The Instructions (97 page)

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

of recess, so everyone would see, so everyone would remember, so everyone would remind you what you are even when you forgot.

You mighta learned something then. If I was in junior high school again, I swear to God, I’d save the world. And if I was in
this
junior high school? I’d start with you.”

Midway through Floyd’s monologue, the switch had come, and he’d lowered his voice accordingly. Seventh- and eighth-graders were shoving past us now, on their way from recess to the cafeteria while fifth- and sixth-graders headed in the opposite direction.

I was thinking: You
can’t
punish men for their potential wrong-doings, or else You would. You cannot fix Your own damage.

I thought: It is good I am not You.

“I’d start with you,” Floyd repeated, louder than the first time, in case I hadn’t heard him over the crowd noise. “You hear that, fuck?” he said. “I’d start with you.”

I said, You’re the one who’s like Jesus, Floyd.

“You don’t know anything about Jesus,” Floyd said.

I said, I know that by the time he’d gotten himself all covered in spit, he wasn’t able to do much more than talk.

Floyd shook like the Electric Chair, aching to hit me. Aching.

I held out my pass, said, This is my sheep’s blood.

I passed.

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Stealth in a crowded hallway works the opposite of stealth in an 908

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empty one. You have to walk forward with your shoulders high and stare at the heads of the people you’re walking toward. They will sense you coming, even if their backs are turned to you, and they’ll move out of your way without ever looking at your face to see who you are. All you have to do is see them first. People feel when they’re being seen and it moves them.

I was not being stealth on the way to Nurse Clyde’s, and got bumped a few times. I was looking all around me, trying to spot June. The looking strained my neck and I got vertigo watching the faces turn.

At the junction with Main Hall, I stopped to close my eyes and breathe out the dizzy. When I opened them again, I saw Josh Berman’s sidekick—the kid from the Office, what was his name?

Goldman, Cory Goldman—getting monkey-in-the-middled by a pair of icthiied Shovers. Bare-necked between them, turning 180s in rapid succession, Cory Goldman shouted, “Give it! Hey hey!

Give it back!” as they arced his balled scarf back and forth above his head. I considered stepping in—I
really
didn’t like him, but yes, he was an Israelite, but—but before I could decide one way or the other, Berman himself emerged from somewhere behind me and barreled at the Shover who had Cory’s scarf. That Shover saw him coming, and before he got floored, tossed the scarf to the other one, who caught it and ran in the direction of B-Hall, Cory on his tail now, and Berman on Cory’s. Shovers they ran past joined in the chase—some of them Israelites, others of them not—and they grabbed at each other, attempting to capture each 909

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other’s scarves, and the Shover Berman’d floored got back on his feet, revolved to face B-Hall, as if to join the chase himself, but encountered a bandkid and stripped him of his flute. He twetched on the flute, told the bandkid, “Get gummed,” then touched the flute’s goozed part to the bandkid’s cheek, and the bandkid cried.

That was when someone yanked my hood and I spun. I grabbed his face by the chin. It was Isadore Momo.

“Aye-yay ah-yah!” he shouted. “I am Momo I am Momo!”

I said, Sorry, Momo, you surprised me.

Beside Momo, an even squattier kid, a kid so chubby his forehead had dimples, seemed to be floating above his own shoes.

“He is my friend Beauregard Pate,” Momo explained.

“Beauregard Pate is a man of ideas, and when I tell to him the story of our Gym class and the nipple, he is wanting for to tell you something. Tell to Gurion what you tell to me, Beauregard.”

“You are nice!” shouted Beauregard Pate, nearly breathless.

“That is first of all!” The Shover who’d performed the goozeflute on the bandkid popped out of the C-Hall crowd-stream then to accidentally-on-purpose elbow Beauregard sideways. I ankleswept him hard, he hit the floor one-kneed, crawled a couple yards fast, then got up and ran. Beauregard seemed to have noticed none of it. “You were nice to Isadore!” Beauregard continued. “And you have all my best wishes! So secondly, I would like to say, God bless you, Gurion Maccabee! All my best wishes are with you!”

