The Instructions by Adam Levin
And that is exactly what I was just about to do. I’d let go of June’s hand and planted mine on my chair-arms, but no sooner had I started leaning forward to rise than Josh Berman chinned air and winked at me, undermining my resolve, my whole sense of what was called for.
I leaned back, puzzled.
Berman opened his coat like a stranger-danger flasher to show me the pennygun riding at his flank—it was held to his fleece by a strip of velcro.
The unspoken subject at hand shifted quickly.
I shrugged and made my lips fat = Glad you have a weapon, but why not hide it in your pocket?
He clicked his tongue against his teeth = “Clever, my holster, I know.”
Then he closed up the coat and said, “Finally we meet.” He was acting as if we’d never laid eyes on each other. It didn’t seem possible that he wouldn’t remember—we were in the same place where we’d met the first time—but maybe he hadn’t noticed me there. Or maybe he was embarrassed for how he’d acted toward Ruth. He deserved to be embarrassed, and that was punishment itself, so I didn’t say anything; I channeled Ally Kravitz, attempted to give Berman the benefit of the doubt. My face must have, despite that, betrayed what I remembered.
“Wait a second!” said Berman. “I think I saw you right here on Tuesday. Crazy. Wow. No idea. I had no idea.”
That’s something, I said.
I didn’t like being so casual about it. Benefit of the doubt, I thought, benefit of the doubt… But he should have either said something, or he should have said nothing. He shouldn’t have said nothing and then said something, much less with fake surprise… Or maybe he should have? Maybe he was being just as human as anyone? Maybe I wanted to think he did something he shouldn’t have done because that would make it easier for me to believe I disliked him for being, in some objective way, a dickhead, rather than because he used to date June and I was petty and jealous? What worried me more? Not liking an Israelite for my own petty reasons, or liking a dislikable Israelite because he was an Israelite? I couldn’t tell. Meow meow, meow meow. I squeezed my own hand.
That’s something, I said.
He said, “Something is right. I got set straight. You saw it yourself.”
Yeah? I said.
“About the blankspot, I mean. That really got to me.”
Right, I said. I said, Ruth’s smart.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s pretty smart.”
No, I said. Ruth’s really smart.
“I guess, you know, I don’t know. I guess I must not have come off so—you know, she and my brother had a really ugly break-up.” Was he being sincere? Was he truly apologetic? What did that even mean, truly apologetic? He was saying all the right things, things I didn’t want to hear. “I’m real tight with my brother and—”
I said, None of my business.
“I’m just saying,” Berman said.
Yeah, it’s none of anyone’s business, really, right? Not even your friends’.
“I totally agree. Believe you me. I got seriously burned for bringing it up, didn’t I?”
Scorched, I said. I said, I wouldn’t mess with Ruth.
“Believe you me,” he said.
Berman had been shaking my hand since “No idea.” Here he finally let go. Then he clicked, and flashed the gun again. “So wuddup, June Dub?” he said. “Long time no—”
“Joshua Berman, get to class,” Miss Pinge interrupted. “The rest of you. ISS starts in about ninety seconds. I suggest you choose a desk.”
They all did as they were told, Berman chopping air near his temple as he left.
“What a dentist,” June said.
Yeah? I said. Yeah, I said.
June squeezed my hand.
You guys know June? I said to the Five.
“Nice to meet you, June!” said The Levinson. “I’m Mr. Goldblum,” said Mr. Goldblum. “You can call me Shpritzy,” said Shpritzy. “This boy right here is Glassman,” said Pinker. “And this young soul who so kindly just introduced me is a fellow known affectionately as Pinker,” said Glassman.
By the time they got to Shpritzy, June was laughing her face off, and I loved her so much. Everything was fine.
They’re best buddies, I told her.
She balled fists around her hair and pulled toward her shoulders, her freckles all fading in the flush of her face as she began to squeak and hyperventilate.
