Adam Levin - The Instructions

“To protect himself he needs to know these things?” my father said.

“I did not teach him to throw salt in eyes,” my mother said.

“Just the first-order ones you taught him? The Borax and pulverized glass?”

“No, Judah. He has figured it out for himself.”

“Based on principles you’ve taught him, Tamar!” To me he said, “What is it she tells you? ‘The world of objects should be divided into two categories. The good weapons and the better weapons’?”

Again, I didn’t know how he wanted me to answer that question. I didn’t know if he was misquoting my grandfather’s ‘Relevant Tenets of Ninjitsu’ chapter on purpose or by accident, so I corrected him.

I said, ‘If an object is not, on its own, a weapon, then it is a part of a weapon.’

My mom laughed.

“So you think it’s entertaining,” my father said to her.

“Lighten up, Judah. You react as if this isn’t your son telling you how he would defeat an enemy, but the enemy revealing how he will defeat your son; as if your son were his own enemy.”

Neither of them were holding a utensil or looking away from each other, but their voices had lowered and I didn’t know if they were fighting or still having a contest, and I didn’t know if they knew, either, but I really wanted to change whatever was happening. I couldn’t think of how, though.

“Enemies,” said my father. “How can you talk of children having enemies? They compete. They have rivalries. Children do not have enemies.”

“Children are the only ones who recognize their enemies,” my mother said. “Men fail at that. Enemies are too simple for men. Enemies are too forthright. Some men so needfully require complication, they find themselves defending their enemies.”

That was a cruel thing for my mother to say to him, even if it was true. He lit a cigarette and I knew they were fighting for sure.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to fight with June, and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t imagine it, but thinking of June right then was lucky.

I said, I fell in love today, Aba.

“What?” he said. He heard me, though. The “What?” was to maintain form. If it were a fistfight that I was breaking up, and I had just gotten my arms around some guy to keep him from punching some other guy who I knew the guy in my arms didn’t really want to punch, then my father’s “What?” was like the half-strength lunge forward that the guy in my arms would make before finally giving in to my hold and agreeing to back out of the fight. As long as the “What?” was taken seriously — as long as we all pretended it was more than just form, as long as we all pretended the content mattered, that the “What?” was actually a question, “What did you say?” or “What did you mean by what you said?”—everyone would get to save face.

So I said, I fell in love with a beautiful girl today, and she is an artist.

“And what happened to Esther Salt?” said my mother. To my father, she said, “You get him this caller ID he begs you for, he gets a new girlfriend.”

“Casanova,” said my father. “Is she in the Cage with you?”

I said, She’s in normal school, in seventh grade.

His relief lit him up. He really thought the Cage was bad. “An older woman,” he said. “An older woman!” He winked at me, clicked his tongue.

“What is her name?” my mom said.

Eliza June Watermark, I said. She’s red-haired.

“That is a very interesting name,” my mother said.

“Who cares, Tamar?” said my father. “He says he’s in love with her. That’s all that matters. It’s all that matters, Gurion.”

“It is not all that matters, Gurion.”

“He’s ten years old,” my father said.

“Ten years old so what? Ask him what he plans to do with her. What do you plan to do, Gurion?”

I’ll marry her, I said.

I didn’t understand what they were arguing about yet.

My mom slapped my dad’s shoulder.

My dad slapped her shoulder back. He said, “We’ll see how he feels about Eliza June Watermark when he’s old enough to get married, Conniptionthroat.” My mom’s carotid throbs when she’s worried.

“Eliza. June. Watermark,” said my mother. “It puts George William Saunders to shame. Ryan Todd Jones cowers. Ashley Elizabeth Johnson quietly swallows every Tylenol in the house. I think, Gurion, that Eliza June Watermark may be the single most goyische name I have ever heard in my life.”

I said, Oh! I didn’t know what you meant before. She’s definitely an Israelite.

“Her mother is Jewish?” said my mom.

I guess, I said.

“You guess?”

I said, Maybe her father is, too. I said, I don’t know for sure, but Hashem would never fall me in love with a girl who wasn’t an Israelite, Ema.

Both my parents laughed, then, and both at the same thing, but for different reasons; my mother because what I said signified the exact way she wanted Gurion to approach the world — like it was all arranged for him, the smartest and the handsomest; and my father because of how foolish he thought it was for Gurion to approach the world that way. And even though they were laughing at me with condescension, I started laughing like I thought they were laughing with me. But I was only pretending to think they were laughing with me. I pretended because their laughing was keeping them from fighting, and that is what I was laughing at.

And then soon enough we were all laughing at the same thing, for the same reason, in the same way: first at how we kept laughing, and then at the sounds of the laughing and the way it warped our faces and made our jaws ache. Finally we were laughing at laughing, the nonsense of it, how when you first start laughing it seems like you’re laughing because something is funny, but later, as you continue to laugh, you see that the funny thing is funny because you’re laughing at it.

After that, we were quiet and my father went to the pantry. He removed an oily block of halvah from its butcher-paper package and halved it. He cut the first half into three slabs, and re-wrapped the second one. “For tomorrow,” he said, “for lunch.”

My mother crumbled her slab and spread it on white bread. My father broke pieces off with his fingers and I used a fork. We ate halvah and sucked at our teeth.

I said, What is halvah made of?

“Have you ever failed to ask that question when we have eaten halvah together?” my father said.

I said, What is halvah made of?

“How many times can you ask the same question?” my father said.

I keep forgetting, I said.

He said, “It’s mostly sesame seeds. Got it? Halvah: what’s it made of?”

I forget, I said.

“Do you see what he’s trying to get at, Baby?”

“You,” said my mom.

“It doesn’t work!” he shouted, faking an angry face, dealing out the next day’s halvah.

After I smoothed its dent flat with the round side of a hammerclaw wrapped in t-shirt to prevent scratching of the finish, I refastened the mailslot-lid with the envelope slasher. I grabbed my grey hoodie from my closet then, and attempted scripture. I typed

There

and the phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number in the ID box.

Hello? I said

“Did you shave your chinhairs yet?” It was June. She was whispering.

I said, June!

“Did you?” she said.

I told her I didn’t.

June said, “Good. I was being mean when I said you should. And not because you have a reputation. I’m not scared of you. And maybe I like your reputation. I was mean because it was styley at the time. Sometimes I’m mean because it’s styley. That was not an apology. There’s no reason I should feel sad for being mean to you. I am glad I originally told you to shave, even though I’m taking it back now. Anyway, your chinhairs are very ugly, and that throws the rest of your face into relief. That was a styley compliment. Don’t return it. And don’t call back, I hate the phone, goodbye.” She hung up.