Adam Levin - The Instructions

“Do you know what I think of you?” said the mother. “Do you want to know what I think of your injured father?”

Even before the No! rushed through me, I knew I would disobey it. I knew that if I didn’t disobey it — if instead I who’s-there’d her frenzied maternal knock-knock — she would spit some version of the following punchline: “I think your father is suffering for your sins, and you, in turn, are suffering for his.” And maybe that was true, but even if it was, I didn’t think I was obliged to hear it from her, so I sinned just as hard as I needed to sin in order to shame her into silence.

In superformal Hebrew, I said to this mother: Maybe ocular damage is not always so much the outcome of projectiles as of cruel words that invite projectiles, Michal Levin. And maybe such ocular damage is not merely the cause of psychological trauma, but its effect as well. Maybe Moshe wouldn’t be so quick to pick on younger boys with speech impediments if your husband wasn’t always bullying him. Maybe he wouldn’t pick on anyone if the one person who could protect him from your husband ever did so. Probably you should forget about my father and concern yourself with Moshe’s.

At which point Moshe’s grandmother struck me across the jaw.

Though I showed her my other cheek, it was not because I loved her.

You should have taught her that before she had a son, I said.

And the daughter struck me, and my sense of righteousness multiplied, hardening my bones, swelling my lungs.

Your Moshe may redeem you yet, I said. When I call, he’ll follow. Get out of my way now. We’re all shored up, you mothers and I.

I barely made the Metra. By the time I got on, the upper level was full, and I had to share a seat on the bottom. The woman I shared with smelled like a cantaloupe and she made it impossible to read. For the duration of the ride, she chewed granola from a bag and, though graciously muffled, her crunching was audible, and oat particles gathered on her lap unswiped.

In Deerbrook Park it was drizzling coldly. Coming up the sidewalk, I saw Flowers by the hoodoo shrub, sweeping dead bugs off the walkway into envelopes. I was half across the drop-off circle when the bus pulled up and honked. Flowers must have heard it, but he kept his eyes on concrete.

The bus wouldn’t leave as long as the driver saw me, so I waved and he shrugged and I continued toward Flowers, saying what I had to say.

I said, I’m sorry I said fiction was lies — I didn’t mean it.

“ That’s what you’re sorry about?”

And when I said we weren’t friends anymore, I said. I take that back.

“And?”

And nothing, I said.

I revolved and went to the bus.

“I’m still pissed at you,” Flowers said to my back.

That wasn’t up to me, though. Maybe getting slapped had made my voice a little wooden, and the apology’d come out less sincere than it could have, but I’d apologized for exactly as much as I’d felt apologetic, and Flowers gave me nothing, wooden or otherwise. I boarded the bus still pissed at him, too.

Three people called my name. The first two were Dingle and Salvador Curtis. I didn’t know the third guy, but Dingle and Salvador were near the back of the bus and this third guy was closer, so I took the seat behind him.

“I’m Ally Kravitz,” he said. He put out his hand and I left it hanging. A blue pelican was embroidered on the tit of his shirt and when he saw I wouldn’t shake he touched it. “Pinker called me last night,” he said, “and so did The Levinson. Pinker called to tell me that you were the Gurion, and then The Levinson called to say the same thing, just in case I’d thought Pinker was yanking my banana.” He unzipped his bag and showed me a pennygun. “Show him,” he said to a boy across the aisle. “That’s Googy Segal,” Ally Kravitz said to me. Googy Segal’s face was a tiny, pointy face beneath a big blonde bubble of coarse-looking curls. I’d noticed him before; he was hard not to notice. Pop-eyed and ruddy-cheeked, even in repose, he always looked startled. In greeting me, he hissed out a quiet, lilting sibilant — the high, lipless whistle little kids playing war use to imitate incoming missiles. “Googy’s shy,” Ally said. “He doesn’t like to speak much. Words cause him trouble if gets too excited — Go on, Goog, show him. Show him the you-know.” Googy pulled a pennygun from the spy-pocket of his jacket, then put it back in and zipped up fast.

Seeing Israelites with weapons did make my lungs tingle, but for Ally Kravitz I would show no joy.

Your voice sounds familiar, I said to him. The sound of my name on your lips, I said.

Googy sucked loud spit from his mouth-corners.

Ally said, “I’m not gonna lie to you, Rabbi. I made up that rhyme and I’m sorry. I really wasn’t doing it to be mean. People made it mean, but I was just trying to be funny and that’s why it rhymed. I bet I would’ve made it up even if I did know who you were, and we’d have been friends then, and you’d have liked the rhyme, I think. You’d have known it was good-natured, all in fun. See, me and Googy — he’s my cousin — we’re always putting bits together. I do the monologues, or just play the straightman assistant or whatever. Googy’s the star. It’s all about the Googy. He’s a genius of pantomime and clowning, my cousin. Right, Goog? Right? Come on. Admit it.”

Googy looked behind himself, like a parakeet napping, and Ally pulled a ski-cap from the pocket of his parka. “We’ll show you,” said Ally. And when Googy turned back, his eyes were crossed, and his cheeks were roundly inflated. Ally said, “We’ve been massaging this bit for a month. The title’s the working kind: ‘Googy and the Hunger.’” Ally set the ski-cap atop Googy’s curls. Googy lowered the cap so his forehead disappeared. He rolled his crossed eyes up as though his brow puzzled him.

Ally, leaning toward me, said in a stage-whisper, “What do you think? Googy looks like he’s hungry. Do you think he wants a herring and some onions for a sandwich?”

Googy nodded with vigor and twisted in his seat.

Ally raised his voice: “If Googy wants a herring and some onions for a sandwich, we can manage a herring and some onions for a sandwich — my herring and onions guy’s just up the block. But what about the bread, though? Herein lay the problem. My bread guy was murdered. My bread girl, she left me. But wait. Aha! There’s a charming young filly, a friend of a friend’s, lives just around the corner. I’ve heard tell that she has a line on baguettes, that she plays her baguettes very close to the chest, but she’ll give up that bread if you bring her some beer. So we’ll bring her some beer, get us some bread! Just grab me my coat while I reach in the icebox and grab her a — no. Oh no. Here’s a problem. Herein lay the problem. We’re all out of beer. Our drunk uncle drank it, that rowdy, that lout. A bigger problem yet? My beer guy’s in prison. My beer girl’s got mumps, she’s quarantined, deadly. Aw Googy, poor Googy, poor young master Googy, no sandwich of herring and onions for Googy…”

Googy and Ally both swayed right and left, and Googy grabbed Ally’s hand, as if to offer comfort. When he started to pet it, Ally jerked it away, stuck it in his coat.

“If only Googy,” Ally said, “wanted anything else, any food not a sandwich of herring and onions, or any kind of sandwich, or beer— What’s this?” He removed from his coat an unwrapped fortune cookie.

Googy horse-clopped his hands on his thighs eight times.

“Look what we have here! Just have yourself a gander at this elegant contraption, this perfect endeavor on which to embark after gobbling down a plate of hot chop suey, and that’s to say nothing of a bowl of lo-mein! Too bad we don’t have any hot chop suey. Too bad my lo-mein guy winters in Poughkeepsie—”