The Instructions by Adam Levin
While I was standing there, everyone but Scott and Leevon got nervous. Mangey made dry noises by scratching under her sock where her skin was flaky, and Ronrico and the Janitor, who would not look at me, switched between looking at the ground and looking up at Sandy to try to get her to tell me to sit down. Vincie Portite kept moving his right hand to cover his eye and then putting it back in his lap. Vincie used to be one of the best fighters in the Cage, but then just after Sukkot he developed his debilitating tick. How it happened was he used to like calligraphy, so he got fountain pens with many interchangeable nibs and inks for his birthday, and there was a radiator in the Cage that Vincie dropped an ink-cartridge into the spaces of the vent of, and the ink cartridge fell into the fan of the radiator and the blades of the fan exploded the ink cartridge with a sudden cutting force. Cartridge ink shot fast from the vent into Vincie’s right eye and Vincie held his hand over his eye and said, “Oh no,” just like that, just once, in a crying voice, non-exclamatorily and without any cursing, and Botha said “Not brilliant, Portite” and sent Vincie to the nurse and Vincie had to wear an eyepatch for two weeks until the eye healed. He showed me what the eye looked like under the patch. It was red where it should have been white and the iris looked like someone had dripped milk in it. I felt bad making Vincie nervous, but I think it was good for him because it was like training him to be a great fighter again and lately he was doing better than before. I could tell he was doing better because while I was standing there, the hand went up at least five times, but Vincie didn’t let it go all the way to the eye. It would start lifting up, but it never even got to his chin before he’d put it back on his lap. The highest the hand got was his windpipe. I was keeping my eyes on Vincie so I wouldn’t look at Jelly Rothstein. Jelly was waiting for me to look at her, and if I did look at her she would tell me to sit down, and I already wanted to sit down, and if she told me to do it, it would be like Botha telling me to give him my pass. I decided I would sit down in exactly seven seconds as long as I didn’t get told to.
I counted off the seconds in my head so no one would see. As soon as I got to seven, I sat down next to Jelly. When she didn’t bite, it was good to sit next to Jelly. She could be very funny.
“Idiot,” she said to me. When Jelly said I was an idiot during Group, there was friendliness in it because it was the beginning of a game where we alternated calling each other names. There were two ways to lose the game. The first way was if you ran out of names or repeated yourself. The second way was if Call-Me-Sandy, who would keep leaning forward to put a stop to the game but because of her therapist algorithms couldn’t interrupt while someone was talking, got a word in between us. If Call-Me-Sandy got a word in, then the last one who’d said a name would win.
Dentist, I said. “Dolt,” Jelly said. Leopold. “Klebold.” Monorail. “Blister.” Flag. “Patio.” Falsified document.
“I call bullshit on falsified document,” Jelly said. “That’s like big stupid dumbass or something. You sound like a first-grader.”
Fine, I said. Firmament.
“I call bullshit on firmament. There’s no such thing as firmament.”
There is, though, I said. I said, It’s in Torah.
“What’s it mean, then?”
I said, No one really knows what it means. In Hebrew, it’s the place where Adonai resides, but it’s a bad translation. It’s really more like border—it’s confusing.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. “If you don’t know what it means, you can’t use it.”
That’s your rule, I said. I said, That’s not my rule.
“Whatever. That’s the rule of the game.”
I said, Fine, I call bullshit on patio, then.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “They can’t pour the patio til the rain lets up. The patio is slow getting there. Mamzer.”
I said, No foreign languages, Jelly.
“Whatever. That’s not my rule, you schlep.” You vildachaya. “Schlub.” Chainik-hocker.
“What’s a chainik-hocker?” Call-Me-Sandy said. She made a curious face.
“Gurion made it up,” Jelly said. “It’s like hocking me in chainik which means ‘banging a tea kettle’ which is what you’re doing when you nag your mom and she’s Jewish. But no one ever calls anyone a chainik-hocker but I didn’t argue because I’m not a schleppy dolt mamzer like Gurion.”
