The Instructions (50 page)

It is normally a very powerful way to signify a group affiliation.

When Gurion codeswitches, however, it is harder, and maybe impossible, to understand because a) he switches codes at unlikely and unpredictable times (e.g., in the middle of a diadic conversation without tertiary witnesses), and b) the codes he engages are his own, i.e., though each code contains recognizable influences, not one of them, on the whole, signifies any single group affiliation, much less any affiliation with a group whose members are present at the time of the code’s engagement.

* I do not mean to imply, by describing it, that you, Professor Lakey, are unfamiliar with the term codeswitching. Quite the contrary—it’s that, seeing as you have a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of California at Santa Cruz (’93), I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the term, and, being that you’re my favorite professor (and believe me: I’m not grade-grubbing when I say so—I’m not a grade-grubber), who I respect in so many ways, I become fairly nervous when writing papers for your class and only hope to convince you that I know what codeswitching is. And what’s worse is that I realize how overcompensatory I’m coming off right now, like I’m even maybe trying to hide something, and probably I am, but I don’t know what it is, if not the aforementioned nervousness, which, on one hand, seems reasonable (to be nervous seems reasonable), but on the other hand seems dubious (that this feeling I have which arises from the copious amount of respect I have for you is merely nervousness seems dubious), and so maybe you, who are as well-renowned (as you know) as a clinician as an academic could provide me with some insight into what the root of this nervousness might be some time outside of class. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do so—help me with my dubious nervousness re: you—during your office hours, which I respect as your time to meet with students in an academic way, but maybe at some other time, outside of school. If you can spare the time.

457

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

I have noted three distinct codes between which Gurion alternates when speaking and writing (for written examples, see attached

“Detention Assignments”), each of which is exemplified by the quotations that appear earlier in this essay (under the rubrics Precursors and Warning Signals and Racio-Ethnic Background): 1. A highly refined, organized, and even scholarly English rife with dialectic that is vocalized at breakneck pace, as if Gurion is highly irritated.

2. A syntactically complicated, analytical style that makes use of both clinical and idiolectic vocabulary, is often peppered with biblical references, and is vocalized either a) slowly, explanatorily/

revelatorily, as if Gurion were soliloquizing by the footlights; or b) at the aforementioned breakneck pace.

3. A clipped manner of speaking that mixes the dialectical speech and vocabulary of #1 with the vocabulary of #2, while also incorporating the slang and imperative tonality of a street-thug. This code is vocalized in any number of ways, often in as many as three or four within the span of a single utterance.

The peculiarity of the above-described styles and the times when Gurion chooses to engage them allow us three possible explanations for Gurion’s codeswitching: 1) Gurion is completely unaware that he codeswitches, which would indicate that his codeswitching is symptomatic of an undiagnosed cognitive disorder; 2) his codeswitching is highly purposeful and totally conscious, indicat-458

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

ing that Gurion either a) knows the reasons for his codeswitching are inscrutable to listeners, which, if this is the case, would indicate that Gurion aspires to inscrutability; or b) is attempting to appear unaware (as in 1)) of what he’s doing (codeswitching); or 3) is exper-imenting with a variety of codes in order to inspire in his audience the alternating impressions of both 2a and 2b so that he may, while indicating, via his verbal behavior, a capacity to understand wildly complicated ideas, simultaneously maintain enough of a childlike persona to “charm” his audience so that he might more easily “get away with” a larger portion of his more “childlike” or “mischievous”

(read: antisocial) behavior (verbal and non-).

