The Instructions by Adam Levin
Yet a club at school with semi-private status was nonetheless a school-sponsored club, Brodsky told them, and the principal of the school had total jurisdiction, so plebiscite narishkeit, referendum dumb pudendum.
Despite Brodsky’s assurance it would be illegitimate, the vote was taken at the next official meeting. The pro-ichthys faction won 48–13.
No one can know what would have happened had Acer and the Shovers followed through on the results. Nor can it be known if, by the time the vote was taken, they’d had any intention of following through. Ruth Rothstein opines, in “Nada y Pues Nada,” that all of the Shovers, including Blake Acer, had been long-since resigned to Brodsky’s decision, their votes meek gestures they’d back with no action, hollow as bird-bones, forty-eight balloted chest-bumps. (Ruth’s heart, Jelly’d told me when I’d first read the article, was once broken by a Shover—this was Berman’s older brother, although, at that time, she hadn’t named names.) If it’s true that the Shovers had been only caulking trickles, then indeed Frungeon saved them many facefulls of snat. If it isn’t true, it’s hard to guess what he saved them—Brodsky talked tough, but what could he do if the Shovers, as Acer suggested in whispers, did order scarves embroidered with ichthii and had them delivered somewhere other than school? Expel them? Who’d stand for it? What about the kids who wore crosses and chais? We weren’t in France or Saudi Arabia. Maybe Brodsky could sue for trademark infringement? the use of the mascot up near the shoulder? Maybe take away the Shovers’ semi-private-club status? But then they’d meet at recess, wholly private, with impunity. Ban scarves in the classroom? What about cold kids? Apart from maybe holding a grudge—and maybe, for a Shover, the threat of that was enough—Brodsky really couldn’t do much to punish them. Whatever might have happened in either case, though, it was Frungeon, to everyone’s surprise, who prevented it.
He appeared, according to Rothstein’s account, at the meeting just after the vote-counts’ announcement. His scrimmage jersey soaked in the sweat of earnest basketball, he came straight from practice, nearly breathless from the rush, and proclaimed to the Shovers, without bile or guile: “I never wanted to cause you guys trouble. The Lord Jesus, my savior, cares not about scarves, and He’d never want anyone to fight about scarves, and I’ve prayed for the past two nights for His guidance, and this morning as I woke, the Lord Jesus provided: I fell to the floor—no worries, my brothers, my parents have carpet—and shook like the dickens, for the Lord Jesus Christ had come to me. He told me, Bring peace to your school, Aptakisic, and let the Jews be, son, for I was a Jew, and My Father, My son, is their Father too, and Our Father, My son, shines His holy light upon them, for it’s they who will bring Me, they who’ll announce Me, they who will bring Me to you, My son, in body then and there, as in spirit here and now. Do not cause them strife. Help Me save them.”
“So you don’t want the fish on the scarf?” Vander asked.
“No,” said Frungeon.
“It’s the creative expression of your soul,” Acer said.
“It’s a symbol for who I am,” said Frungeon, “but there’s no good reason that should be on your scarf.”
“So what do you want for a symbol then, Gary?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing?” they said.
“There’s nothing could stand for me better than the ichthys, so let there be nothing to stand for me.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Not even a white stripe where the ichthys would have been?”
“A white stripe?” said Frungeon.
“Cause white’s like nothing. A white stripe of nothing: a blankspot.”
“A blankspot,” said Frungeon, “I’ll gladly take you up on.”
“A blankspot!” cheered Acer.
And they all cheered a blankspot, a blankspot that stood for “If not Christ, then nothing.”