It was hard to tell who won. Call-Me-Sandy jumped in after I said chainik-hocker, which could mean that I won, but then Jelly got to say shleppy dolt mamzer after Call-Me-Sandy jumped in, which never happened before because it was always that once Call-Me-Sandy jumped in, we stopped calling each other names. And then, also, schleppy dolt mamzer was a combination of names that we already used, so in a way it was a repetition, but the combination might have made it count as a new name, and it was hard to tell if Jelly was cheating or just being very skillful when she called me a schleppy dolt mamzer. It could have been a tie.
Call-Me said, “Before we start today, has everyone heard Scott’s big news?”
“What?” Scott said.
“About what you’re doing on Friday?”
“It’s a secret,” Scott said.
“What’s said in Group stays in Group,” the Janitor said.
Scott stuck his lower lip out at me. He wanted to know if he should tell his secret. I didn’t know his secret, so I didn’t know if he should tell it, but what the Janitor said was true. As little as I liked him, especially when he recited the rules verbatim off the tear-away pad like a robot, the one thing everyone in Group—everyone in the Cage, really—was good at, was keeping their mouths shut. That a kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid went without saying among us.
To Main Man, I said: If you want to tell us, you should—no one’s gonna repeat what you say.
“Okay,” said Scott. “Okay. On Friday, I’m singing.”
“Who cares if you’re singing. You’re always singing,” Ronrico said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Vincie said to Ronrico. “You never listen. If you listened then sometimes you might say something that didn’t make you sound like such a fuckface.”
“What’s rule number one?” Sandy said to Vincie.
“Are you really asking me that?” Vincie said. “Because I think you know the answer.”
“I’m really asking, Vincenzo.”
Vincie turned around to read from the tear-away pad on the easel behind him. “‘Rule number one: Always be respectful,’” he said. “But that doesn’t matter, Sandy, because first of all, Asparagus wasn’t being respectful, and secondly, those are rules for Group. Group didn’t start yet.”
“If we’re all in the room,” Sandy said, “Group has started.”
“But you said ‘before we start,’ which means we didn’t start.”
“And we were all in the room when you said it, Sandy,” said Jelly.
“We should always be respectful,” Call-Me-Sandy said.
“That’s not true,” Vincie said. “You’re changing the rules. Am I wrong, Gurion?”
I said, I don’t know. It says ‘Rules for Group’ over rule number one. And Call-Me did say ‘before we start,’ and then she asked you what rule number one was, which sounds like she’s saying you broke it, but then even if you didn’t break it, maybe she’s saying you should be respectful anyway, even when it’s to a bancer like Asparagus who I kicked the ass of because he gave me a charleyhorse, but then I think it’s useless to have Rules for Group if they’re the same as rules for everywhere else. The main thing—
“A kid who tells is a dead kid,” Ronrico interrupted.
Telling stuff to Sandy doesn’t count, I said, because everything in Group is confidential, so don’t talk out of your depth, you shmendrick.
To Vincie, I said, The main thing is that it makes Sandy uncomfortable when we’re angry at each other. So she talks about rules.
“It doesn’t make me—” she started saying.
“See?” Vincie said to
“That’s very disappointing to me,” said Jelly to Call-Me. “I feel dis-appointed in you.”
“I need you to be able to do that for me, Sandy. If you can’t sit with my anger, who will?” Jenny Mangey said. “I feel helpless now.”
Scott said, “I love you, Sandy. I’m not angry.”
Ronrico clapped his hand against his knee.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
Ronrico said “Flinch,” and laughed in Vincie’s face. He laughed so hard he started coughing. Then he chucked the Janitor on the shoulder with the fist he’d coughed on.
The Janitor wiped his shoulder with his hand and wiped his hand on the thigh of his pants and stared at the thigh of his pants, scared out of his mind.
Ronrico said “Flinch,” to Vincie again.
Leevon said nothing.
I said, I made Boystar get all cry-faced.
