The Instructions (94 page)

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

be in regular classrooms. You are Cage-appropriate.”

No one is Cage-appropriate.

“That’s a separate issue. You hurt people, Gurion. That’s what we’re talking about.”

I hurt people.

“Yes. You commit acts of violence. You endanger other students. You’re someone from whom other students need protection.”

She pushed me the tissuebox. She
wanted
me to cry. To share a tender moment. She was trying to create one. I was not feeling tender. I pushed the box back.

Funny sentence, I said.

“Excuse me?”

‘You’re someone from whom other students need protection.’

“I don’t see how it’s funny.”

It’s all stress and context. Repeat it three times. ‘You’re someone from whom other students need protection.’ It’ll sound like the opposite of what you meant.

“You’re someone from whom other students need protection. You’re someone from whom other students need protection.

You’re someone from whom other students need protection…

Okay. I see. More wordgames with prepositions. So what?”

Try to kiss her.

“What?”

You’re too passive.

“What?”

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Touch her hair first. If she lets you, lean in. If she leans in too, then kiss her. That’s the right order.

“We’re done talking about this. This isn’t appropriate.”

Don’t say ‘I love her’ in Klingon, I said, then pretend it means

‘Have a good weekend.’

Sandy’s eyes welled. She blew her nose. Through her tissue, she said, “‘With all of my heart.’”

Pardon?

“
jIH muSHa’ Daj tlhej Hoch wIj tIq
means ‘I love her
with all
of my heart
.’”

In Klingon.

“Yes.”

In a footnote.

“Yes.” She tossed her crumpled tissue.

You proclaim your love in Klingon in a footnote addressed to your supervisor. A footnote you claim—within the footnote—

that you will not include in the copy that goes to your professor.

“I
did
include it.”

You included the footnote in the copy to your professor, hoping she’d get the message. You hoped she’d read the footnote and conclude that you had forgotten to remove it, or that you were ‘unconsciously motivated’ to ‘forget’ to remove it. You hoped that your declaration of love for ‘her’ would come across, in Klingon, and would—because it was buried in a footnote that she wasn’t supposed to see and was thereby a ‘secret’—not only enhance the thrill of her discovery that you love her, but 880

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put the ball in her court, yeah? Because you figured: ‘She’ll see the footnote, and she’ll realize that I, Call-Me-Sandy, can’t bring myself to approach her romantically, and so she’ll have to approach me if she’s interested.’

“Yes.”

Does your professor speak Klingon?

“I don’t know.”

You don’t know?

“She used to want to be a linguist. She majored in linguistics.

Even if she doesn’t know Klingon, you’d think she’d look it up.”

No. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t think she’d look it up. You wrote that the phrase meant ‘Have a good weekend.’

“You looked it up.”

I
didn’t
look it up.

“You know Klingon?”

I knew a kid who used to say ‘jIH DIchDaq chargh Canaanite’

all the time.

“‘I will conquer the Cannanite?’”

Yeah. So
jIH
, I knew, meant ‘I.’ There’s no ‘I’ in ‘Have a good weekend.’

“But how did you know it meant ‘I love her’?”

Context, I said. I guessed. It was either that or ‘I hate you,’

as in ‘I hate you, Bonnie Wilkes, PsyD for making me hand in a copy of this paper.’

“But—”

Touch her hair and lean in. If she leans in, kiss her.

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“This is so inappropriate!” Sandy said.

No, I said. This is termination. This is Good Will Huntingstein and Thursdays with Gurion. The saccharine and cinematic moment when the tables turn. The helper getting helped by the one she came to help. I’m done with you now. You aren’t my therapist.

“That’s not up to you.”

If you want me to come on Thursdays still, fine. And you can write whatever you want to write about me for whatever papers you need to turn in, and I won’t even call you out, because I like you. I think you’re a kind person. But I’m not saying anything to you anymore. I’ll sit here writing scripture or reading Philip Roth. And don’t look so down. Just don’t. Just don’t. This could’ve been worse. I could’ve been worse. I hurt people, right? That’s what you said. I could’ve thrown a stapler, but I didn’t, did I?

I could’ve been worse but I wasn’t. Remember that.

She pushed me the tissuebox.

It’s not gonna happen, Call-Me, I said.