Ruth was the first one in the Office to notice me. She chinned air in my direction, and that was surprising. One time, for three minutes, I had a hot crush on her. I bet every guy at Aptakisic had had a three-minute crush on her. With mine, I’d just read “Nada y Pues Nada” and decided she was smart, or at least a good writer, and she was waiting for Jelly by the buses after school. She had Jelly’s shiny eyes and fast-moving face, but was brighter-haired and even more compact—not petite, and not skinny either; more like sharp, or maybe economical, the same way June’s body was economical, really, but more narrowly shouldered, and with a lot less ass, which sounds kind of bad, and usually would be, but was nice on Ruth, or not on Ruth, depending on what you expect an ass to be like. Jelly’d told her, “This is Gurion. He hates the Shovers, too.” And I said, I don’t hate them; I just want to hit them. Your newest article’s the best one yet, though. Blankspots for Jesus. Those guys are so chomsky. “I think you missed the point,” Ruth Rothstein said. I said, What point? “Blankspots for Jesus? Tch,” Ruth said, and my crush died faster than a magazined spider. I said to her, No, I think you missed the point. I thought you were being subtle not saying it, but you weren’t. Those blankspots mean If not Christ, then nothing. “You’re wrong,” said Ruth. “They just mean nothing. I mean: they don’t mean anything. They’re meaningless.” I said, Only nothing is meaningless, and a blankspot is something; nothing would have to be no spot at all. “Gurion’s smarter than you,” Jelly told her, “ha ha.” And Ruth bit her lip and said “Tch” and walked off.
But now, in the Office, she chinned air = “C’mere,” and I went without a three-count since it meant she didn’t hate me. “Excited?” she whispered. “You’re about to be anonymous.”
I don’t know what that means.
She told me, “Watch this,” then swallowed her mint and went over to the Shovers.
Acer saw her coming and held out the scarf. “My statement,” he said, “is officially this: ‘This year’s scarves are flossy flossy, which is two times flossier than even I predicted, and as you well know, Ruth, I was, from the beginning, very optimistical.’ If you want, you can take out the part where I say your name, but I do want you to emphasize—”
“The question on everyone’s mind, Blake,” said Ruth, “is how do the Shovers respond to accusations that the scarf’s white stripe is a blankspot for Jesus?”
“I—”
“Who made that accusation?” said one of the others. He was tall and his arms had machined definition—not so much strong as muscular, not so much conditioned as cut. If something unguarded and heavy were in front of him, and it had parts to grip, and it wasn’t animate, and its weight was symmetrically distributed, he could lift it no sweat.
“Just calm down, dog,” Acer told the Shover. “The question was directed to me.”
“Josh is more than welcome to comment,” said Ruth.
Josh? I thought. No, I thought. No way, I thought. Not this vain swallower of multivitamin supplements. Not this morning drinker of protein milkshakes. This wasn’t the guy. A million kids were named Josh. This was some other guy.
“I want to know who’s asking,” he said to Ruth.
“I’m asking, Josh. Ruth Rothstein, ace reporter.”
“Cut the slippery shit.”
“Wow that’s gross.”
“You know what I’m asking you. Who said the blankspot was Christian?” Josh said.
“I can’t give up my sources.”
His shirt got tight against the force of his pec-flex. “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid, Ruth. Sources give information, not opinions.”
“This was an accusation.”
“That’s a kind of opinion. Whose opinion is it? Is it your opinion?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s my opinion,” Ruth said.
“What would you say?”
“I’d say it’s an accusation that, while I’m by no means certain of its accuracy, I did find somewhat compelling til just a second ago, when you started getting whiny, and then it became very compelling.”
“Nyah nyah nyah
“But he’s hung like an insect,” Ruth said, entertained.
“It’s not true. He’s my brother. Our men are hung.”
“Matt’s hung like a cicada, and I know you must know that. What I don’t know is how you trust what a person—even your brother—says about size, if what he’s got is a wa but he calls it a wang.”
Wait. No. But yes. But no. That happened too fast. So no. But yes. Actually, yes. Jelly’d told me her sister had dated Josh Berman’s brother; Ruth was Jelly’s sister; Ruth had dated this guy’s brother; this guy’s name was Josh, but… Okay: so maybe June was…maybe this Berman…so she’d been his girlfriend, for whatever weird reason, but…Nakamook was right; he had to be right. They’d never kiss. She wouldn’t have kissed him. She would not have kissed this guy. I was certain. I was. Pretty certain. I’d been pretty certain, though… I’d been pretty certain she wouldn’t have been his girlfriend either, though… I’d been… And… His wang? Really? This is what I had to think about, there in the Office? June’s ex-boyfriend’s wang and his brother’s wang too? Standing there shaking their wangs, the two of them? One with a face, and the other with no face but the first one’s body, both shaking their identical wangs at June and Ruth and Jelly, too, for some reason? Shaking their wangs while flexing their pecs and high-fiving each other and kissing their biceps? That’s what I had to do in the Office was picture that?