“June’s laughing.” “At us or with us?” “Who cares? She’s pretty.” “Still, I hope it’s with us.” “Ask her.” “She can’t talk right now.” “Is it with us, Gurion?”
She likes you guys, I said.
“Who is she, anyway?” they said.
We’re getting married, I said.
“Mazel tov!” they shouted in unison. Then they started to clap. The sound was slightly muted by their batting-gloves, but their celebration brought me joy nonetheless.
Soon the clapping gave way to high-fives, and a roll of pennies fell from Pinker’s pants pocket. Mr. Goldblum kicked it to Shpritzy. Shpritzy rolled it with his hand to The Levinson, and The Levinson swooped the roll up and over, onto the lap of Glassman. Glassman stuck it in the pocket of Pinker’s that was opposite the one it had fallen from.
Miss Pinge cleared her throat, looking dizzy.
She said, “You’re cute, but the clowning stops after the tone, under-stood?”
“You’re really nice, Miss Pinge. Isn’t Miss Pinge really nice?” “She’s so nice.” “She’s so nice, she should be the spokeswoman for an important charity because she’d raise millions.” “Probably even billions.” “She should go on Oprah.”
Brodsky’s door opened.
Maholtz, the Co-Captain, and a mangled Shlomo Cohen exited. Eyes on their shoes, they adjusted their ties, but none took a seat at the open ISS desk.
I said, Tattle and asskiss your way outta trouble?
“I can’t waint til Bam seends what you did,” said Maholtz.
And what’s that? I said.
I really didn’t know.
Maholtz said, “Tch.” Shlomo Cohen and the Co-Captain echoed it.
Then Pinker honked his dickhorn at them, and soon the other four honked their dickhorns at them, too. I thought honking my dickhorn might ick June, but I wanted to back the Five, so I just said, Honk, and kept both my hands far away from my wang.
Out came the gym teacher, stiff in his suit. As soon as he saw me, he glared.
“Don’t vibe at boo,” said June.
“Don’t what at who?”
Don’t rhyme with wifey, I told him.
“You don’t even speak correct English,” said Desormie, “and that is a testament.”
“A testament?” said The Levinson. “Testament’s like testicles,” said Mr. Goldblum. “Patriarchs grab the ones on their sons when they’re making a promise,” said Pinker. “Patriarchs grab thighs,” submitted Shpritzy. “Thigh’s a euphemism,” retorted Glassman. “How do you know?” “Cause it’s called a testimony, not a thighamony.” “Their dads touch their shvontzes?” “Their bollocks.” “Their yarbles.” “Still, that’s pervasive.” “Pervy.” “Right. Pervy.” “Except it didn’t used to be in the old days.” “These days, though, to touch your son on the nutbag—” “These days it’s total pervasion.” “Perversion.”
Desormiation, I said.
“What?” said Desormie.
I showed him my palm and pointed at it.
Delivered, I said.
That was the last word that I would ever say to him.
“Come on,” he told his basketballers.
They followed him into Main Hall, away from ISS.
The Five got up in arms.
“They just get to leave? Where’s the justice?” said Pinker. “This is a testament.” “Balls!” “Why do they get to leave, Miss Pinge?”
Miss Pinge said, “Look around. Do you see any room in here for three more desks?”
“But yesterday Mr. Brodsky said—”
“I miscalculated,”
“So they get to go to the pep rally.” “I smell a rat.” “The rat smells like Desormie.” “A testimonious sack is what it smells like.”
“You’ll go to the pep rally, too,” Brodsky said. Then he left to go to the bathroom.
“What about the Orthodox kid?” “Where’s he at?” “There’s still an empty desk.” “It’s saved for that Elijah, right?”
Hey, I said.
“What?” “What’s wrong?” “What’d we do?”
I said, When Eliyahu comes in here, you make him your best buddy.
