The Instructions (30 page)

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I said, I want to be a scholar.

He said, “Think about the future. You act well at this Aptakisic and who knows? Maybe Ida Crown Academy lets you in for high school.” He squeezed my neck again. Then he went into his dining room to eat cake and I stayed by the glass door and watched the rabbit while I cried. Its haunches kept twitching.

I thought: This is not a crazy thing to cry about. And it turned out not to be. Aptakisic was twenty-five miles from our house, so I couldn’t have friends outside of school, and there was no other choice except Catholic school, with all its miniature false messiahs hanging from miniature torture instruments hanging from the walls, or boarding or military school, which my mom would never allow. And then I get there and Brodsky puts me in the Cage and calls me B.D.

It was hard to find the justice.

I thumb-drummed the teacher cluster’s fakewood surface, chewed cheekfuls of cheesepuffs, made a decision: I was never in love with Esther Salt to begin with. If we’d been in love, she wouldn’t have told me it was crazy to cry about the stuff I cried about. I decided that the only reason it ever seemed like I was in love with her was because I said it a few times. And when I said it, it was true, but when I stopped saying it, it stopped being true. When I stopped saying it, it made me a liar. It made it so I was lying those times when I said it. So maybe I was a liar, but I’d never been in love before June. So there was no danger of the smelly version affecting the good version: there never really was a 272

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smelly version—it was something else completely. The thought cheered me up a little, and I ate a couple bites of my sandwich, but then I thought: How do I know I’m in love with June?

I thought: If all it ever was with Esther was that I kept saying I was in love, then later on, if I ever stop saying it to June, I’ll just be a liar again.

So I wrote it down, because when something is written it has a better chance of being permanent. I wrote it down with a Darker on the brown paper bag.

I wrote:

I AM IN LOVE

Jelly saw. She said, “With Jenny Mangey? I knew it. You should be in love with me!”

I finished writing what I was writing:

WITH ELIZA JUNE WATERMARK
.

Jelly said, “That girl June? I know that girl! I had Art with her in fourth! She painted violent things!”

I looked at what I wrote and I saw there was a problem—No one who saw it would know who loved June. So I signed it and it looked like:

I AM IN LOVE WITH ELIZA JUNE WATERMARK.

TRULY,

GURION BEN-JUDAH MACCABEE

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But then the “truly” part made it sound like I doubted it. If I saw it, I would think: The person who wrote this is unsure of himself. I would think: Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee must have written “truly” because sometimes what he says isn’t true, which means he is a liar. And if he is a liar, I’d be a shvontz to believe him just because he says he’s telling the truth.

So I scratched out “truly” so that it looked like: I AM IN LOVE WITH ELIZA JUNE WATERMARK.

TRULY,

GURION BEN-JUDAH MACCABEE

Except now it looked like Gurion was even more unsure of himself.

I blacked out all of what I’d written entirely.

And Jelly said, “Thank God! I knew it wasn’t true.”

I flipped the bag-plate over. This is what I wrote: GURION BEN-JUDAH MACCABEE IS IN LOVE

WITH ELIZA JUNE WATERMARK

That was the most concise sentence I’d ever written, so I left it.

Jelly said, “But you can’t be, Gurion! She paints so many violent things! She painted a comicstrip one time of a pink monkey telling a man about the ass of another man who was fat and then the first man goes and cuts the ass of the fat one off and brings it to the monkey and the monkey pays him money and takes the ass of the fat man and puts it on a plate. A silver one.”

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I said, Did the monkey chew the ass?

“It was implied,” said Jelly.

How? I said.

She said, “The monkey had a bib on.”

That’s subtle and hilarious, I said.

“Hahalarious!” said Mookus.

Yes haha, I said.

“Yes haha!” Scott said. “The mastication of the ass is made possible by the people who brought you I-teeth. Let Us make man!

And in the image! The crown and the wisdom and the understanding. The judgment and the love, the beauty and the splen-dor. Let us not forget the victory. Let us not forget the kingdom and the foundation. The kingdom is the mouth! In the mouth, there are teeth! The foundation is the penis of Us!”

“Scott Mookus,” said Botha.

