Adam Levin - The Instructions

So would I.

“Good,” she said. “So I’ll go and recruit.”

No, I said. I’ll have Eliyahu send Vincie to be in charge.

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

This was true.

Don’t recruit, I said to June. Assign , I said. Assign on my orders ; and only use Israelites, and no ex-Shovers. Five to the library, two to Ben-Wa, and three to Cody. Tell them who’s in charge, and if they ask where I am, just tell them I’m protecting them.

“I’ll see you in the gym,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek and then she was gone.

When I finished my wrist, I told Benji to lay his hand on the blotter, palm facing up.

He winced when he did it, brought his hand to his chest.

Sorry, I said.

I went to the Quiet Room, got a pillow off a cot. While in there, I found aspirins on a shelf above the sink and swallowed three with water from the tap. I returned to the desk, set the pillow on the blotter.

Lay your hand on the pillow.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

A little, I said.

My mom had shown me movies. I did the best I could. The bad hand was nearly twice the size of the good one. The redder parts were hardening and growing purpler. Black blood beneath the nails pushed up on the enamel in oval formations. I broke in half one of the tongue depressors and taped it tight to the back of his pinky. Then I taped another to the back of his ringfinger. Those were the darkest parts; the ones that the padlock had made direct contact with. The rest of the hand was busted up too, though. Lots of small fractured bones in too small a space. The best I could do was to cushion it. I wrapped the gauze thick as a boxing glove.

“Stupid,” Benji muttered, as I started on the wrapping.

I said, Don’t call me stupid.

He hadn’t and I knew it and he knew I knew it and he showed me by ignoring the statement.

“I knew the lock broke my hand,” he said. “Anyone would’ve known. What do I do, though? As soon as we go down, I hit him square on the jaw with the broken hand. On purpose with the broken hand. I had time to think about it: Which should I hit him with?… Hit him with the broken one — that’s what I decided.”

Why? I said.

“Guy in juvie who taught me how to fight always said to use the blow that got used on you — that right after you block something, the part of your body you blocked with numbs out and the endorphins or whatever rush there to numb it out more, to protect and strengthen it. I don’t even know if that’s true about the chemicals, but the guy had me throwing knees and elbows against the bedposts for training, and after the first one it always got easier, I could always strike harder, at least that’s how it felt. I never did it with a broken bone, though, and if you’d asked me before, I’d’ve told you it would be a fucken stupid thing to try. If you’d asked me in that split-second when I decided to cave Bam’s jaw with this broken hand, I’d’ve said the same thing. But I did it anyway.”

But why? I said.

“Cause I knew it would work. And it did. It worked. I hit that kid harder than I’ve ever hit anyone — no doubt about it. With my left hand, too, my weak hand. The give of his jaw when I landed the punch was — it was something. I heard things, like, de tach ing… except now I’ve got this mangled hand. Fucken stupid. Kinda thing that’s gonna hurt for the rest of my life. It’ll rain and I’ll whine. I guess at least it’s my weak hand. How’s your wrist, though? How’s that extra half-lip growing off your bottom one, handsome?”

I’ll be fine, I said. My chin hurts the most, but whatever. It’s fine.

“So why are we still here?”

Where? I said.

“The nurse’s,” he said. “I’m fine, you’re fine…”

We’re getting fixed up, I said.

“We’re already fixed up. Splinted and wrapped. Ready to fight.”

Here. Take these, I said.

I put two Xanaxes next to his watercup.

“Warmth and well-being? Pain without care?”

Yeah, I said.

“Why would I want that?”

You want the other kind instead?

“Four to pass out?”

What’s the tone? I said.

“Maybe I want the SpEdspeed.”

You don’t, I said.

“You know that how?”

What’s your problem, Benji?

Benji said “Tch,” and dropped the pills in his mouth. He chewed them, wincing, chugged both our waters. “So let’s go,” he said.

I futzed with my bandage and tried to look purposeful.

