The Instructions by Adam Levin
BE STRONG! BE STRONG! I shouted to the scholars.
“Chazak! Chazak!” the scholars roared back.
Though that very morning I’d been much happier, I had not been truly happy since the battle in the gym—in the best moments after, I’d been merely relieved—and this moment stood out at the time for that reason; for being my first happy moment since the battle. It stands out now because it was my last. If I seem to belabor it, it’s for that reason. I haven’t had a moment of happiness since.
“DROP YOUR WEAPONS! DOWN ON THE GROUND! FREE THE HOSTAGES! COMPLY AT ONCE!”
BE STRONG! BE STRONG! AND MAY WE BE STRENGTH-ENED!
“Chazak! Chazak! Venizschazeik!”
The scholars walked west behind Emmanuel.
And lest they be forced to massacre children, the cops of the barricade fled north and south.
As soon as I revolved, the moment was over.
22
CONTROL
Friday, November 17, 2006
12:09 p.m.–1:01 p.m.
A
bubble of curls behind a thick smear of blood: Googy Segal’s face, mashed flat against glass. Our guards had him pinned chest-first to the jamb. He struggled against them, slicking the blood around, pressing his forehead to the window for leverage. Suddenly he slipped, or someone lost their grip, and his face slid down and the door wedged open. Palms on the pavement, he donkey-kicked blindly; Stevie Loop dropped. Googy lurched a yard, then crawled for another, but out came Ben-Wa, who fell knees-first on his back and stayed him. Googy made pleading sounds, looked in my eyes.
Let him up! I said.
Ben-Wa climbed off. “He wouldn’t say anything. He just rushed the door. We—”
Googy interrupted. He was up on his elbows, choking on phonemes. Even if I’d been able to make out what he was saying, transcribing it here would be useless. The speech disorders of which Googy was a victim battered his utterances beyond the furthest reaches of any single alphabet’s powers of description—of any three alphabets’ powers of description. There were Chinesey catsounds and Xhosa-like clicks, Tourrettic stammerings and Afrikaaner diphthongs, W’s that might have been L’s or R’s, Hebraic velar fricatives, a storm of whistled sibilants.
I thought I heard “Ally.” I thought I heard “knock.” I thought I heard “knock” somewhat proximal to “mook.”
Benji? I said. Is Benji with your cousin?
Googy just wailed.
Where’s Beauregard Pate?
“He never came back from Nurse Clyde’s,” Ben-Wa said.
Then Googy, though his stammer made it last five syllables, definitely said the word “gym.”
“Benji’s in the gym you’re saying?” Ben-Wa said. “Why’s he—”
Vincie vaulted Googy, into the school. June took his spot, grabbed the Janitor’s collar.
Emmanuel: approaching the edge of the bus circle.
Brooklyn’s in charge, I said. Stay in formation. Follow the plan.
I spun clutching Boystar, hurled him into Main Hall. Jesse Ritter grabbed him. By then I was running.
At the gym’s northeast entrance, I pushed on the doors. The doors pushed back.
“They’re here!” someone shouted.
I reared up and charged. The doors blew open. I stumbled on the kid I’d downed, struggled for balance, got slammed against the wall between the locker-room doors. Three ex-Shovers had my wrists and my elbows. I lifted my knee, got one in the nutsack—the one in front of me—he sat down hard. Vincie, at centercourt, was facing away from me, swinging a chair. Kids lay at his feet, clutching their struck parts, crawling away. Beyond them, Benji was draped on the scaffold, and Berman was moving cautiously forward, holding the mikestand lancelike. I couldn’t squirm free of the guys on my arms; I went whole-body limp, and they had to lean in. The one on my left wasn’t all that tall. I smashed his nose flat with the side of my head. On the snapback, my temple met with an edge—the upper southern corner of the fire-alarm—and everything tilted, whited, dissolved.