“He calls me ‘Scat Mucus’ and I scream to him, ‘Penis!’”

“Close up your idiot mouth,” Botha said. “Stop acting the moron.”

Benji Nakamook mumbled, “One day I’ll cut your tongue out and paste it to your shirt.”

“What was that?” said Botha.

Benji said, “I’d like to spray accelerant on your mustache and toss matches at your face.”

“Are you saying something to me?”

Benji half-rapped, “While you’re munchin’ at your luncheon, I’m plannin’ your assassination. Pling.” It was from “Zealots”

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by the Fugees.

Botha said, “You have to speak up, Nakamake.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” said Benji. “It’s lunchtime.”

Jelly said, “That girl’s so weird, Gurion.”

Benji said, “What girl?”

“And she used to go out with Ruth’s ex’s little brother,” Jelly said, ignoring Benji.

When? I said.

“Just last year,” Jelly said.

For how long?

“Who cares how long? His brother’s a dickbag, and he worships his brother, and he tried to go out with me because Ruth is my sister and he wanted to date a Rothstein like his dickbag brother, but this Rothstein wasn’t having it. I would
not
go out with him, not after I saw how his brother treated Ruth. And after I said ‘No, man, go away, you worship a dickbag,’ he went out with June. Do you want to know his name? Ask me his name.

I’ve been keeping you in suspense, but I’m ready to end it. Don’t you want to know the name of June’s ex?”

Maybe, I said. I don’t think I do, I said.

“Well that’s dumb cause you should, cause his name’s Josh Berman.”

I thought: Berman, Josh Berman. I know that name; how? At least he’s an Israelite.

That latter thought looks a lot more racist than it was. The wording is accurate, but At least he’s an Israelite = At least I know 276

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for sure now that June’s not one of those Israelites I read about who doesn’t want to date other Israelites.

And then I remembered how I knew his name: I’d read it in the
Aptakisic News
. I’d read it in an article written by Ruth about the Main Hall Shovers.

“Josh Berman,” said Jelly. “Josh Berman!” said Jelly. “Not just a Main Hall Shover,” said Jelly. “And not just a Jewish Shover,”

said Jelly. “But the alphadog king of all Jewish Shovers,” said Jelly.

“How’s
that
?” said Jelly. “What do you think of
that
?” said Jelly.

What I thought was that I didn’t want to think of that at all. I didn’t know any Israelite Main Hall Shovers; I only knew
about
them—I only knew what Ruth wrote about them in the
Aptakisic News—
and I knew I didn’t like
them—I disliked all Main Hall Shovers on principle, and as for the Israelite ones,
hate
was probably too strong a word to describe what I…

I didn’t want to think about it, there at lunch. I didn’t want to think about Shovers or any of it.

Did she kiss him? I said.

Jelly said, “Tch.”

I wanted, least of all, to think about them kissing, but I saw that I had to.

Did she? I said.

“Probably,” said Jelly. “I can’t say for sure.”

Then don’t say probably.

“They went out for
a while
. Maybe three
weeks
. That’s why I said it.”

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But you don’t know for sure, I said.

“No,” Jelly said, “but I don’t know for sure that she didn’t kiss him either.”

I thought: If June kissed him, this person Josh Berman, it was only a kiss. Then they broke up. She broke up with him. She broke up with Josh Berman, if they kissed or they didn’t kiss, and that meant she wasn’t in love with him.

But then I thought: You don’t know what a kiss is; you’ve never kissed anyone!
Only a kiss
? That’s a line from the movies! A lyric from a showtune! You don’t know what it is any better than you know who broke up with who, who June loves or doesn’t, who June loved or didn’t.

I must have looked bad, because Jelly backed off.

“All I’m saying’s she’s weird,” Jelly said. “She’s just weird.”

“Who’s weird?” said Benji.

Jelly said, “Pay attention.”

“But I heard everything you said,” Benji told Jelly. “I was just being polite because I wanted to be in the conversation, but you weren’t talking to me and it sounded like your conversation was private, and I didn’t want you to feel like I’d invaded your privacy, so when you said some girl was weird, I asked you which girl, so that you wouldn’t think someone had been eavesdropping on you. I’m highly sensitive when it comes to other people’s privacy. You should know that about me, Jelly. So I’m asking you, ‘What girl?’ even though I know. I’m asking it as a favor
to you
. So you won’t feel invaded. So I won’t feel invasive.

