Adam Levin - The Instructions

Then Jelly did it.

Then I tried to do it but I couldn’t.

Nakamook stopped after a minute, and when he stopped, breath came out of his mouth in one heavy push. He said, “It’s called ‘I’m Ticking.’”

I said, Why?

He said, “Because when you do it, you can hear that ticking inside your head. I think it’s from drops of brain-blood that whack themselves against the backs of the eardrums. Didn’t you hear the blood ticking?”

I said, Don’t be a wang to me because I can’t do it — you know I didn’t hear any ticking of blood.

He said, “I wasn’t being a wang, you spastic wang. I didn’t know because I couldn’t see. When you do the ‘I’m Ticking’ action, it’s hard to see. There’s a bright flying saucer shape that blots out the middle of anything you look at.”

I said, Tell me how you did it.

Nakamook said, “I can’t explain it. I just did it.”

I said, Tell me how you discovered it.

He said, “I was in my room and I was bored and I wanted to break something, but there was nothing good to break except the window and I didn’t want to break the window, so I beat on the heavy-bag, but it wasn’t good enough, I didn’t want to hear thuds, let alone gaspy thuds, I wanted a breaking sound, a snapping kind of crunching sound, a shattering window sound, the one sound I couldn’t hear without doing something I didn’t want to do, and that’s when I decided to invent a new action, and I performed my first I’m Ticking.”

I said, Come on! How did you do it? I said to Jelly, How do you do it?

She said, “I just did it.”

Then Leevon did it again.

Main Man said, “Leevon is I’m Ticking-ing and he doesn’t talk. Jelly can I’m Ticking and she is a biter. Benji I’m Tickings and he is maybe psychopathic. Even I can I’m Ticking and I am diseased in a very rare fashion. What’s wrong with you?”

I don’t know, I said.

Mookus said, “Watch me like a vulture watches a fat mammal that is limping across the floor of a rocky canyon with its tongue out even though I’m your friend who you would never eat.”

Main Man performed the action again and I watched him closely. After a few seconds, I got scared for him because of his heart.

I said, Stop Scott.

He stopped. He was breathing very heavy. This was called hyper-ventilating. It was also called catching your breath. It did not look like Main Man was catching his breath, though. It looked like Main Man’s breath was catching him. It looked like Main Man was getting breathed.

I told Benji, You shouldn’t have shown that to Main Man.

Scott said to me, “Please don’t worry.”

I said to him, Don’t I’m Ticking again.

Nakamook said, “Main Man’s fine. You’re just pissed you couldn’t do the action, you baby.”

It is true I was pissed, but I wasn’t just pissed. I was desperately trying to not think about kissing.

Main Man said, “Ha ha.”

I told him, Yeahyeah.

The end-of-lunch tone got born and died.

“Go to your carrels,” Botha said. He was standing by the doorway, clipboard in claw.

As I was getting up from the teacher cluster, Ronrico Asparagus and Jenny Mangey entered the Cage and rushed me so fast I flinched. “We have questions,” said Mangey.

The two of them came across the room with me and when I turned my head to look at Benji, he made a crumpled face = “Why is Asparagus walking beside you as though he were other than a longtime foe of ours?”

At my carrel, I sat, and Mangey handed me a piece of paper that looked like

WE DAMAGE

DAMAGE WE

WE DAMAGE WE

“Which one is right?” Mangey said.

I stared at the words, trying to understand.

Mangey leaned in close. She was bright pink along the hairline from scratching. Ronrico leaned in close, too, not smelling like pee. If his pee was as pungent as it was said to be, then he did not get any on his pants, which was a blessing. I had never peed beside him, so I didn’t know the true strength of his pee’s smell. The “Ronrico Asparagus has pee so pungent” saying was invented before I got to Aptakisic. Most people said Nakamook invented it, but Nakamook said it was the Janitor. I thought it was Nakamook. It was just the kind of pithy saying Benji would’ve invented, and he was the kind of person who would have given credit to someone else for it, if giving credit to someone else would have made it funnier, which it definitely would have since the Janitor was Ronrico’s closest friend, and his being the inventor would not only be very kaufman — the only thing more kaufman than to sniff a friend’s pee was to sniff a friend’s pee and then speak of what you’d sniffed — but would augment the saying with a sub-plot of betrayal.

“Which one?” Mangey said to me.

Ronrico said, “It’s one of the first two. I know it.”

Mangey whispered, “Ronrico was bombing the lunch tables and the bleachers with the first two, and he thought he was so smart, but I told him he was not so smart and that he should write WE on both sides of DAMAGE.”

Ronrico said, “You didn’t say which side of damage we were on, Gurion, but you did say we were on the side of it; not the side szzz of it. You said the side.”

Oh! At the end of Group you mean, I said.

“Yeah,” Mangey said. “What do you think we mean? Jeez.”

The Janitor came over, and he leaned in. That was three people leaning close to me. I thought: Now it is a huddle. I thought: Don’t touch my head.

Ronrico said, “Back off a little, Mikey.”

The Janitor said, “I have a question about the side of damage, though. I’m not sure exactly what it means.”

Ronrico said, “None of us are, but if you don’t stop breathing on me, I’ll touch you on the skin.”

The Janitor leaned closer to Mangey.

“I’ll lick you on the cheek,” Mangey said.

The Janitor stepped back and Vincie Portite came into the huddle. He said to me, “What the fuck is going on here? Why are these people standing here at your carrel? Are we friends with these people now? I thought we weren’t friends with these people, except for Mangey who we were kind of friends with. Now we’re all fucken friends?”

“Why don’t you just go ahead and stare at June Watermark, Vincie, you stalker,” said Mangey.

Wait, I said. Wait. June’s the girl you have a crush on?

“Nope,” said Vincie.

Why’d Mangey say that then? Why’d you say that, Mangey?

“He stares at her at Lunch!”

“I don’t,” Vincie said. “I stare at someone else. She sits near June a lot.”

I’m in love with June, Vincie.

“Really? Does she love you back? I hope so, man. I’m not even in love, I don’t think, just in very deep like, and it’s really fucken lonely not to be very deeply liked back. I can’t imagine how—”

Not to be very deeply liked back by who? I said.

“I’m not saying,” said Vincie. “I don’t want to fucken say. But you know I’d tell you if it was June because you just said you loved her. That would be a big fucken problem if she was my crush — so I’d tell you.”

Mangey said, “But—.”

“Mangey’s a fucken troublemaker. Listen to me. I told you I’ve liked this girl since kindergarten, right?”

A million times, I said.

“And June didn’t go to school with me in kindergarten. Did she, Mangey? You went to school with me in kindergarten, so you would know — was June in fucken kindergarten with us?”

“No,” Mangey said. “It’s true. She wasn’t.”

“See?” said Vincie. “All is well, except for how the girl I like deeply does not like me deeply back.”