The Instructions by Adam Levin
His leg was cocked for a second face-shot when I got there and threw him aside. Eliyahu dragged GlassMan away by the ankles.
Mr. Goldblum said to me: “But you said!”
About then is when Brodsky began to catch on. At the edge of the crowd, with most of the teachers, he was too far away to see more than blurred movement, but the movement blurred fast, fast meant violent, and Shlomo kept screaming. The principal yelled, “Break it up!” through his soundgun, and the sitters in the field all leapt to their feet. The standers were already thickening around us.
Mr. Goldblum attempted to make his way past me, faking to the left, slipping to the right. I side-stepped to block him, left-right-left, til he caught me off-footed with a sideways shoulder-thrust. I landed on my ass and he helped me back up, saying, “Sorry, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry.”
We were standing nose-to-nose, Mr. Goldblum and I, and I thought: We’re nose-to-nose, Mr. Goldblum and I, and I’d think we’d be nose-to-clavicle, us, or at least nose-to-thrapple.
Was I also cartoon-looking? I touched my nose.
I noticed his copy of Ulpan on the ground. I knelt to pick it up, still a little bit stunned, and he shot right past me, returned to the fight. I jammed the paper in my pocket, tried to follow him in, but before I’d even landed a second footfall, I got yanked back, then up in the air. Two arms wrapped tight around the crooks of my own, and my elbows pressed into my gut so hard some lunch got displaced and I puked in my mouth.
I spit it out.
I thought: Desormie.
I kicked my legs around, trying to get free. The stun was entirely gone now.
I saw Eliyahu wrap The Levinson’s torso and wrestle him off of Shlomo Cohen’s wrists.
The Levinson’s face was soaked with tears and he was screaming at Shlomo: “Where’s your friends now? It’s my friends who saved you! My friends! Mine! You—” Then he was knocked away by the Chewer, and Eliyahu got arm-barred by Maholtz.
Eliyahu’s fedora fell in the grass.
Finally my heel made contact with something soft on my holder and my holder said, “Fuck,” but he didn’t drop me. He swung around, and I could no longer see Eliyahu and the Five, and then I made contact again with my heel, and my holder swung us back to the first position. If I was him and he was Gurion, I would have leaned forward and fell on Gurion, stuck my knee in one of Gurion’s kidneys and sideways-chopped on Gurion’s neck, but he was not me and I was not him. He just kept holding me in the air while I kicked, and walking us backward, away from the fight, further into the crowd, and laughing, he was laughing, a peculiar laughter. It was forced, but not loud enough for anyone to hear—not anyone but me. He was laughing for my benefit.
I heard Brodsky screaming for Jerry and Floyd. He was still far away, trapped back by the crowd.
My holder kept swinging me left and right. Kids opened a path so they wouldn’t get kicked.
Boystar, now travelling beside us, was thrilled. He got in my face and talked news like it was his: “Maccabee’s a dead man! Maccabee’s dying!”
I wanted to say something back but I was gasping. Every time I exhaled, the pressure on my center got tighter. My holder adjusted his grip a little, and for a few seconds, I could see over everyone’s heads. I saw Co-Captain Baxter. He crushed the crown of the fallen fedora, then stepped to the Maholtz-grappled Eliyahu and took his yarmulke. He threw it behind him, frisbee-style, into the crowd. Maholtz reached his leg around the front of Eliyahu, released the arm-bar, and shoved forward so Eliyahu tripped. He fell bad. He caught his own knee in his beauty, and his wind got blasted. I needed to get loose to help him and I couldn’t. Co-Captain Baxter flipped him over and pinned him, slapped him, twetched in his eye. Everything in sight spun for a second.
I put all my strength in my shoulders to spread them, inhaled as hard as I could. This got a little air inside my cramped lungs, but blinking sparks were already falling, scraping their way down my visual field.
