Adam Levin - The Instructions

“A kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid,” the Janitor said.

“Tails about what?”

“We’re not rats,” Ronrico said.

Botha said, “Rets about what? Jinnies?” He saw the wall then. He rushed Ronrico and the Janitor into the Cage, but didn’t lock the gate behind him. Half a minute later, he came back out. He was heading toward Main Hall, the Office.

It was ten to eleven when I finished the twelfth *EMOTIONALIZE*, a block-lettered one that spanned three floor-tiles. Benji’s last bomb was a SLOKUM DIES FRIDAY, the words stacked vertically on the face of the 2-Hall juice machine. He used his cracktorch to burn the characters into the plastic. They looked like they’d been scooped with an action figure’s snow-shovel. We briefly deliberated the fate of the residue that had gathered in some of the letters’ corners. I argued for wiping it since its blackness testified to burntness, and Miss Pinge knew Benji had a cracktorch. Benji said owning a cracktorch was circumstantial evidence and the residue looked badass. I allowed that badassness was manifest in the residue, and that, in itself, was a good thing, but noted that circumstantial evidence was usually enough for Brodsky to nail you. Benji stated that clearly wasn’t the case when it came to expellable offenses such as vandalism — that if it were, the whole Cage would by now have been expelled — and added that Pinge would never fink him anyway, and it was Benji’s risk, so the residue remained. I handed him a pass and he asked where I was going.

I’m meeting June, I said.

He tilted his chin up and grasped it. In a low, slow, Jedi-council voice, he told me, “Always respect her in the Vaunted Hutch of Hector.”

The Vaunted Hutch of Hector was the janitor’s closet in 2-Hall. It was said kids snuck in there to sex down, but I don’t think that was true. I’d never met anyone who’d actually done it. It was just something fun to say.

“Be certain to protect her in the Vaunted Hutch of Hector.”

We’re not going there.

“If by chance you reject her, or even just neglect her, never again shall you enter the Vaunted Hutch of Hector. Not if she can prevent her—”

We’re not going there, I said.

“To play the gentleman is correcter, so I won’t play inspector, or pressure you to conjecture like some kiss-and-tell…uh…”

Yeah? I said.

“Director? Director of something something love’s sweet nectar in the Vaunted? — no, that’s suck, I’m tapped. You’re really not going there? Where you going?”

Two-hill field, I said. We’re meeting some people.

“Some people,” he said.

Old friends, I said. Guys I used to go to school with.

“Like in Chicago?” he said.

Yeah.

“They happen to be passing through Deerbrook Park this morning or…?”

No, I said. I said, I wanted them to meet June, because — it’s a long story.

He said, “From Jewish school, these guys.”

Right.

Benji didn’t say “Aha!” or anything, but the way his eyebrows jumped—

“You know,” he said, “I still have a bunch of those passes you gave me, so if I dumped this one, it wouldn’t be a major loss or anything.”

That’s not, I said, necessary.

“So June’s not, after all… You’re gonna do that thing you told me about the other day, right? The thing that’s like conversion, but isn’t conversion? I kinda want to see that,” he said. “I mean, I’m really kinda interested in that. Since you mentioned it the other day.”

I said, It’s probably better if it’s just June and—

“Oh. Okay. No. That’s fine.”

Why would you even want — I mean, the other day you said… What did you say?

“No, I know. Seriously. No. It was just curiosity. I was curious how it works. I understand if you can’t have, you know, guests or whatever. But good luck, though. To June, I mean. Or you. Good luck to whoever needs it. Mazel tov, right? All the nachos in the world.”

We didn’t bang fists so much as press knuckles.

While I waited for June in the locker-room doorway, I pictured us outside. The way the scholars in the valley would murmur and then quiet when we appeared atop the high hill. From the pocket of my hoodie, I’d produce the scripture. I knew it by heart, like everything I’d written, but failing to show the page would be as chomsky as pretending to read it — it might make it seem like I was speaking off the cuff. So I’d hold out the scripture like the head of a prized enemy, the side with the words on it facing the scholars as would that enemy’s lightless eyes, and with my own eyes on theirs, I’d speak.

I was trying to imagine the booming “Amen” when the door behind me half-opened. Though surprised, I wasn’t startled — June snuck with finesse. She whispered, “All clear,” and led me back through the locker-room.

Crossing the gym, we didn’t squeak the floor once. To jam the backdoor’s autolock, I slid My Life as a Man between the bolt and the strikeplate while June waited outside to test it — all of this without either of us speaking. I wanted to tell her I was thrilled by her stealth, but I thought my surprise might come through my voice, and she’d hear it and be disappointed.

June tried the door and it worked. I caught the book before it landed, then performed the re-jam from the outside.

All along the asphalt trail, we swung our arms like bancers in musicals. When we got to the sidewalk, June said I was a dentist, so I pratfell on a hydrant, and she mock-stomped my head.

“By a blow to the brain dies Jellybean,” she said. “I am the one who killed Jellybean.”

Who?

“Jellybean,” she said. “It doesn’t fit you at all, and I didn’t think it would, but during second I decided it might fit me, and I was hoping you’d take the hint. Since you haven’t, I’ve resorted to an explicit request, which is suck because now you’ll have to wait awhile.”

I’ll have to wait to call you Jellybean.

“Yes. Til such a time when it’ll sound inspired.”

What if I never get inspired?

“You only have to sound inspired.”

So force it, you’re saying.

“Wait awhile first, then force it if you need to, but don’t sound like you’re forcing it.”

Practice the art of artlessness.

“Whatever, Zenpoetface, it’s cold out here.”

We crossed Rand Road and climbed the western slope of the high hill. I kept my eyes on the ground as we climbed. I didn’t want to see the scholars til my scripture was in hand. I didn’t want to smile before the recitation. I heard the expected murmur as we ascended, but it wasn’t theirs — just the throb and swish of my brainblood.

At the crest, I took the page from my pocket and saw that the valley was empty. I looked up the road and no one was coming. All the joy in my chest zoomed out like ghosts.

“Your friends are late.”

They’re not, I said.

There was no way they were late. Not all of them.

I pulled my hood on and sat. The valley stayed empty. June swiped the scripture from my hand and read it.

“Adonai is God?”

Yeah, I said.

Though my pennygun was in my pocket, and the gym as empty as we’d left it, it didn’t occur to me to smash the clock. I wrote June a pass, then snuck to the library. The computer room was empty.