“You catch that?” said Acer to the fuming Josh Berman. “She just admitted, in so many words, that she’s seen your brother’s dick.”
Enough with the dick, I said. Enough with the dick.
“What up, dog,” Blake said to me. “I didn’t even see you there.”
Enough with the dick.
“You the man,” Acer said.
Get bent, I told him.
Ruth reached her hand out and put it on my shoulder. It was nice of her to do that. It calmed me a little, though I felt even worse for having pictured her getting dick-shook at. She said to Acer, “Josh has seen his brother’s unit too, Blake, is I guess what I was getting at, and since size is relative, and oneself what one relates to, and since Josh seems to genuinely believe that his brother’s other than tiny, it doesn’t take much of a leap to conclude that, well, you know…”
Good, I thought. Yes. Berman’s got the tinywang. Way too tiny to shake at a girl. He wouldn’t even whip it out. If she saw it he’d be… I felt like a bancer. I knew what it was you did with your wang when you had a girlfriend and she would let you; I wasn’t two years old; I read a lot of books. I knew that you didn’t just shake it at girls, but if what you did with it was what Berman did with it with June… As bad as it was to picture him shaking it at her, that wasn’t as bad as what he really would have done, if he’d done anything that she would’ve let him, so I pictured him shaking it and felt like a bancer. Everything seemed gross. I wanted to hide. I was hiding.
“Just keep talking,” Berman said to Ruth. “Keep on talking. No one here’s listening. You’re not even in the room.”
“You heard the question about the blankspot for Jesus, though, right?”
“That’s not what it is at all!” said Berman.
“Who are you getting angry at? I’m not even here.”
“It. Means. Nothing. A blankspot is blank. Blank means nothing.”
“But if I’m not here, then who’re you trying to convince?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be objective? Aren’t you supposed to be a reporter? Is it my fault you’re flatter than a wall? Is it my fault Matt met another girl at Stevenson? Yes and yes and no and no, so listen to me: It’s meaningless. The blankspot is meaningless.”
“Well, not totally meaningless—it’s Frungeon’s,” said Acer. “The white stripe of Frungeon, Frungeon’s own nothing, the innermost symbol of his soul.”
“Exactly,” said Berman. “It’s got nothing to do with Jesus at all.”
“But it’s the innermost symbol of Frungeon’s Christian soul?”
“Fuck. You. Ruth. Rothstein,” said Berman, and grabbed his scarf and rushed out into Main Hall. One of the others grabbed his own scarf and turned.
“Cory,” Acer said to him.
“What?” the Shover called Cory said.
Acer hesitated.
Cory walked off to follow Josh Berman.
“Goldman!” Acer shouted. “Berman!” he shouted. “Don’t sweat it, you guys!”
And the other Shover added, “She’s just one of those kids who hates on the Shovers.”
Ruth said, “Drop the preposition and you’re onto something, fatso.”
That’s when Blake Acer tried to make friends with me. “That was sweet how you beat down those SpEds,” he told me.
You’re a cheesedick, I said.
“No, I didn’t mean… I meant in the locker-room…This morning’s what I meant… That Janitor SpEd and his friend with the smelly piss or whatever? Like the way you messed them up like that? I saw it with my own eyes and it was badass, man, those guys had it com—”
You’re a cheesedick, I told him.
“Oh, a cheesedick,” he said. Then he turned to the kid who Ruth had called a fatso. “Cheesedick,” he said. “Cheesedick, right?”
And each of them said “Cheesedick” and “Cheesedick, Tch.” = “We know how CageSpEds show affection with insults, we’ve heard them do it on the buses, and we can be down with it: cheesedick is a shibboleth we can all pronounce.”
