The Instructions (110 page)

Only because he knew it was safe, I said. I said, He knew you wouldn’t attack him in the Office.

“And why should he have been so sure?”

He shouldn’t have, I said.

“People look at me and think I’m weak,” Eliyahu said. “They push me around. I can’t hide it.”

Hide what? I said.

“That I’m an orphan—who are these chubniks saluting you?”

Isadore Momo and Beauregard Pate stood shoulder-to-shoulder with three other short, husky guys by the southern doorway of the cafeteria. Each one had a line of thick writing across his chest in Darker:

Beauregard

FIRED A BULLET THROUGH HIS RIGHT TEMPLE.

Chubnik X

LIKE AN OVERGROWN HALO.

Chubnik Y

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VANISHED COMPLETELY INTO THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT.

Chubnik Z

ONLY HATE AND HATE, SOLID AS STONE.

Momo

I PUSH THROUGH.

They were showing me victory fists.

That’s Big Ending, I said to Eliyahu. I said, They’re with us, too.

“What’s with the shirts?”

I don’t know, I said.

Like an overgrown halo
and
I push through
were familiar phrases, but I couldn’t place them.
Vanished completely into the darkness of
night
also seemed familiar, except how couldn’t it?

“I was saying—”

You don’t need to hide that you’re an orphan, I said. I said, Anyone who knows you’re an orphan—and I don’t think that many people do—could just as easily be scared of you for being an orphan as think you’re weak for being an orphan. So the ones who do think you’re weak—don’t let them push you around.

“I know I shouldn’t let them, but I do.”

I said, Not always. I said, You led that hyperscoot. And before that you fought back hard in the two-hill field—I saw some of it.

“I was very verklempt then. I told you that. I didn’t know up from down. If I knew up from down, I never would have done those things. So what am I supposed to do? Be verklempt all the 1035

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time? I think it would be worse than getting pushed around.”

I spotted June. She wasn’t at her locker. She was about a quarter of the hallway away, talking to a big-eyed girl with an almost-shaved head and clown-pants.

I said, Anything you do, Bathsheba Wasserman might hear about it.

“Sure,” said Eliyahu. “And probably from me.”

I said, So imagine she hears you’re getting pushed around.

“I should worry Bathsheba will think I’m a coward? Don’t manipulate me.”

That’s not what I’m saying at all, I said. If Bathsheba hears that you get pushed around, it’ll cause her pain. Protect her from that, I said. There’s June. Would you like to meet her?

“When can I talk to you?” Vincie said to me.

I’d forgotten he was there.

Just let me talk to June first, I said to Vincie.

“Oh God,” he said.

Oh God what? I said.

Before he could answer, we were saying hello. I kissed June’s cheek and she pinched my neck. “This is Starla,” she said to us, chinning air at the clown-pantsed girl. Then to Starla: “You know Vincie Portite.
Do
you know Vincie? Anyway—this is Vincie.

And that’s Gurion, and I don’t know who you are.”

“I am Eliyahu of Brooklyn,” Eliyahu said.

Vincie’s face was all red.

To Starla I said: I hear you don’t think I’m dark enough.

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June punched me in the shoulder.

“Gurion’s dark as fuck,” Vincie told Starla. “And bracelets for causes are not punkrock.” He pointed at a yellow plastic bracelet on her left wrist. It looked like one of those Cancer Foundation bracelets that said LIVESTRONG.

Starla made the noise “Tch,” and turned the bracelet so we could see it said LIVESTOCK.

“That’s subtle,” said Vincie. “And your name is really fucken pretty, too. I’ve been wanting to tell you that since kindergarten.”

“Is that why you’re always staring at me at lunch?” said Starla.

“Yeah,” said Vincie. “That’s the reason. Cat’s outta the bag now.”

Wait, I said. Since kindergarten?

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Just like I said. Cat’s outta the bag.”

“What cat?” June said.

“Don’t worry about the cat,” Vincie said. “The cat’s no concern of yours.”

“Gurion,” June said.

Vincie’s cat, Vincie’s bag, I said.

“Anyway,” Vincie said to Starla, “that’s a pretty fucken name you’ve got, that’s all I’m saying.”

“It’s the name of a song,” said Starla.

“I know,” said Vincie.

“Liar.”

