The Instructions (114 page)

“Soon Eliyahu starts swinging the backpack against the side of the bus, and Co-Captain Baxter sticks his head out the window over the rear wheel. He goes to Eliyahu: ‘Tonight I’m gonna rape your mom
and
your sister. Over and over,’ he says. ‘Until they start liking it,’ he says. ‘And then I’ll tie them to a rock,’ he says,

‘and cut off their clits so they bleed to death.’

“Some of the bandkids start laughing because dude said ‘clit.’

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I twetch a goozy on one of their shirts and he hides behind the other ones. Eliyahu doesn’t notice any of it. He just keeps thump-ing The Co-Captain’s backpack like he’s gonna chop a hole in the flank of the bus, and the bus does
dent
a little and its paint gets scratched—there’s textbooks in the bag, all these zippers—but Eliyahu’s not looking satisfied. And then the main zipper opens, and the bag dumps its contents. Now Eliyahu drops the bag, plucks this little bottle out of the mess, unscrews the cap and starts flinging steroids through the air, right?

“So now the Co-Captain’s trickling all over the place. He goes,

‘You think I can’t get more of those? Not that I’ve ever seen

’em before or know what they are, but I’ll fucken chop those retarded fucken sideburn things off your mongoloid head because you
think
they’re mine.’ But all he’s doing is shouting through a window, you know? And I’m thinking: Eliyahu has
beat
this fucken kid, and that is truly fucken wonderful, but these drivers are gonna be done talking to each other soon, and he better calm down, right? And get away. But instead of calming down, he’s just getting madder and madder, Gurion. Like a fucken crazy madman. He’s walking in this tight little circle between the bus and the curb now, kicking all the junk he spilled out of the bag and staring at his feet and muttering to himself: ‘I want to kill him and it is wrong… I am Eliyahu of Brooklyn… that earring… to sever him from his jewelry…’ And the Co-Captain, he says to the bandkids: ‘Psycho’s mumbling prayers.’ And the bandkids laugh, and I twetch another one on the nose of the one 1073

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I twetched one on the shirt of a minute ago, and he hides behind his friends again, and they laugh at that too.

“And Eliyahu’s still, like, muttering. And he’s throwing Yiddish into the mix, now. Stuff I never heard you say before, like
cappy
and—

Keppy, I said—it means head.

“And what else? This really great sounding one that goes, like,
a-fat-stink-on-her
or
fuckatitioner.
”

Farshtinkener.

“Definitely! Yes. What’s it mean?”

Pretty much what it sounds like, I said, but what happened already?

“Oh, so Eliyahu’s muttering all this stuff, like, ‘…knock the hat from my keppy?… the uncircumcised dog… to push his filthy Canaanite teeth back so his farshtinkiner mouth may accommodate this… I will… I will force this thermos down his throat with my fists,’ and he pulls The Co-Captain’s thermos from the pile of bagjunk, and it’s right about then that I see through the gaps between the buses how the drivers in the circle are shaking hands and banging fists or whatever, and I figure I’ve gotta get Eliyahu outta there, so I touch his elbow, and he swings on me, man!”

Did you—

“No no, it’s okay—I ducked it, and he saw I was me, and I told him, ‘We gotta go now, the drivers are coming.’ And Eliyahu says, ‘Tell me I will damage him tomorrow, Vincie, or I will never be able to stop pacing this facocta
circle.’ I love
facocta
by the way, 1074

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it’s my favorite of all of them I think, but I know Eliyahu’s got ISS tomorrow, and so I tell him, ‘If not tomorrow, then Monday.’

And then he goes, ‘Am I a child? You would talk to me about Monday? There will be no Monday.’ And then the Co-Captain, through the window,
he
says, ‘Am I-uh the child? You woulda to talka to me about on Monday?’ like trying to mimic Eliyahu, but it sounds way more like Chico Marx than like Larry David’s dad—not his dad-dad, but his show-dad—what’s his name?”

Shelley Berman, I said.

“That’s it. The impression sounded nothing like Shelley Berman, which is pretty much what you’d go for if you wanted to make fun of how Eliyahu sounds, right? But Eliyahu whipped the thermos at his face anyway, and the Co-Captain pulled his head inside the bus and the thermos tonked off the windowframe and I caught it, which was really smooth of Vincie, I think.

