Adam Levin - The Instructions

UNGER: Is that important, sir? Is that really important? I tell you that during a quiet conversation in my office, this boy holding hostages, who was, I assure you, the one who murdered the poor murdered gym teacher, threw a stapler at my face — at my eye , which bled —and you search for motives in our conversation to justify the violence? No wonder, sir. No wonder things like this happen, sir.

STEVENS: Thank you for speaking to us, Rabbi Unger.

UNGER: My pleasure.

STEVENS: Now let’s go back to Bob Brians at Aptakisic Junior High.

BOB BRIANS, CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Rick. As you can see behind me, the police and emergency services personnel are establishing a perimeter fifty yards east of the school, in accordance with demands made by the terrorists, demands caught on that exclusive NBC tape that we played for you just a few minutes back. I’m here with the cameraman who captured that footage, NBC’s own Ori Gold. Ori, it’s a privilege to meet you. You were sent here by NBC to tape the filming of a music video by up-and-coming popstar Boystar currently one of an unknown number of hostages being held inside the school. For viewers just tuning in, that’s him — Boystar — tied to that chair just inside the front entrance of the school. Now, Ori, can you tell us—

STEVENS: Sorry to interrupt you Bob, Ori, but we’re being asked to play Ori’s tape again for those viewers who are just tuning in. Here it is.

Neither Botha nor Jerry had broken out of the bathrooms, but both of them were conscious and they shouted for help as we entered the Cage. Benji shouted back so they’d know we weren’t saviors, and all shouting stopped.

We sat Brodsky down on the desk of a carrel on the Cage’s east wall — the wall opposite the bathrooms — with his wrists tied together behind his back.

Are you comfortable? I said.

“Tch,” Brodsky said.

I want you to be as comfortable as possible, I said. That’s why we put you on this desk — you’ve got three walls to lean on. If you’d rather lean on one of the carrel walls, we’ll tilt you. Just say so. The main thing is I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Those idiots in the bathroom — as soon as we leave, they’ll try to convince you to squirm off this carrel, crawl over, free them. Don’t try it, Mr. Brodsky. You’ll end up hurt. The way you’re tied, if you go face-first, you’ll knock yourself out when you hit the floor, maybe break your neck. Hurl yourself sideways so your shoulder takes the impact, and that shoulder will break, and maybe your clavicle. Go legs-first with that foot — you can imagine the pain. You can’t walk as it is. But say I’m wrong. Say you squirm off, land lucky, undo your bindings, drag yourself across the floor, get the bathroom doors open — you’re still locked in here, and you won’t get out til I say you get out, and that won’t even be that long from now, so—

“None of this is solving your problems,” Brodsky said.

I have no intention of killing you, I said. I’m not planning to do you any more harm. I’ve brought you to the Cage to keep you out of harm’s way. No one who’d hurt you has keys to this Cage. Understand me, though: If one of you somehow does get mobile enough and pulls that alarm on the wall — and I don’t see why you would, since you looked outside when we passed the front entrance, saw that the cops have already arrived, and you’ll be happy to share that information with the idiots in the bathroom — if, though, for some reason you pull the alarm anyway, it will give me a headache, and we will kill Boystar. I’ll kill Boystar, then I’ll kill BryGuy. Right, BryGuy? I said.

While I was speaking to Brodsky, the Five and the Ashley had gotten there with Maholtz.

“Please, Mr. Brondsky,” Maholtz said.

“Show some mercy,” said Brodsky. “You’re better than this.”

You guys get his phone? I said to the Five.

“Eliyahu’s got it,” The Levinson said. “We got something else, too,” Glassman said. “Show him, Mr. Goldblum,” Pinker said. And chinning air at Shpritzy, Mr. Goldblum told me, “The loverboy’s got it.”

Shpritzy had his hands in the Ashley’s back pockets. He took one out, reached into his own back pocket, and produced a mint-tin. I opened it up. It was jammed with pills. One kind was small footballs, orange-flavor-Pez-colored; another was generic Adderall caplets; the third kind was horsey and white with a split.

What are these pills? I said to Maholtz. He could barely stand up. His knees kept touching.

“Which pillns?” he said.

All of them, I said.

“The white one’s a paindkiller — hydrocodone. The caplets, Adderall, are speend. The footballs’re Xanax. You take those for paningc.”

He wasn’t lying about the Adderall.

How strong is the first one?

“Four’ll knock you out.”

Knock who out?

“Anyone,” he said.

There were twenty in the tin.

How many you want? I said to Mr. Brodsky.

“Three,” he said.

Atop Botha’s blotter, next to a coffee-mug — koalas playing tennis, Australian flag background — a bottle of water was sitting unopened. I brought it to Brodsky and, one at a time, I fed him the pills. The third time, I spilled a little water on his shirt.

Sorry, I said.

“It’s okay,” Brodsky said.

We left the Cage with Maholtz and locked it down.

How about one? I asked Maholtz in C-Hall.

“How about one what?”

Pinker socked his shoulder.

Hydrocodone, I said.

“One’s pretty strong.”

“ How strong?” said The Levinson.

“It’ll make you feeln happier.”

What about pain?

“It depends on the pain.”

Shpritzy smashed him on the cheek.

“What?” he whined. “What do you want to know?”

Look at Benji’s hand.

Maholtz looked. All of us looked. The hand was so swollen, the pinky- and the ringfinger-knucks were lineless.

“Stop looking,” Benji told us.

“Take four,” Maholtz said.

Four’ll knock him out, I said.

Glassman hit him.

“You’re right! It will! What can I tell you? It’s not my faulnt!”

Pinker socked him again.

“Maybe take the Xanax? It makes you not care much. Your pain seems dindstant; you don’t really mind it; take one for ‘a feeling of warmth and well-being’; the pain’s still there though… If he can stand some pain, and doesn’t want to be too happy, I’d take two hydrocodone instead.”

If he passes out…

“I understand,” said Maholtz.

It’ll hurt a lot before you die.

“I know,” he said. “It hurts a lot now.”

You want some of these drugs?

“Please,” he said.

No, I said.

I held the open tin out to Benji.

“Maybe later,” Benji said. “I’m too dry to swallow.”

“You can chew them,” said Maholtz. “Or crush ’em and snornt ’em would be evend better. Either way’ll taste bintter, but they’ll work a lot faster, hit a lot harnder.”

“So helpful all of a sudden.”

I told a soldier called Feld to fish a chair from the pool and bring it to Cody at the Side Entrance.

Feld said, “Thank you for the mission, Rabbi.”

June bit my shoulder to keep herself from giggling.

You’re welcome, I said.

Feld wanted high fives. We gave him high-fives. He ran to the pool. We continued up C-Hall.

Maholtz asked me, “Why do you hate me?”

I said, Everyone hates you.

“I know,” he said. “I know that,” he said, “but they hate me cause I scarend them or had what they wanted. You weren’t ever scarend of me. You never wanted what I had. Except for the sap. And then you took it, and now I don’t have it, so why do you hate me?”