The Instructions by Adam Levin
The Solomon Schechter School of Chicago
Unger [headmaster of Schechter –S.B.] basically called me and my mom and her whole side of the family a worthless lot of Godless n*ggers. So I exploded.
Northside Hebrew Day School
I taught those Israelites [a group of students at Northside Hebrew Day-S.B.] how to make weapons that are legal to carry, legal to fire at non-living things that don’t belong to anybody, and can’t accidentally go off. I was trying to help them protect themselves from people like the ones who attacked my synagogue. It’s not my fault they turned on each other— You wouldn’t blame an arsonist’s parents for teaching him to light a match any more than you’d blame the proverbial fisherman for teaching— Is there any way you’d turn your fan off?… Not cold, bothered by that rubbing sound, though, thank you. What I was saying is that I’m not anyone’s father, not yet, and even if I was their father, if I was the father of all those kids, the crime still wouldn’t be teaching them to build pennyguns; it would be raising them to be the kinds of people who’d use pennyguns on members of their own tribe. All that I, who is their not-father in the first place, did was teach them to build pennyguns. They came to my backyard because they thought they needed protection and I agreed they needed protection, so I did what I thought was right, and I would do it again… Because I still think it was right… With all the scholars who had pennyguns—not to mention all the ones who’ve made pennyguns since Northside kicked me out—there’s been only that one shooting incident. Why doesn’t anyone remark on that?
Martin Luther King Middle School
First of all, I didn’t use the brick [a brick Gurion was discovered holding when the MLK recess supervisor broke up the fight –S.B.] —I only picked it up to defend myself against the bleeding kid’s seven friends who were coming after me. Secondly, the only reason that kid, who, by the way, had about twenty pounds on me, was bleeding was because he called me a “motard” which, if you don’t know, is a combination of “homo” and “retard,” which is bad enough already, and then, after calling me motard, he slapped my head, which leads us to thirdly: if I was someone else, someone who’d have needed a brick to end that kid’s chapter, I’d have been totally justified in using one, anyway.
Although the client’s explanations, however suspiciously eloquent (Gurion’s eloquence will be further explored below, under the rubrics Codeswitching and Diagnosis), have the ring of being sound, the behavior he has engaged in since coming to Aptakisic (again, to be explored below) throws a shadow over them: a shadow of a doubt.
RACIO-ETHNIC BACKGROUND
Gurion identifies himself as “Israelite,” a term he prefers to “Jewish,” and all but ignores the fact of his African lineage. He provided me with an explanation re: his rejection of “African-American” as an appropriate descriptor of his background and, although I would typically summarize such an explanation rather than set it down word-for-word (you can hear it on side 2 of tape A, from indiv session 2 of 3), I believe that it is important, in this particular case, to remain faithful to the audio-recording,******** as it will serve to further illustrate the precocious linguistic abilities that will be discussed later in this assessment, under the rubric of Codeswitching.
GURION: African-American is a misnomer, and an irrelevant one when it comes to me… A misnomer because it refers to very general geographical origins that have little if anything to do with the identity of the people who claim the misnomer—their identity is not based in having African ancestors any more than a Polish-American’s is based in having European ancestors… I guess maybe Rwandan-American or Nigerian-American could potentially be more worthwhile descriptors of someone’s ethnicity, though not much more worthwhile, come to think of it—those countries haven’t been around that long and weren’t established as nations by anyone all too indigenous. A tribal identification would make the most sense… Like if people called themselves Tutsi-Americans or Hutu-Americans. Anything less is just… I don’t think you’re hearing me, Sandy. What I’m saying is that you wouldn’t imagine Tutsis doing too much identifying with Hutus, even though they’re all from the same continent, which is Africa, which makes them all African… Because they genocide on each other for kicks is why not… I guess that’s a pretty way to think about it, but even if you’re right, African-American’s mostly just a fancy way to say dark-skinned, and who cares what color anyone is? I mean a lot of people care, but those people won’t usually admit it—that’s why they like to say African-American… I agree we should set it aside, but not for later; we should just set it aside… Irrelevant