Some seconds later, I began to come to, aware I was being handled. I couldn’t, for the moment, recall what was happening; I only knew I should resist it. I tried to resist it, but nothing responded. My arms wouldn’t lift. My legs wouldn’t bend. “Tighter,” a kid said. I panicked, inhaled, and my eyes popped open. My chin was on my chest. I was looking at my hands being bound at my waist. Beyond them my legs, being bound at the ankles.
I raised my eyes and I saw Berman swinging. He got Vincie’s chair with the tip of the mikestand. The chair went flying, and Vincie retreated, ran in my direction, a hand in his pocket, looking at something up near the ceiling. He stopped at the free-throw line, hauled back and launched, sending Floyd’s keyring along a broad arc that ended inside of the scoreboard. Berman brought the mikestand down on his shoulder. Vincie half-knelt, popped back up, took another shot to the flank with the mikestand.
Something to the right of me banged at weird intervals—the northeast doors. I heard the Five cursing, Eliyahu pleading, June shouting my name; for once I was grateful to have been disobeyed. Two ex-Shovers were digging in my pockets, three ex-Shovers dragging Vincie to the scaffold, five ex-Shovers shouldering the doors so one could knot multiple cords between the handles. The doors creaked open for an inch, slammed shut. I tried to roll free; I could roll, but not free.
“Stand him up,” Berman said.
They brought me to my feet, leaned me back on the wall, hands gripping my hoodie. Berman was close now; I couldn’t see past him. His shirt was torn open from neck to navel. His throat looked freshly slapped and kneaded. A bruise had begun to assemble on his ribcage. The kid who I’d nutshot handed him a keyring. Another one handed him a fuller keyring. The first one was Botha’s and the second was Brodsky’s.
Untie me, I said.
“Which one of these keys gets us out of here?” he said.
The scholars are coming.
I could hear Vincie panting, trying not to cry. Banging noise came from the central door now—it was also tied shut. Soon June and Eliyahu would know what to do: they’d get Ben-Wa, who had Jerry’s keys, and they’d come through a locker-room. The locker-room doors were one-way doors; they opened into the locker-rooms and didn’t have handles on their gym-facing sides, so they couldn’t be stopped from inside the gym.
“Which key?” Berman said.
Untie me, I said.
Berman said, “Cory!” and tossed him the keys. Cory’s mouth was bleeding. “Try them all,” Berman told him, and Cory limped over to the pushbar door.
Someone said, “Berman, what should we do?”
“Tie him to the scaffold.”
The him was me. Inasmuch as it was possible, I lunged at Berman’s throat. He stepped to the left and I hit the floor sideways.
They dragged me by the hood toward the back of the gym. Berman followed close, examining my face. Eleven Israelites sitting the bleachers were wet-eyed.
Help me! I said.
They all looked away.
The scholars are coming!
“We know,” Berman said. “Any minute now, they’ll come through the locker-rooms. We’re not worried about that.”
What you’re doing—
“I’m protecting us.”
I can protect us.
“There’s more than one us.”
I’ll protect us all.
“Not anymore you won’t. Not after this. You won’t forgive this.”
I will, I said. Just untie us, Berman.
“It’s not even our fault, you know—he came here. But there was never any way to protect us all anyway—that’s your whole problem. Cause what? We’d get out of here, you’d take all the blame, we’d say ‘Gurion did it,’ and… what? Then what?”
You’d go free, I said. You will go free. You’re talking in circles. You’re—
“We’d go free, and then what? Where would that have left us? Everything would’ve just gone back to normal. No one would fear us. We’d say, ‘
It doesn’t have to—
“It does. How can’t you see that? We didn’t go get him. We were following your plan. And then the second your back was turned—the very fucken second—he came here.”
Vincie’d stopped panting. His eyes were shut hard. They sat me on the floor between him and Benji and leashed me to the scaffold by the bindings at my wrists. Vincie, on his back, was tied by the throat and one of his legs. Nakamook was silent, face-down and limp, an upside-down U, held to the scaffold by nothing but gravity. The side of his face I was able to see pulsed blood from a swollen gouge above his cheekbone. His entire flank was soaked with blood, shot through with nibs, and the splints I’d taped to his fingers were cracked.