All the Five were cleared away by teachers except for Shpritzy, who was nearly horizontal, stretched in mid-air, his arms locked tight around Shlomo’s head, Desormie pulling him west by the ankles while the Chewer pulled Shlomo east by the waist. Floyd dropped his cheering cone and Main Man grabbed it. He shouted through the bell: “Nakamook? Nakamook? Where is Benji Nakamook? Is Benji Nakamook in the two-hill field?”
I wanted to know where Nakamook was, too. And Vincie. Leevon. Where was the Side of Damage? If the cheering cone was a soundgun, then Main Man could—but no. There was no need for a soundgun. There was the Side of Damage! All of them but Benji—no! There was Benji. They were standing right there. Not helping me.
Watching.
“Nakamook!” shouted Mookus. “If you are Benji Nakamook please report to the center of the penultimate crowd scene! Please step back to allow Benji Nakamook access—”
Shpritzy and Shlomo had suddenly separated. Floyd’s elbow struck Main Man. The cheering cone dropped. All the Side of Damage glanced between me and Benji.
Again my holder re-adjusted his grip, turning us a little. I caught sight of some Shovers shoving each other, yanking scarves off each other, lofting scarves in the air, then my eye-level sunk to the crowd’s neck-and-back-plane. Any breath I had left in my body was stale. I heard ticking in my ears, and the sparks ceased to blink, and they grew tails like comets and were falling so quickly I was seeing bright lines, phosphorescent white.
And I wanted to know how Desormie could possibly hold onto Shpritzy way over there while he crushed all the air from me right over here.
The white lines thickened.
Desormie couldn’t be in two places at once.
I tried some more kicking. My legs were floppy. My holder said, quietly, “Don’t make me hurt you.” The calm of his voice was unmistakable.
I thought: But he’s only just another boy, though. I’m being defeated by another boy.
“I’m saying calm down, kid,” Slokum said.
I turned my head as hard as I could and used my last halfbreath to twetch in his face, but it only drooled out of me.
Kids were staring.
“Okay now,” said Bam, and he set me down. “You’re okay now. Good guy. Okay.”
I sucked air, gulped air, wiped my face on my hood. Slokum was leaving.
Wait! I shouted.
He stopped. He waited.
I caught my breath and jumped straight at him. He turned away, and I bounced off his arm. “Smacked-up Maccabee,” Boystar said. He thought it was hilarious. “I’m gonna write a song.”
“Just disappear now,” Slokum said to one of us. “Don’t make it all knotty. Don’t complicate things.”
When I got back on my feet, he was gone, in the crowd. The crowd had gone calm, lining up to be counted.
I walked around the hillside and sat in the valley, cold and faceless in a puddle of snat.
I lay back on the stiff grass and stared at the yud-shaped clouds. They drifted together into pairs while I daydreamed an audience that filled the risers in the gym. I paced inside the tip-off circle, denouncing Slokum’s tactics through a megaphone. I explained how I’d have wrecked him if he’d faced me honorably: if he’d attacked head-on instead of creeping up from behind. And if I’d have wrecked Bam Slokum, I explained, he’d be the one in front of an imaginary audience, protesting the unfair tactics of Gurion ben-Judah, explaining how he’d have wrecked Gurion if Gurion had faced him honorably and how in that case it would be Gurion in front of an imaginary meow meow, explaining meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.
Fucker! I yelled at the clouds of yud.
And the clouds said nothing. They were only clouds, mute symbols at best.
I was a snatless wonder.
I didn’t want to fight Bam. I liked him. Even as I’d regained my feet and jumped to attack him, I’d liked him. Even as I hated to like him. Why did I have to like him? And why did he just hold me in the air like that? Was it mercy? Some scholars would argue it was mercy. They would argue that
Other scholars would see it differently. Maybe Bam held Gurion in the air, they would suggest, because he thought that was the only way to keep his advantage. Maybe he thought that if he fell forward and broke Gurion’s back or damaged Gurion’s kidneys or lifted Gurion higher and dropped him on his head—maybe Slokum thought actions of that kind would incite Gurion’s friends to step in. Maybe he thought Nakamook, or Vincie, or the Side of Damage, though presently kept at bay by their fear of him, would be incited to rally against him if he actually damaged Gurion.