Regardless of what Gurion’s codeswitching might indicate at any given moment
,
what’s most notable is that whichever code he happens to be using is nearly as infectious/contagious as his emotional state. I.e., when Gurion codeswitches, those members of Group who belong to the Maccabeean Collective do so with him (and so, I find, do I). In light of his dominant personality (alternately: his
charisma
), it is not surprising to discover that changes in his behavior (verbal or otherwise) would elicit (at least to some degree) similar changes in the behavior of those around him, nor is it surprising that when Gurion speaks thuggishly, those around him speak thuggishly (cursing often begats cursing), but what
is
surprising, is that members of the Maccabbean Collective not only engage a more scholarly code when Gurion does, but they engage it
convincingly
, i.e. they don’t just adopt Gurion’s lexicon (which adoption could certainly be “faked,” i.e., just because someone pronounces a word doesn’t mean they understand what it signifies), but his syntax (unfakably analytic).

459

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

In sum, Gurion’s codeswitching behavior merits further, closer attention, and I hope that you, Professor Lakey, given your expertise in linguistics, will help guide me more closely through the process of further attending it.

Recommendations

1. Gurion should remain in the Cage program indefinitely, and be permitted leave of the Cage only when attending state-mandated Physical Education, Lunch/Recess (at the discretion of Monitor Botha), weekly group therapy, and Assembly (again, at the discretion of Monitor Botha). Although it seems, as I’ve noted throughout this paper, that many, if not most, of Gurion’s disruptive behaviors are exacerbated by the Cage program dynamic, his
violent
behaviors (e.g., the hallway incident with K.M.) may or may not be. That is to say that there is no telling whether or not Gurion would cease assaulting other students if he were a member of the regular student body. It may be the case, as many of his former teachers claim, that Gurion is by nature an ideal student who, at one time, rarely, if ever, acted out; and it may be the case that his troubling record, which appears to describe a dangerous and even doomed young boy, only reflects a combination of a) unlikely circumstances of which Gurion has been a victim and b) mistakes made by administrators in response to these unlikely circumstances. On the other hand, it may be that Gurion, once an ideal student, has
become—
via the aforementioned combination of unlikely circumstances and mistakes made in response—the dangerous and even doomed 460

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

boy indicated by his record. It may be that, were he admitted into regular classrooms, he would exert bodily harm on other children at a similar, if not—Cage restraints lifted—higher, rate. CYA POV aside, that is not a risk which a conscientious social worker can take.

2. Owing to Recommendation 1, Gurion should be re-promoted to Grade 7, the work of which is better suited to his intellectual abilities than that of Grade 5. Whether or not Gurion’s disruptive and violent behaviors have historically resulted from the social awkwardness of being surrounded by students two-to-three years his senior is irrelevant as long as Gurion is in the Cage program, where 5th-, 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-graders are mixed together willy-nilly, anyway.

3. In addition to twice-weekly Group Therapy, Gurion should attend once-weekly individual Therapy with me, Sandra Billings, Student Social Work Intern. His treatment plan should focus primarily on anger-management and the prevention of the onset of Antisocial Personality Disorder via psychodynamic methods we’ve been studying in your (Professor Lakey’s!) class.

4. Like so many other students in the Cage, Gurion should henceforth be disciplined according to what is unofficially termed the

“modified” STEP System. If this exception is not made and Gurion continues to behave as he has over the course of the probational/

observational period, he will be expelled from Aptakisic within two days. If he is expelled, we cannot help him.

461

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

5. Regarding the attached detention assignments (about which, in obedience to this essay’s page limit, hardly anything has been said): Gurion should be permitted to continue using them as he has in the attached examples—as an aid to fantasy and a tool for venting.

‪

‫

‬

‪

‫

‬

‬

Detention ended at 4:35, but the buses wouldn’t leave until 4:50, in case band and the teams got out of practice late. Usually we’d wait on the curb of the bus circle playing slapslap even if the buses were there already, which they were that day, but it started raining right after we came outside, and all my friends raced. I didn’t like to get rained on either, especially not without a hood in November, but I’d known some girls who didn’t mind getting rained on, and even liked it, and I always enjoyed how those girls would stroll in the rain like it was the cleanest, nicest blessing, and how they’d sometimes stop and face the sky, winking. I had never seen June in the rain, but I thought she would be that kind of girl, and that kind of girl made fun of you when you ran from the rain, so I walked slow to Bus 3, and even paused a couple times to look at the clouds. I didn’t know if June was watching me, just that revolving my head to check would be a mistake if she was, but Vincie, who was sitting on the blocky stairway in the bus and breathing heavy from how he’d sprinted to get there, was staring straight at my face and 462

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

saying, “You sexy nature boy! You’re such a dreamy—” when cherry dum-dum juice got swallowed down his wrong passage and he choked a little and raised his hands and coughed. Marnie the heavy bus-driver slapped his back. Her cheeks and neck-meat shook and flapped and I looked away.