Benji, I said.
“He’s out,” Vincie said. “And now they’re gonna kill him.”
“Shut your mouth, Portite,” an ex-Shover said.
I said, No one’s killing anyone. The scholars are coming.
“I barely stopped them,” said Vincie. “They’re gonna kill me too, now. They’ll have to. They’ll—”
The toe of Berman’s shoe blurred across Vincie’s jaw.
“Nakamook came in here,” Berman said, “screaming and shouting and swinging a chair, powder-blue gooze pouring out from his nostrils. He knocked me down and got on top of me. The Israelites—our brothers—seven of them, Gurion—it took fucking seven of them, even with his hand—the Israelites finally pulled him off of me. We beat him til he dropped, though, and look at him now.”
Okay, I said. I believe you, I said. But you need to calm down. This is happening too fast. Tell me what you want, and we’ll work this out.
“We’ve worked it out,” Berman said, his voice now public. “The bully has to die. Look what we did to him. He’ll never forgive it. He’ll haunt us forever.”
He won’t, I said. I’ll make him forgive it.
“You’ll make him?” said Berman. “You have no control of him! He came here! You’re going to prison! And if you’re really on our side, you’ll tell the cops, for whatever your word’s worth, that the two of them died trying to stop us from escaping.”
The two of— No. Josh. I won’t. This doesn’t have to—
“So you’re not on our side, then. You never really were.”
I am, but look— All of you. Listen to me.
“Lucky for us he’s the criminal here,” Berman said to the Israelites. “Lucky for us, it’s him who they’ll blame for—”
“Berman,” Cory said. He’d returned from the door. “These keys don’t work.”
“One of them has to. Try them upside-down.”
“I did,” Cory said. “I tried them twice both ways.”
“Floyd’s is in the scoreboard,” Vincie told Berman. “Jerry’s isn’t in here, and that’s all there fucken is, you walking fucken deadman. You stuck-ass deadman murderous fucker.”
Cory raised a chair as if to smash Vincie.
“No, wait,” said Berman. Cory lowered the chair. “Is he telling us the truth?” Berman said to me. “About the keys?”
Yes, I said. So, look—
“Okay,” Berman said. “Okay… okay.”
The doors were still banging. Muffled shouting behind them. Berman no longer faced me. He was talking low to Cory—I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I kept saying his name, keeping my voice calm, but he wouldn’t turn around. They flipped Benji over, onto his back, pulled the nibs from his body. Benji groaned softly.
You guys, I said to the Israelites nearest me. Listen. It’s gonna be fine. The scholars are coming. We’ve got other keys. We can work something out. I’m your brother, okay? I’m not your enemy. You have to stop this.
One mumbled something about burning down houses, another some-thing else about crawling on bellies. All of the rest of them pretended not to hear me. Berman jumped the scaffold, took my sap from his pocket. He was standing over Benji.
I said, Don’t do this.
“I won’t,” he said. “We will. Gurion did it.”
Cory and three other ex-Shovers grabbed chairs. The four encircled Benji and raised the chairs high, saying, “Gurion.” “Gurion.” “Gurion did it.”
“On ‘Go,’” Berman said.
Berman! I said.
“He’ll kill us if we don’t.”
“I’ll fucken kill you!” Vincie screamed.
Shut up, Vincie! It isn’t true! He’s barely alive, Josh. I’m talking to you. I’m talking to you, Josh. He can’t lift his arms. He can’t kill anyone. No one’ll kill anyone. I will protect you. I promise you, Josh. I can still forgive you for what you’ve done. I understand, okay? I understand why!
“He’s lying,” Berman said, “and he’ll be gone, anyway.”
I yelled, Someone stop them! I’m the messiah!
Then Aleph said “Go,” and brought down his sap, and the others their chairs, and Benji was gone.
Sent: March 16, 2013, 5:56 AM Greenwich Mean Time (UTC +2)
Subject: RE: PLEASE, JELLY (version 18)
From: [email protected] (Jelly Rothstein)
To: [email protected]
The account is attached.