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So we won’t feel awkward. So we both feel the same. And now we do feel the same—that much is true. But the same in this case is no good kind of same. We both feel uncomfortable. You criticized my gesture and made us feel uncomfortable, and now we have to work together to repair the situation. And so, to that end, I’m asking again, ‘
What
girl is so weird?’ And you should be polite enough to tell me, Jelly.”

Jelly’s lips puckered to beat back a smile her flaring nostrils betrayed the strength of. “June Watermark,” she said. “She draws violent things, she went out with Josh Berman, and whoever’s in love with her should be in love with me instead.”

“Who cares what June draws?” said Nakamook. “I don’t care what she draws. I mean, say that for instance I was in love with you, Jelly, and Mangey started saying I shouldn’t be because you bite people. It wouldn’t matter to me, because being in love with you would make it so I didn’t care that you bite people because you’re really hot and you’re very funny, let’s say, and then maybe I’d enjoy it when you bit me because I loved you so much that I couldn’t even tell you about it directly since if I did that and you said you didn’t love me back I would have to kill us both or something.”

Jelly said, “Are you in love with me, Benji?”

Benji wasn’t even looking at her, though. He was squinting at me, like he was measuring something.

A kiss, I kept thinking. A kiss is just a kiss. What is a kiss?

“And who cares if she went out with Berman?” said Benji.

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“That kid is a dentist and he never laid a hand on her.”

How do you know? I said.

“He couldn’t kiss a baby asleep in a cradle. He couldn’t kiss his grandma. He couldn’t kiss a lapdog. He’s never kissed anyone,” Benji said.

How do you know? I said.

“I can tell,” Benji said, “if someone’s never been kissed.”

How can you tell?

“It’s a talent,” said Benji.

You can’t tell, I said.

“You’ve never been kissed. Jelly’s never been kissed. Leevon’s been kissed. Main Man hasn’t.”

“You’re guessing,” Jelly said.

“Am I wrong?” Benji said.

“He’s just guessing,” she said.

He at least wasn’t wrong about me or Jelly.

Benji said, “Listen. Gurion, listen—”

Main Man interrupted: “Listen to
me.
You’ve fallen in love with the girl of all girls, the queen of queens, the one who will mother the most righteous sons of you! Hers is the all-American ponytail of all American ponytails. I am walking on air for you. I am singing in the rain.”

“Benji,” said Jelly.

“Gu Ri On,” said Nakamook.

“And what does love feel like?” Scott went on. “Does it feel like the sound of cantaloupes smashing beneath fleshy hammers?

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It does indeed feel like melons exploding! Have you warmed her by the balustrade near ornamented parapets? Embraced her in the sandstorms of the Negev and the Sinai? Wherefore art thou, Gurion Maccabee? Will you leave us all behind for this lovely tomato? Will you be a shaved Samson in the nosebleed seats, watching from the bleachers while all of our keesters get handed to us red by basketball and pervs and robots and tall people, your ass’s jawbone long-gone and unswinging? Must she dull your ferocity? Can’t you be a lover and a fighter, Gurion? Can’t you be righteous and also be awesome? Can’t you even remember the justice love needs for protection? Please?” Mookus said.

I said, I’ll still bring the justice.

“So said Jesus,” said Scott Mookus.

Nakamook said, “Jesus never fell in love, Scott—but Gurion, listen, I learned a new action last night.”

Jelly said, “Please don’t do eyelid flips. Don’t ruin…
lunch
.”

Nakamook said, “It’s not eyelid flips. This kills eyelid flips.

I’ll never do eyelid flips again,” he said. “Watch.”

Then Nakamook raised his shoulder-tops up to the top of his neck and his head started shaking in this tight, twitchy way, like a wire getting boinged. A couple seconds later, the breath of his nose was hissing and his face was completely red and his eyes were wet. He said, “You see? Do you see?” and when he said it, the voice was coming out of the top of his throat, Grover-style, like it was grinding against itself.