Adam Levin - The Instructions

It’s a blank face, I said again.

“Or a pensive face,” said Eliyahu.

So which one is it? I said.

“You see?” said Eliyahu. “It matters. The feeling behind the face is invisible, but it matters. Even to you.”

“Exactly!” said Benji. “It matters. Even to you.”

I’m not saying the feeling doesn’t matter, I said. All I’m saying, I said, is that the feeling is invisible. The face is visible, though; it is visibly blank . If I say, ‘Eliyahu wore a blank face,’ people can try to figure out why it’s blank, and maybe some of them’ll even be right about why it’s blank, but none of them will imagine that it isn’t blank. If I say, ‘Eliyahu wore a pensive face,’ though, then even though some people might picture a blank face, others might picture a face with a crinkled forehead or jutted-out lip or squinted eyes. That’s why if you were pensive when you made that blank face, Eliyahu, it’s better I say, ‘Eliyahu was pensive. He wore a blank face,’ than if I just say, ‘Eliyahu wore a pensive face.’ My way’s more accurate.

“So you’re right,” said Eliyahu.

“Traitor,” said Benji.

“I’m loyal to the truth,” said Eliyahu.

“I was kidding around,” Benji said. “I don’t think you’re a traitor. You think I’d call you a traitor over that?”

“There’s no need to make it federal,” said Eliyahu.

“Federal?” said Vincie.

“Like a federal case,” Jelly said. “Like there’s no need to make a federal case out of it, he’s saying. ”

“It’s hard for me tell when you’re kidding,” Eliyahu said to Benji.

Invisible intentions, I said.

“No way!” said Benji. “That doesn’t prove your point at all. That’s the opposite of proving your point. The reason he didn’t know I was kidding was because he didn’t pay attention to my intentions. He only heard the word ‘traitor.’ He didn’t hear how I said it. I said it real deadpan.”

“Nakamook is scary,” the circle around the cluster was saying. “Gurion’s scarier.” “Not scarier, but better at fighting.” “Not better at fighting, but faster at fighting.” “Maybe a little faster at fighting, but also a little slower to fight.” “And Nakamook’s stronger.” “Thai boxing.” “Short fuse.” “Those crazy arms.” “It’s weird he’s not a basketballer.” “He’s not like a basketballer, so don’t say that.” “Looks like someone who bites people might have a crush on a rumored pyro everyone’s scared of.” “She can hear you. They can all hear us, you know. They’re sitting right there. We’re right next to the inner circle, which is shaped like a rectangle.” “A square.” “They can hear us, but only if they’re listening.” “A square’s a kind of rectangle.” “Even if they listen, it doesn’t mean they can hear us.” “Wrong. A rectangle’s a kind of square.” “You got it backward: The girls listen to the lyrics, the women hear the voice. The voice is more important than the words, so hearing’s deeper than listening.”

I said to Benji, Deadpan’s funny when it’s funny because it’s hard to tell when the person who’s deadpanning is making a joke. It’s hard to tell his intention. And that’s his intention — to make it hard.

“What are we even talking about, here? I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore,” Benji said. “I’m trying to tell you that if we call that action we did ‘hyperscoot,’ then it sounds much more pussy than it actually is because it sounds like it’s by accident. ‘Hyper’ means out of control. The things you do when you’re out of control are necessarily accidental.”

I said, What about riots? If we have a riot, it means we get all out of control, but if we have a riot it’s because we decide to have a riot, and if we decide to have a riot then it’s on purpose.

“A riot’s not out of the control of the rioters! A riot’s only out of the control of the people the rioters are rioting against!”

“It’s okay, Benji. It’s okay,” Jelly said.

“You’re getting a little outta control there yourself,” Vincie told him.

Benji reached across the cluster, sweeping Vincie’s daily lunch-apple sideways.

Ansul Entsry caught the apple in his lap and smiled.

Vincie leaned over the cluster, holding a fresh-opened pudding cup. He tried to turn it over onto Nakamook’s head, but Benji grabbed his wrist and thumbed deep to disable Vincie’s finger control. When the pudding dropped, Nakamook caught it face-up in the palm of his free hand, and Vincie backhanded the pudding with his free hand, and the pudding landed sideways on the cluster in front of Jelly, who righted it just as the surface tension broke. Only a dime-sized puddle of pudding spilled.

“Now the pudding’s Jelly’s, Vincie,” said Benji. “That’s what happens.”

“Hyperscoot,” Vincie said. “Hyperscoot, hyperscoot.”

The doorbell rang and Botha rose from the Monitor’s desk to answer it. Nakamook, still holding Vincie’s wrist, pinned it to the cluster so that Vincie had to bend low and Botha wouldn’t be able see the grappling unless he came close. The circle around the cluster closed in. I sensed something good about this closing-in of the circle, something improved. On Tuesday, when Forrest Kenilworth had called Ben-Wa Wolf “The Boy Who Went Wee-Wee” and the whole Cage rushed him, they’d done so to see what Benji would do to him, which only happened to shield Benji from Botha’s witness; this time, though, there was little they could see by way of getting in closer that they couldn’t have seen from where they’d been sitting; this time they’d closed in in order to shield Benji — it wasn’t just a circle getting closed, but ranks; they were closing ranks .

And something else was good, too — maybe even as good as the show of esprit de corps. Up until the moment the doorbell had rung, I’d almost forgotten that Botha was in the Cage. He’d been so quiet. Silent, even. How many fuck s and shit s had he let go unanswered? On countless occasions, he’d stepped kids for bastard s and damn s and wang s, for hell s and jerkoff s, dickhead s and pussy s; twice I’d witnessed him stepping for suck. And he had to have heard them — those fuck s and shit s of our Thursday lunch. It’s true he may have failed to identify who’d spoken them, but in the past, swears whose speakers he couldn’t identify had garnered a “Quoydanawnsinz” at the least. But not anymore. Or at least not right then, at Thursday lunch. Then again, this was lunch, and at lunch the rules slackened — but no, not this much; they hadn’t ever slackened quite this much. The hyperscoot had scared him into choosing his battles. At least that’s how it seemed. At least for the moment. Even if just at least, though, I saw it was good.

“Hyperscoot, hyperscoot, motherfucken hyperscoot,” Vincie, writhing in wrist-grip, told Benji. “No one listens to you, anyway,” Nakamook said. “No one listens to me ,” said Main Man. “I don’t want any pudding,” said Jelly. “I’ll have your pudding,” Mangey said. I said, I listen, Scott.

“You listen but you don’t hear,” said Main Man. “Tomorrow I’m gonna sing. Listen to them!” he said. He pointed at the doorway of the Cage. All the kids from the cafeteria were coming in with their hotlunch, Ronrico and the Janitor in front.

“Slokum told me to tell you a bunch of Fridays have passed and he doesn’t feel too dead,” Vincie said to Nakamook.

“And what did you do, Vincie? You just listened to him, didn’t you? You just nodded and smiled and listened,” said Benji, “like a whiny basketballing messengerboy wannabe Shover who’s had a crush on the same girl since kindergarten and never spoken to her.”