The Instructions by Adam Levin
All great books command re-reading, but you can’t ever read the same book twice. Knowing, as you do, from the second reading forward, that A will lead to B, to Y to Z, your post-first readings are far more concerned with what exactly happens between those events, far more concerned with those parts you scanned (or even skipped) the first go-round in your rush to discover what would happen next. You look closely at the details—the wordplay, the rhythms, all the “minor” activity—and generate hypotheses as to why they are there, what purpose they serve in the cause of moving you, what they point at, where and to where they misdirect you. This act of analysis creates a sense of distance.********
When, for example, you already know that Holden Caulfield will run from his teacher who pet him on the forehead as he slept, you read Catcher looking for signs the petting’s coming; you read to determine if Holden’s right or wrong to assume the teacher’s perved. You read this way in order to determine exactly why it was that the scene made you sad: Was it because a man the boy trusted acted like a perv, or was it because the man didn’t? Soon you realize it could’ve been either—there’s no way to know, each option’s supportable—and you attempt to determine which is sadder: for Holden to have been taken advantage of (or to have been on the verge of being taken advantage of) by a man that he trusted, or for Holden to have been so damaged by earlier experiences that innocent (however seemingly inappropriate) affection from a man he should trust gets misconstrued (misread by Holden as inappropriate) and sends him running out the door. It’s finally impossible to determine which is sadder; not even a hybrid of both is sadder.******** And eventually you come to see that the saddest option is the one that J.D. Salinger exercised: the one that resists disambiguation.
By now, though, the scene doesn’t make you sad; at least not as sad as it did on the first read, when you knew much less about the way it worked. Now, when you read Catcher in the Rye, you observe the scene working to make you sad, and you appreciate those workings (unless you’re a fool), and you examine further subtleties, tinier machines, the sprockets on the cogs behind the wheels behind the wheels. You can’t see the time, though, from inside a clock. You know it, of course—at least you know what it was; after all, you stopped the clock before climbing inside—but you just can’t see it.
And all of this to say that I remember Benji’s murder and what happened thereafter on 11/17 the same way I remember great books I’ve re-read. I know what I thought and why I thought it, and I know what I said and why I said it, but I don’t remember thinking or saying any of it. I can’t seem to remember the experience of any of it.
What’s left is fractured, gapped, full of empty. Whether that’s because I was, or because—through having gone over it again and again—I have since become so, I cannot say with any measure of authority. Nor can I say which I’d prefer to believe. I don’t even know which I’d prefer you to believe. What’s left, however, is all I’ve got left. It will, eventually, suffice.
The scholars were coming. Aleph gave orders. Vincie and I were untied from the scaffold and stood at the top of the western key. Two ex-Shover pennyguns, loaded with nibs, were aimed at my throat, two others at Vincie’s, both of us held from behind by the hair. Six ex-Shovers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, facing away from us, weapons trained east. Aleph was standing between us and them. The rest of the insurgents crowded the exit.
From the Side and the scholars, they’d demand Jerry’s keys in trade for our lives, Aleph explained. He said once they’d all made it safely outside, they’d free us and say that they’d barely escaped from Gurion ben-Judah. That part was a lie, I knew it was a lie—a lie that was told because I was listening. If the insurgents escaped, Vincie and I would be turned over to the cops, the better to bolster Aleph’s claims to heroism.
My army came through the boys locker-room door sooner and faster than Aleph expected. They barrelled topspeed at the line of ex-Shovers, which was all they could see til Aleph said “Down,” and the ex-Shovers knelt to reveal our tableau.
The frontmost row was six soldiers wide: Ben-Wa and Brooklyn flanked June on the right, Leevon and Samuel Emmanuel on the left. As soon as they saw us, they began slowing down, but the soldiers behind them were all pushing forward, and they couldn’t slow much without getting trampled.
Attack! I shouted, but to no effect, except to incite the kid on my left to sock me in the beauty, leaving me muted, bent at the waist, sucking for wind.