when it comes to me because even though my mother’s parents were born in Ethiopia, they were taken to Israel on this special program in 1955 when my grandfather was eighteen and my grandmother twenty and… Of course voluntarily! The idea was that the Israelites of Ethiopia—the Beta Israel—whose status as their brothers some lighter-skinned Israelites denied (and a few still deny), were behind the times religiously—they’d been isolated from most of the scripture and commentary that was written after the Torah—and the idea of the 1955 program was to take a small group of the most intelligent younger Beta Israel to the land of Israel in order to educate them in the relatively newer ways of our people, and that these Beta Israel would then return to Ethiopia and teach their Beta Israel countrymen the new ways they’d learned. So my grandfather and grandmother, who had never met prior to the journey, fell in love on the airplane over, and, once they arrived in Israel, they married and decided to stay there… Because the reason they decided to stay there was that, first of all, it was Israel, which was promised to them by God, and secondly, they knew that in Israel they wouldn’t be subject to the rapes and lynchings and hut-burnings they’d been suffering at the hands of the Canaanite Ethiopians, whose skin was the same color as theirs and whose country went by the same name… So here’s another way to put it, then: That my grandparents came from the continent of Africa and had dark skin is only relevant to me insofar as certain unenlightened Ashkenazis make a big deal out of it, which is a great reason to get explosive—the big deal that gets made out of their skin color—but it is not nearly a good enough reason to call myself African-American… I am an Israelite because all my people are in the line of Israel, who was Jacob, who wrestled an angel and won, and I am a foreigner among all others, nearly all of whose ancestors tried to wipe mine out… Yes, I believe literally wrestled an angel… Sure there’s metaphorical value—very rich metaphorical value—but why would that deplete its literal value?… Listen, I was born to be who I am and I know who that is better than you do, which… Just check whatever box you want to check and record my name without the patrinomic, then… ben-Judah… It’s not my middle name… I said it’s fine… I said don’t worry about the ben-Judah… Maybe a little frustrated, yes… Forget it… Stop… Forget it… It doesn’t matter…I said whatever you want to put is fine… I’ll never know your dumont language as well as you do, anyway, social worker… Flat and imperceptive like Margaret Dumont… The greatest straightman in the history of the world… Yes. She was a woman… Because straightwoman or straightperson would mean heterosexual… No, in fact it has nothing to do with my thoughts about the term African-American.
PRESENTATIONAL
During individual sessions, Gurion’s conversational style is highly animated—filled with much movement of the hands and face (I’m tempted to describe this animation, particularly that of the face, as being “caricatured,” but “caricatured” seems to imply a level of theatricality or falsity, when, in fact, I don’t believe that’s the case at all—rather, by using “caricatured,” if, that is, I were to settle on using “caricatured,” I would only mean to get across the “intensity” or “poignancy” of the facial expressions) that appears to seem almost caricaturey—and typically contains a number of humorous gambits, many of which I must admit I do not follow, although, I must also admit, I tend to laugh along with, as Gurion’s emotional state, whatever it may be at a given moment, is highly infe
The infectuousness/contagiousness of Gurion’s emotional states is not only evidenced by my reaction to him, but by the reactions of his peers.
The parallel in Group Session to Gurion’s animation in Indiv. Session is an extremely labile affect. I have twice seen him, in a single instant, affectively leap from an almost-trance-looking state that could indicate anything from sleepiness to hostile disinterest, into a state of total emotional intensity, and then back again. These affective leaps have, both times, included postural, facial, vocal, and manual activity. On the first occasion, owing to what must have been a visual cue on the part of M.B., the boy Gurion would momentarily address (I was engaging another group member in eye-contact at the time, which prevented me from being able to see what the rest of the group was doing, and, added to that, I did not hear anything out of the ordinary, so I must assume it was a visual cue), Gurion stood up with such suddenness that his chair was forced into a backwards double-tumble, and, in a boxer’s crouch, one fist on guard, the other overhead with an extended index finger, he shouted, “Do not!” at M.B., who wept openly in response.
