Adam Levin - The Instructions

And I saw that it was almost beside the point anyway, because how long would it take for the hair to get thick enough? If after a week he was puking blood, I didn’t even want to picture what kind of injuries he’d suffer after two weeks, or three. And he was my best friend by that point, one of my only friends at Aptakisic, and certainly the only scholar-brained kid I knew who was allowed to talk to me anymore. So after re-touching the combover that Thursday morning, I saw I needed to protect him from himself. And then I figured out how.

What I did was, during Lunch — I was still allowed out of the Cage for Lunch back then, and Nakamook (owing to all the little infractions Botha kept nailing him for) wasn’t that day — I went over to the table in the cafeteria next to the one where all the Cage kids were sitting, and I got up behind Daryl Duncil, a biggish seventh-grader who I’d seen laugh at Main Man by the bus circle that morning, and chopped him sideways on the back of the neck so he leaned forward, then grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and plugged his face into the cafeteria table until he made glug-glug sounds and stopped resisting. And then, before Floyd dragged me to Brodsky’s, where I received my first ISS, I grabbed Vincie Portite by the collar and told him to get the word out that if anyone in the Cage brought a Darker to school before Tuesday or mentioned to anyone— anyone, I stressed — the threat I was about to finish making, they’d be praying I showed them the kind of mercy I just had Daryl Duncil.

Friday morning I left my Darker at home and said so to Benji. He asked Vincie for his, but Vincie said he’d left his at home, too. So did Leevon Ray, Jelly Rothstein, and every other kid from the Cage who passed the doorway of the C-Hall bathroom. I stood behind Benji the whole time, but a little bit beside him, too. That way, anyone he solicited who hadn’t gotten my message was able to see the suggestive gestures I kept making with my fist while shaking my head No.

Over the weekend, the ink on Benji’s skull faded to nothing. Monday morning I hid in the teachers lounge doorway until I saw him enter the Cage.

With that, the progression was over.

When I got to Call-Me-Sandy’s, Group was already seated in the circle of folding chairs. The arrangement was this: Call-Me-Sandy next to My Main Man Scott Mookus next to Vincie Portite next to Leevon Ray next to the Janitor next to Asparagus next to an open chair next to Jenny Mangey next to Jelly Rothstein next to an open chair next to an open chair next to Call-Me-Sandy.

I wanted to sit beside Main Man but couldn’t. I either had to sit between Mangey — who often cried during Group so you felt like you should hug her, but then when you did she thought you were her boyfriend — and Asparagus — who I’d just punched the wind from an hour before — or next to Jelly Rothstein, who bit and was a girl so I couldn’t hit her when she bit, or next to Call-Me-Sandy, who had a good, soft voice and looked like she probably smelled clean and sensible, like laundry detergent or talcum powder, but was also the most arranged one of all of them, which meant it was no good to sit where you had to turn your head to see her because then she could tell when you were looking.

Mookus saw me standing just inside the door. He lifted his legs off the ground and flexed his toes so they all popped at once. Then he sneezed three times and said, “Hello, Gurion. Had I known you’d be coming, I would have saved a chair for you. Do you know that?”

I know, Scott, I said.

“I’m glad you do,” Scott said. “Can I take this opportunity to tell you that I am bemused? Because I am bemused. I’m filled with wonderment. I wonder have you noticed the pretty glitter makeup pattern around the eyes of our wonderful Sandy this afternoon? I think she’s beautiful. And it is wonderful. Don’t you think she’s beautiful, Gurion? Don’t you think it is wonderful? Is or is not everything very splendid today? Does or does not the beauty of our Sandy make you feel like the everything bottle is filled up to the very edge of the brim of its neck with hope for a brand new tomorrow? I, myself, am almost choking on it. It’s at the top of my neck, too. In my throat. Inside my very throat. The joy and the beauty and the very wonderment. The very wonderment gives me a sense of the presence of a platform on which to build a better life for people like us. The common people. The people who deserve good health care and better wages. Chocolate milk. Don’t you feel like a sound investment in a good retirement plan? Don’t you feel as though you could love everything starting tomorrow, and everything could love you, if only you took an action to set into motion the coming of our new tomorrow and its tomorrow and that one’s tomorrow? Shotgun loaded hand on the pump and no matter who you damage you’re still a false prophet, but we drink chocolate milk and then we get muscles and smash down the droves with fists like hammers and then we pump the fists in the air for victory. I be the prophet of the doom that is you. You are the mess in messiah. Isn’t she pretty, Gurion? Isn’t she? Don’t the pretty-glittered eyes of our Sandy speak of better wages and genuine possibility? No fiscal exposure?”

I said, I wish I could sit next to you, too, Main Man.

“Do you see the glitter around Sandy’s eyes?” Scott said.

It’s pretty, I said.

“Thank you for saying so,” Scott said.

Call-Me-Sandy said, “Thank you, Gurion.”

I nodded = No problem, Call-Me.

She wanted me to take a seat, but she wouldn’t say so. She was good at not saying things. My mom taught me about it, that it is what you learn at schools for psychotherapy. You learn to use the invisible power in a quiet room to get other people to do what you want. But it all depends on the arrangement, so it is cheap. The power was not really Call-Me’s power because it is not a person’s power, even though it looks like a person’s power: I wanted to sit down because it was Group and in Group you sit down. Everyone who was in there was already sitting in the circle, so if I sat down, then it would not be because Call-Me-Sandy used invisible powers, even if that’s what it looked like. It would be because of the arrangement. The arrangement had the power. It was harder to stand in the Group Therapy arrangement than it was to sit down.

While I was standing there, everyone but Scott and Leevon got nervous. Mangey made dry noises by scratching under her sock where her skin was flaky, and Ronrico and the Janitor, who would not look at me, switched between looking at the ground and looking up at Sandy to try to get her to tell me to sit down. Vincie Portite kept moving his right hand to cover his eye and then putting it back in his lap. Vincie used to be one of the best fighters in the Cage, but then just after Sukkot he developed his debilitating tick. How it happened was he used to like calligraphy, so he got fountain pens with many interchangeable nibs and inks for his birthday, and there was a radiator in the Cage that Vincie dropped an ink-cartridge into the spaces of the vent of, and the ink cartridge fell into the fan of the radiator and the blades of the fan exploded the ink cartridge with a sudden cutting force. Cartridge ink shot fast from the vent into Vincie’s right eye and Vincie held his hand over his eye and said, “Oh no,” just like that, just once, in a crying voice, non-exclamatorily and without any cursing, and Botha said “Not brilliant, Portite” and sent Vincie to the nurse and Vincie had to wear an eyepatch for two weeks until the eye healed. He showed me what the eye looked like under the patch. It was red where it should have been white and the iris looked like someone had dripped milk in it. I felt bad making Vincie nervous, but I think it was good for him because it was like training him to be a great fighter again and lately he was doing better than before. I could tell he was doing better because while I was standing there, the hand went up at least five times, but Vincie didn’t let it go all the way to the eye. It would start lifting up, but it never even got to his chin before he’d put it back on his lap. The highest the hand got was his windpipe. I was keeping my eyes on Vincie so I wouldn’t look at Jelly Rothstein. Jelly was waiting for me to look at her, and if I did look at her she would tell me to sit down, and I already wanted to sit down, and if she told me to do it, it would be like Botha telling me to give him my pass. I decided I would sit down in exactly seven seconds as long as I didn’t get told to.