Adam Levin - The Instructions

His claw flailing weirdly, almost epileptically, Botha, who still hadn’t ceased to giggle, interruptively slapped his khakied thigh— slap! — with his five-fingered hand and, at twice the volume of his spectacle thusfar, expelled a long series of cough-gasped syllables intended to resemble howling laughter. Soldiers gripped their seats, dug their heels in the carpet. Voltz and Sepper stuck their pointers in their ears. I showed the Side my palm, not wanting them to miss this — I didn’t want to miss this. I wanted us to witness his face going snatless.

Pay attention to the monitor, I said to the Side. He’s bleeding out. He’s got a big punchline. He wants us to cue his big punchline, I said.

They un-dug their heels, loosened their grips. Sepper and Voltz dropped their hands to their sides. All looked to Botha, who said to the teachers: “Thinks he’s Morc — thinks — boy thinks he’s Morc Antney!”

Sepper bit her lip. Voltz sucked his cheeks. No one on the Side had ever read Shakespeare.

“That’s not his last name,” said Salvador Curtis.

“He doesn’t even got one,” Mark Dingle agreed. “Why would he have one? He doesn’t even need one. Dude’s from Ork. ”

Most of the Side had never seen Mork and Mindy , but “Ork” sounded funny, so some of them smiled.

Botha’s howling crashed on a “Tch” and ebbed. His grin went sneer and the sneer went purse-lipped, became another grin — saggy at the corners but a grin nonetheless — and the giggles that pushed through his husk of a face were made only of air now, purest breath, quick swishy sniffs and staccato exhalations; even his vocal cords refused to cooperate.

Pay attention to the monitor, I said to the Side. Always remember the monitor, I said. Always remember that you used to be like him. Understand that you could be like him again. All it takes is a giggle. Listen to that giggle. How hollow it is. Just so much quick breathing. He is caulking a face behind which is nothing . He doesn’t have a drop of snat left to trickle, and yet even as I speak of the Side of Damage, of the gathering of strength and the need for decisions, the giggle keeps shaking him, the grin keeps twisting him. Does he not believe the Side of Damage exists? He acts like he thinks he’s humoring us, no? Maybe he does. Maybe he thinks that. I speak as if I know he’s pretending, but maybe he’s even more desperate than I thought. Maybe he isn’t pretending at all. I’ve been talking in very certain terms about him, but the truth is, I don’t know what he’s thinking. At least not exactly. None of us do. At least not exactly. He might really believe that he’s humoring us, soldiers. It’s not within my power or yours to know. It’s not within anyone’s power but his. Some things are like that. Secrets forever. Look at baby smile. Baby smiles baby happy? Or baby just gassy? Maybe baby happy because baby gassy, right?

Leevon Ray burped.

Half the Side of Damage burped.

The other half tried, but didn’t know how.

Botha’s giggling had stopped, but the grin stayed in place.

Whether Botha, I said, is pretending or not, full of happy gas or just full of gas, convinced that he’s humoring us or faking his conviction, I say we’re better off assuming that he isn’t pretending. We are better off believing he does think I speak now at his discretion, that he is confusing fleeting stalemate for victory, and middle for end, and our threat for submission. We are better off believing he thinks he’s letting us save face. So let us let the monitor be with his thoughts, whatever they are. Let us let him believe whatever he believes. If he knows our strength, he knows we own him; if he doesn’t, we’re underestimated, and that works too. Main Man will sing at tomorrow’s pep rally, and tomorrow we’ll be stronger than we are today. We’ll see tomorrow if Botha’s still grinning. As for today: Today’s almost over, and a few minutes back I made a contract with the robots. I told them their ears would ring til kingdom come if they didn’t allow me to have the last word. When I made that contract, was I speaking for you?

“Yes!” the Side shouted.

Do I speak for you still?

“Yes!” it shouted.

Will you make us a liar?

No! we shouted.

There are fifteen minutes left in the schoolday, I said. That’s fifteen minutes before the no-hyperscoot contract ends. As long as the robots keep to the terms, the contract is ours to keep or to break. I say let us keep it. Let us honor the contract because our word is good. And so that no one may be mistaken, so that no one may think that we honor it out of fear of what the monitor might be hiding inside of his head, so that everyone will know that we honor it because we choose to, because our word is good, let us honor the contract beyond its demands. Let us be like the sweetest dream of the Arrangement. Let us be as the Cage has never been able to make us. Let us now all at once face forward in our boxes, still and silent as nightmares.

We did.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Interim — Intramural Bus

“What they meant was death to the idea of the Jew is what you’re telling me,” said Eliyahu of Brooklyn.

Pretty much, I said.

We were speaking Hebrew. At the end-of-class tone, the Side of Damage had lined up single-file and silent, gone out the gate one at a time, not one of them running or shouting til they’d stepped over the threshhold. I’d been last in line, Eliyahu just in front of me. Now we were weaving our way through Main Hall. I wanted to go find June at her locker.

“So the Jew of their rallying cry,” said Eliyahu, “wasn’t this Shlomo person, but some kind of abstract Jew for whom the Shlomo person stood.”

Could’ve been, I said. It was ambiguous. It might not have referred to Shlomo at all — they might have been talking about themselves.

“I don’t understand,” said Eliyahu.

Just then, a Shover coming toward us decided not to make way. I could see by his eyes. They’d flicked at my chest, then over my shoulder.

I checked him into a locker and we didn’t lose a step. A couple seconds later, the sound of the impact repeated. Vincie was behind us. He’d locker-slammed the Shover on the rebound.

A little out of breath, he said, “I need to talk to you.”

It can wait, I said.

“English,” he said.

Can it wait? I said in English.

“I guess,” said Vincie, continuing to follow us.

Back to Hebrew: Are you a Jew or an Israelite?

“An Israelite,” said Eliyahu.

When did you become an Israelite? I said.

“If I understand what you mean by Israelite, then I have always been an Israelite,” he said. “However, if I understand what you mean by Jew, then I have, admittedly, sometimes behaved like a Jew.”

I said, You understand. You’re a scholar, though — the Five aren’t.

“And so?”

So when they shouted ‘Death to the Jew,’ they might not have understood they were Israelites who had been acting like Jews, I said. I said, I think they might have believed they were Jews who had to become Israelites. And to become a new kind of person, you have to kill the person you already are — I think the Five might have believed they had to kill the Jews they were.

“Even though they were never Jews, but always Israelites.”

To our left, Ben-Wa Wolf played the pratfalling game on linoleum with Chunkstyle, Boshka, Derrick Winnetka, and a rock.

Even though, I said.

Eliyahu was frowning.

Look, I said, the Five aren’t scholars , and in one way that’s unfortunate, but in another it’s not.