The Instructions by Adam Levin
“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” 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 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.”
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. 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. “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? 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
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.
Scott said, “Ha! Haha!”
Leevon was sitting on the other side of me. I’d forgotten he was there until he poked my elbow. Then he did the same action as Nakamook did, and he did it even better so that the water on his eyes dripped down his cheeks and his cheeks looked loose.
Then Main Man did the action.
Then Jelly did it.
Then I tried to do it but I couldn’t.
Nakamook stopped after a minute, and when he stopped, breath came out of his mouth in one heavy push. He said, “It’s called ‘I’m Ticking.’”
I said, Why?
He said, “Because when you do it, you can hear that ticking inside your head. I think it’s from drops of brain-blood that whack themselves against the backs of the eardrums. Didn’t you hear the blood ticking?”
I said, Don’t be a wang to me because I can’t do it—you know I didn’t hear any ticking of blood.
He said, “I wasn’t being a wang, you spastic wang. I didn’t know because I couldn’t see. When you do the ‘I’m Ticking’ action, it’s hard to see. There’s a bright flying saucer shape that blots out the middle of anything you look at.”
I said, Tell me how you did it.
Nakamook said, “I can’t explain it. I just did it.”
I said, Tell me how you discovered it.
He said, “I was in my room and I was bored and I wanted to break something, but there was nothing good to break except the window and I didn’t want to break the window, so I beat on the heavy-bag, but it wasn’t good enough, I didn’t want to hear thuds, let alone gaspy thuds, I wanted a breaking sound, a snapping kind of crunching sound, a shattering window sound, the one sound I couldn’t hear without doing something I didn’t want to do, and that’s when I decided to invent a new action, and I performed my first I’m Ticking.”
I said, Come on! How did you do it? I said to Jelly, How do you do it?
She said, “I just did it.”
Then Leevon did it again.
Main Man said, “Leevon is I’m Ticking-ing and he doesn’t talk. Jelly can I’m Ticking and she is a biter. Benji I’m Tickings and he is maybe psychopathic. Even I can I’m Ticking and I am diseased in a very rare fashion. What’s wrong with you?”
I don’t know, I said.
Mookus said, “Watch me like a vulture watches a fat mammal that is limping across the floor of a rocky canyon with its tongue out even though I’m your friend who you would never eat.”
Main Man performed the action again and I watched him closely. After a few seconds, I got scared for him because of his heart.
I said, Stop Scott.
He stopped. He was breathing very heavy. This was called hyper-ventilating. It was also called catching your breath. It did not look like Main Man was catching his breath, though. It looked like Main Man’s breath was catching him. It looked like Main Man was getting breathed.
I told Benji, You shouldn’t have shown that to Main Man.
Scott said to me, “Please don’t worry.”
I said to him, Don’t I’m Ticking again.
Nakamook said, “Main Man’s fine. You’re just pissed you couldn’t do the action, you baby.”
It is true I was pissed, but I wasn’t just pissed. I was desperately trying to not think about kissing.
Main Man said, “Ha ha.”
I told him, Yeahyeah.
The end-of-lunch tone got born and died.
“Go to your carrels,” Botha said. He was standing by the doorway, clipboard in claw.
As I was getting up from the teacher cluster, Ronrico Asparagus and Jenny Mangey entered the Cage and rushed me so fast I flinched. “We have questions,” said Mangey.
The two of them came across the room with me and when I turned my head to look at Benji, he made a crumpled face = “Why is Asparagus walking beside you as though he were other than a longtime foe of ours?”
At my carrel, I sat, and Mangey handed me a piece of paper that looked like
WE DAMAGE
DAMAGE WE
WE DAMAGE WE
“Which one is right?” Mangey said.
I stared at the words, trying to understand.