June, then Emmanuel, ordered a halt. The soldiers who were still in the locker-room, however, couldn’t hear the orders, much less see the leaders, and the Five, who’d been assigned to head up the rearguard, urged them all forward, pushing and shouting, and the drive, though slowing, did not fully stop til the vanguard was three or four feet beyond halfcourt and three hundred scholars were inside the gym.
Sap in his fist, pacing north-south, Aleph presented his single demand.
June refused to hand over the keys, told him he’d have to free us first.
Aleph revolved, sapped Vincie’s ribs, spun back around to check June’s reaction.
June kept the keys.
I was fighting for breath still, chasing my voice down. Even if I could die (by then I didn’t know or care if I could die), if Aleph had me murdered, he wouldn’t have anything left with which to bargain; my army would attack and destroy the insurgents. That much had to have been obvious to everyone, and its obviousness to everyone equally obvious = To have me murdered would be irrational.
Aleph wasn’t irrational. Aleph was sly: he was sly enough to see that he seemed too rational. That’s why he’d rib-sapped Vincie to begin with. It failed to convince, though; it blinkered desperation, but not irrationality. Maybe if he’d sapped my ribs instead of Vincie’s, June would’ve handed over the keys. Or maybe she’d’ve seen the move for what it was and stood as defiant as she had to Vincie’s sapping. It was, however, the third possible outcome that prevented sly Aleph from sapping me: June and the scholars might’ve attacked, believing he was actually trying to kill me.
Now he was pointing at Benji, saying, “We’re already killers. You don’t want to test us.”
Leevon Ray twetched. Ben-Wa stopped his crying. Emmanuel and Samuel were looking to June, and June put the keys in her pocket and stared.
Apart from backing down, Aleph only had one or two moves left to make, one or two sly moves left to escalate his threat. He could run the above-described risks and sap me, or he could have Vincie Portite murdered. If the action he took—whichever it was—failed to produce a final outcome, then he’d perform the one that remained.
He wasn’t backing down and he wasn’t walking over, but even if he did walk over and sap me, it might not work—it probably wouldn’t work; June didn’t look scared—and the scholars might not attack, and then Aleph would kill Vincie to see if that worked, and though my lungs did hold some air now, it was only a little, and even if I had the breath to explain the entire dynamic to June and the scholars, and even if the kid who’d muted me once failed to do so again before I could finish, Aleph would hear the explanation as well, and he’d only act faster, he’d act more determined, he’d kill Vincie Portite and say, “So what? Attack us and find out how crazy I am,” thus no explanation I could give could change anything, and as for a simple command to attack: they’d already disobeyed one of those.
So I said the only thing I could say that might work, and I said it to the one most desperate to believe it, the one who was looking straight into my eyes.
I said to Eliyahu, I do not die.
And Eliyahu went forward to free the messiah, and all of the scholars followed him.
A panic-shot nib missed Vincie’s carotid. I let my legs fold beneath all my weight. As my knees hit the floor, hair ripped off my head. The ex-Shover holding the hair-chunk was shot—blinded with pennies—and Berman was shot. The rest of the insurgents dropped their guns. They were lined up, as ordered by Samuel Diamond, against the west wall, their hands in the air.
&n
No one saw Jelly come into the gym.
Gaze fixed on my feet, his mouth a bloody donut, Ally approached me and spoke uncued. “It’s true that I helped bring him down,” he told me. “He was trying to kill Berman—at least that’s what it looked like—and I didn’t want anyone to die, okay? But then he was out, he wasn’t even moving, and they kept kicking and shooting, and they said they would kill him and tell you they’d had to in self-defense, and I did try to stop that. I tried to argue, but they wouldn’t listen, they said he’d burn down their houses and kill them all, and then I tried to fight them, but I’m—I’m nothing. I’m weak, and I know it’s not enough, and—”
What did he say?
“Nothing,” Ally said. “He wasn’t there, and then he was there. On top of Berman. He didn’t say anything. I know I’m in trouble, okay? I know. Leave Googy alone, though. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He does what I tell him. That’s all that he does.”
Never come near me again, I said.
Ally went east, Googy in tow.
Brooklyn and Emmanuel brought me the sap.
