” said Samuel to Shpritzy. “You won’t get hurt,” he said to the Ashley. “We’ll make you Wave 1. You’ll be the first freed. Put out your wrists and let your boyfriend tie them.”

Shpritzy looked my way.

You’ll see her tomorrow, I said. She’ll be fine.

He bent to the floor and unlaced a shoe.

Solly came over, chinned air at Jelly. “She says she’s staying and she won’t leave the body.”

She’s staying then, June said. She won’t leave the body.

“She’s an Israelite, no?”

She’s staying, I said.

We went up the bleachers.

Vincie was tying Starla’s wrists with a cord while Leevon tied Main Man’s, Ben-Wa tied Ansul’s, the Flunky the Janitor’s, Salvador Dingle’s, Chunkstyle Boshka’s, Mangey Ronrico’s, Fulton Jerry’s, Forrest Christian’s, Jesse Stevie’s, Cody Beauregard’s, Chubnik 1 Momo’s, and Chubnik 2 3’s.

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Then Vincie tied Leevon’s, Ben-Wa the Flunky’s, Salvador Chunkstyle’s, Mangey Fulton’s, Forrest Jesse’s, and Cody Chubnik 1’s and 2’s the both.

And Vincie tied Salvador’s, Ben-Wa Forrest’s, and Mangey Cody’s.

And then Vincie tied Mangey’s and Ben-Wa’s the both.

And Vincie revolved and he gave me a cord.

“Not too tight.”

A choked sound escaped me.

“Fuck that,” said Vincie, leaning in close. “Don’t fuck us up.

We’re holding it down here. Main Main’s watching and Main Man’s fine. He says you’ll raise Benji right after you walk through the Michigan Valley, which I think is in Kansas. The nutmeg—

fuck it—God bless the Boystar. Just don’t unconfuse him. Don’t fuck us up. We don’t want to see it. We’re not Call-Me-Sandy. Get your eyes sleepy. Slacken the cramp. Good, that’s good. It works, I know. I don’t know why. It does though. It works. So remember who showed you and leave it at that, and that’s the goodbye, the big stupid cheezy fucken cornball goodbye, the what-Vincie-taught-me you’ve so long awaited, the time that you’ll fondly recall forever, when your this was still that, and your that was a something, and that something wasn’t jaded by X or Y, or clouded by A or B or C, and the difference between P and Q was still clear, and kenobi kenobi kenobi, okay? Now reach in my pocket. This part’s important. This part’s more important than keep your eyes sleepy. That doesn’t mean stop. Keep your eyes 1524

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sleepy while you reach in my pocket—not that one, the other one. That one. Good. That’s our friend’s lighter. He had a whole bunch so it’s only one of many and there’s nothing at all to get leaky and gooze about. Just some lighter. Keep your eyes sleepy.

It’s my lighter, now. Don’t fuck us up. It’s not even the one you burnt that fuck’s head with. It’s just one I took when our friend wasn’t looking. He’d never even used it. Don’t fuck us up. It still had the sticker on the back with the warning. It’s only a lighter.

Last week we sparred and he got me in a hold and I brought us to the ground and was still in the hold, but this lighter was peaking outside of his pocket. My hand was right there. Keep your eyes sleepy. My arm wouldn’t move, but my fingers were mine and I reached out my fingers and plucked out the lighter. I said I submitted, and as we got up, our friend started telling me what I’d done wrong, how I got in a position that forced me to submit, what I could’ve done different to avoid that position, all in that way-of-the-fucken-samurai voice, and I told him fuck off and showed him his lighter. I told him, ‘Fuck off, man, I got your fucken lighter,’ and he told me who cares, the lighter was mine, I could keep the fucken lighter, he had hundreds more lighters and lighters were free if you had baggy pockets and command of two hands, so stick the fucken lighter in my baggy fucken pocket and shut the fuck up and learn how to fight. ‘Whatever,’ I said, ‘I got your fucken lighter. You took your baggy pockets and commanded your hands and you know how to fight, but the lighter’s not yours, it’s mine,’ I told him. He winked to distract me, and 1525

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he shot out his freak-arm, snatched the fucken lighter straight out of my fist, then lit it one time so I could see that it worked, then he threw it in the street, and it fell in the sewer, so actually, I’m wrong, this lighter isn’t that one, it’s a whole nother lighter I stole from his bag when he went to take a piss, or another one I got from his coat when I borrowed it—doesn’t matter anyway.

That’s all I’m saying. The lighter’s a lighter that belonged to our friend, one of twenty or thirty I stole this year from the hundreds he took from the thousands on the counters of ten or so local minimarts. If I had another lighter instead of this lighter, we’d use the one I had, and nothing would be different, not even if our friend wasn’t dead it wouldn’t. We’d do the same thing we’re about to do. You’d reach in the hole in the lining of your jacket—we know about the hole, we just never risked it, you’re weird about that jacket, really fucken sentimental, and we worried we’d tear the hole bigger if we invaded—he’s here or he’s not, you’d still reach in the hole, just like you’re doing—right, that’s good—and you’d pull out the treasure you keep so well hidden—

just like that, exactly like that—and you’d do the next thing, the obvious thing—see, you’re already doing it—and pass me mine first, cause you like me the best and our time’s running out and here comes your—thanks, man—here comes your boy, with news of the news, and you’d tell him five minutes, tell him wait til we’re finished, til we burn past the letters—you heard what he said, kid, back the fuck off, I don’t know your name even, none of us do—Emmanuel Liebman, that’s a lot of fucken name, I’m 1526

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Vincie Portite and I’ve never even heard of you, none of us have, so go line your friends up and leave us alone til we burn past the letters—tell him, insist, yeah, just like that—no, Brooklyn, not you, you stick around here—and three at a time now, you’d light one for June and one for Starla and one for Leevon and pass them along, just like that, and two at a time you’d light one for Wolf, who’s decided in a rush of blood to the head to take up the habit, the best cure for crying, it always works—you cannot fucken sob while sucking on smoke, make sure to inhale, Wolf—and the other for Brooklyn, who’s that kind of kid now, he knows it or not—you are, now you know—and light one for you now and pass the pack down with our dead friend’s lighter for whoever I’ve forgotten, they can light up in pairs, one holding the box and the other takes out from it—takes
two
out, Flunky—and the first one lights them, passes down the goods to the next pair in line, and so on and so on and—don’t gank the lighter, Dingle, you bancer, I’ll cover your face in a brown paper bag and kill you six times, fucken wager on
that
—and now we’re all smoking in the Aptakisic bleachers in the middle of the schoolday, and now we can talk, let’s talk, can we talk? I’ll start us off. This is how I’ll start: It’s the middle of the schoolday. We’re smoking in the bleachers. To smoke in the bleachers in the middle of the schoolday—it’s fucken good. Anyone who says different isn’t really a human. Even Brodsky, the cops, even fucken Botha—they know in their fuckfaced hearts this is good. They wish they were us, smoking up here. They wish they were us and we don’t have to 1527

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wish. Now you. It’s your turn. Say something smart. No? Not yet? I’ll go again: Haven’t you always wanted to do this? It turns out I’ve always wanted to do this. This part’s fucken good, right?

This part is good. Now give us a blessing. I’m nearly past the letters. Don’t fuck me up here. Say something smart. Keep your fucken eyes sleepy, Gurion, and speak.”

The news broke the note and the barricade parted. Samuel assigned each hostage a number, one through seven, four to a wave, and Cory and Maholtz were locked in Nurse Clyde’s. We gathered in columns outside the front entrance. Hands tied before them, their 1528