The second affective leap occurred during a session which had, I must admit, reached a chaotic peak that I could not for the life of me control, wherein all of the group members, except for Gurion and a mentally retarded boy (Williams Syndrome) who I’ll call S.M., traded swear-peppered insults and cross-talked without cease. S.M. appeared sad throughout the chaotic period, and often looked to Gurion, who, when he wasn’t engaging eye-contact back at S.M. in what appeared to be a gesture of comforting solidarity, stared fixedly at the ground. After about twenty minutes of the aforementioned group chaos, S.M. began to pray aloud, though too quietly for anyone to make out the words he was pronouncing, and it was at this point that Gurion ceased staring fixedly at the ground and leaned forward. I don’t believe I can describe the intensity of this leaning forward—I don’t believe I can describe what aspect of it communicated what it communicated, but what it communicated was a capacity, and even a willingness, to paste the walls of my office with the bones and organs of anyone other than S.M. who dared continue making noise. (And I should note, here, that I am not attempting to sensationalize or to startle you, Professor Lakey, with that kind of imagery, but to produce a reproduction of actual events: at that moment [whatever it may say about me as a person or a therapist], I actually thought to myself, “Sandy! Pay attention to S.M., or Gurion will make a paste of your bones and your organs with which he will cover the walls of your office.”) Within moments, the other group members had ceased riotously acting out in their various ways and given their total attention to S.M. At the conclusion of his prayer (which, once it had been rendered audible by our silence, proved itself to be melodically familiar, however in another, completely unfamiliar language), S.M. sang “She Said, She Said” by the Beatles (S.M.’s singing voice is angelic), and at the conclusion of the song, Gurion applauded S.M., as did the other, formerly chaos-making group members, and then fell back into staring fixedly at the ground, as did the other, formerly chaos-making group members. They would not speak, not any of them, for the session’s remaining ten minutes.
PEERS, FRIENDS
Though he is not, at the time of this assessment’s writing, generally well-liked by other students in the Cage program, Gurion is offered a wide social berth by his peers (I have never seen him sanctioned for any of his behavior), and, more often than not, it is the case that, as the saying goes, “all eyes are on this kid.”
Other than all of them being Cage students at least two years his senior, the few friends at Aptakisic who Gurion has acquired do not share any notable similarities; their personality traits vary greatly, as do the forms taken by their acting-out behaviors. Nonetheless, the few who Gurion considers to be his friends share a group identity. It is unclear whether they are aware of this group identity, but other students respond to it, as do teachers. In fact, the Cage Monitor, Victor Botha, even has a name for the group, a name, albeit, that he only uses in the teachers lounge, but a name nonetheless, and one that has caught on among some of the other teachers (though they, as well, only use it in the teachers lounge). Victor Botha calls the group Spooky and The Spastics. For obvious reasons, I find this name offensive, and prefer to the think of the group as the Maccabeean Collective. The Collective’s roster is outlined below:
The aforementioned S.M.
L.R., a selectively mute African-American boy (I only mention his racio-ethnicity because, apart from Gurion—who, as we’ve seen, denies the affiliation—L.R. is the sole African-American student at Aptakisic).
V.P., a short-tempered and often violent boy who has been, unlike Gurion (see below, under Diagnoses) correctly diagnosed with Conduct Disorder.
J.R., a girl who, apart from a tendency to become overexcited when she is interested in the subject matter at hand, along with a kind of verbal ferocity when placed in competitive situations or situations wherein an authority figure seems vulnerable, as well as a tendency to bite people who stand “too close” to her, is a quiet, attentive, and, if I may be permitted to say so in an academic essay such as this one, very sweet girl.
J.M., a girl who has been diagnosed with Pica, OCD, and ADHD (again, accurately), who often engages in physical confrontations with other students—mostly boys—and who, curiously enough, all but refuses to participate in one-on-one conversations, but becomes quite loud and communicative when faced with a peer-group of 2+. (J.M., like Gurion and all the others listed, with the exception of B.N. [description forthcoming], is in the open therapy group I lead, and I have noticed that she only enters conversations that are in progress.)
Sixthly, finally, B.N., a very—for lack of better terms—troubled and angry boy; the son of an alcoholic single mother who neglects and (we suspect [he refuses to speak against her]) physically abuses him, and who has already been (B.N, I mean) through the juvenile justice system for having committed arson on a local residence at the age of ten; fights incessantly (is recognized by many of his peers as the “toughest” boy at Aptakisic); has been diagnosed with ADHD (once more, accurately, I believe); who would, were it not for the efforts of Bonnie Wilkes, PsyD (who meets in Indiv. session with him [B.N.] regularly), have long since been permanently expelled from Aptakisic; and who Gurion sees as his only intellectual and masculine equal, and even (in certain senses that Gurion will go to great lengths to qualify) as his superior—Gurion looks up to B.N.