Sandy said, “Tch.” Then she said it twice more. “Tch,” she said. “Tch.”

I plucked her a tissue.

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The argument started five minutes after the beginning-of-lunch tone. Half the Side of Damage had left the Cage to get to-go beef stroganov in the cafeteria. Benji, Jelly, Mookus, Vincie, Leevon, 882

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Mangey, and Eliyahu sat with me at the teacher cluster. The other twelve or so brownbaggers and lunchboxers formed a circle on the floor surrounding us. To speak to us from the circle, you had to make your voice louder than conversational. You had to make it public. Ben-Wa Wolf was the first to do it. He said to us, “What do we call that action we did with our chairs?”

And Benji said, “Riotscoot.”

And I said, Hyperscoot.

“Hyperscoot already means something else,” said Benji. “A couple or three spazzes groan their chairs at the same time by accident—that’s
hyperscoot.”

I said, Any time two or more people groan their chairs at once, it’s hyperscoot. It doesn’t matter if they do it by accident or on purpose. Intention’s invisible.

“Lots of things are invisible,” Benji said, “but they still count.

They still get their own names. Spare a cheesepuff?”

I pushed my baggie into the lunchless space before him.

“This point of Benji’s is not a weak one,” said Eliyahu. “I ask you: What is the meaning of this face?”

He let all the muscles in his face rest.

It’s a blank face, I said.

“A scared face,” said Benji.

“It’s a fucken bored face,” said Vincie.

“A sad face,” announced Cody von Braker, from the circle.

“It’s a doubtful face,” said Miles Minton to Cody. “A face like it’s very hard to push the poop out the ane,” Jesse Ritter said to 883

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everyone. “We’re eating here,” said Exar Tea. “We’re not eating chocolate brownies or brown gravy or anything,” retorted Jesse.

“It’s a face like your brother’s dog died but she bit you once and you were always scared of her,” said Jerry Throop. “It’s not always brown,” claimed Exar. “Exar shits snot-colored.” “You feel sorry for your brother because he’s your brother, but also happy the scary dog’s dead, and maybe even a little sick of your brother because of how he keeps whining to your mom. You want to punch him a little.” “Not snot-colored. Maybe sometimes beige like peanut butter.” “Half the room’s eating peanut butter, Exar. That’s banced of you.” “Jesse started it.” “I’m not the one who said beige.” “It used to be that whenever you wanted to punch him a little, you didn’t do it, except for that first time, when the dog bit you. Which is why you didn’t do it after that. But now the dog can’t bite you because that dog is dead, you’re thinking.” “I think it’s a face of Protestant determination,” said Forrest Kenilworth. “That fucken dog is fucken dead, you’re thinking. And now? Now you’re gonna punch your brother a lot, even though you only want to punch him a little.

You’re gonna punch him for all those other times you wanted to punch him a little and couldn’t because of the dog. And when he says, ‘What are you doing, Jerry? What’re you doing?’ You’ll be like: ‘It adds up.’ Just that. ‘It adds up.’ All cold and minimal and shit. Maybe you even drop the ‘It.’ You just say, ‘Adds up.’

All dirty and real.”

It’s a blank face, I said again.

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“Or a pensive face,” said Eliyahu.

So which one is it? I said.

“You see?” said Eliyahu. “It matters. The feeling behind the face is invisible, but it matters. Even to you.”

“Exactly!” said Benji. “It matters. Even to you.”

I’m not saying the feeling doesn’t matter, I said. All I’m saying, I said, is that the feeling is invisible. The face
is
visible, though; it is visibly
blank
. If I say, ‘Eliyahu wore a blank face,’ people can try to figure out why it’s blank, and maybe some of them’ll even be right about why it’s blank, but none of them will imagine that it
isn’t
blank. If I say, ‘Eliyahu wore a pensive face,’ though, then even though some people might picture a blank face, others might picture a face with a crinkled forehead or jutted-out lip or squinted eyes. That’s why if you were pensive when you made that blank face, Eliyahu, it’s better I say, ‘Eliyahu was pensive. He wore a blank face,’ than if I just say, ‘Eliyahu wore a pensive face.’

My way’s more accurate.

“So you’re right,” said Eliyahu.