“We’ve figured out a way to exit,” said Brooklyn.
Sitting next to Benji, Jelly chewed her sleeves. June went over, whispered something from behind her. Jelly pressed her face to June’s hip and shook.
I gave the sap to Vincie, who was limping beside me.
Below the neck, I said. I want him awake.
Vincie nodded, caved in a rib.
Aleph hit the floor on his side and squirmed. I went through his pockets til I found the cracktorch, straddled his torso, choked him left-handed, and branded his temples, each with a six, and branded a vav on his forehead.
I slackened the choke and set aside the lighter, twetched on the vav to hear it crackle and speed up the scarification. Vincie put the sap in my hand and stepped back. I raised the sap high, and was grasped at the elbow.
“We have to get to work,” Emmanuel said. “We’re thinking we’ve got a good plan.”
I said, First we kill all these Goddamned Jews.
“Anything, Rabbi,” said Emmanuel, “but that. We aren’t murderers.”
They murdered my friend.
“We aren’t killers.”
You could be, I said.
“That’s not why we came here,” Emmanuel said. “Don’t stain our hands.”
Just mine, I said.
“There’s no such thing.”
No? I said. We’ll see, I said. Hold his wrists to the floor.
“I’m not an executioner.”
I know, I said.
“I won’t help you kill him.”
You won’t, I said, just hold down his wrists.
Emmanuel crouched behind Aleph and did it.
I brought the sap down, and again, and again, til the impacts ceased to make breaking sounds.
We did the left hand the same as the right.
I stood before those being held to the wall.
The scarfless insurgents were all crying out: “It was them!” “The ex-Shovers!” “The ex-Shovers did it!”
And the ex-Shovers: “Berman!” “It was Berman who did it!”
Kneel, I said. Kneel before us in awe.
They all knelt before us.
In awe! I said. Like this! I said.
They pressed their hands like pagans in prayer.
Harder, I said. Harder and harder. Finger to finger and thumb to thumb. Bend til they break. Breaks can be set. Bones can heal, I said. Dust only clumps, deforming the flesh. It settles wherever it’s pushed to, I said. Any digit remaining intact I’ll make dust.
And they pressed all their fingers against all their fingers til each one had fingers unhinged at his palms. A few got all of them, even the thumbs. Some got one or two, most between three and six.
No discernable pattern of damage emerged; no sense of justice arose from the arithmetic. The number of digits ill-cocked on the hands of any given insurgent was determined, it seemed, by factors that should have been arbitrary: his panic threshold, his tolerance for pain, his ligamental and tendinous elasticities, the strength of his muscles versus that of his bones.
All the screaming, say the poets of the Gurionic War, was heard by Hashem, Who led me toward mercy.
But there wasn’t any screaming and there wasn’t any mercy. Just gasping and groaning and bottomless contempt.
Love one another, I told them.
Because the lot had been cleared of civilians and news crews, and every cop manning the ressurected barricade was strapped with a gasmask and little silver canisters, and after the way the first army had entered, the second and third, if they got to the school, would be teargassed on sight, no question.
And because the new barricade was half its former size and we couldn’t locate the fifty missing cops, despite all the live footage being shot from choppers. And because the cops had not cut our power, which suggested they wanted us to see what we were seeing on live TV. And because what we saw on live TV, despite being birdseyed, didn’t include any part of the sky, and the ceiling of the school was free of skylights. And because what we saw didn’t include what lay west of the school, and the school’s west wall was entirely windowless.
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 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.
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 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 REMAINING PRISONERS AND SURRENDER.
NO CALLS WILL BE TAKEN, AND NO COUNTER-OFFERS. THIS NOTE IS A BINDING CONTRACT. FREEING THE MAMZER TO WHOM IT IS AFFIXED IS A GOODWILL GESTURE IN YOUR DIRECTION. SINCE YOU LACK THE OPPORTUNITY 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 ENSUING TRAGEDIES.
YOUR SIGNATURE IS IMPLICIT.
HERE IS MINE:
Emmanuel gave me the note and I signed it. Brooklyn went to scan it in the library with Sh
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,” 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.”