Stealth, I said.

“Thank you. Because Eliyahu didn’t fucken appreciate it at all. He just tried to grab it from me, the thermos, and I didn’t let him because we had to get outta there because like I said: those facocta drivers.

“But so Eliyahu goes, ‘Give me the thermos and don’t give me nazarite about Monday, Vincie.’

Narishkeit, I said.

“That’s the one. And I said, ‘I don’t know what you mean about Monday, but please don’t be upset like this—we fucken have to fucken go.’

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“And Eliyahu says some Hebrew stuff I can’t even begin to imitate, but The Co-Captain could. And he did. He did it pretty good, like, ‘Chuh chuchaluh shicha hucha lachama.’ And then Eliyahu swiped the thermos out of my hand and let fly at the Co-Captain’s grill again. This time he got chin:
cronk!
And the Co-Captain yelped, ducked under the windowframe. And I said to Eliyahu, ‘Feel better?’ and he goes, ‘Only a little. I want his earring,’ but he lets me kinda lead him away from the buses, and what’s funny is this: The Co-Captain’s on Eliyahu’s intramural bus, which is Bus One, but the one he’s barracaded himself on is Two, and there’s no way he’s gonna ride on the same bus as Eliyahu now, so he’s stuck on the wrong bus! And not only that, but he was supposed to go home on the regular bus like those other fuckers because he’s got his big game tomorrow. And plus, even though we got away from the bus circle a little so the drivers wouldn’t bust Eliyahu, Eliyahu made us stay in seeing distance so the Co-Captain was too scared to even get off Bus Two to gather up all the junk that fell out of his bag, which was strewn everywhere! I had no idea Eliyahu was like that, man. That he was the kinda guy to think of that—sticking around like that. He’s so fucken angry. Who knew? I mean, yeah, when he came into the Cage he did that thing where he held out his hat and said he was from Brooklyn, but then—I mean he asks me if you’re dead, like, five, six fucken times a day, and, every time, he looks ready to cry.

The whole point of me telling you this is this, though: While we’re standing there watching over the bus circle, I’m going over 1076

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it in my head, everything that just happened, and I ask Eliyahu, I say: ‘What was that shit you were saying before about no Monday?’ Because remember, he said, ‘There will be no Monday.’

So I ask what he meant, and he goes, ‘Are you kidding with me?’

Real snotty, he said it, like he was offended or something. So I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ and he goes, ‘Tomorrow we destroy the Arrangement.’ He said it like I was a dumbass not to know that, and I thought: Maybe I am. But what’s weird is, it didn’t feel like I was a dumbass. It felt more like what I was saying yesterday on this very bus; it felt like I was just
playing
the dumbass. It felt like that because when Eliyahu said we’d destroy the Arrangement tomorrow, it sounded true, like we’d all agreed on it, but I couldn’t remember doing that. I couldn’t remember agreeing on it, and it seems like the kind of thing I would have remembered, right? So I said, ‘There’s a plan to destroy the Arrangement?’ And Eliyahu said, ‘A plan I don’t know—an understanding, though? Surely there’s an understanding.’ ‘Well who says?’ I said. And Eliyahu said, ‘Everyone says.’ And I said, ‘Like who, though?’ And he said, ‘Like your friend the Main Man Scott Mookus.’ And I said,

‘Main Man says a lot of crazy stuff.’ And Eliyahu said, ‘Our friend Gurion says.’ And I said, ‘No way. I’d remember if Gurion said that.’ And Eliyahu said, ‘If hyperscoot was the beginning, and hyperscoot began third period, and by seventh period we’re already in the middle, what can be tomorrow if not the end, Vincie? And what can be the end for the Side of Damage, who is against the Arrangement, if not the end of the Arrangement? And what will 1077

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bring about the end of the Arrangement, if not the destruction of the Arrangement? And who will bring about the destruction of the Arrangement, if not the side that is against the Arrangement?’

“So is it true, Gurion?”

I didn’t know if it was true. It was just like Vincie said.