“When you can’t decide what’s on your mind, it’s clear. I’m here. Starla dear. Please take me home.”

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“You know it!” said Starla.

“Yeah, and it’s fucken hammy, don’t you think?”

“Vincie,” June said.

“What?” said Vincie. “Starla knows the lyrics are hammy. It’s got nothing to do with her. It’s her fucked-up grunger parents I’m laughing at. Who names their daughter after a Smashing Pumpkins song, right Starla?”

“I know!” said Starla.

“It’s still a pretty name, though. And a pretty song, too, if you don’t pay attention to the words too close.”

“Weird, right?” said Starla.

“Not that weird,” said Vincie. “My favorite kind of pretty’s always mixed in with a little fucked-up. You got a bike, right?”

“Yeah,” Starla said.

“You should ride your bike to my house around midnight and we’ll go to the railroad tracks and smash some bottles. I got all these bottles in the recycling in my garage.”

“Why don’t we just meet at the tracks?” said Starla.

“I can’t carry all those bottles by myself,” Vincie said.

“What if we just skipped the bottles?” said Starla.

“How the fuck are we gonna skip bottles if we don’t have any bottles?”

“What? No. Wait… Not skip them like throw them, skip them like forget about them.”

“Why the fuck would we go to the tracks if we didn’t want to break some bottles?”

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“I—I don’t—”

“If we’re not gonna break anything, we might as well just hang out in my room.”

“What about your parents, though?”

“After midnight? Why do you think I got so many bottles?

We could smash bottles on
them
and they wouldn’t wake up.”

“Okay,” said Starla. She was breathless.

“
Okay
?” Vincie said. “What’s wrong with you?” Vincie said.

“I was
exaggerating
. I’m not gonna let you hit my mom with a fucken bottle.”

I kicked Vincie’s shoe and when he tried to kick mine back, June stomped his foot away. Eliyahu was chewing the insides of his cheeks.

“No, I—your room,” Starla was saying. “We could just hang out in your room.”

“Sure,” said Vincie, “if you say so. Whatever. But there’s not much to do in my room, so if it’s boring, then tomorrow night I’m smashing bottles, with or without you.”

Vincie wrote his address down while June and I agreed to ditch detention, and Eliyahu, eyes burning, told me, “Don’t help.”

Help what? I said.

He’d already gotten past me.

“I’ve attained verklemptness!” he answered as he ran.

A familiar cracking noise resounded and I spun.

BryGuy Maholtz was doing wallnd tricks. He and Blonde Lonnie had Big Ending backed up inside the south doorway of the 1039

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cafeteria, and Brooklyn and the Co-Captain were rushing toward them from opposite directions.

I dropped my bag and gave June my jacket.

“Steal these and meet me in the field,” I told her.

Vincie showed teeth, said, “Maholtz or Lonnie?”

Maholtz, I said.

‪

‫

‬

‪

‫

‬

‬

Big Ending, in the doorway, bit lips and twitched. Every time Maholtz sapped a flake of wall off, Blonde Lonnie said, “What!

Play
that
,
you hermaphrodites!” Vincie muttered curses. I muttered commands: Walk slow, be stealth, we’ll get there any second. As soon as he noticed Eliyahu was rushing him, Co-Captain Baxter used basketball skills. First he went from topspeed to floor-squeaking deadstop in just two steps. Then he tried to pivot. He should have faked left.

Eliyahu caught his backpack by the loop with one hand and rabbit-punched him twice with the other. Squinching his neck up, the Co-Captain yelped, spun them in circles til he wiggled from his straps, and then from the thin boy whose hat he had stomped, this thin pale boy who he’d thrown in the mud, the Co-Captain, pop-eyed and whinnying, sprinted—just tucked in and bolted the long way down Main Hall, stunned and cowering, swift and southerly. The freed-up inertia of the captured backpack sent Eliyahu a couple yards north. When he regained his balance, he got a 1040

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running start, hoisted the bag, deployed it like a natural. The bag’s arc ended at Baxter’s knee-backs. He didn’t fall, but his stride got limped. Eliyahu chased him into C-Hall.

Vincie, in the meantime, kept trying to run at the scuffle in the doorway, but running would bring on the robots too soon—

Brooklyn’d just spent the day’s luck for the stealthless—so I held Vincie’s elbow and kept our pace steady. I wanted that sap.