Momo slapped Beauregard on the shoulder and Beauregard high-fived him. They tilted their heads in opposite directions and 910

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made meaningful-looking eye-contact, as if cuing one another to patter for the benefit of their Broadway audience, like, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Isadore?” “I’m thinking we should turn up the music, Beauregard.” “You mean turn up the music and do a little dancing, Isadore?” “I mean turn up the music and do
a lot
of dancing
, Beauregard!”

The sight of the joy of the chubby always puzzled me. When the chubby had joy, I knew in my heart they were forgetting their chubbiness, but to my eyes it always looked like a celebration of their chubbiness, and I’d feel like an invader and have to go away.

I tried to go away, but Beauregard said, “Wait! I didn’t say what I wanted to say! Please wait?”

I waited. Where was June? The crowd kept pushing by.

Beauregard swallowed hard. He said, “We want to ask you if you like gangs commited to social reform. We want to start a gang called Big Ending to end our oppression. We believe that girls would like us more and teachers would stop making faces.”

Why do you believe that? I said.

“Because we believe that girls do not find oppression to be a sexy phenomenon, and we also believe that teachers don’t know they’re making faces when they’re making faces, but that the faces they make encourage our oppressors to oppress us, and therefore we must raise teacher awareness. Will you be the leader of Big Ending?”

I said, Some girls think oppressors are sexy, and some other girls think the oppressed are sexy. I’d never say you shouldn’t 911

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start a gang, but you can find a nice girl without starting a gang.

And teachers know exactly what they’re doing when they’re making faces at you. Because they’re tall and you’re nice, you think they’re all like your mom who loves you and tries to understand, and some of them are like your mom that way, but most of them aren’t. Most of them think of you the way everyone else thinks of you, because the way everyone else thinks of you is always the easiest way to think of you, so if you want them to stop making faces, you have to stop being oppressed. If you stop being oppressed, then everyone else will think of you different, and so will the teachers who make faces. And they’ll stop making faces.

“So it’s our fault?” said Beauregard. “It’s our fault the teachers make faces?”

No, I said. It’s your enemies’ fault. Stop beating yourself up.

It’s your fault that you beat yourself up instead of treating the teachers who make faces like enemies, when that’s what they are.

Those teachers are your enemies.

“Will you to lead the Big Ending then?” said Isadore. “If we say the teachers are the enemies?”

I said, No way. I said, Not if you guys are in it.

“But you were so nice to Isadore, Gurion. I thought you were on our side,” Beauregard said.

I am on your side, I said. I said, That’s why I’d never lead Big Ending. The two of you were born to lead it—I’d only get in the way.

They blushed, the red climbing their faces like a juice-spill 912

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up mop-strands, and again I tried to go, and again Beauregard said, “Wait!”

And Isadore said, “Will you join us in the Big Ending?”

No, I said. I said, Sometimes I lead things, but I never join them. You have my blessing, though, and if you want Big Ending can be a special arm of the Side of Damage.

“What’s that?”

The thing I lead, I said.

“What is it, though?”

An army.

“What can Big Ending to do for your army?”

I don’t know yet, I said.

“We will do what you want us to do when the time comes.”

To my right, a single cracking sound rose above the crowd-noise in Main Hall. As the three of us revolved, there was another.

Maholtz was demonstrating the power of his sap to some seventh-grade girls. He was striking the cinderblock corner of the northern entrance to the cafeteria. “Look out, Jenndy. Stand bank,” he said. “Bank. Come on. Bank. Angshley,” he said, “get Jenndy outta the way, put her over by Jenndy, there. Good,” he said, “now I’m gonnda show you.” Another crack. “Seend?” he said. Another crack. “Seend that?” he said. “It’s just paint,” said an Ashley. “No, it’s wallnd. Don’t you dount me, now.” Crack.

“Seend?” said Maholtz. “That’s wallnd. Try and tell me thant’s not wallnd.” “It’s paint.” “I think it’s wall, Ashley.” “It’s not wall, Jenny. If it was wall, it would be a different color than the paint.”

