Adam Levin - The Instructions

I thought about hugging her, but then I thought it would just make her cry more and I didn’t want her to cry more.

She chinned the air at the I EXPLODE Benji’d Darkered in the basin, and said, “I think this water fountain might explode if I take my finger off the button. Don’t smile about it.”

It’s not a bomb, I said.

“I was calling out for help, and no one would help me,” she said. “At first I was just waiting for Floyd to come by, but—”

He’s roving, I said, and the water fountain’s not a bomb.

“He didn’t come by, and after a while I gave up and started calling out, but no one would help me. I started having crazy thoughts. I started thinking that maybe I was so lost in my own thoughts that the schoolday had actually ended without my noticing, and no one was around anymore.”

I said, It’s just C-Hall. The doorways are sound-buffers. No one heard you. And it’s just past three, which means school hasn’t ended.

It meant something else, too — what did it mean, though, just past three?

“I know that,” she said. “I know what time it is. But I started having the thought that the day had ended, and it was crazy. It was a crazy thought to have, and I recognized that, and I thought, ‘This water fountain’s not a bomb — that’s just another crazy thought you’re having, Sandy,’ but that didn’t comfort me at all—”

Because for a little while you believed the crazy thought about the schoolday ending, I said, and if you weren’t able to distinguish the crazy thoughts from the normal thoughts at one point in time, who’s to say you could do so at any other? Not you. It wouldn’t be rigorous. So maybe the thought of the water fountain being a bomb isn’t crazy at all. Maybe it only seems crazy. And plus even if it is a crazy thought — in fact, especially if it’s crazy, and you’re not normally crazy — then might not your craziness attest to the water fountain bomb being real?

“Right,” she said. “Because my—”

Because why, if you aren’t usually crazy, would you get suddenly crazy? There would probably be a reason.

“Intuition,” she said.

I said, Maybe you’re highly attuned right now. I said, Maybe your intuition is telling you something. It’s never told you much before, and you never really even believed in intuition, but that could be all the more reason to believe in it right now. This moment could be exceptional because it could be a life-and-death one, and maybe, right before a person dies, they acquire — by unknown means — the knowledge that they’re about to die. Maybe right before someone dies, they intuit their death — maybe that’s how it is for everyone. And maybe some of them scoff at the intuition because they don’t believe in intuition, but then maybe others don’t — it’s not a thing that we can know. But maybe the intuition is God telling you something loud and clear — telling you you’re about to die — maybe He’s telling you as a sort of courtesy, so you can think pretty last thoughts, say goodbye to the world in your heart of hearts, send a message telepathically to your loved ones which, at the moment of your death, will cause a change in the air surrounding them, and they’ll either think something of it because they believe in intuition or think nothing of it because they don’t believe in intuition — maybe God is loudly and clearly telling you you’re about to die, but you don’t necessarily believe what He’s telling you because His language isn’t concise, or maybe His language is so concise that it doesn’t even seem like language, and that’s why you doubt it came from outside of you. Maybe the only reason you’d even think to doubt that you’re about to die by exploding water fountain is that God speaks so concisely that when you hear Him, it’s as if He simply planted an idea in your head, a feeling in your chest — maybe His language is so concise, so perfectly convincing, that it doesn’t even seem to communicate the messages it communicates — so concise and convincing that the thoughts and feelings His messages stir are incited instantaneously , making it seem as though the messages have come from within you. Or you might be crazy. But I’m telling you you’re not about to die.

“This school has gone crazy. All these kids throwing scarves. All these tags on the walls, that false alarm. The way you spoke to me in session today — what’s predictable around here anymore?”

I suddenly remembered what just past three meant. The verdict on Drucker v. Wilmette had been read, or at least it was about to be. A victory for hatred; no, for civil rights. A victory for both. Whatever it meant, my father had won — he had to have won; he always won — and now he knew he won, or at least he was about to know, and now he could relax, for a couple days at least, so I let myself be happy for a second, and it showed.

“You think I’m being funny ?” Call-Me-Sandy said. “I thought we were—”

No, I said. No, I said. Look: I’ll stand here with you while you take your thumb off the button.

“So what?”

That’s how sure I am the water fountain’s not a bomb, I said.

“That’s how sure you are, Gurion? You don’t believe you can die. You think you’re the messiah.”

I don’t think I’m the messiah, I said.

“I read your Step 4 and 5 assignments,” she said.

I said, All those say is I think I might become the messiah.

“Do you hear yourself? Please just go to the Office and have Mr. Brodsky call the police.”

I said, I know who wrote the I EXPLODE on the water fountain. I saw him do it and he didn’t plant any bomb.

“And it just so happens that the water fountain doesn’t work,” she said.

I said, I saw the water fountain get broken, too.

“You saw a whole lot of things.”

You think I’m lying? I said.

“Why wouldn’t you have told me those things to begin with?”

I didn’t think about it, I said.

“Or maybe you’re still angry at me about the paper and you want me to die. Or maybe you’re just so confident you’re right that you’re willing to pretend you saw things you didn’t see. Just please just go to the Office.”

I said, If Brodsky catches you like this, he won’t let you work here anymore. And then what’ll happen at the University of Chicago? I can’t help you get kicked out of here.

“You’re such a friend all of a sudden.”

I’m kind of a friend, I said.

“A friend would comfort me in my distress, Gurion, even a ‘kind of’ friend. And whichever one he was, he wouldn’t argue with me about why I shouldn’t be distressed.”

I thought about hugging you, I said. I said, It was the first thought I had, but then I thought it would just make you cry more.

“So what?” she said. “What if I do cry more? Sometimes people have to cry. That doesn’t mean you have to be cold.”

So I hugged Call-Me-Sandy.

She hugged me back one-armed, my right temple against her left breast, bigger and softer than I’d have thought. And she smelled sparkly, Sandy, not like baby powder or laundry detergent — she smelled like expensive hairspray.

My hands were under her cardigan, pressing on her damp cotton blouse, the strap of her bra poking my wrists. My hands weren’t underneath out of perviness — it was accidental, and when I noticed I removed them. I set my right one on her back, outside the cardigan, and with my left, I took hold of her right wrist and pulled. Her thumb came off the water fountain button and she shoved me in the chest.

Hey, I said.

“You should have convinced me first,” she said.

I said, I tried.