“Did you smash him?” Jelly said. “I hate him.”
“I think he’s a rapist,” Mangey said.
Scott said, “We’re gonna sing together at the Aptakisic Pep Rally on Friday! Me and the Boystar. He’s famous! I will stand in the spotlight with him and sing a duet from the new unit, Promotionalize. There’s stickers.”
No one knew what to say about that. The Janitor was still staring at his thigh. He said, “Sandy, can I have a tissue?”
“How do you feel right now?” Sandy said to the Janitor. “Do you feel threatened?”
“I feel infected,” the Janitor said. He was leaning back to get as far away from the germs on his thigh as possible.
Mangey said, “Boystar is like the guy in the date-rape movie who gives girls knockout drugs without them knowing. And then he takes their clothes off when they’re asleep and he date-rapes them.”
“Infected. Can you be more specific, Mikey?”
Ronrico said, “Flinch,” to Vincie again.
Vincie started crying, but just wet eyes and his face got red. If it was four weeks before, Vincie would have laid him out, no hesitation.
I said, No one’s gonna call him ‘Flinch,’ Ronrico, no matter how many times you say it.
“Gurion,” said Jelly, “how’d you make Boystar cry-faced? You smash him or what? You smash him in the gob?”
The gob? I said. What’s a gob?
“Can you please just hand me a tissue?” said the Janitor. He started crying with his throat.
Sandy said, “Scott, how do you think Mikey feels right now?”
“I don’t know,” said Main Man, “but everything is very scary.”
I said, We’ll be fine, Scott.
“Please!” shouted the Janitor, reaching in the air for a tissue that wasn’t there.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
Jelly said, “You’ve really lost control of the room, Sandy. I mean, even more than usual.”
Mangey said, “Boystar threatened to beat me up once, Gurion. He shoved into me in the hall and I said ‘Excuse you’ and he said he’d kick my ass.”
He’s all talk, I said. I said, I slapped his neck and he hid behind his dad.
“Flinch!” Ronrico said to Vincie.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
I stood up fast and Ronrico fell out of his chair.
“Gurion!” Call-Me-Sandy said.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
I said to Call-Me-Sandy, I’m not hurting anyone.
I stood over Ronrico. I said to him, Now who’s the flinch?
Ronrico was biting his lip.
I said, You’re just like Botha, but shorter and dumber.
Call-Me-Sandy said, “Please, Gurion.”
I said, I’m not hurting anyone.
“I am not like Botha,” Ronrico said.
I said, Why are you picking on Vincie, then? I said, You’re gonna be Botha in a few years. Ronrico Botha. That’s your new name. You’re Ronrico Botha.
“I’m not like Botha,” he said.
Not exactly, I said. You’re more scared. I said, I’d have to actually hit Botha to put him down.
Call-Me-Sandy said, “Gurion, this isn’t productive. Please sit.”
I sat. What I want to know, I said to Call-Me-Sandy, is why the Janitor isn’t helping Ronrico up. Because Ronrico is the Janitor’s best friend. Ronrico got his ass kicked in the locker-room for the Janitor. I know that because I’m the one who kicked it. And it was very easy for me, but shouldn’t the Janitor help him up, Sandy? Don’t you think that’s right?
“Mikey?” Call-Me-Sandy said to the Janitor, “Can you tell Gurion why you won’t help Ronrico to stand up?”
“You strike with a fury,” Main Man said to me, “and maybe you are out of control. People are afraid of you.”
I said, Why do you say that, Scott? Are you afraid of me?
Main Man said, “A little bit.”
It made me depressed for a second. Call-Me-Sandy saw it. I saw her lean forward. She wanted to make a moment of it. She always wanted to make a moment when Scott said something to me about feelings, but I stopped her.
I said to Scott, I protect you, though. I’ll always protect you.
I said to the Janitor, Help your friend up. I’m not gonna hurt you. Just be a good guy.
The Janitor said, “What if you chop my neck? I don’t want you to chop my neck.”
