Adam Levin - The Instructions

There is damage. There was always damage and there will be more damage, but not always. Were there always to be more damage, damage would be an aspect of perfection. We would all be angels, one-legged and faceless, seething with endless, hopeless praise.

Bless Adonai for making us better than angels. Blessed is Adonai for making us human.

Some damage is but destructive, and other damage, through destruction, repairs. It is often impossible, especially while the damage is being brought, to distinguish between the one kind and the other, but because You’ve made scholars who know of the distinction, we fight to forgive You. Because You know that Your mistakes, though a part of You, are nonetheless mistakes, we accept that Your mistakes, though Yours, are ours to repair.

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, King of the Universe, Who selected us from all the scholars and gave us The Instructions and the Gurionic War. Bless You, Adonai, Giver of the second kind of damage. We want only to fix You.

So let us mistake destruction for reparation with no greater frequency than we would blood for loyalty, loyalty for love, or books for weapons. Help us to be more scholarly. Help us damage Your mistakes. Show us, Adonai, when to set aside our books for weapons, for sometimes scholars must become soldiers, Adonai, for sometimes only soldiers can fix You, Adonai, and only while fixing can we forgive You, Adonai, for those times when only soldiers can fix You, Adonai.

(Amen)

The Side of Damage

Verbosity is like the iniquity of idolatry.

—15:23 Samuel I

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

2nd–3rd Period

Benji Nakamook thought we should waterboard each other, me and him and Vincie Portite. We wouldn’t count the seconds to see who was bravest or whose lungs were deepest — this wasn’t for a contest. We’d each be held under til the moment the possibility of death became real to us, and in that moment, according to Benji, we’d have to draw one of the following conclusions: “My best friends are about to accidentally drown me!” or “My best friends are actually trying to drown me!” The point was to learn what it was we feared more: being misunderstood or being betrayed.

“That is so fucken stupid,” Vincie Portite said. “No way I’d think you were trying to drown me.”

“You don’t know what you’ll think,” Nakamook told him. “Right now you’re rational. Facing death, you won’t be. That’s how methods like waterboarding operate.” Benji’d been reading a book about torture. “This one guy,” he said, “Ali Al-Jahani, specifically stated that—”

“Ali Al-Whatever whatever,” said Vincie. “I’ll do it if, one, you stop talking about that book — it’s getting fucken old — and two, if Gurion’s down. But it’s stupid.”

It did seem stupid, but Benji wasn’t stupid, not even remotely, and I hated disappointing him. I said I was down.

Vincie said, “Fuck.”

Splashing on a kickfloat a couple feet away was Isadore Momo, a shy foreign chubnik who barely spoke English, but the rest of the class was over in the deep end. Benji reached out, tapped Momo on the ankle. “You’re wanted over there,” he said, pointing to the others.

“By whom?” Momo said.

“By me,” said Benji.

“Sorry. I am sorry. Sorry,” said Momo. He got off the kickfloat and fled.

Benji told us: “I’ll thrash before my death seems real. You’ll have to keep me under for a little while after that.”

“How long’s a little while?” Vincie Portite said.

“Decide when I’m under. If I know, this won’t work.”

I clutched one shoulder, palmed the crown of his skull. Vincie clutched the other shoulder and the back of his neck. Benji exhaled all the breath in his body. He let his legs buckle.

We plunged him.

“How long then?” said Vincie.

A thirty-count, I said.

“How about a twenty?”

A twenty then, I said.

Benji started to thrash.

I counted off twenty inside of my head, tried pulling him up, but he wasn’t coming up. He just kept thrashing. He was tilted toward Vincie, who was staring at the water.

Vincie, I said.

“Fuck,” Vincie said. He pulled Benji up.

Benji sucked air.

Vincie said, “You count fast. Did you do Mississippis? I was doing Mississippis — I only got to twelve. Gurion. Gurion.”

In the deep-end, some kids had rhymed “Izzy” with “Jizzy.” I’d revolved to see who: Ronrico and the Janitor. Momo told them, “ Izzy . I am Izzy , for Isadore. Isadore Momo. You may call me Izzy Momo.” “Jizzy!” said Ronrico. “Jizzy Homo!” said the Janitor. Momo just took it, leaning hard on his kickfloat.

Benji cough-hiccuped, hands on his waist.

So? I said to him. What was the conclusion?

“Both,” Benji said.

That doesn’t make sense, I said. Which one was first?

“I said, ‘Both,’” Benji said.

That doesn’t make sense.

“You’ll see for yourself in a second,” he said.

“No way,” Vincie said. “I’m going fucken next. Okay? Okay? I want to be done with this.”

We held Vincie under and he started to thrash. We counted fifteen and we pulled him back up.

“Both?” Benji said.

“Neither,” gasped Vincie. His pupils were pinned. His flushed face trembled.

“So what then?” said Benji.

“Who—” Vincie said, but he choked on some air. He showed us his pointer, laid hands on my shoulders. “Who cares?” he said, catching up with his lungs. “I don’t even know. I feel fucken stupid. Dying is fucked. I don’t want to die.”

Then it was my turn. I let all my breath out. My friends held me under. They had a firm hold that I couldn’t have broken, and the water got colder, and my chest drew tighter, and I thought I might drink, take little sips, that a series of sips imbibed at steady intervals could gradually lessen the pressure of the strangle, but before I’d even tested this chomsky hypothesis, air stung my face and fattened my chest. They’d pulled me back up before death seemed real.