Adam Levin - The Instructions

“Armed,” said Samuel.

“Could you tell us about Maccabee?”

“You mean Rabbi Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee?”

“Him. Yes.”

“Gurion’s armed.”

Alternately craning their necks and whispering, the Aptakisic Israelites remained on their bleachers. I was on the Side’s now; they’d formed a circle around me. Shpritzy climbed over, returned me the celly, said, “Feingold’s scholars are still on the lakeshore. He says they’ll turn west in another couple miles, then they’ve got another mile to Aptakisic, but they’ll walk that a lot faster cause they won’t be on sand. So fifty-something minutes is what Nathan’s guessing, but the good news is I told him what happened with the scholars from your schools — how they went around the roadblock without getting shot — and Nathan said they’d do the same if they came across a roadblock.”

Will they? I said.

“Yeah,” Shpritzy said. “No doubt in my mind. Nathan’s so religious. He prays for us on Saturdays to protect us from God because of how we go to Cubs games in cars and spend money, and he says you’re the messiah, and he’s coming to daven, so I don’t think he’s gonna let some roadblock scare him.”

Good, I said.

I started heading down the bleachers. Shpritzy followed.

“Are you the messiah?”

What do you think?

“I don’t know, Gurion, but if you are, Ashley here’s not an Israelite, and I think I’m in love with her.”

It’s good to be in love.

“Even though she’s not an Israelite?”

Yeah, I said. Of course, I said. It’s just she should convert before you guys have babies.

“Babies!” said Shpritzy. “We’re too young for babies.”

Then there’s no need to worry about Ashley converting yet.

“Okay,” said Shpritzy. “I hope you’re the messiah.”

Me too, I said.

We were standing by the television. I reached over Shpritzy and muted the news.

Everyone listen, I said to everyone.

All eyes on me.

I said, Four hundred of our brothers await us on the high hill. Five hundred-some more are on their way. The stakes are up and the cops are getting bold. They rushed the side entrance, and the guards scared them back. They might have been testing us or they might have been trying to distract us — who knows? We don’t. We can’t. We have to act now. One third of you will play hostages, the rest will play terrorists. We’ll all go out front, where the cameras can see us, holding the hostages at gunpoint. I’ll call in the scholars and they’ll come down the hill and the barricade will part. As soon as they’re close enough, we’ll rush into the middle of them. We’ll all then head east to meet the other five hundred. Once we’re all together, I’ll say a few words, and then I’ll surrender, and this will all be over, and we will have won. Do you have any questions?

“What if they come through the side entrance?” said Salvador. “Or what if they come through the pushbar door? They could sneak up behind us from inside the school, then.”

The guards will stay on the side entrance holding Maholtz hostage until the scholars have gotten close enough. Then I’ll call Cody and those guards will come running and get in the mass with us. The same will go for those soldiers in the library. The pushbar door is no sweat at all: that’s a serious door, and even if the cops can jimmy the lock, the mikestand’ll hold for at least a few minutes, and that’s all that we’ll need. Any more questions?

Berman said, “Do you really need all of us to go outside with you?”

That’s not a real question. It only sounds like one.

“What I’m saying,” Berman said, “is there doesn’t seem like there’s any good reason for all of us to go outside with you. The cops, like you said, are getting bold — what if they decide to start shooting or use tear gas?”

They’re not gonna do that.

“But what if they do?”

Then we’ll bleed and we’ll cry.

“And we’ll lose, Gurion. Is what I’m saying. I know you’re angry at us, but we’re still your brothers, right? And wouldn’t it be better if as few of your brothers as possible suffered? What I’m saying is that it doesn’t seem like you need all of us outside for your hostage-terrorist scheme to work. It seems like maybe you need only five, six hostages at most — it seems like if the cops are willing to move on you when you have five hostages, they’ll be willing to move on you with twenty hostages. There’s no greater line to cross with twenty than five — they’re either willing to endanger hostages or they aren’t.”

So you want to stay here, watching the television, until the scholars break through the copline, and when you see it happen, you’ll all rush outside to join us.

“Right,” Berman said.

And if the plan fails, and the cops do attack us, not only will you avoid getting tear-gassed and shot, but you’ll bind yourselves, to the scaffold, say, and when the cops come in, you’ll say you came to understand that following Gurion was wrong, that Gurion was a terrorist, and you opened your eyes to it right at the end of the battle, which was crazy, you’ll say, just watch the tapes. The whole school was fighting, you’ll tell the cops, and you lost track of right and wrong — like everyone else — but at the end of the battle, when things calmed down, you came to your senses, and you tried to rise up and overthrow Gurion and turn him in, along with yourselves, but Gurion and the Side of Damage weren’t done yet, and they beat you into submission, bound you to the scaffold, called you cowards, held you hostage.

“Yes,” Berman said.

Not a bad idea, but I might have a better one. Why don’t we just take you all outside like hostages and offer you up as trades? We can trade you to the cops in return for their opening up their barricade, and you can get out now, and tell the same story.

“But what if you win?”

What do you mean?

“I mean what if you win? We want you to win. It’ll be better for us if everything works out the way you said you want it to. We’ll be more feared. We don’t want to be left out of that,” Berman said. “It makes the most sense for us to just wait in here to see if you’ll win, cause then if you do win, we can win with you.”

You’re right, I said, we’ll do it like that. Do you have a source of fire?

“Fire?” Berman said.

Fire, you know — like a lighter. Do you have a lighter?

None of the Israelites had a lighter.

I took out the cracktorch I had in my pocket, handed it to Berman.

Take that, I said, and while we’re gone, and you’re waiting to see what happens to us, you can build a fire and melt down your ammo.

“Why should we do that?” Berman said.

“You should stop with the mouth,” Eliyahu said, “and get to work.”

“On what?” Berman said.

“Whatever you want. A calf? A fish? A dog-headed bird? Sculpt something , though, and do it fast, lest your Jewish foolishness become unforgettable by dint of its dull aesthetic’s salience.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“So what else is new?”

In B-Hall, way back, where no zoom lens or scope could angle to probe, the Side of Damage, the Five, and Big Ending chose roles. I called up Ben-Wa and told him to be ready to unlock the doors and unchair Boystar as soon as he saw us at the Main Hall junction. I called Cody von Braker and told him the plan. I called the guards in the library and told them the plan. I checked the soundgun. The soundgun still worked. I gave it to June.

Twenty-five soldiers in B-hall, plus us two. Jerry Throop, Salvador, Ansul, the Janitor, Isadore, Mangey, Boshka, and the Ashley would each play hostage to a pair of terrorists. Beauregard Pate was the odd man out. He’s who I sent to get Benji and Jelly.