Out of nowhere I placed
like an overgrown halo
: the last four words of Roth’s “Conversion of the Jews.”

That chubnik had excellent taste in big endings. What was his name? I didn’t know his name.

Blonde Lonnie knocked him hard into Isadore Momo and slugged him in the gut. Then Blonde Lonnie slugged Momo in the gut.

Beauregard Pate and the other two chubniks threw shoulder-blocks while Momo hugged himself and puked. Lonnie sidestepped the blocks and slapped the chubniks. Beauregard flooded.

It looked like Sumo dog-paddling. His swearfinger caught inside of Lonnie’s shirt. The shirt popped a button.

Kids in the hall started pointing at the doorway.

Other kids looked.

Maholtz kicked Beuregard square in the ass, which turned him around.

The first chubnik puked on Momo’s puke.

Maholtz sapped the wall and Beauregard backstepped, foot in the mixture.

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Beauregard slipped. Beauregard puked.

“Hermaphradite Homo,” Lonnie said to Momo. He pushed the slapped chubniks into the lunchroom.

Vincie had just shaken free of my grasp. He ran six steps before jumping at Lonnie’s face. His chest smashed Lonnie’s nose; Lonnie’s skull struck the wall. They both hit the floor. Vincie got up first, onto his knees. He headlocked Lonnie, pulled him blindly toward the lunchroom. Lonnie crawled like a baby, but fast to save his spinal cord.

Just outside my striking-range now, Maholtz was poised to kick Vincie in the ribs.

BryGuy! I said.

He took a step back and sapped the jamb.

Vincie straightened up. Arm still locked around Blonde Lonnie’s skull, he palmstruck his mouth with his free hand. The squishy clicking noise the blow made was loud. Lonnie drooled in color.

Momo puked more. Beauregard Pate and the remaining chubnik dragged him inside of the cafeteria.

Vincie dragged Lonnie after them.

In the seconds since those kids started pointing, a crowd had developed around the doorway, drawing attention. It wouldn’t be long before robots showed up. I was currently doing nothing against the rules, but I wanted to do something against the rules.

I wanted to be in possession of a deadly weapon, and I didn’t want to get it taken away.

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Open my skull, I said to Maholtz.

“In front of all these peenple? I may be crazy, you stupid angshole, but—”

They’ve been waiting to see you use that thing forever, I said.

I said, All you do is brandish.

Some kid in the crowd behind me said, “Brandisher.”

You’re just the mantel, I said.

“Mantel!” another kid in the crowd said.

Stuck in Act One, I said.

“Mangtel?” said Maholtz to those gathered behind me. “This guy’s a psycho.” He gave forth a giggle.

I twetched in his eye and he closed it.

Then I closed some space between us.

Now you’re winking at me, I said.

Someone said, “BryGuy.”

Someone said, “Floyd’s coming.”

I closed more space.

And then I took his weapon. I took it one-handed. I grabbed hold of the lead ball, exerted no more downward force than I would on a pen if I were to write scripture with a pen instead of a computer, and the deadly weapon was mine.

No hurrahs arose from the crowd. A couple people said

“Winker” and “BryGuy,” but they sounded—even to Maholtz, I was sure—like embarrassed afterthoughts, not provocations. The rest of the crowd booed. Not so much at Maholtz as the implications of the anticlimax he and I had just provided them. To see 1043

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an oppressor felled without a hint of violent struggle can’t help but tarnish the shine on your victim badge. To see Maholtz made to cower so easily had to make those who would have otherwise cheered wonder how they, for so long, could have cowered so readily before him. They were booing themselves.

As I entered the cafeteria, Blonde Lonnie limped past me into Main Hall, bleeding.

I heard Floyd command him to “Halt it, fella!” and I raced to the northern doorway. Vincie and Big Ending were ducking into the bathroom. I pulled on my hood and walked into Main Hall.

On my way to the front entrance, Ben-Wa and Leevon, playing slapslap by the lockers, paused their contest to show me victory fists. Just as I mirrored the gesture, Co-Captain Baxter whipped past me so fast I didn’t think to trip him.

Eliyahu, at his heels, shouted “Mamzer!” and long-jumped.

He axe-chopped the Co-Captain’s shoulder on landing. Baxter said “Ah!” but lost little momentum.