Adam Levin - The Instructions

“That’s true? They’re islands?” “They’ve got these big bridges because of how they’re islands.” “They’re boroughs.” “What’s a borough?” “They’re islands. Evanston and Chicago aren’t islands.” “They’re not islands. They’re boroughs.” “Is a borough a kind of island?” “Only New York is islands [tears].” “Now she’s gonna cry so she can use the phone first.” “She’s crying because she’s upset.” “She’s upset about the phone if she’s upset about anything.” “She’s upset about her family. They live on the same island as the Trade Center.” “It’s busy, anyway, so here.” “Good man, Yoni.” “I didn’t hear a thank you.” “She’s too upset to thank you. Plus if anyone should be thanked, it should be me, don’t you think?” “No, I don’t think.” “But it’s my phone she’s using.” “But I was the one who was using it.” “You didn’t thank me either, come to think.” “Times like these, it’s pretty much your duty to lend out your phone.” “Why my duty? I’m not the only one with a phone.” “You’re the one with a phone sitting closest to us.” “Look, I’m not complaining. I’m glad to lend my phone. And maybe even it’s my duty, but if it’s mine it’s everyone else’s too.” “You’re the closest.” “We’re talking distances measured in feet here, Yoni.” “Whatever, I’m upset, I’ve got family in Brooklyn.” “Except maybe I’ve got family in Brooklyn, too. Maybe even in Manhattan.” “Maybe? What does that mean?” “My uncle in Connecticut does a lot of work in Manhattan.” “Then why didn’t you use the phone to call him?” “Maybe I was being selfless.”

“Nine-one-one.” “What?” “Today is September 11.” “So?”

“If anything is vulnerable, everything is vulnerable.” “All of us are vulnerable.” “We’ve always been vulnerable.” “It’s true, we have.” “How didn’t we notice this?” “Because of what Mrs. Diamond said about Lancelot and boobytraps.” “What did she say?” “About how come he always fell in the same kind of boobytraps even though he was a great knight.” “How come?” “Because he never used deceptions since he was such a goodguy, and so he never suspected badguys would use deceptions. He’d go to the fort of a goblin to save Guinevere and the goblin would say, ‘Okay, she’s yours, just cross that discolored area of tile and I’ll bring her,’ and Lancelot would try to cross and the goblin would pull a lever, then blau , trap door, and he’d fall into a pit. And the pit would have a beast. And the beast would try to eat him. And Lancelot would have to kill the beast.” “Like Skywalker.”

“Eleventh day of the ninth month. 9-1-1, emergency.” “Emmanuel Liebman thinks he’s a kabbalist.” “Sounds more like he’s saying that Brown Eyes is the kabbalist.” “Don’t call that mastermind ‘Brown Eyes’—it’s irreverent.” “Little Sammy Diamond’s got a short fu — Ow!” “Samuel.” “Let go.” “Say my name.” “Samuel.” “Say it again.” “Samuel. I said it! Let go!” “You let Emmanuel reason out loud. Off the cuff he’ll say things you couldn’t think in a decade.” “Okay.” “You don’t distract him.” “I told you I told you I said it: okay!” Do Amalekites dial 9-1-1 in emergencies? “I see what you mean. Who’d know?” Rabbi Salt?

“Maybe you forgot about him, your Connecticut uncle.” “That’s not a kind thing to say to someone, Yoni, especially someone who just lent you his phone.” “Indian-gave his phone, and it wasn’t unkind. I was saying that maybe, since you only seemed to think of your uncle in Connecticut just now…maybe you’re not that close with him. Maybe you’re not as close as I am with my people in Brooklyn is all I’m saying, so it was right to let me call mine before you called yours.” “Or maybe I did think of my uncle, but knew I could take it, the wait for others with relatives to use my phone first, I mean. Maybe I just knew I was strong enough to take it.” “Maybe so, maybe so, but that doesn’t really contradict my hypothesis, does it? I mean maybe you were strong enough cause you’re not that close.” “Or maybe I didn’t realize how close til the implications of this tragedy we’re suffering began to come clear. They’re coming clearer and clearer, wouldn’t you say?” “We are definitely getting clearer and clearer.” “We are. It’s true.” “It’s true.” “I agree.”