Prior to Gurion’s arrival at Aptakisic, certain members of the Macabeean Collective were already socially involved—specifically S.M. with B.N., V.P. with B.N., L.R. with V.P., J.R. with J.M., and B.N. with L.R.—but otherwise they held themselves aloof from one another. Since Gurion’s arrival, however, it is hard to find any one of them without another at his or her elbow or, at the very least, within arm’s reach.
Unfortunately for Gurion, the close relationships he has formed at school do not have extracurricular counterparts. Because he lives in Chicago, it is hard for him to spend time with his Aptakisic friends (all of whom live in Deerbrook Park) when not in school. I only know of one occurrence of Gurion’s engaging socially with an Aptakisic friend outside of school—About a week ago, B.N. had dinner at Gurion’s house. (By all indications, it went well.)
Furthermore, the client claims to have no social interaction with others in his age group—not even his relative age group—outside of school. According to Gurion, as well as to his parents and his teachers, he was quite popular at Schechter and Northside, many of whose students live walking-distance from Gurion. However, the parents of his old friends, owing to gossip about Gurion’s recent scholasto-behavioral history and the wide dissemination of a mysteriously leaked e-mail (see FWD: IMPORTANT, attached) from Northside’s Headmaster Rabbi Kalisch, have forbidden these friends from spending any time with Gurion and have, furthermore, shunned his parents, who (again, according to Gurion), owing to his father’s secularity and his occupation as a civil rights lawyer known to
When asked how he felt about his mostly asocial extracurricular lifestyle, Gurion said, “It gives me time to write. And plus I have Flowers.” Writing, from what I can gather, refers to Gurion’s diary. How I’ve gathered that is deductively: Gurion refuses to explain to me the subject matter of his writing, often calling it, comically (I think), “[his] autobiography” or (just once) “[his] scripture” when pressed. And what kind of writing is private, I ask myself, if not the kind that goes in a diary? None that I know of. As for Flowers, Gurion won’t talk about him either, other than to say that “he is a badass Hoodooman who teaches [Gurion] at the Frontier [the motel near the bus-stop at which the schoolbus picks Gurion up and drops him off –S.B.],” which, by means of deduction similar to those applied to writing, I have concluded to mean an imaginary friend—Flowers, that is. I have concluded that Flowers is Gurion’s imaginary friend.
RECENT ACTS OF VIOLENCE AND UNDERMINING BEHAVIOR
From his first day at Aptakisic, Gurion has been placed in after-school detention nearly every day, and in-school suspension twice. For the most part, his offenses against the STEP System (Aptakisic’s disciplinary rubric) have been non-violent (e.g. standing on his chair and shouting [e.g., “What we have here is a failure to communicate!”; “My mouth is open wide against my antagonists!”] at the top [tops?] of his lungs; removing the wingnuts that affix the whiteboard to the wall of the Cage and refusing to return them [Gurion told Monitor Botha that he was willing to “pay 1.5 times the fair-market price for the wingnuts, and re-bracket the carrel walls to the desk with hexnuts {he} would bring to school along with {his} father’s 5-in-1 ratchet if {we} would just let {him}” but that “the wingnuts {were} no less {his [Gurion’s]} than the power to open wide {his [Gurion’s]} mouth against {his} antagonists,” at which point, presumably for the purpose of demonstration, he shouted, “You are a robot!” and Monitor Botha gave Gurion a detention]), but he has also engaged in at least two physical confrontations (i.e. in the cafeteria, during his second week at school, he mashed and pounded the face of a rather large seventh-grader against a lunch-table for reasons he has since refused to elaborate other than to say they were “good”; more recently, in the hallway, just after school and just prior to detention, after an eighth-grade boy I’ll call K.M. made a derogotory comment to S.M., Gurion, who was standing nearby, took hold of the hanging-loop at the top of K.M.’s backpack, kicked the back of K.M.’s knees so that K.M.’s feet were swept from under him, and, still holding K.M. up by the backpack loop, used his own (Gurion’s own) knees to repeatedly strike K.M. in the lower back until K.M. fainted, at which point Gurion dropped him, stood atop his chest and, before being taken to the office by one of the school security guards, stated to the crowd of students who had gathered around him: “This boy underfoot trifled with my main man S.M. My main man is not to be trifled with.”).