The value of the wheel-well seats on the bus was different from school to school. At Schechter and Northside Hebrew Day, getting a wheel-well seat was prized, but at Martin Luther King Middle no one cared, and at Aptakisic it was as generally dreaded as sitting bitch in a compact between a pair of bickering people who spit. The argument against the wheel-well seat was that the hump prevented you from stretching your legs, but—maybe because I went to Schechter first—the hump, to me, meant less a lack of leg-room than a bonus of floor, so I always preferred a wheel-well seat.

It is true that you had to sit with your knees at the height of your neck, but at the same time, if you leaned back, you could push your knees against the seat in front of you while resting your feet atop the hump’s peak, which gave you a warm, protected feeling that you could not get in a regular schoolbus seat, unless maybe you were very tall. To have just been rained on at the end of a schoolday pleasantly boosted this fortified feeling, and that afternoon, I got sleepy fast.

Vincie sat across the aisle from me, spreading a hole in his seatback’s vinyl with his thumbs. He pulled a piece of foam out.

He said, “You ever set this stuff on fire? It smells.”

I said, When you were coughing just now—

463

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

“Stop being so fucken quiet. I can’t hear you.”

I said, When Marnie was slapping you, your hand didn’t jump to your eye.

He said, “So what?”

I said, Don’t act sensitive—can you fight Thai-style?

He said, “Nakamook showed me a little.”

I said, Get in the stance.

Vincie shoved the foam back in the hole, then stood bent in the aisle and held his fists fingers-forward at forehead-level.

I slapped my thigh loudly. Then I slapped the seat loudly.

Then I yelled Flinch! at him.

He said, “That’s not cool, Gurion.”

I said, When it’s above your eye, your hand doesn’t jump to your eye.

He said, “Really?”

I said, Flinch!

It didn’t jump.

Vincie said, “I’m cured!”

I said, Wait. I said, Stand American-style.

He dropped his fists to chin-level.

I waited a couple seconds, then I said, Flinch!

His right fist opened, revolved, and covered his eye.

“Fuck!” Vincie shouted, and his hand repeated itself.

“Vincie!” said Marnie.

“Marnie!” said Vincie.

“Okay!” Marnie said.

464

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

“Okay, Marnie!” said Vincie.

The hand had repeated itself four more times. Then the sky got white outside the window and thunder struck and the hand repeated itself.

I said, You’re not cured, but you can fight Thai-style no problem.

Vincie slumped when he sat. He said, “I’m suck at Thai-style.

Benji throws his elbow at my chin and lands it every time. I can’t see to side-step. Also when he does the knee-to-kidney thing, too—and it hurts.”

I said, But that’s Benji, so it doesn’t matter.

Some bandkids got on the bus and I waved hello to them.

They sat down fast, clanking instrument cases.

“Why do you wave to them?” said Vincie. “They never wave back. They’re scared of you.”

I said, But they shouldn’t be scared of me, and I’ve always waved to them, since before I knew they were scared of me. If I stop waving to them now, they’ll get even more scared of me because they’ll wonder, “Why doesn’t Gurion wave anymore?”

Vincie said, “Maybe I should wave to them, then.”

I said, But they’re scared of you, too, and you never wave to them. I said, If you wave to them now, it’ll be like if I stopped waving to them.

He said, “That’s what I’m saying. You stop waving and I’ll start—it’ll be funny.”

We aren’t Shovers, I said.

465

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS