Adam Levin - The Instructions

STEVENS: Well, a little comic relief in the midst of tragic events never hurt anyone, I suppose. Here with me in the NBC studios is our Middle East consultant, Allie Momad. Allie, in your opinion, is the terrorist Gurion Maccabee, as has been alleged, a Zionist?

MOMAD: Well, Rick, the long answer is: Who can say for sure? He’s a ten-year-old boy, certainly a boy who’s been through Jewish schools, certainly an exceptionally violent boy, certainly a boy who invokes the Jewish God in emails that appear to be some kind of coded call-to-arms, certainly someone demanding to speak to Philip Roth, certainly the type of violent Jewish person that both the Eastern and the Western world have been certain would arise soon enough given the Jewish occupation of Palestine, the Israeli apartheid, the war crimes committed daily by the State of Israel, and the rhetoric used by Israeli and American Jewish progagandists to defend the apartheid and the war crimes and the hideous nature of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinean lands and people, not just men and women, Rick, but children, too. Children.

STEVENS: And the short answer, Allie?

MOMAD: Probably a Zionist.

STEVENS: Thank you, Allie. That was Allie Momad, our Middle East Consultant. Now we go to some new exclusive footage NBC has just acquired from another of the five cameras that were in the Aptakisic Junior High School gym at the time of the terrorist attack. I’m told we’re about to see the gym teacher, Ronald Desormie, just as — there. Oh my. Oh my, that’s vivid. Can we rewind that and slow — thank you, Mark. Yes, it looks, from the way he’s holding his neck, and from the angle at which the projectile seems to have pierced him, as though the fatal shot could not have possibly been fired by Gurion Maccabee, who you can see laying on his stomach on the floor before the unfortunate gym teacher. It looks like the shot was fired from on-high. Can we roll that again?

“Unless you’re thinking maybe I shouldn’t go back into the gym with this… hand like this?”

Yeah, I said.

“Come on, man,” said Benji. “Admit what you’re doing.”

What am I doing?

“You’re keeping me away from that dentist Berman and all of his buddies. I make them all nervous, so you’re keeping me away.”

You both—

“Like the Cage,” he said.

That’s—

“I’m being dramatic. That was dramatic. Overdramatical. Still, I’m right. And look: I understand. I mean, Berman’s got more people behind him than I do. It would’ve been harder to get him out of there. Plus he’s not injured. There’d be no reason to keep him somewhere else. He’d have lost face if you removed him, there could have been a fight, or—”

I’m sorry, I said. I just thought that after—

“I’m not asking for an apology, Gurion. You made the move you had to make, and I’ve taken the drugs — I’m being cooperative. This is what I want to tell you, though. Jelly is in there. In the gym. With that snake. She’s in there with that snake, and so are all our other friends, and you need to watch out because you’re acting snakey yourself — for good reason maybe, sure — but you’re acting snakey yourself, and all those snakes can see right through you. Some of them at least. Snakes understand snakiness.”

I don’t think Berman’s a snake, I said. Maybe he was, but he’s not anymore, none of them are, and everything’s gonna be fine, alright? This’ll be over soon. The scholars—

“I don’t need reassurance. False reassurance. You need to hear me.”

Okay, I said. Fine. So what is it I’m missing? What’s the big secret? What did Berman do to you, you hate him so much? Before today, I mean.

“I can’t believe you’re still— Look. Berman didn’t do shit to me. He’s just a snake. He’s always been a snake. Same way Desormie’s always been — same way Desormie had always been a scumbomb. He was born that way. Born a snake. All those ex-Shovers. And everyone knows this. June knows it. Vincie knows it. Brooklyn knows it. You know it. I know you know it. So let’s not pretend. It’s just you and me here, two best friends, and you’ve snaked me a little, but I’m forgiving you for snaking me, okay? So believe me, okay? Stop making that face. You need to believe me. I’m not trying to fuck with you. I’m forgiving you because you waited to bring me here til no one was around to see where you put me. I appreciate that. That you’re trying to protect me. So I forgive you for snaking me, so now it’s time you stop snaking me — I’m trying to help you out. Those guys are snakes. Especially Berman. And my girlfriend’s in there with them, all of our friends are — did I say this part already? I did. These drugs are quick. BryGuy must have himself some serious… tol erance. But what I’m saying is you don’t have to convince me to stay here. I came here willingly, I took the drugs — I’m on your side is what I’m trying to say. So just be straight with me. Be honest with your friend. Admit you know they’re snakes and we can talk about some strategy for when you go back in there.”

I’m being completely honest with you, I said.

“Gurion! Bullshit! You took their phones cause you knew they were snakes.”

I took their phones cause I knew they were afraid. I didn’t want them to freak out while I was gone and call the—

“You thinned their numbers,” Nakamook said. “You could’ve sent someone to get a fucken wheely chair — this very fucken wheely chair into which my ass is melting — and sat Brodsky on it and wheeled him to the Cage. You and June could’ve done it. You didn’t, though, right? Instead you got five, then ten of them to carry him because you wanted to thin their numbers because you knew they were snakes, and you wanted to give the Side a fighting chance in case the snakes attacked.”

I thinned their numbers because I thought their numbers were making the Side nervous, Benji. Nervous is contagious, and— What you’re saying’s not true. I didn’t think anyone would attack anyone, and I don’t think that now. I just thought that the Side was worried about what would happen if they were attacked, so—

“You thought that because you were worried about it yourself! Stop lying to me! I don’t see why you’re lying. There’s no one to protect here.”

If I was really worried about the Side getting attacked, I said, I’d’ve thinned the ex-Shovers’ numbers, not the other Israelites’.

“Wow,” Benji said. “Wow!”

Wow what? I said.

“Wow.”

Wow what ?

“Wow I believe you.”

Good, I said. I told you I wasn’t—

“No,” he said. “No it’s not good. Wake the… Wake the fuck up, man.”

Good elbow on the desk, Benji had propped his chin on his fist at about the same time as he’d said his first wow. He smiled now, and his chin slipped down, so his cheek was on the heel of his hand. The smile went away in the course of the slip, but had come back harder once the cheek was situated.

“Tchhhhhhhhhhh,” he said, and got his face off his hand. He shook his head, as if to clear it out, but it didn’t seem to work — his face was all slack. “Fucken,” he said. Or maybe, “Fuck it.” The end of the utterance got snapped by a yawn he fought to suppress. When the yawning passed, he thumb-flicked the pointer of his broken hand, let out a muffled throatmoan, flicked again, and seemed, by that second pained jolt, to be driven back into his body.

Benji, I said. I’m sorry I acted shady about bringing you here. I should have told you what I was doing, but I didn’t think… I don’t know.