I’m calling you a cheesedick, I said. You’re the both of you cheesedicks, and all of your friends. You’re smegmatic foreskins. Stinking, fungal, sebaceous fleshfolds.
“Smegma!” said Acer. “Fungal!” said the other one. “That’s funny!” they said, and they laughed it up loud, stealing glances to see if I was joining them yet. A couple seconds later, the laughter’d grown louder, like all laughter does when the laugher starts to force it. They no longer believed we’d soon laugh together, but they pretended they did to save face. It was the same move they’d pull when B-team bully Bryan “Bry Guy” Maholtz would grundy or push down a Shover in the hallway, the same laugh they incited the bandkids to laugh when they’d trip or wallslam or bookrocket a bandkid. It was textbook caulking, this laugh-along laugh, an offering of peace that = “We don’t want to fight you” while managing to ≠ “We don’t want to hurt you.”
In the middle of the laughter, Brodsky’s door opened, and then out came Miss Pinge, and Acer said her name. He showed her the scarf.
“Dashing,” she said, and sat down at her desk.
“Says it’s dashing,” said Acer to Fatso.
To me, Pinge said, “Your ears must be burning.” = “Brodsky’s been talking about you.” = “Brodsky’s got you made for the scoreboard.”
It took me a second to figure that out, though. My A was a little bit D’d.
Are the lobes very red? I said to Miss Pinge.
I disliked Berman, but that wasn’t it. Or that was partly it, but not all of it; the wangtalk and meanness to Jelly’s sister, the being June’s ex, the maybe having kissed her and the dickshaking imagery—it got me pissed, but none of that was what D’d my A. It was Cory, Berman’s friend. I’d disliked him on sight, as I had all the others, and that didn’t bother me—because he was a Shover, it didn’t bother me—but when Acer said his name and I found out it was Goldman, I liked him even less. That was what bothered me. I never liked, to start with, when I didn’t like an Israelite. Whenever I met one I didn’t like, instead of trying to find reasons why I might come to like him, I’d try to find reasons for why it was okay not to like him. I’d try to find a way to like not liking him, and I didn’t like that about me—it seemed weak.
“The lobes?” said Miss Pinge.
And suddenly I understood what she’d meant about burning ears, but Brodsky’s door was open and he might have been listening, so I kept up like I didn’t know what she’d meant. I approached her desk, asking, You g
“I do,” she said, leaning forward a little.
Behind me, in his office, Brodsky coughed—fakely?
Can I have it? I said.
“I don’t know,” Miss Pinge said.
The Shovers packed up, went out to to the bus circle, Ruth taking down their statements on a stenopad.
You don’t know? I said.
“Maybe,” Miss Pinge said.
Brodsky coughed again, a string of—yes—of fakes, and a ball of muscle heated up between my shoulders, right where he aimed the beams of anger that shot from his eyes. He was definitely coughing to get my attention. It was not a good sign. I’d assumed that if he was going to question me about the scoreboard that day, then the note Eliyahu’d brought would’ve said for me to come down to the Office immediately, not when school let out. Except Brodsky probably knew I’d think that, and that’s probably why he did it the way he did it. It was a solid tactic and it was stupid of me to expect that showing up for my record would game him out.
Is this a can I/may I thing? I said to Miss Pinge. Or a magic word thing? I said.
“Yes,” she said.
May I please have my record?
“Yes,” she said. She reached under her desk and came up with two thick manila envelopes, the kind with the bobbin and the red twine fastener. The red twine fastener gets wound around the bobbin.
I said, Two copies?
“Just one,” she said.
I said, How many envelopes does Nakamook have?
She said, “That would be confidential.”
I said, I bet mine are thicker.
Miss Pinge said, “I bet so, too.”
I said, Lots of people have written about me.
“That’s a very positive way to see it,” she said. “I think Mr. Brodsky wants to talk to you, kiddo.”
In his doorway, I told Brodsky: Miss Pinge said you want to talk.
And then I stepped over his threshold and saw that the wingnut I’d given him was gone from his blotter. It wasn’t anywhere on his desk.
He said, “I’ve been doing some math.”