I said, I wouldn’t chop your neck like that. Why would I chop your neck for helping your friend? That’s stupid.
“Do you promise?” said the Janitor.
I said, I don’t promise. You know I don’t promise. If you promise it means that every time you don’t promise it’s okay for you to be lying. I won’t chop your neck. Have faith in my word.
“I need you to promise.”
I said, I’ll chop your neck if you don’t help him up.
The Janitor pulled his sleeve down over his hand and started helping his friend up.
Ronrico said “Thigh!” to the Janitor.
Vincie’s hand went to his eye. The Janitor let go of Ronrico’s hand and dropped Ronrico so Ronrico fell on his own wrists. Vincie’s hand went to his eye again. The Janitor held one hand in the other and squeezed. Ronrico sat up and shook his hands out like they were asleep. Sandy’s hands were over her mouth. The thumbs of Main Man’s hands were in his mouth. Jelly was flicking everyone off with both hands. Mangey was scratching drylegs with hers. Leevon sat on his. I didn’t know what to do with mine, but I had to do something, so I dug the right one under the rubberband around the left one, twisted my wrists twice, and stretched them apart, far and fast, and the rubberband handcuffs snapped in the middle. It did not make a loud-enough sound.
I said to Scott: Mookus, you have released me from my bondage!
Scott took his thumbs out of his mouth. He said, “I have released you!”
“Bondage,” Call-Me-Sandy said. She was so nervous. You could tell from how she kept pushing her fingers through the buttonholes of her cardigan. I wished she wasn’t so nervous. She was actually a very kind person, Sandy. “Bondage is a curious word,” she said. And you could see from her faces that she was best friends with her sisters and had proud parents who used to buy her ice cream and stickers for her sticker-book whenever she brought home an A on a test or even a quiz, which happened a lot, because she was also very smart. Call-Me-Sandy was going to the University of Chicago for graduate school like my dad and mom had, but for social work instead of law or psychology, and you had to be smart to go there. Still, she was no good at what she did. When we got loud or wild or said unkind things, she thought it meant that she was doing something wrong and it worried her and she got scared and tried to arrange us with her calm voice that shook and it made us louder and wilder and more unkind. She said, “Does everyone in the group know what bondage means?”
<
“It’s a kind of sex,” said Ronrico Asparagus. He got back in his chair.
“Fucking,” said Vincie.
“Same thing,” said Ronrico.
Vincie disagreed. He said, “Sex is what you do with your wife. Fucking is what you do to your mistress. You don’t make your wife wear leather, and that’s why bondage is a kind of fucking.”
“What the fuck?” said the Janitor. “I fucking want a fucking tissue.”
I said, Bondage is slavery.
“My mom doesn’t fuck,” Jenny Mangey said.
I said, And bondage is this school, but invisibly.
Jelly said, “No one said your mom fucks, Mange.”
The Janitor said, “Fuck this fucking school.”
It’s the arrangement, I said. Bondage is rules you are too scared to break.
“My mom is not a fucker,” said Jenny Mangey.
Vincie said, “No one said your mom’s a fucker.”
We were talking so fast Sandy couldn’t break in because it would be disrespectful. She would have had to break the rules to break in. She was supposed to keep us under control by showing us what control looked like and it was supposed to look like control was being able to follow the rules, but all the rules did was freeze her voice and spaz her fingers around in her buttonholes. It was proof that the arrangement was a kind of bondage.
Jenny said, “My mom wears bondage leather.”
“Then she is a fucker after all,” Vincie said.
Jenny said, “That’s what I said you said.”
“I didn’t say it til you did,” Vincie said. “You’re the one who said it, Mangey. If you’re not ready to say something, don’t say it.”
“You have to accept the consequences of what you say,” Ronrico said.
I said, You are a slave, Asparagus.
“A slave with pee so pungent,” said Jelly.
The Janitor said, “The consequences are fucked. I fucking hate the consequences.”