Mangey leaned in close. She was bright pink along the hairline from scratching. Ronrico leaned in close, too, not smelling like pee. If his pee was as pungent as it was said to be, then he did not get any on his pants, which was a blessing. I had never peed beside him, so I didn’t know the true strength of his pee’s smell. The “Ronrico Asparagus has pee so pungent” saying was invented before I got to Aptakisic. Most people said Nakamook invented it, but Nakamook said it was the Janitor. I thought it was Nakamook. It was just the kind of pithy saying Benji would’ve invented, and he was the kind of person who would have given credit to someone else for it, if giving credit to someone else would have made it funnier, which it definitely would have since the Janitor was Ronrico’s closest friend, and his being the inventor would not only be very kaufman—the only thing more kaufman than to sniff a friend’s pee was to sniff a friend’s pee and then speak of what you’d sniffed—but would augment the saying with a sub-plot of betrayal.
“Which one?” Mangey said to me.
Ronrico said, “It’s one of the first two. I know it.”
Mangey whispered, “Ronrico was bombing the lunch tables and the bleachers with the first two, and he thought he was so smart, but I told him he was not so smart and that he should write WE on both sides of DAMAGE.”
Ronrico said, “You didn’t say which side of damage we were on, Gurion, but you did say we were on the side of it; not the sideszzz of it. You said the side.”
Oh! At the end of Group you mean, I said.
“Yeah,” Mangey said. “What do you think we mean? Jeez.”
The Janitor came over, and he leaned in. That was three people leaning close to me. I thought: Now it is a huddle. I thought: Don’t touch my head.
Ronrico said, “Back off a little, Mikey.”
The Janitor said, “I have a question about the side of damage, though. I’m not sure exactly what it means.”
Ronrico said, “None of us are, but if you don’t stop breathing on me, I’ll touch you on the skin.”
The Janitor leaned closer to Mangey.
“I’ll lick you on the cheek,” Mangey said.
The Janitor stepped back and Vincie Portite came into the huddle. He said to me, “What the fuck is going on here? Why are these people standing here at your carrel? Are we friends with these people now? I thought we weren’t friends with these people, except for Mangey who we were kind of friends with. Now we’re all fucken friends?”
“Why don’t you just go ahead and stare at June Watermark, Vincie, you stalker,” said Mangey.
Wait, I said. Wait. June’s the girl you have a crush on?
“Nope,” said Vincie.
Why’d Mangey say tha
“He stares at her at Lunch!”
“I don’t,” Vincie said. “I stare at someone else. She sits near June a lot.”
I’m in love with June, Vincie.
“Really? Does she love you back? I hope so, man. I’m not even in love, I don’t think, just in very deep like, and it’s really fucken lonely not to be very deeply liked back. I can’t imagine how—”
Not to be very deeply liked back by who? I said.
“I’m not saying,” said Vincie. “I don’t want to fucken say. But you know I’d tell you if it was June because you just said you loved her. That would be a big fucken problem if she was my crush—so I’d tell you.”
Mangey said, “But—.”
“Mangey’s a fucken troublemaker. Listen to me. I told you I’ve liked this girl since kindergarten, right?”
A million times, I said.
“And June didn’t go to school with me in kindergarten. Did she, Mangey? You went to school with me in kindergarten, so you would know—was June in fucken kindergarten with us?”
“No,” Mangey said. “It’s true. She wasn’t.”
“See?” said Vincie. “All is well, except for how the girl I like deeply does not like me deeply back.”
I banged fists with Vincie, all kinds of relieved.
Sorry, I said.
“No problem, man. But what I was saying is,” he said, chinning air at Ronrico and the Janitor, who were making kiss-faces at him, “are we friends with these two knuckleheads now, or what?”
We’re all on the side of damage, I said.
“So we’re all friends or what though?” Vincie said.
“I told you we were friends now,” Ronrico said to Vincie. He said to me, “Vincie tried to say at recess that you didn’t mean we were friends and I told him he was wrong, just like how I told Mangey she was wrong about the bombs on the tables and the bleachers.”
“I said to Ronrico that he was a fuckface,” said Mangey, “because when you said we were on the side of damage, you didn’t mean that we were to the side of damage: you meant that damage is on one side, which is the side we are for, and then something else is on the other side, which is the side we’re against.”