Adam Levin - The Instructions

The march proceeded as seen on TV.

As we crossed Rand Road, Brooklyn ordered the first wave of hostages freed, then freed a wave for each block we traversed. In crocodile tears, the freed hostages ran all thirty-plus yards to the news crews and cops to the west, north, and south of us.

Three blocks east of the two-hill field we met the second army, led by Itzik Leslie Bienstein-Pikowitz, a seventh-grade boy from Hillel Torah Day who Shai Bar-Sholem used to bunk with at camp. At Brooklyn’s command, this Itzik halted and parted his army. We got in front of them, returned their Good Yontifs as they lined up behind us, and the hostages on what had been our rear border were passed back westward, to our new rear border. We picked up the march til Sheridan Road.

A ravine divided the road from the beach, and the third army’s frontline — Feingold foremost — was in the ravine, their rearguard’s heels a yard from the water. Eliyahu ordered them to halt and part, then ordered the second army part and flank us. We freed the last wave and crossed the ravine, advancing eastward til we all stood on sand, a thousand soldiers in forty columns, and June and I went to the front, the shoreline.

Eliyahu of Brooklyn gave me the soundgun. I unfolded my scripture and gave it to June. We revolved to face the soldiers, our backs to the lake. A chopper overhead, helped out by a cloud, was blocking the sun. The sun was descending. The sabbath was coming. In Israel, the sabbath was already there. I knew that I’d spend the next sabbath in Israel, that that’s what it was that my mom thought I wanted. I’d known for some minutes, ten or fifteen. The house of Yakov. It was no kind of code. It was barely a metaphor. My mother’d arranged us a haven in Israel on the single condition that no one else died. Someone else died, though. Nakamook died. They would let me stay anyway. Of course they would let me. Of course they would let me, and my mother would make me. All of this occurred to me right around the time the army crested the high hill.

I’m going away for sure, I’d told June.

“I know,” she’d said, “but it’ll be fine. We’ll miss each other, but we already do that. We already miss each other more than we don’t, right? It’s not like we’re used to seeing each other. And you’re not the kind of boy who other boys mess with, so we don’t have to worry that that’ll happen. You’ll read a lot of books and write me letters. I’ll write you back, and read the books you read, and try to learn Hebrew, and visit you every time I can. The juvie’s in Bolling. It isn’t that far. And I know my mom’ll drive me, I’ve figured it out: if my boyfriend’s in juvie, he’s a criminal, true, but I’m not having sex. I won’t even have to say that — that’s just how she thinks. Gurion. Gurion. Hey. Gurion. Hey Gurion — what? Don’t. Not Benji. You have to wait to think about Benji. You’ll ruin him forever if you do it right now. Trust me. I know. You know that I know. You’ll ruin everything. You’re ruining everything.”

I—

“No. Listen. You have to listen. If you think about him now, you’ll make him one way. You’ll make him simple. You’ll make him a story. His death will be the climax. You’ll bend who he was to make sense of his death. You’ll have to edit most of him out to do that. You’ll forget he was a bully, or forget he was your friend. You’ll forget he was a dickhead a lot of the time, or you’ll forget there was kindness in his dickhead heart. And that’s not the worst part. It’s not even close. The worst part’s the story you’ll make of the world. If you make him a story right now, Jellybean, right now when its fresh, when his death seems the climax, you’ll bend the whole world so it fits that story. It’ll be unavoidable. You’ll make the world a story that’s able to contain him, your edited version, your Nakamook story. His death will be the climax of the story of everything . The scholars will be secondary. The Side will be secondary. I will, too. The purpose of the world will be to kill Benji Nakamook, and you will be reduced to a witness, Gurion. Don’t do that to us. Don’t make this a lie. It isn’t a lie I’ll agree to tell. You’re going away. You’ll be locked up. Think about that. How that is suck. That’s what you were thinking about before I tried to comfort you with the story of what it would actually be like — the letters and the books and the visits and baked goods. Did I mention the baked goods? I’ll bring you baked goods. I’ll learn how to bake. I’ll listen to Hebrew on tape while I bake. But take my whole story with a grain of salt. Doubt what I’m saying. Doubt what I said. Worry about that. Go back to that. Don’t think about Benji. Think about us. Tell yourself I’m probably living in a fantasy. Tell yourself that June, even though she means well, won’t follow through, or at least that she might not — that June, herself, the first time you met her, told you that no one could promise forever, and despite what it looks like, she probably hasn’t revised her opinion. Can you do that? Do that. Do that, okay? Doubt me a little and we’ll be alright.”

Okay, I’d said.

“Good,” she’d said.

“There is damage,” I said to the thousand soldiers.

The ones who’d been jumping to get a better look at me settled on their tiptoes, quiet, listening.

A gust off the lake blew a hiss through the soundgun and flapped my scripture, which June held high, and water crept up and splashed at our ankles. Our hands, abiding the shiver, squeezed, and we took a step forward — that’s all there was room for; the beach was packed tight — and got splashed again.

“There was always damage,” I said to the soldiers, as the cloud and the chopper that were blocking the sun began drifting apart, “and there will be more damage,” I said to the soldiers, as a ray from the sun touched a chink in June’s retina, and she, refusing to lower my scripture, let go of my hand to cover her face in order to avoid misting gooze on the soldiers, and proceeded to sneeze a sneeze no one heard, for the noise of the lake being riven was deafening.

No one quite saw what they thought they were seeing, and to this day few see what’s truly before them as they marvel at the footage the helicopters shot and choke on huzzahs or cry out, “The horror!” or cry out, “Moshiach!” or postulate U.S. government conspiracies or Hollywood-Zionist-Media ploys or remark with false calm on aberrant tectonics, lunar events, anomolous plate-shifts, barometric hyperflux, electomagnetic energy bursts, non-contiguous molecular planes, destabilized particles, rogue nuclear states, comets, sunspots, or paratidal deviance.

It’s true that a valley had formed in the lake, that the valley was the width of our forty columns, and its miles-high walls, half a foot thick, occluded by foam and sand and stones and baffled fish and swaying vegetation, were smooth as glass on their valley-facing sides, and it’s true that the walls cast all their spray outward, and its floor was level and as smooth as the walls, and it’s true that the valley, from its moment of creation, stretched east through the lake past the vanishing point, and it’s true that the soldiers marched into the valley while I remained standing just east of its mouth watching my east-marching army recede, and true June was standing just southwest of me, and it’s true I reached back and took hold of June’s hand, goozed though it was, and true that as soon as our palms pressed together the walls of the valley began to splash down on the heads of the soldiers, threatening to drown them, and true that I then let go of June’s hand and all the falling water and debris it contained once again became walls, and it’s true June thought I’d been icked by the gooze and she wiped off her hand before grabbing mine again, and true that, again, the walls began to splash down, and that this time I didn’t let go of June’s hand, but that all that was falling again became walls. It’s also true, however, that I’d moved my feet. I’d moved my feet just a couple inches west, a couple inches outside the mouth of the valley. That’s something nearly everybody fails to see.