“Exactly like Skywalker, but Lancelot fell for it every time. It happens, like, nine times with a bunch of different goblins, and he never learns to expect it.” “Cause he’s so pure and good, he trusts everyone and gives them the benefit of the doubt.” “Exactly.” “We are like Lancelot.” “I didn’t have Mrs. Diamond, but Lancelot sounds pretty doofy to me.” “That’s what we said to Mrs. Diamond! But then she explained about his pureness and we believed her. She’s smart.” “We should probably stop being like Lancelot so much, though.” “Lancelot, Shmancelot. We’re now, at this point, more like Guinevere.” “I think you’re right.” “Yeah, it’s safe to say the goblin’s got us.” “But Lancelot’s on the way.” “We’ve got a lot of Lancelots.” “That’s the benefit, in the end, of being like Lancelot; you make a lot of friends along the way.” “Or if you’re pretty like Guinevere.” “Pretty like Guinevere?” “Pretty like Guinevere, because the goblin’s got us, which means we’re like Guinevere, not Lancelot. We’re like Guinevere with Lancelots on the way, like you said.” “I was speaking figuratively. I was saying we’re like Guinevere cause the goblin’s got us and we’ve got Lancelots on the way, but we’re actually Lancelot in the end, ourselves.” “Um.”

“I don’t know what they dial, Gurion.” Do you know what they dial in Israel? “I never had an emergency in Israel. Don’t you think more important questions are afoot, boychic?” Not ones you could answer, no offense. “I don’t see the relevance—” “Because why on 9-1-1? It hardly seems arbitrary.” “On that I agree, Emmanuel, but—” “Who’s the message for, is the question we’re getting at.” If 9-1-1 means nothing to Amalekites, this mastermind’s talking to— “I see, I see.”

“Can I get my phone back, Shayna?” “My family’s line’s busy.” “All the more reason to give it back.” “Three more times.” “One more time.” “Three more times, so I know I’ll have tried ten. That’s how desperate I am to contact them.” “Seven’s enough, Shayna.” “Three’s enough, but I’m so desperate to get in contact I have to try seven more, I’m compelled to do so, even at the cost of alienating those who’d help me is how desperate, so just bear with me.” “I have already.” “Just wait your turn.” “It’s my phone.” “It’s my family.” “It’s my family, too. My uncle.” “My cousins.” “Connecticut.” “Manhattan.” “Brooklyn.”

“We’re like Lancelot if Lancelot was like Guinevere.” “I don’t think that makes sense.” “Think harder.” “Don’t get confrontational in times like these.” “Who ever thought we’d live in times like these?” “No kidding. And that’s not the craziest part, because we’ve always lived in times like these, it turns out.” “That’s what being Lancelot gets you, blindness to the times you live in like these.” “Goblins inside every shadow, laughing at you.” “But you hold your own. You don’t change for goblins.” “When you change for goblins, that’s when you’re defeated.” “If they’ve been there all along, the goblins, then we know we can survive them intact as Lancelots.” “But still you have to wonder, if we’ve always lived in times like these and didn’t know they were times like these, then how were these times like these affecting us?” “Probably they were really doing some job on us.” “Probably these times have been doing bad stuff to us we thought was just from bad luck or ourselves.” “It’s true. How much of our woes owe to times like these because we didn’t know about them!” “That makes it sound like it’s our fault for not knowing.” “Maybe it is our fault for not knowing, after all.” “How can you ignore your times, especially in times like these with hiding goblins?” “It’s our fault for being so good despite the goblins.” “That’s all I’m saying. We’re good and pure. We’ve been taken advantage of for being good and pure.”