Adam Levin - The Instructions

Why did you get sent to him?

“Stop asking questions,” she said. “You’re always asking questions when you’re supposed to be answering them.”

I said, Since yesterday — since right after you kissed me on where my sideburns will be — I’ve been thinking that all my life I wanted us to be in love, but I didn’t know it, because I didn’t know you.

“Oh,” June said. Her left eye-socket was cupping my left cheekbone and she squeezed it.

But, I said, that doesn’t make it so. Because you’re right, I think. It is true that all my life I wanted to be in love — I have always known what in love is — but how could I have wanted to be in love with you, if I didn’t know who you were? I couldn’t have. You’re definitely right that I couldn’t have. But still, it has seemed that way to me since yesterday — that I’ve wanted to be in love with you , with June , all along — and that has to mean something. Now that I’m saying it, though, I think that want is the confusing part. It is need I mean by want , I think. Because you can need something without knowing it. I know that is true. Sometimes when I’m at my desk, I forget to eat and don’t know I’ve forgotten, and my A gets D’d and I get angry and explosive and I don’t think to myself, ‘Gurion, you have forgotten to eat,’ and I don’t think to myself, ‘You are hungry.’ All I think is, ‘You are fucking up. You are going too slow. In the time it took you to word the previous sentence, which isn’t even a perfect sentence, Israelites have died.’ Eventually my mom will call me downstairs for dinner and I’ll go have dinner, and my A won’t be D’d anymore and my anger and explosiveness subside a little. It is only after eating the dinner that I tell myself, ‘You needed to eat and you didn’t know it.’ So I’m thinking the truth must be that all along, though I’ve wanted to be in love , what I needed was to be in love with you and didn’t know it; and now, because on top of needing it I want it so bad, because I want it to keep happening, because I want to keep being in love with you, the wanting hides the needing and seems to replace it, even though the wanting actually has nothing to do with it. I’m glad I’m in love with you, I love that I’m in love with you, but it doesn’t matter. Whether or not I want to be in love with you, I need to be in love with you. And yesterday, after you kissed me on where my sideburns will be, I started thinking that all my life I hadn’t wished , but wanted to be the messiah, or to bring the messiah, and didn’t know it, but it can’t be true for the same reason that it can’t be true that all along I’ve wanted you. I cannot have wanted something I didn’t know I wanted, even if I wished for it sometimes. So it may be that all my life I’ve needed to become the messiah, or bring the messiah, regardless of what I thought I wanted, or knew I wished for. It may be that all the things I’ve done that I thought I’d done to become a better scholar or a better soldier were things I was doing to become the messiah, or to bring the messiah. It’s like I’ve been a crying just-born baby who doesn’t know he’s hungry, let alone that he’s hungry for his mother’s milk. The newborn doesn’t know who his mother is, or even what mother is. He doesn’t even know what crying is, right? I don’t think he knows he is crying, June. He’s just doing what he’s doing and it is only after his mother has begun to feed him that he begins to understand what he was doing, why he was doing it. It is only after he’s been fed that he can know what hunger is. And so it is only then that he can choose to cry when he is hungry. Before he can go after what he wants, he needs to know what he wants, but before he can know what he wants, he needs to get what he needs. The world must come to him first. I’ve been as dumb as a just-born baby. Do you understand me, June? When I’m near you, I need to become the messiah no matter what I might want. Or at least I need to bring him no matter what I might want. But I want to become the messiah — or bring him — because I need you to always be near me. I need you to never die. Do you understand what I’m saying or not? Because I want you to understand. This isn’t just me wishing.

She squeezed my body with all of hers until the buses gave off one-minute-warning honks for stragglers. Then we ran at the circle, June yelling a song that went:

I am sorry I was mean to you,

Gurion Maccabee!

I kicked and I tripped you

And said go away!

I am sorry I was mean to you,

Gurion Maccabee!

I am so sorry!

I was mean!

Kids piled up at the buswindows and stuck their heads out and looked at us. The ones who were shmendricks made faces, smooched air. Still running, I looked into the eyes of three of them, none of whom I recognized. Each of the three fell back from his window and ducked below the frame.

At the door of June’s bus, she said, “I’m forgiven.”

I said, Yes.

“I wasn’t asking,” she said, then gave me a fast but painful tittytwist. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m forgiven.”

I didn’t say anything.

June said, “Good.” She pulled her hoods on and climbed the steps. I watched her make her way down the aisle til she got to the wheel-well seat and sat.

When I spun, I almost broke my nose on Bam Slokum’s elbow, but he moved it just in time.

“June Watermark,” he said to me, “is crazy.”

Take it back, I said.

Bam said, “There’s no such thing, kid. And no one’s listening but you and I and I’m not even fucking with you, just giving you a friendly warning because she’s crazy and crazy girls — they’re dangerous, especially when they’re beautiful. So lighten up.”

I said, You’re not my friend.

“I’m no one’s friend,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t have friends, nor does it mean I can’t act friendly, and it doesn’t change the fact that you need a friendly warning.” He said it in the same yawny whisper he’d used on the bus the day before. He said, “You’re ten years old and I’ve got at least ninety pounds on you and the way you’re talking to me — it’s like a Pomeranian or a Shih Tzu or some long-haired fucken Chihuahua in a blonde girl’s purse baring his teeth at a Chow. You know what a Chow is? He’s the most loyal guard-dog in the world, but only to one master. Pretty, too. A mane like a lion’s. Comes from China. We got a Chow at my mom’s house. He’s hers. You want to pet him when you see him, his melting black eyes, the mane — he looks almost fake, like a stuffed animal, something to cuddle, but what he wants most is to tear the face off your head. And no warning, either. Chow’s boundaries — not clearly defined. Maybe he lets you pet his mane, maybe his nose even, but then all of a sudden you touch him on the haunch, the knee, someplace you wouldn’t expect was so personal — Chow bites all your fingers off, goes at your vitals when you hit the ground if he’s in the mood, and if you’re reckless enough to backtalk me, you’re reckless enough to think you understand girls like June Watermark, and you don’t understand her because she’s crazy and crazy people — they’re misunderstood. It’s why they’re called crazy. And you probably think you’re in love with her — it’s what Boystar told me you said in the Office, and that’s a fine thing to say to a girl, even a crazy girl, but if you think you mean it, it’s a different story. Because what’s love without understanding, Gurion? A fucken lie it is.”

June isn’t crazy, I said.

“Just warning you,” said Bam.