Adam Levin - The Instructions

From the Side and the scholars, they’d demand Jerry’s keys in trade for our lives, Aleph explained. He said once they’d all made it safely outside, they’d free us and say that they’d barely escaped from Gurion ben-Judah. That part was a lie, I knew it was a lie — a lie that was told because I was listening. If the insurgents escaped, Vincie and I would be turned over to the cops, the better to bolster Aleph’s claims to heroism.

My army came through the boys locker-room door sooner and faster than Aleph expected. They barrelled topspeed at the line of ex-Shovers, which was all they could see til Aleph said “Down,” and the ex-Shovers knelt to reveal our tableau.

The frontmost row was six soldiers wide: Ben-Wa and Brooklyn flanked June on the right, Leevon and Samuel Emmanuel on the left. As soon as they saw us, they began slowing down, but the soldiers behind them were all pushing forward, and they couldn’t slow much without getting trampled.

Attack! I shouted, but to no effect, except to incite the kid on my left to sock me in the beauty, leaving me muted, bent at the waist, sucking for wind.

June, then Emmanuel, ordered a halt. The soldiers who were still in the locker-room, however, couldn’t hear the orders, much less see the leaders, and the Five, who’d been assigned to head up the rearguard, urged them all forward, pushing and shouting, and the drive, though slowing, did not fully stop til the vanguard was three or four feet beyond halfcourt and three hundred scholars were inside the gym.

Sap in his fist, pacing north-south, Aleph presented his single demand.

June refused to hand over the keys, told him he’d have to free us first.

Aleph revolved, sapped Vincie’s ribs, spun back around to check June’s reaction.

June kept the keys.

I was fighting for breath still, chasing my voice down. Even if I could die (by then I didn’t know or care if I could die), if Aleph had me murdered, he wouldn’t have anything left with which to bargain; my army would attack and destroy the insurgents. That much had to have been obvious to everyone, and its obviousness to everyone equally obvious = To have me murdered would be irrational.

Aleph wasn’t irrational. Aleph was sly: he was sly enough to see that he seemed too rational. That’s why he’d rib-sapped Vincie to begin with. It failed to convince, though; it blinkered desperation, but not irrationality. Maybe if he’d sapped my ribs instead of Vincie’s, June would’ve handed over the keys. Or maybe she’d’ve seen the move for what it was and stood as defiant as she had to Vincie’s sapping. It was, however, the third possible outcome that prevented sly Aleph from sapping me: June and the scholars might’ve attacked, believing he was actually trying to kill me.

Now he was pointing at Benji, saying, “We’re already killers. You don’t want to test us.”

Leevon Ray twetched. Ben-Wa stopped his crying. Emmanuel and Samuel were looking to June, and June put the keys in her pocket and stared.

Apart from backing down, Aleph only had one or two moves left to make, one or two sly moves left to escalate his threat. He could run the above-described risks and sap me, or he could have Vincie Portite murdered. If the action he took — whichever it was — failed to produce a final outcome, then he’d perform the one that remained.

He wasn’t backing down and he wasn’t walking over, but even if he did walk over and sap me, it might not work — it probably wouldn’t work; June didn’t look scared — and the scholars might not attack, and then Aleph would kill Vincie to see if that worked, and though my lungs did hold some air now, it was only a little, and even if I had the breath to explain the entire dynamic to June and the scholars, and even if the kid who’d muted me once failed to do so again before I could finish, Aleph would hear the explanation as well, and he’d only act faster, he’d act more determined, he’d kill Vincie Portite and say, “So what? Attack us and find out how crazy I am,” thus no explanation I could give could change anything, and as for a simple command to attack: they’d already disobeyed one of those.

So I said the only thing I could say that might work, and I said it to the one most desperate to believe it, the one who was looking straight into my eyes.

I said to Eliyahu, I do not die.

And Eliyahu went forward to free the messiah, and all of the scholars followed him.

A panic-shot nib missed Vincie’s carotid. I let my legs fold beneath all my weight. As my knees hit the floor, hair ripped off my head. The ex-Shover holding the hair-chunk was shot — blinded with pennies — and Berman was shot. The rest of the insurgents dropped their guns. They were lined up, as ordered by Samuel Diamond, against the west wall, their hands in the air.

June untied me, and Starla Vincie, and Googy Ally, who’d been under the bleachers, gagged with a sock.

No one saw Jelly come into the gym.

Gaze fixed on my feet, his mouth a bloody donut, Ally approached me and spoke uncued. “It’s true that I helped bring him down,” he told me. “He was trying to kill Berman — at least that’s what it looked like — and I didn’t want anyone to die, okay? But then he was out, he wasn’t even moving, and they kept kicking and shooting, and they said they would kill him and tell you they’d had to in self-defense, and I did try to stop that. I tried to argue, but they wouldn’t listen, they said he’d burn down their houses and kill them all, and then I tried to fight them, but I’m — I’m nothing. I’m weak, and I know it’s not enough, and—”

What did he say?

“Nothing,” Ally said. “He wasn’t there, and then he was there. On top of Berman. He didn’t say anything. I know I’m in trouble, okay? I know. Leave Googy alone, though. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He does what I tell him. That’s all that he does.”

Never come near me again, I said.

Ally went east, Googy in tow.

Brooklyn and Emmanuel brought me the sap.

“We’ve figured out a way to exit,” said Brooklyn.

Sitting next to Benji, Jelly chewed her sleeves. June went over, whispered something from behind her. Jelly pressed her face to June’s hip and shook.

I gave the sap to Vincie, who was limping beside me.

Below the neck, I said. I want him awake.

Vincie nodded, caved in a rib.

Aleph hit the floor on his side and squirmed. I went through his pockets til I found the cracktorch, straddled his torso, choked him left-handed, and branded his temples, each with a six, and branded a vav on his forehead.

I slackened the choke and set aside the lighter, twetched on the vav to hear it crackle and speed up the scarification. Vincie put the sap in my hand and stepped back. I raised the sap high, and was grasped at the elbow.

“We have to get to work,” Emmanuel said. “We’re thinking we’ve got a good plan.”

I said, First we kill all these Goddamned Jews.

“Anything, Rabbi,” said Emmanuel, “but that. We aren’t murderers.”

They murdered my friend.

“We aren’t killers.”

You could be, I said.

“That’s not why we came here,” Emmanuel said. “Don’t stain our hands.”

Just mine, I said.

“There’s no such thing.”

No? I said. We’ll see, I said. Hold his wrists to the floor.

“I’m not an executioner.”

I know, I said.

“I won’t help you kill him.”

You won’t, I said, just hold down his wrists.

Emmanuel crouched behind Aleph and did it.

I brought the sap down, and again, and again, til the impacts ceased to make breaking sounds.