Adam Levin - The Instructions

Where are your pennyguns? I said to the four of them.

None of them heard me. Either that or they ignored me. They kept talking faster, leaning in closer, trying to believe that I wasn’t Gurion, or trying to believe that I was Gurion, believing either way that whatever they believed about who I was mattered.

“Okay, look, let’s go one thing at a time: Gurion’s only a seventh-grader. Why’d we think he’d have hair on his face?” “Not only that. He’s supposed to be a fifth-grader, so he’s our age, and we don’t have hair on our faces.” “Plus he’s got the chin ones, or neck ones, whatever.” “So that gets us nowhere.” “So next up, okay: this guy’s small and he does not look that tough.” “Good point, except David was small and he looked like a young version of the rich man from that movie Pretty Woman .” “But he had a slingshot.” “True, he had a slingshot, except this boy has a hood, though. Didn’t you picture Gurion having a hood?” “Yes.” “And his wallet has a chain. I always thought he’d have a chain, but he’s bleeding on the elbow, and I didn’t think he’d bleed.” “Did he jingle when he came in? I heard he jingles when he walks.” “I might have heard him jingling.” “Are you Gurion or not?”

I said, Who do you want me to mess up?

“Right, see? Of course. So now he’s saying he’s Gurion, but that somehow makes it seem—” “Maybe he’s lying.” “Exactly. Lying.” “I’d want people to think I was Gurion.” “So would I.” “Who wouldn’t?” “What did we expect? You don’t just ask him ‘You Gurion?’ and expect the kind of answer that’ll set things straight.” “We have to test him.” “How do we test him?” “What would such a test measure?” “Any number of things, but mainly: Can he fight?” “Can he fight four guys, like?” “Just like that.” “Yeah. Let’s attack him.” “Attack him?” “Attack him.” “If he’s Gurion, we’ll get messed up for the second time in one day!” “I don’t want to get messed up twice in one day.” “It wasn’t that bad the first time, though. We’re alive, remember.” “It’s true, we’re alive.” “You’re right. We’re not dead.” “We’re not dead at all.” “We are not dead at all.”

Just as the fifth-graders rose from their chairs, flexing their fists, their batting gloves squeaking, eyes nothing like sleepy, Nakamook entered the Nurse’s Office.

“Gurion,” he said.

And the attack was called off.

“Oh God!” “Oh man!” “Oh gee!” “We didn’t mean to—” “We’re sorry!” “Please don’t—” “We’re sorry!”

Benji held up his right hand, which was bleeding from the center — it looked like something wooden was in it.

“Jesus!” said one of the fifth-graders

“Not at all,” said Nakamook. He brought his hand closer, a step at a time, and they backed away smoothly, like same-charged magnets, and once they were sitting, huddled as before, he thrust the hand between their heads, deeper and deeper, til they all leaned away from each other with their eyes winked and squinted. Nakamook’s hand was a mess.

Soon he got bored and put it away.

The fifth-graders re-huddled.

Benji turned to me and said, “I wanted to hang with you, but Botha wouldn’t unlock the gate, so I took a pencil, right? And I stabbed my hand and broke off the tip, right? And this is what it looks like. This is my stabbed hand!” he yelled. He shoved his hand back into the fifth-graders’ head-space and shook it around. The huddle split again and some blooddrops dripped on some laps.

“Jelly told me I was crazy,” Benji said. He stopped shaking the hand and sat next to me to whisper. He said, “Botha was so pissed, he mumbled curses in Australian. He said ‘shate’ and ‘crep’ and he said ‘basted.’ I said the curses back to him, too. I said, ‘El crep en yer ed, yeh shate-ater, yeh saley basted!’ Then Main Man starting belting out ha-has and Leevon was standing behind Botha and doing impersonations of Botha’s pass-writing movements. Leevon’s perfect at impersonations. Perfect. Did you see that grip he laid on me and Vincie? It was the exact same grip I’d just demonstrated. Got me thinking we should show him Bruce Lee movies — he’d become a one-man special-ops force fast, I think. And I think that’s what we need. I’ve been thinking maybe the Side of Damage is a good thing. If we can run the Cage like we did during— Hey.” He pointed his finger at the huddle of fifth-graders. “Hey, Gurion,” he said, “is that what I think it is?”

What? I said. I was really stunned out.

“That,” he said, blinkering the finger.

The boy who’d shown me the copy of Ulpan had it under his thigh, folded in thirds. Step 23— Look at the pennies you lined up earlier. Understand you hold a gun. — showed just above the crease.

“What the fuck is that?” said Nakamook.

Identical to the Ulpan I’d delivered in April, the fifth-graders’ ended as follows:

Now that you have been delivered these instructions, you will receive an instruction sheet. It is a copy of the sheet I am reading from. Each one of you gets one copy. You will take your copy from beneath the paint-can at the gate. Fold it and put it in your shoe. Guard it closely. Do not guard it with your life, but guard it with your face. It is not worth getting killed over, but it is worth getting a broken face over. Tomorrow, you will make thirteen copies of your copy. You will invite thirteen Israelite boys to come to your backyard after Shabbos, like I invited you, and you will deliver these instructions from a high tree-limb, exactly the same as I have delivered them to you. If you do not have a tree with high limbs in your yard, or if the high-limbed tree you do have is unclimbable, sit on top of a swingset or fence.

Tonight, the first night on which Israelites have received these instructions, is May 27, 2006. Do as you’re told and one week from tonight 183 Israelite boys will be armed with pennyguns. Two weeks from tonight, 2,380 Israelite boys will be armed. Three weeks from tonight, 30,941 Israelite boys, and four weeks from tonight, just three days beyond the summer solstice, 402,234 Israelite boys will be armed with pennyguns. Well in advance of the start of next schoolyear, every Israelite boy in North America, if not the world, will be armed with pennyguns. Never again will we cower amid the masses of the Roman and Canaanite children.

Bless Adonai, who helps us protect us.

Blessed is Elohim, Who blesses our weapons.

Chazak! Chazak! Venischazeik!

Say it.

Now leave my yard. I will see you tomorrow. You will be stronger tomorrow than you are today.

Whereas, apart from all the other doctoring done to it (e.g., any statement conspicuously addressed to a plurality had been individualized, any line that read speakerly made writerly, all references to backyards and Israelites omitted, the title changed from Ulpan to Instructions ), the document I’d delivered to Nakamook had ended like this:

Now that you have been delivered these instructions, make of them ashes. Burn and never speak of them lest we enter into enmity.

And so, on seeing Ulpan (or, more accurately: on seeing what he thought was Instructions ) in the possession of an unfamiliar fifth-grader, Benji assumed betrayal was afoot, and even if I had known what to say to stop him, I would not have had time to.

Nakamook flew.

With the nasty hand, he grabbed the kid’s shirt’s alligator and pulled him to his feet. He took hold of the kid’s nose. “Where’d you get Instructions ?” he said, “I’ll twist your cute fucking nose off I swear to God I’ll dot your i I’ll fucking kill you.”