“Traitor,” said Benji.

“I’m loyal to the truth,” said Eliyahu.

“I was kidding around,” Benji said. “I don’t think you’re a traitor. You think I’d call you a traitor over that?”

“There’s no need to make it federal,” said Eliyahu.

“Federal?” said Vincie.

“Like a federal case,” Jelly said. “Like there’s no need to make a federal case out of it, he’s saying. ”

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“It’s hard for me tell when you’re kidding,” Eliyahu said to Benji.

Invisible intentions, I said.

“No way!” said Benji. “That doesn’t prove your point at all.

That’s the opposite of proving your point. The reason he didn’t know I was kidding was because he didn’t
pay attention
to my intentions. He only heard the word ‘traitor.’ He didn’t hear how I said it. I said it real deadpan.”

“Nakamook is scary,” the circle around the cluster was saying. “Gurion’s scarier.” “Not scarier, but better at fighting.” “Not better at fighting, but faster at fighting.” “Maybe a little faster at fighting, but also a little slower to fight.” “And Nakamook’s stronger.” “Thai boxing.” “Short fuse.” “Those crazy arms.” “It’s weird he’s not a basketballer.” “He’s not like a basketballer, so don’t say that.” “Looks like someone who bites people might have a crush on a rumored pyro everyone’s scared of.” “She can hear you.

They can all hear us, you know. They’re sitting right there. We’re right next to the inner circle, which is shaped like a rectangle.”

“A square.” “They can hear us, but only if they’re listening.” “A square’s a kind of rectangle.” “Even if they listen, it doesn’t mean they can hear us.” “Wrong. A rectangle’s a kind of square.” “You got it backward: The girls listen to the lyrics, the women hear the voice. The voice is more important than the words, so hearing’s deeper than listening.”

I said to Benji, Deadpan’s funny when it’s funny because it’s hard to tell when the person who’s deadpanning is making a joke.

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It’s hard to tell his intention. And that’s his intention—to make it hard.

“What are we even talking about, here? I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore,” Benji said. “I’m trying to tell you that if we call that action we did ‘hyperscoot,’ then it sounds much more pussy than it actually is because it sounds like it’s by accident. ‘Hyper’ means out of control. The things you do when you’re out of control are necessarily accidental.”

I said, What about riots? If we have a riot, it means we get all out of control, but if we have a riot it’s because we decide to have a riot, and if we decide to have a riot then it’s on purpose.

“A riot’s not out of the control of the rioters! A riot’s only out of the control of the people the rioters are rioting against!”

“It’s okay, Benji. It’s okay,” Jelly said.

“You’re getting a little outta control there yourself,” Vincie told him.

Benji reached across the cluster, sweeping Vincie’s daily lunch-apple sideways.

Ansul Entsry caught the apple in his lap and smiled.

Vincie leaned over the cluster, holding a fresh-opened pudding cup. He tried to turn it over onto Nakamook’s head, but Benji grabbed his wrist and thumbed deep to disable Vincie’s finger control. When the pudding dropped, Nakamook caught it face-up in the palm of his free hand, and Vincie backhanded the pudding with
his
free hand, and the pudding landed sideways on the cluster in front of Jelly, who righted it just as the surface ten-887

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sion broke. Only a dime-sized puddle of pudding spilled.

“Now the pudding’s Jelly’s, Vincie,” said Benji. “That’s what happens.”

“Hyperscoot,” Vincie said. “Hyperscoot, hyperscoot.”

The doorbell rang and Botha rose from the Monitor’s desk to answer it. Nakamook, still holding Vincie’s wrist, pinned it to the cluster so that Vincie had to bend low and Botha wouldn’t be able see the grappling unless he came close. The circle around the cluster closed in. I sensed something good about this closing-in of the circle, something improved. On Tuesday, when Forrest Kenilworth had called Ben-Wa Wolf “The Boy Who Went Wee-Wee” and the whole Cage rushed him, they’d done so to see what Benji would do to him, which only happened to shield Benji from Botha’s witness; this time, though, there was little they could see by way of getting in closer that they couldn’t have seen from where they’d been sitting; this time they’d closed in
in order
to shield Benji—it wasn’t just a circle getting closed, but ranks; they were
closing ranks
.