“You can’t just make someone a best buddy like that, Gurion.” “It takes time.” “There’s a whole set of things that goes into it.” “We’ve never even seen a movie with him on Sunday.” “Let alone on seven consecutive Sundays.” “And batting gloves?” “Forget it—we’ve never even watched a game on TV with him.” “He might be a Sox fan.” “Best buddies, at this juncture, even if we wanted to… it’s impossible.” “We can do friend, maybe even pal.”
Pal shmal, I said.
“Good pal.”
Sounds pally to me, I said to June.
“It does,” June said.
“Now she’s weighing in?” “Fine.” “She says good pal sounds pally, maybe it’s pally.” “Straight-up buddy’s the final offer.” “Can we really do that, Mr. Goldblum?” “Franklin Gurstein. Three weeks ago. Precedent’s been set.” “That’s different.” “How’s it different?” “Franklin Gurstein told us what frottage was, and the Brumpy.” “And the Dirty Sanchez and the Angry Dragon.” “He told us all about the Ray Charleston Chew.” “Point taken. But maybe this Eliyahu can tell us what something dirty is?”
He can teach you words for penis in Yiddish, I said.
“We know all those words.” “Shvontz.” “Putz.” “Schmuck.” “Shlong.” “Pizzle.”
There’s more.
“How many?”
At least ten more.
“If he can teach us ten more, we’ll call him Buddy.”
Five more and good buddy, I said.
“Good buddy’s too much.” “Just a half-step below best.” “Straight-up buddy, Gurion.” “And only if he asks.” “And he has to teach us seven words for penis in Yiddish.”
“That’s enough with the penis,” said Miss Pinge.
“Miss Pinge said penis.”
Miss Pinge bit a smile back.
Pretty good buddy, seven words for penis, and he doesn’t have to ask, I said.
“There’s no such thing as pretty good buddy.” “Who ever heard of pretty good buddy?” “Pretty good buddy’s a unicorn.” “A winged unicorn.” “A horned Pegasus from Atlantis with rainbows in its eyes.” “Work with us here.”
Pretty good buddy, three words for penis, and he doesn’t have to ask.
“That’s not how you do it!” “We go lower and you go higher.” “We meet somewhere in the middle.”
Pretty good buddy, one word for penis, and he doesn’t have to ask. Anything less I walk away unhappy.
“Do you see what he’s doing?” “Look at what he’s doing!” “It’s an affront to the process.” “He’s undermining the process.” “It’s now or never.” “Gurstein’s gonna call it a ripoff.” “Everyone’s gonna call it a ripoff!” “Pretty good buddy!” “Is it even real?” “It’s definitely not real, but can we make it real, if we really try? That, best buddies, is the question.” “Let’s say we could, let’s say we can make pretty good buddy work. If Gurstein hears of it—” “Why would Gurstein hear of it?” “If Gurstein hears of it, we’ll make him a pretty good buddy, too.” “We’ll have to.” “No way around it.” “Can we do that?” “If we can make pretty good buddy real, how hard could it be to make of Gurstein a pretty good buddy?” “It’s settled then.” “It’s settled then?”
It’s settled then, I said.
Brodsky returned. “Who wants to go first?” he said.
June poked my knee.
Next to Brodsky’s phone was a box of donut-holes shaped like a house. He pushed it my way and opened the roof. He wasn’t just offering me donut-holes, though.
I’m not talking about my father, I told him.
He showed me his palms, chuckled hurt hurt hurt. Then he tapped on the box and said, “Please. I’ll be diabetic by noon.”
All the chocolates were gone. I wrapped three cinnamons in a napkin, and Brodsky handed me a spreadsheet. Thursday’s detention roster jammed in a grid. Since June and I had gotten collared together, I already knew we were in the Office for ditching detention, but what surprised me was that next to Eliyahu’s last name (Weitzman, it turned out—a small surprise in itself, to learn he was a Yeckie), instead of a blank space or check-mark, were the letters EXC. A couple slots above Eliyahu’s name was June’s, and next to hers another EXC. I scanned the whole STATUS column and failed to find a blankspot, let alone an INEXC or ABS.