Or, would argue a third group of scholars, maybe Slokum just thought he’d get in trouble if he damaged Gurion. It could be Slokum knew that what he seemed to be doing, to the eyes of Brodsky and the teachers—if they were even watching—was stopping a fight = restraining Gurion = restoring order = separating the undesired prefix from the disArrangement. It is true that Gurion had been stopping that same fight himself, but Bam might not have known that; and even if he had known it, he could plausibly deny the knowledge as long as all he did was restrain Gurion, who few at Aptakisic would ever suspect of attempting to break up a fight.
But then again, maybe Bam knew that being held back helpless while otherwise able to function at full capacity was, ultimately, more humiliating than having that capacity beaten out of you with blows that broke bones and bruised organs. Maybe Bam, like the Cage, was just another fractal of the Arrangement, operating perfectly, in concentrated miniature, according to the central principles on which all its rules were based: The less violent the measures of restraint, the more humiliation those measures inflict on the restrained; the more humiliated the restrained, the less violent need be the measures to restrain them.
What would seem an act of mercy to some scholars would, to others, surely seem a quiet, snakey assertion of dominance, a prelude to enslavement.
But even if those latter scholars would be wrong and it was an act of mercy, who was Bam Slokum to show me mercy? And why should I consider the possibility that it was mercy? Wasn’t that a kind of weakness in itself? Giving him the benefit of the doubt? Why did I have to like him? Ever? But especially now? Why did I have to still like him? Why was I compelled to posit scholars who would come to his defense? Why did I have to play his apologist? Why couldn’t the story be that I used to like him, and then, after he’d humiliated me, I gave up on him and didn’t like him anymore? Why couldn’t I just feel disappointed and then betrayed and then get on with the vengeance or whatever it is you’re supposed to get on with when you’ve been disappointed and betrayed? I could never get disappointed at the appropriate time. I was always so late. It took me nine weeks to see Esther Salt’s shadiness, and it would have surely taken longer if I hadn’t fallen in love with June. And those scholars who had ditched me third period—why not call them enemies? Why resist? What was wrong with me? I wanted to damage someone, but I was the only one in the two-hill field’s valley and I wasn’t getting up.
I thought: You’ve been laid low. Pray.
But I didn’t think: You’ve been laid low by an enemy. Fight.
I thought: Stop thinking. Thinking only makes it worse.
But I didn’t think: Stop praying. Self-pity only makes it worse.
I should have been thinking those things I didn’t think, but instead I just laid there, tight-chested and pitiful, trying to make hearty the hollow Hebrew praise I found myself whispering in the direction of the same yud-shaped clouds I had cursed only moments earlier.
And then I heard jingling, and grass-blades getting crushed. And then there were knees, next to my face. Girl’s knees. June’s knees. Under the denim they were naked, freckled. I’d never seen them.
“Who are you talking to?” she said. “Get up. They’re about to take attendance.”
June, I said, don’t look at me. I just got defeated.
She said, “I know.”
You saw? I said.
“No,” she said. “I saw Benji Nakamook crying and I—nyee-yah!” She got a chill from the cold that rolled her shoulders. “Eee!” she said. “I saw Benji crying and I asked him why.”
Why didn’t he help me? I said.
“I think that’s why he was crying,” she said. “But get up, okay? If you don’t show for attendance, you’ll be in trouble.”
I said, I don’t care if I get in trouble.
“That’s fine for you,” she said, “but I care. If you get an OSS or expelled, then it’ll be hard for me to see you.”
I said, You’re gonna stop seeing me if I get in trouble?
“With my eyes,” she said. “If you’re not in school, it’ll be hard for me to see you with my eyes. What’s wrong with you? I told you I’d marry you. We’re engaged. Why would I break our engagement because you got in trouble? And why would you care, anyway? If I was the kind of person who would stop being engaged to you because you got in trouble, then I’d be a suck kind of person and you’d be better off without me, and we both know you wouldn’t be better off without me, so that means I’m not that kind of person. What I want is to make out with you a lot and crack jokes. I want to make out with you a lot after school today and crack jokes. If you get kicked out, how will we be able to do that?”
