Adam Levin - The Instructions

The Cage was no Rome, nor Botha a Caesar, and if I had been a Yeshua I wouldn’t know to be ashamed, but the sound-code, the time-code, and the random three-code, all of our meaningless gesticulations — these were our schemes to get Botha’s leavings, and we were verging on grateful, at least I was. Ashamed is just grateful waiting to happen. You only taste your own dignity right before you puke it up.

My tongue was all sticky and dignified.

Fuck, I said.

A bunch of kids laughed.

“Who said that?” said Botha.

No one told.

I kept my head low, stared down at the WE DAMAGE WE slip of paper. I felt a little better.

Then I felt a lot stupid. Why should I take pleasure in getting away with something that I should have been entitled to do to begin with?

Fuck it, I said. I said, I’m the one who said it. I could’ve fucken gotten away with it, too.

“Stap four for three curses,” Botha said. “That’s one detantion for Garrion Makebee. Two staps for speaking twice; that’s two thirds to a second. Have anything more to add, Mister Makebee? Would you like another stap, a second detantion?”

I wanted to say something because fuck him, but what? I wanted to say a thing that didn’t mean anything, to say a thing to show him that I was breaking a rule for no other reason than to break the rule… It was written before me.

We damage we, I said.

“What was that, Makebee? Whadjeh say? Now that you’ve earned yourself a second detantion in ander a minute, you’ve got three more whole staps to burn before your third. Say more. Please.”

I wanted to say another meaningless thing, and Botha wanted me to say another any old thing. No matter what I said, he’d give me a step.

And so I kept my mouth shut, choosing not to do what I wanted to do over doing what it was that he wanted me to do because what, scholars, really — what was the point? To take pleasure in getting away with something you should have been entitled to do to begin with was dumont enough; to take pleasure in pretending to take pleasure in not getting away with it, though… that was about as useful as trickling. In fact, it was trickling. And what ever did we do in the Cage but trickle, except for submit? We trickled in submission, or we just submitted.

I kept facing forward, and stared at my walls, and I swallowed til Botha quit trying to bait me.

Right when the end-of-class tone sounded, the doorbell gonged. It was such an unlikely timing of sounds that no one gesticulated or rose to stretch legs and bang fists like they usually did during passing-periods.

Botha let the teachers out of the Cage, and when he came back inside, Eliyahu was behind him, and was no longer leaning; not as much, at least, as he had been before. He looked more like a determined professor than a late white rabbit. It made me glad.

Monitor Botha said, “Lasten up.”

Everyone revolved.

“This here is a new student named Ay lie… Ay lie… Ay lie…” Botha looked to Eliyahu for help.

Eliyahu said, “I am—”

Mookus said, “He’s wearing a hat!”

The Flunky said, “A kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid.”

“Enough,” Botha said. “This is Aye lie—”

Main Man said, “But I wasn’t telling, the Flunky. I was only just saying.”

“I don’t see the difference,” the Flunky said.

“That’s because you’re a foog,” said Nakamook.

“I am not a fool,” said the Flunky.

“Students!” Botha said.

“Botha!” said students. It wasn’t as tough a thing to shout as it seemed; since we were between tones, Botha couldn’t really do anything unless we cursed or hit each other.

Eliyahu loudly de-pocketsed his hands and placed them on his hips. His upper row of teeth shone from under the hat-shadow.

“No one said you were a fool,” Nakamook told the Flunky. “I would never call you a fool. I like fools. Fools know that they’re fools. It’s a kind of wisdom. What I said was that you are a foog and a foog—”

“ I’m a fool,” said Main Man. “A fool for you. I’m a fool to do your dirty work,” he said. “I’m a fool for love and an ice-cold pop on a sunny day when the ground splits open under America and the sky falls down and so forth.”

“But what’s a foog?” the Flunky said.

“It’s almost exactly the same thing as a fool, except I don’t like you,” Benji told him.

“At least I’m not a fool,” the Flunky said.

“But why does that boy get to wear a hat, though?” said Mookus.

Eliyahu said, “I am—”

The Flunky said, “Why do you get to wear a hat?” to Eliyahu.

Eliyahu very suddenly removed his fedora and held it out for all the Cage to look at, but no one looked at it because they were all looking at his face. Eliyahu’s eyes were doing something I hadn’t ever seen eyes do before, something I knew at once was called “burning.” “Burning eyes” is a confusing thing to call eyes like that, though. Eyes like that have lids so narrowed that the only reason you can even see the sliver of white at the outside corners is the contrast against the irises which have gone completely black with pupil. They are called burning eyes not because they look like they are on fire, but because they make you feel like you are in danger of catching fire, like they could set you on fire from the inside if you do the wrong thing while they’re seeing you.

Eliyahu said, “I am Eliyahu of Brooklyn and I am a defiance. Will you try to take my hat from me?”

No one answered him.

Eliyahu put his hat back on. Then he pointed to the empty carrel to my right. He said to Botha, “There is where I will sit.”

Botha started to say “No,” but then he saw he couldn’t argue. Except for the one on my left, the one on my right was the only carrel that was open. To reduce his loss of snat, Botha turned to welcome the teachers who’d entered, then went to the doorway and locked it down early.

I pulled Eliyahu’s chair out for him, and Nakamook flashed me almost the same crumpled face as when Ronrico’d walked next to me, except it was a little more crumpled than that first time.

I whispered to Eliyahu, “ You got tough sudden.”

“It was a blessing to break that case,” he said.

I thought: You are the blessing.

Eliyahu said, “The glass didn’t cut me at all, and I thought to myself: Nothing can cut me. True, it is not a thought I haven’t had before, but this time it felt good to think it.”

I squeezed him on the neck, like how my father will sometimes squeeze me on the neck, and then Eliyahu did what I usually do when that happens. He looked down at his own chest and nodded his head a few times = “Yes, okay, yes okay” = “This is nice, but if you don’t stop, I will become embarrassed for reasons I don’t understand.”

Like my father usually does, I stopped squeezing the neck before his embarrassment started.

Botha was back. He said to me, “Don’t get so appy, Makebee — it’s only tempory.”

He meant getting sat next to. Eliyahu had brought the Cage population to maximum capacity, though. More than one absence from the Cage was as rare as none, so Eliyahu was effectively the end of the Gurion Has to Sit Next to No One Whenever It Is Possible rule.

Botha dropped a Cage handbook on the desk of my newest friend’s carrel.

“That’s for you, Aye Lie.”

“And I’ve got something for you, Mr. Bertha,” said Eliyahu. “From Principal Trotsky.”

Main Man said, “Ha ha.”

Eliyahu handed Botha two notes on office stationary.