“EXC means excused,” said Brodsky. “You won’t receive an ISS for ditching detention.”
I snapped a curled, stray thread off the cuff of my hoodiesleeve.
“Neither will June. No one will.”
This nub of elastic poked out from the cuff where the thread had been. I pinched it between my nails and pulled, but the nub just got longer, which I should have expected. How many out-sticking elastic nubs had I made elastic string of, pulling them?
“Do you know there were nearly eighty students on yesterday’s detention roster?” said Brodsky. “Forty were from the Cage, but the average number of students in Thursday detention is sixteen, so even without the students from the Cage, who account for an average of thirty-nine percent of detentions on any given day, roughly seven percent of the school was in detention. Unheard of. And nine students skipped, also unheard of. Now: all of you will serve a detention to make up for the skipped one. None of you, however, will be disciplined for having skipped, nor for any other offense for which you haven’t yet been stepped this week.”
The move my dad had showed me was you grasp the fabric on either side of the nub and massage it; it took a few seconds sometimes to get the action right, but the nub never failed to suck back inside the garment. I rarely thought to massage til after I’d pulled the nub, though. I usually made string of the nub, and you couldn’t massage string away. You could wind string around your swear-tip and yank suddenly, but half the time that made more string. The only guaranteed method was sawing side-to-side at the base with your teeth. This got spit on your garment, but was always effective, so that’s what I did. I brought my wrist to my mouth and started to chew.
Brodsky hadn’t stopped talking. “…Then yesterday you told me the students in the Cage act like they’re in a cage because they are in the Cage. Now, as I’m sure you’re well aware, that’s not a new idea. However, it’s not an entirely insupportable one either. In fact, were you to allow it to soften a little—were you to qualify it… were you to say, instead of the students, some students, or even ‘Many students in the Cage act like they’re in a cage because they are in the Cage,’ then you’d find yourself saying something I might entirely agree with. Whether or not I’d agree it was problematic, however—that’s a different story.”
The trouble was lining your teeth up right.
“Here’s another idea that I’m sure you’re familiar with: The world at large is like a cage. The world is bounded and governed, and those who violate its boundaries or defy its governance meet with negative consequences. And yes, even those who stay within their cage’s boundaries and allow themselves to be governed meet with negative consequences, and indeed that happens far more often than should be the case, you’ll hear no argument from me on that—I do not deny the world contains its share of injustice, but… Most people, Gurion—most people do not violate boundaries, do not defy governance, and most of them come out intact, whereas very few of those who act lawlessly do. And that is why school is so much about following rule
You didn’t just have to get your teeth down to the very base of the string. You had to get one of the two big middle ones in the top row to press the string base directly against two of the three small middle ones in the bottom row, and once you started sawing you had to go perfectly side-to-side so that you wouldn’t pull the string longer, and you had to be mindful of the width of the top tooth so you wouldn’t over-saw and lose the string and have to start over, and plus with your inner-lips and gums flush with the fabric, your saliva gets triggered if you don’t remind yourself every half-second that your cuff isn’t food, so there was that to concentrate on too, and finally I just twirled the string around my swear and wound it til it ended and my cuff was that much looser.
“In any case, when you say all the students in the Cage act like they are in a cage because they are in the Cage, it’s too extreme a position. I can dismiss it with great ease. The rest of the world is in a cage as well, and the vast majority of us don’t endanger others. The vast majority of us act quite decently. However—”
You’re arguing semantics with me? I said.
“Excuse me?”
You’re saying, ‘For one to act like one is in a cage is for one to act decently. To endanger others is not to act decently. The students in the Cage endanger others. Therefore the students in the Cage do not act like they are in a cage,’ I said.
“I appreciate your intelligence,” he said, “but this isn’t one of your detention assignments. I’m being serious here.”
I said, So am I. If the world’s in a cage, and most of the world acts decently, then to act decently is to act like you’re in a cage.