I followed her halfway up the high hill, where she spun around to face me, like she had something new and sudden to say.
The Side of Damage was just over the crest. Botha told them to quiet the nonsense and line up. I didn’t hear any nonsense that needed quieting. I heard Nakamook clicking his Zippo open and snapping it shut inside of his pocket, an action he’d sometimes perform to calm himself. A brittle elm bough was creaking behind us, adjusting in the wind. Someone played spastic percussion with a zipper. A fought yawn forced crackling from someone else’s jaw-joints. The sound forced me to yawn, then June to yawn, and me one more time, but otherwise I didn’t care about any of it. June was staring at me and she was letting me stare at her. She didn’t turn her head away when she yawned. She hid her mouth behind her wrist and her eyes got even wetter-looking.
She said, “You always look really alive. I want to draw you. Line up now, okay? Get counted.” She touched my hand, dashed over the hill.
As soon as she was out of sight, I remembered my defeat; limpness washed through my muscles. I got on my stomach and army-crawled to the crest.
Chin on the ground, my field of vision sliced into portions by hard, dead blades of grass, I looked down on the field full of lining-up students. Eliyahu and the Five were nowhere. Probably the same nowhere as Brodsky and Floyd. I couldn’t spot Maholtz, Co-Captain Baxter, or Shlomo either. Blonde Lonnie and Slokum stood in parallel attendance lines, low-voicing jokes. Boystar, ten yards away from them, kept shouting their names. When they’d revolve to see what he wanted, he’d turn his thumbs up.
Looking at Boystar, at his little celebration, I finally had a thought that was smart. I thought: It’s not that you like Bam Slokum despite the fact that he humiliated you, Gurion. I thought: You like Bam Slokum because he humiliated you. Like some cowardly Pascal wagering, you suspected all along that Bam could hurt you, so you decided to like him. As long as you told yourself you liked him, and for as long as you continue to tell yourself you like him, you have had and will continue to have an excuse not to fight him, an excuse to make excuses for him and his actions, actions you wouldn’t hesitate to condemn if anyone else had performed them.
I may have helped to wreck the pagan scoreboard, but I had made of Bam a Christian deity, and these days were not like the days of Avram. To smash idols was not enough. It only infuriated the idolaters. We must smash what the idols stand for, I thought. We must smash their gods, bone by bone, starting with the fingers and ending with the skulls, and that is only the beginning, for we must also bring down the shelves and the altars on
I had been operating too symbolically. I had been too verbose. Verbosity was like the iniquity of idolatry. I had been iniquitous, a sinner, and there in the two-hill field I was repenting.
Repentance is easy when you’ve been defeated—I knew that. I needed to figure out how to atone.
Itching to flash his upturned thumbs some more, Boystar shouted Slokum’s name again. Slokum ignored him, and I enjoyed it too much, enjoyed it the wrong way. To enjoy the revelation that the bonds between two of my enemies were weak would have been fine, but what I enjoyed was so instantaneous that it could not have been that. What I enjoyed was that Bam showed Boystar disfavor, which meant being in Bam’s favor was still valuable to me.
You were humiliated by him, I thought, well before he laid hands on you, and yet even now, after he has held you helpless in the air, you can hear it echoing, the angelic robotvoice in your head that assures you might makes right even while might is wronging you, that it is good to accept the dominance of those who dominate you, that your enemies are friends as long as you cheer for them.
I thought: The more violent the measures of restraint, the less humiliation those measures inflict on the restrained; the less humiliated the restrained, the more violent need be the measures to restrain them.
I thought: Being humiliated only makes it easier to restrain you. And being restrained makes it possible to torture you, for the unrestrained cannot be tortured; the unrestrained can only be fought. So to be restrained is to be unable to fight, and to be humiliated is to be readied for torture. To know you have been readied for torture is to await torture. And to await torture is, itself, torture.
I thought: There is nothing more glaringly unmerciful than torture. Those who would restrain you will be subject to your atonement.