Adam Levin - The Instructions

The idea of anyone, let alone my friends, kicking Benji’s ass just made me sad. I thought it should make me happy, though, so I didn’t say anything. Instead, I hugged Vincie, like how Eliyahu had hugged me in the hallway on Tuesday. And Vincie was happy I hugged him, and he hugged me back, but then you could tell by the nature of the ensuing non-sequiter that he got weirded out a little by the hug.

“Starla Flangent is so hot,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure she’s into Vincie. We’ll see if she comes over.”

She’s into Vincie, I said.

“But that’s the other thing about tomorrow, too,” Vincie said. “What happens if Starla comes over tonight and we fall in love like you and June or Benji and Jelly or Chunkstyle and Boshka or — if it doesn’t sick you out too much to think about — Ronrico and Mangey, who I saw holding hands? I mean, it seems like we’re gonna fucken fall in love, right? It’s in the air or whatever, and so what if that happens?”

What do you mean? I said.

“If we destroy the Arrangement — say we can do it — but then afterward, when they put us in a new school — do you think it’ll be the same school for all of us? Because if not, then… I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I’ve fully fallen in love yet. It seems iffy, though. I mean, it’s supposed to be a big deal to fall in love. It’s supposed to be the biggest deal, and even though I probably haven’t fully done it yet, it’s pretty fucken hard for me to imagine a good reason to do something that I thought would stop me from being able to see Starla. At the same time, though, when I think about her, I get all filled up with this feeling like I’m great because she’s great and maybe she loves me and so I shouldn’t have to take any shit off anyone, ever, and it makes me want to destroy everything around us that’s suck. Actually, no — I already wanted to destroy everything around us that’s suck. What it makes me feel like is that I can destroy everything around us that’s suck. And that if I can , I should. And if I should , but I don’t , then I’m gonna get fucked for it. If I should, but I don’t — and at the first chance I get — then something will happen so that I can’t . And even if I’m kidding myself — even if I never could destroy everything around us that’s suck, maybe because Starla doesn’t love me or maybe because being in love with her isn’t the biggest deal — then I might as well destroy as much suck shit around me as possible anyway, because what’s the fucken use of any of it. What’s the fucken use, you know, in taking shit off anyone? What’s the use? What’s the fucken use? I mean, what the fuck’s the use? And now I feel like a fucken dumbass again, though, because now I’m all the sudden full-on ‘fuck-yeah let’s destroy the Arrangement tomorrow,’ which I wasn’t a second ago, but like I said, I don’t think I’m even fully in love yet, and so what the fuck do I know about tomorrow?”

You’re in love, I said. I said, You just described it perfectly.

“I don’t even understand what I described, Gurion. I just know that I said ‘fuck’ way too much. Who talks like me? No one.”

You’re Vincie Portite, I said. I said, Vincie Portite says ‘fuck’ a lot.

“Call-Me-Sandy says that when I say ‘fuck’ it’s because ‘fuck’ is a really angry word, and when I say it, I trick myself into getting angry and saying it more, and that gets me more angry, and I start believing that I’m completely right about everything, which is what I do when I’m angry is start believing I’m right about everything, which Sandy says is why I like to get angry to begin with, and I think Sandy’s right because I just said ‘fuck’ a whole lot and I believe I’m completely right about everything I just said, even though I have no idea what the fuck I just said. What the fuck did I say?”

I said, You said you were in love with Starla and that being in love with Starla makes it seem like it’s safe to act dangerous, and that if it’s safe to act dangerous, then maybe it’s dangerous to act safe; maybe if you act safe when it’s safe to act dangerous, you said, then you endanger the thing that made it safe to act dangerous. You said that not to be dangerous while you’re in love is to endanger your being in love.

“So how are we gonna destroy the Arrangement?”

We’ll act dangerous, I said.

“But how?”

It’s less dangerous if we plan it out, I said.

No one sang anything when we got to the Frontier.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

5:05 p.m. — Bedtime

Outside the Welcome Office, I bobbed and weaved to stealth past three sentries. I slammed the door behind me, but Flowers wasn’t there to surprise. Just Edison. He fell off the coucharm, landing on a haunch.

I called my dad so he could tell me how he’d won in court — he liked that — but I got sent to voicemail, and so I tried my mom, in case they were together. While it rang, I noticed a note was taped to the television:

G,

Amateur plumbing for screaming primadonnas. Fiercely clogged pot, engineer out with flu. Rm 16. Come get me.

— F

Without saying hello first — she must have recognized Flowers’s number and known it was me — my mother told me everything was fine, though they’d be at the hospital for a while. I asked her why she was at the hospital. She was surprised Arthur hadn’t said anything. I asked her again why she was at the hospital and she told me not to raise my voice. Then she told me there was a shuffle. And I didn’t know what she meant and she raised her voice and told me a scuffle, and not to pick on her, right now was not the time to pick on her. “There was a scuffle outside of the courthouse and your aba fell down.” What does that mean he fell? “In the scuffle. Do. Not. Yell at me.” Who was he in a scuffle with? “Who? Who? He was in a scuffle with no one. He was peripheral to the scuffle. This was an accident that he fell. They were after the Nazi.” They who? “No one tried to hurt your aba. And he is fine. He is in no danger. He has some bruises, and he may have torn a ligament, and this hurts, but it is not the end of the world, Gurion. And there is no concussion, just a little swelling on the outside. He is in no danger.” She’d said “no danger” twice and I told her so and she told me not to have crazy ideas, that she was my mother and she had never lied to me and I said, He’s fine? And she said, “I promise,” and I told her I didn’t ask her to promise and she made the kind of frustrated pleading sound that you do not need to clench your teeth to make but you always clench your teeth anyway, then took an audible breath, and said, “Please, Gurion. I am not happy that he has been hurt either, and I wish I could be with you right now, but Aba cannot be alone in a hospital, it upsets him. Arthur said he will drive you home, and if we are not back yet, he will see to your dinner. I am very angry at him for not being there when the bus dropped you from school.” I told her a toilet was overflowing and the janitor was sick. She told me it didn’t matter now anyway, that he would drive me home and wait with me til they got there. And then I asked her why Flowers had to wait with me and she told me it was because I was upset and I told her that she was upset and she agreed and told me I wasn’t helping and I told her I wanted to come to the hospital and she said she didn’t know how long they’d be there, that my father might talk to the reporters or might not and had yet to talk to policemen and that if certain tests showed certain results certain other tests would have to be administered and that could take hours or who knew how long and I was not welcome at the hospital but they would wake me if I was sleeping when they got back to the house and go get Arthur now and please do not, for God’s sake, watch the news, and I told her God didn’t care if I watched the news, and who did she think she was telling me I wasn’t welcome at the hospital when my father got in a scuffle and she told me she was my mother and my father’s wife and she could beat me up even if I had forgotten and that if I watched the news to spite her she would remind me and I told her I would not watch the news to spite her, and it was true that I would not watch the news to spite her, and it was true that I would watch the news, though I didn’t say that. She loved me and now the doctor had to talk to her so she hung up and I took the remote off the coffee table and hit POWER.