Adam Levin - The Instructions

I counted off the seconds in my head so no one would see. As soon as I got to seven, I sat down next to Jelly. When she didn’t bite, it was good to sit next to Jelly. She could be very funny.

“Idiot,” she said to me. When Jelly said I was an idiot during Group, there was friendliness in it because it was the beginning of a game where we alternated calling each other names. There were two ways to lose the game. The first way was if you ran out of names or repeated yourself. The second way was if Call-Me-Sandy, who would keep leaning forward to put a stop to the game but because of her therapist algorithms couldn’t interrupt while someone was talking, got a word in between us. If Call-Me-Sandy got a word in, then the last one who’d said a name would win.

Dentist, I said. “Dolt,” Jelly said. Leopold. “Klebold.” Monorail. “Blister.” Flag. “Patio.” Falsified document.

“I call bullshit on falsified document ,” Jelly said. “That’s like big stupid dumbass or something. You sound like a first-grader.”

Fine, I said. Firmament.

“I call bullshit on firmament . There’s no such thing as firmament .”

There is, though, I said. I said, It’s in Torah.

“What’s it mean, then?”

I said, No one really knows what it means. In Hebrew, it’s the place where Adonai resides, but it’s a bad translation. It’s really more like border —it’s confusing.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. “If you don’t know what it means, you can’t use it.”

That’s your rule, I said. I said, That’s not my rule.

“Whatever. That’s the rule of the game.”

I said, Fine, I call bullshit on patio , then.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “They can’t pour the patio til the rain lets up. The patio is slow getting there. Mamzer.”

I said, No foreign languages, Jelly.

“Whatever. That’s not my rule, you schlep.” You vildachaya. “Schlub.” Chainik-hocker.

“What’s a chainik-hocker?” Call-Me-Sandy said. She made a curious face.

“Gurion made it up,” Jelly said. “It’s like hocking me in chainik which means ‘banging a tea kettle’ which is what you’re doing when you nag your mom and she’s Jewish. But no one ever calls anyone a chainik-hocker but I didn’t argue because I’m not a schleppy dolt mamzer like Gurion.”

It was hard to tell who won. Call-Me-Sandy jumped in after I said chainik-hocker , which could mean that I won, but then Jelly got to say shleppy dolt mamzer after Call-Me-Sandy jumped in, which never happened before because it was always that once Call-Me-Sandy jumped in, we stopped calling each other names. And then, also, schleppy dolt mamzer was a combination of names that we already used, so in a way it was a repetition, but the combination might have made it count as a new name, and it was hard to tell if Jelly was cheating or just being very skillful when she called me a schleppy dolt mamzer. It could have been a tie.

Call-Me said, “Before we start today, has everyone heard Scott’s big news?”

“What?” Scott said.

“About what you’re doing on Friday?”

“It’s a secret,” Scott said.

“What’s said in Group stays in Group,” the Janitor said.

Scott stuck his lower lip out at me. He wanted to know if he should tell his secret. I didn’t know his secret, so I didn’t know if he should tell it, but what the Janitor said was true. As little as I liked him, especially when he recited the rules verbatim off the tear-away pad like a robot, the one thing everyone in Group — everyone in the Cage, really — was good at, was keeping their mouths shut. That a kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid went without saying among us.

To Main Man, I said: If you want to tell us, you should — no one’s gonna repeat what you say.

“Okay,” said Scott. “Okay. On Friday, I’m singing.”

“Who cares if you’re singing. You’re always singing,” Ronrico said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Vincie said to Ronrico. “You never listen. If you listened then sometimes you might say something that didn’t make you sound like such a fuckface.”

“What’s rule number one?” Sandy said to Vincie.

“Are you really asking me that?” Vincie said. “Because I think you know the answer.”

“I’m really asking, Vincenzo.”

Vincie turned around to read from the tear-away pad on the easel behind him. “‘Rule number one: Always be respectful,’” he said. “But that doesn’t matter, Sandy, because first of all, Asparagus wasn’t being respectful, and secondly, those are rules for Group. Group didn’t start yet.”

“If we’re all in the room,” Sandy said, “Group has started.”

“But you said ‘before we start,’ which means we didn’t start.”

“And we were all in the room when you said it, Sandy,” said Jelly.

“We should always be respectful,” Call-Me-Sandy said.

“That’s not true,” Vincie said. “You’re changing the rules. Am I wrong, Gurion?”

I said, I don’t know. It says ‘Rules for Group’ over rule number one. And Call-Me did say ‘before we start,’ and then she asked you what rule number one was, which sounds like she’s saying you broke it, but then even if you didn’t break it, maybe she’s saying you should be respectful anyway, even when it’s to a bancer like Asparagus who I kicked the ass of because he gave me a charleyhorse, but then I think it’s useless to have Rules for Group if they’re the same as rules for everywhere else. The main thing—

“A kid who tells is a dead kid,” Ronrico interrupted.

Telling stuff to Sandy doesn’t count, I said, because everything in Group is confidential, so don’t talk out of your depth, you shmendrick.

To Vincie, I said, The main thing is that it makes Sandy uncomfortable when we’re angry at each other. So she talks about rules.

“It doesn’t make me—” she started saying.

“See?” Vincie said to her. “The rule doesn’t matter. Even Gurion says. And I think it’s unfair fighting to start in on me about the rules before Group starts. I think it’s an abuse. It’s abusive. You said it because you can’t sit with our anger, Sandy.”

“That’s very disappointing to me,” said Jelly to Call-Me. “I feel dis-appointed in you.”

“I need you to be able to do that for me, Sandy. If you can’t sit with my anger, who will?” Jenny Mangey said. “I feel helpless now.”

Scott said, “I love you, Sandy. I’m not angry.”

Ronrico clapped his hand against his knee.

Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.

Ronrico said “Flinch,” and laughed in Vincie’s face. He laughed so hard he started coughing. Then he chucked the Janitor on the shoulder with the fist he’d coughed on.

The Janitor wiped his shoulder with his hand and wiped his hand on the thigh of his pants and stared at the thigh of his pants, scared out of his mind.

Ronrico said “Flinch,” to Vincie again.

Leevon said nothing.

I said, I made Boystar get all cry-faced.

“Did you smash him?” Jelly said. “I hate him.”

“I think he’s a rapist,” Mangey said.

Scott said, “We’re gonna sing together at the Aptakisic Pep Rally on Friday! Me and the Boystar. He’s famous! I will stand in the spotlight with him and sing a duet from the new unit, Promotionalize . There’s stickers.”

No one knew what to say about that. The Janitor was still staring at his thigh. He said, “Sandy, can I have a tissue?”

“How do you feel right now?” Sandy said to the Janitor. “Do you feel threatened?”

“I feel infected,” the Janitor said. He was leaning back to get as far away from the germs on his thigh as possible.