STEVENS: Thanks again, Bob. Indeed, the number of onlookers outside of the Aptakisic Junior High School building in Deerbrook Park does appear to be doubling by the minute. The police have asked us at NBC to ask you folks at home in the Chicagoland area to not , I repeat, to not make your way to Aptakisic. Three concerned parents of boys believed by police to be members of Maccabee’s allegedly Zionist terror organization, the Side of Damage, have already been taken into custody for crossing the cordon in the parking lot. In the meantime, the Chicago Transit Authority just released the following statement: “Between aproximately 8:30 and 9:15 this morning, CTA received four reports from Red and Brown Line operators stating that at least two hundred middle-school-aged boys had boarded their trains without any apparent supervision. As per protocol, CTA sent word of these reports to the Chicago Police. CTA cannot conjecture on how the police responded, but CTA did its part by the book, according to the rules, and as per protocol.” We go live now to a press conference outside of police headquarters in Chicago’s Rogers Park district, the police district that is home to both of those Jewish parochial schools formerly attended by the terrorist Gurion Maccabee.

SEAN O’MALLEY, POLICE SPOKESPERSON: Now I’ll take a couple questions.

REPORTER: We’ve just learned that the Chicago police received word of a mass migration of students on the Red and the Brown Line el-trains as early as 8:30 this morning. That seems to contradict the statement you made just minutes ago.

O’MALLEY: As far as I know, the first we heard of any of this was 9 a.m. We sent truancy cruisers and graffiti-buster squads to the el stations at which both groups of kids had boarded. There wasn’t any graffiti. There weren’t any kids.

REPORTER: You said “both groups,” but you — or at least the CTA — received four calls. What about the other two groups?

O’MALLEY: Right. We believe this was two groups of kids. Each orginated at red-line stations; each transferred to the Brown Line.

REPORTER: But how can you be sure of that?

O’MALLEY: Go back to New York, funnyguy. Go back to Boston. Wherever you’re from.

REPORTERS: (UPROAR OF QUESTIONS)

O’MALLEY: What’s wrong with you guys, huh? You’re the ones showing emails on the television before you show ’em to the police. Thing is, you should have this part cracked already, but you’re numbskulls and douchebags. And just to be clear: I don’t speak for the mayor here, when I suggest that you’re numbskulls, and I don’t speak for the city when I call you douchebags, but I am nonetheless in earnest, you lot of pantywaist hacks. Why don’t you khaki-clad yokels take a walk to any el station in the city and have a look at a map on the wall before you try to question the authority of the Chicago PD? Course I’m not really asking you take a walk on those spindly legs. And I’m not even suggesting you use one of your handy PDAs there to Google an el map because if you’re too numbskull to think of that yourself it’s cause you don’t know how to use those things to begin with is what I’m saying. Or maybe you’re so good at using ’em you forgot about maps because you’re all GPS now. I don’t know what your problem is, actually. I’m just sayin, here. No more hostility from youse. I’m two days from retirement, I got racquetball with Richie Daley at 1:00, and I will not abide it. This hostility being what I mean by “it.” So look: That email’s addressed to kids from two schools. You got the Solomon Whoever and the Northside Whatsit. They’re going north to the suburbs, these kids, right? They’re going north to the suburbs from Rogers Park, right? What do you think? They have to get on the Red Line, and then they gotta get on the Brown Line. And oh, take a look at the attachment that came attached to that email you showed on TV before you showed it to the police. Oh dearie me! In the email there, it says: Take the Red Line to Howard. Transfer to the Brown Line. Now. That latter transfer? That was almost two hours ago when they did it, and the trains have had some slowdowns, sure, but they ain’t that slow. All of which is to say those kids are not in Chicago anymore. Those kids are in the suburbs and have been for a while. You’re bothering the wrong cops, fellas, and in my closing statement, on this, what is certain to be my last press conference before retirement, I, with rapidly blossoming flowers of joy in my old Irish heart, would, on behalf of myself, like to say, just one last time, to you, my spindly-legged semi-literate douchebag pantywaist hackish yokel reporter friends: No. Further. Fucken. Comment.