Adam Levin - The Instructions

I halted our march just outside of the library, and I said to the smallest, most nervous-looking soldier, who said his name was Fox, though (he told me as quickly as he possibly could) he spelled it Focks when he signed his poems, which were “poems about the difference between language and noise, which all poems are, just not so overtly, not that I’m an expert, I’m really an amateur, but that’s my project, which I can only hope is better than me, something to grow into, something to master before I die, I hope”: You’re the prisoner, Fox. They’ll bring you in with your hands behind your back and sit you in a chair in front of the big window. Keep your hands behind you the entire time, and look as scared as you possibly can.

“What if I itch?”

Tell the others in a crying voice, as if you’re in pain, and they’ll pretend to rough you up, but really they’ll scratch you wherever you itch.

“What if I itch on the wang?”

On the wang?

“The wang,” said Fox.

Try scratching with your thighs.

“That never works.”

I—

“I’m just kidding, Gurion. I can handle a wang-itch. The secret is to picture a nice blue stream full of fishes who are friendly except when there’s heat, which makes them grow fangs and try to eat the hot thing.”

Okay, I said.

“Really,” he said. “Because an itch is heat, so you cool the itch down so the fishes don’t tear off your itchy-hot penis.”

That works?

“Always works.”

I guess that’s smart, then. Why don’t you just scratch, though?

“I thought I was the prisoner.”

I mean in the past — when have you had a wang-itch that you couldn’t just scratch?

“If you scratch and someone sees you, they think you’re playing with yourself.”

Who does?

“Girls?”

I don’t think that’s true. Why do you think that’s true?

Fox blushed.

Anyway, I said, in the future don’t sweat that. Just scratch your wang.

“Okay,” he said. “Are you really the messiah?”

I might be, I said.

“I hope so,” he said, “but if you’re not, then I guess that’s still okay.”

Good, I said. Now—

“Because all these motherfuckers,” Fox continued, “used to laugh off their motherfucking heads at me is why, all because I have the soul of a poet, a delicate soul, even in torment. They’d laugh at me to see the faces I’d make and it made me make faces I didn’t want to make, then they’d laugh even more at those faces when I made them. I don’t think they’ll do that anymore, though,” he said. “I really fucked them up back there, really tore ’em a new one. I broke someone’s nose, I think, fucked him right up, and I’m sure I shot at least two guys down. No one outfoxed me, that’s for certain. If they tried to outfox me I’d fuck them up. And then, near the end, I found Blonde Lonnie, funny Lonnie friend, who he thought he was so funny, fucking with Focks when he focksed around, always laughing his head off on the bus with everyone. I found him and I kicked him in the ear and he wiggled. That’s a good thing, right? I know that it’s good. I feel very good about it. I don’t feel bad.”

Good, I said. Don’t feel bad.

“I don’t and I won’t. I totally refuse to. Fuck those motherfuckers. No skin off my nose. They had it coming and I really gave it to them. All of us did. Our souls are all delicate. All of us are poets inside of ourselves. Focks those motherfuckers. Laughing motherfocksers. Atheists in foxholes. Fuck them all to hell in motherfucking fur handbags…”

Benji put his good arm around Fox’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Benji told him. “They got what was coming. They got what they should’ve.”

“They got what I fucking gave them, Benji Nakamook. I was what was coming. Focks was. Me.”

“That’s right,” said Benji.

“Now you’re this hugger, but you used to be like them.”

“I didn’t,” Benji said.

“You think you’re a poet because you hate Slokum and protect Scott Mookus, but you don’t have the delicate soul of a poet, you’re a killer who hugs me but still a fucking killer. You would have been an Indian if you didn’t burn a house.”

“You don’t know me,” Benji told him. “Don’t say that.”

And just as if Benji had moved to strike him, Fox flinched his shoulders and told him, “I’m shook. Don’t hit me, just shook. I’m talking this way because I’m shook and weird. If you say your soul’s delicate, I’ll try to believe you.”

June took the kid’s hands between both of hers. “You’re fine,” she said. “You just got shook.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m shook. I’m Fox. We’re poets, right?”

“Maybe Fox here should return to the gym,” Benji said.

“No,” Fox said, “it was just a weird moment. I was shook and I’m weird, now I’m steady again.”

You sure? I said.

“Positron Milosevich. Yes sir Arafat. Fucken A Humperdink. Focksen A right.”

June seemed to agree.

The others had started to simple slapslap. I told them to stop. Listen, I said, when you enter the library, brandish your weapons and keep on brandishing. Once Fox is sitting, two of you point them unloaded at him, and scratch him if he itches, but make it look violent. The other two stand lookout, right up at the window, making faces like killers — they’ll be watching you zoomed.

“What if they shoot us?”

They won’t shoot kids. Anyone approaches, three of you shoot Fox with unloaded weapons til the approachers back off, and one of you calls me.

“Which one?” said one of them.

You, I said, and gave him a phone and programmed the number.

“Will you rotate us out like the others?” they said.

Yes, I said.

“What about Fox? They’ll know we’re faking if you rotate Fox.”

You’re right, I said. I said, Fox has to stay.

“That’s okay,” Fox said. “There’s no cable anyway.”

“They’re watching the news in there.”

“That’s the worst kind of all of the kinds of no cable.”

“But we’re on the news, Fox.”

“I am the Fox News.”

“You’re really weird, Fox.”

“So I’m weird,” Fox said. “I’m the first to admit it. I even said it first. At the same time as Focks. I was shook and I was weird. Now I’m steady and weird. The prisoner is weird. A weird steady prisoner who doesn’t feel bad.”

Benji and June and I went to Nurse Clyde’s. In a big metal cabinet, I found gauze and tape, then a box of tongue-depressors in a drawer in Clyde’s desk. I sat across from Benji, who sat in Clyde’s chair, quietly watching his hand change color. June brought us water in paper cups. I wrapped my wrist first, tight in the gauze, so I wouldn’t hurt it worse when I took care of Benji.

“You said you’d replace the guys guarding the hostages,” he said.

Those guys can wait.

“I can go to the gym and recruit,” said June.

Stay here with us. With me, I said.

“You shouldn’t make them wait.”

I said, I’ll call Eliyahu and tell him what to do.

“You don’t want him leaving the gym,” Benji said.

He doesn’t need to leave, I said. He can just—

“You don’t want him just sending them, either,” June said. “What if they’re scared like they were before? They might run or screw up. Someone needs to go with them and be in charge.”

Are you scared? I said.

“No,” June said. “Not while I’m with you. But they’re not with you.”

You won’t be either if I send you, I said.

“True,” she said, “and I might get scared, but I’d be more scared of what would happen if I abandoned you.”