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“Okay okay,” said Maholtz, “here.” Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

“And?” he said. “Fine,” said the Ashley, “that’s wall. But before it was paint.” “I can bring down wallngs, girlies, is the poind. You want Maholntz to bring downd the wallnds for you? Maholntz is bringing downd the wallnds for you.”

“I am dreaming very badly of a time to see the Bryguy Maholtz writhing with frantic in the throes of pain and anguish,” said Momo.

“Making that dream come true,” said Beauregard Pate, “will be one of Big Ending’s primary objectives.”

I like that, I said.

And again they blushed.

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Four sleepy-looking fifth-graders were sitting in the corner of Nurse Clyde’s office, leaning on each other and whispering. I’d never seen them before. They were short, narrow guys and they all had cartoonface: eyes and lips as large as men’s, jaws and noses and chins that were boy-size. You’d expect them to turn blue when cold, green when sick. If you frightened them and their teeth chattered, it would not be surprising. Or if puffs of steam whistled from their earholes when you slapped them.

And I did want to slap them a little, mostly for that reason, but also because each one of them wore a Chicago Cubs batting glove on his right hand, and baseball was suck, and so was cute-914

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ness, and here was a combination. Except then I thought how one of their dads probably took them to a baseball game and bought them the gloves so they would always remember, and I felt bad for wanting to slap them at all. They were probably just nice.

When I came through the door, they stopped talking but pretended not to see me.

Hello, I said.

They huddled closer and whispered quieter. Then one of them asked, “Who are you? Are you Ben-Wa Wolf? Are you from the Cage?”

I couldn’t tell which one said it. It could have been any of them.

I said, “Where’s Nurse Clyde?”

Two of them said, “With Shpritzy,” a third one pointed at the Quiet Room door, and the fourth said, “Nurse Clyde said anyone who comes in should knock.” Their voices were identical. The office smelled like mouthwash.

I didn’t know who Shpritzy was, but the four guys, on closer inspection, seemed to be more sad than sleepy, so instead of knocking on the Quiet Room door, I sat down next to them, but with a chair between us, and instead of asking who Shpritzy was, I made a joke.

What’s shpritzy? I said.

“‘What’s Shpritzy’!” one of them said. “This boy just said,

‘What’s Shpritzy’!”

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Two of the other ones slapped their knees. One of them clapped his hands together.

“Shpritzy’s not a what! He’s our best buddy,” one of them said. “He’s the best guy in the world besides these other guys here, who are also the best,” said another one of them. Then they all gave each other affirmative nods.

That was not a good enough reason to slap them.

I said, Is Shpritzy sick?

“He’s in pain.” “He got choked.” “And he got headlocked.”

“He got thrown on the floor a lot.”

What about you guys? I said.

“We got full-nelsoned.” “And tackled.” “And held by the waist.” “Some of us were half-nelsoned for a little while.” “Some of us got our shoulders banged against the sinks during the half-nelsons.” “And some of us got knocked on the wall between the urinals while attempting to lunge at Shpritzy’s attacker.”

It’s good you tried to protect your friend, I said.

“We’re losers.” “We’re not losers, but we don’t know how to fight so we suck.” “We don’t suck, but we suck at fighting, so we’re sissies.” “We’re not sissies, but we’re small guys right now, and when we try to act brave we get held back and Shpritzy gets hurt.” “Ah, Shpritzy!” “Shpritzy’s such a good guy.” “We’re all good guys.” “We are. There’s nothing wrong with us.” “It’s the messed-up people who always want to fight that make us feel like there’s something wrong with us when really we’re fine and it’s these violent people that aren’t fine.” “Even they’re fine. It’s just that they 916

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don’t have great buddies like we do. Because they’re messed up.”

“And their parents are alcoholics and divorced and very abusive.

They’re messed up because they
got
messed up.” “It’s true. Those other guys are really okay, except that they think violence is okay, which isn’t okay because violence is wrong. But they only think it’s okay and not wrong because they got messed up.”

I said, You’re wrong. I said, Are you messed up?

“No way.” “We’re good.” “We’re nice to people.” “We don’t do violence.”

I said, But violence did you. I said, Violence did you just now, so you should be messed up.