______________________
11-17.doc
29.5K View Download
----Original Message Follows----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: PLEASE, JELLY (version 18)
Date: March 10, 2013, 7:22 AM GMT (UTC +2)
Dear Jelly,
I’m too afraid to tell you how grateful I am; afraid you’ll regret the kindness you’re showing me… I’ll meet your terms. You know how to reach me if you ever change your mind. I hope you’ll change your mind.
A blessing on your head,
Gurion
PS Whoever you think I’ve got in your classes—I didn’t send him. Probably it’s just some nice Orthodox boy with a crush. My dad was one of those once.
----Original Message Follows----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: PLEASE, JELLY (version 18)
Date: March 9, 2013, 3:07 AM GMT (UTC +2)
Gurion:
I’ve been trying to forgive you for over six years. I keep almost writing back to you, but something always stops me. Sometimes it’s a call or a visit from June, who you’ve ruined, who you keep on ruining. She sings me your praises with such desperation—forget the ugly headscarf and all the baggy clothing, forget her far-off gazing and tic-like eruptions of “Baruch Hashem, Jelly! Baruch Hashem!”; her stunted voice alone, stuck fast in croaky girlhood, breaks my heart bad enough—I can’t even squint, much less protest, for fear that she’ll jump off a building.
Other times what stops me is your emails themselves. When my hatred burns its brightest, they often cooled it off a little, true enough, but the times the hate’s ebbing, they get it to flow. The times the hate’s ebbing, I find myself thinking: Gurion was only a little boy then, a smart boy, sure, but a boy nonetheless; little boys are bastards, little girls too, they don’t know any better, no matter how smart; you can’t hate a young man for what he did as a boy, he didn’t know what he was doing, he couldn’t help but make mistakes; I’ll respond when he sends his next email. But then I get your next email, and it reads no different than the ones from six years ago, and you say the same things you were saying six years ago. And you CAN hate a little boy for what he’s done as a little boy, and you CAN hate a young man for what he’s done as a young man. Whether you’re still a little boy, or were always a young man (or maybe an old man, born fully formed), I have no idea, but you are who you were; y
Still, hatred’s no picnic. I don’t like to hate you. It rips at my stomach, my mouth tastes like pennies. I don’t want to keep doing it. I’m writing you back now not because I forgive you, but because maybe writing back will help me forgive you. It’s just about the only thing I haven’t tried; that, and giving you what you think you want. And I WILL give you what you think you want, Gurion—I will go for broke here—but you have to agree to my terms first. My terms are simple.
You get my account if you leave me alone. No more emails. No more sending June here to talk to me. No more Scholars Fund goons sitting near me in class, haunting me at yoga, or standing on the corner “watching over” me. Nothing. You give me your word and I’ll take you at your word—you were never a liar.
And just for the record, and your own edification: You went way over the line in that last one. You have no right whatsoever to make me feel guilty, even if that seems to you to be what it’s taken to get me to respond to you. ESPECIALLY if that seems to you to be what it’s taken. You’re a fucked up, terrible, impossible person. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
I still don’t feel better. I hate you even more now than before I typed “Gurion.” Maybe I need to actually send this first.
Sending this,
Angelica Rothstein
----Original Message Follows----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: PLEASE, JELLY (version 18)
Date: March 8, 2013, 7:56 AM GMT (UTC +2)
Dear Jelly,
Do you remember when you told me that I shouldn’t love June because she drew “crazy things”? We were in the Cage, at the teacher cluster, eating our lunches, and Benji told you it didn’t matter what she drew. Then he went on to say, in so many words, that he loved you, even though YOU were crazy, you who bit people. Anything I’ve done to make you hate me, Jelly, it wasn’t to make you hate me, Jelly: I was only just biting people, drawing crazy things. I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking you to remember that Benji did, at least for a while. And I’m asking you to honor that for long enough to really hear me out this time. The Benji I knew, regardless of what he might’ve thought of me at the very end of his life—he’d at least have wanted you to hear me out.