I said, It’s just like you said—it
sounds
true, but I hadn’t thought of it til you said it. I mean…

“Well, I just play the dumb one, man, but I’ll tell you: This morning, right after that first hyperscoot? I would’ve said fuck yeah for sure we’re doing it and we fucken well should do it: destroy. But today was long and full of weird fucken shit. Like what happened with Nakamook? That’s the thing I wanted to talk to you about before. That was fucked up, right? And it was the same kind of fucked up as this kind of fucked up that we’re already talking about. We should have all rushed Slokum in the two-hill field—we were all there, and I don’t care who he is, he can’t take thirty-odd kids out, especially not while holding onto you—but at the same time, we were waiting for Nakamook to do something first. Actually, first we were waiting for you to kick Slokum’s ass, we figured you’d get it under control. But then there was like a solid half a minute where we all knew you
weren’t
gonna get it under control and what we did was look to Nakamook, and he wasn’t doing anything, and by the time we gave up on him—at least by the time
I
did—Bam had already set you down. That was some weird shit. No one ever said Nakamook would be the leader of us if you were in trouble, but we all acted 1078

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like he was—there was an
understanding.
And that first hyperscoot, too—no one decided to do it, right? Not out loud. And then suddenly we were doing it. And it was great. But that other shit with Slokum? I feel really bad about that other shit. And I’m sorry about that fucken shit. And I feel like I gotta prove myself to you now. Or get Leevon and Ronrico and Ben-Wa and probably a fifth guy together and try to kick Benji’s ass or something, which is really the most fucken upsetting part, because he’s been my fucken friend for two years, which is more than one-sixth of my life, and since I can’t really remember shit from before kindergarten, it’s like more than that—it’s like one third of my life.

Or two-fifths even, I don’t fucken know. But you’re the only guy besides Mookus and Leevon who never once made fun of me during that horrible flinching phase I was going through, and not only that but you healed it, and so what am I supposed to do?”

The idea of anyone, let alone my friends, kicking Benji’s ass just made me sad. I thought it should make me happy, though, so I didn’t say anything. Instead, I hugged Vincie, like how Eliyahu had hugged me in the hallway on Tuesday. And Vincie was happy I hugged him, and he hugged me back, but then you could tell by the nature of the ensuing non-sequiter that he got weirded out a little by the hug.

“Starla Flangent is so hot,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure she’s into Vincie. We’ll see if she comes over.”

She’s into Vincie, I said.

“But that’s the other thing about tomorrow, too,” Vincie said.

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“What happens if Starla comes over tonight and we fall in love like you and June or Benji and Jelly or Chunkstyle and Boshka or—if it doesn’t sick you out too much to think about—Ronrico and Mangey, who I saw holding hands? I mean, it seems like we’re gonna fucken fall in love, right? It’s in the air or whatever, and so what if that happens?”

What do you mean? I said.

“If we destroy the Arrangement—say we
can
do it—but then afterward, when they put us in a new school—do you think it’ll be the same school for all of us? Because if not, then… I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I’ve fully fallen in love yet. It seems iffy, though. I mean, it’s supposed to be a big deal to fall in love.

It’s supposed to be the biggest deal, and even though I probably haven’t fully done it yet, it’s pretty fucken hard for me to imagine a good reason to do something that I thought would stop me from being able to see Starla. At the same time, though, when I think about her, I get all filled up with this feeling like I’m great because she’s great and maybe she loves me and so I shouldn’t have to take any shit off anyone, ever, and it makes me want to destroy everything around us that’s suck. Actually, no—I already wanted to destroy everything around us that’s suck. What it makes me feel like is that I
can
destroy everything around us that’s suck. And that if I
can
,
I
should.
And if I
should
, but I
don’t
, then I’m gonna get fucked for it. If I should, but I don’t—and at the first chance I get—then something will happen so that I
can’t
.
And even if I’m kidding myself—even if I never
could
destroy everything around us 1080

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that’s suck, maybe because Starla
doesn’t
love me or maybe because being in love with her
isn’t
the biggest deal—then I might as well destroy as much suck shit around me as possible anyway, because what’s the fucken use of any of it. What’s the fucken use, you know, in taking shit off anyone? What’s the use? What’s the fucken use?

I mean, what the fuck’s the use? And now I feel like a fucken dumbass again, though, because now I’m all the sudden full-on ‘fuck-yeah let’s destroy the Arrangement tomorrow,’ which I wasn’t a second ago, but like I said, I don’t think I’m even fully in love yet, and so what the fuck do I know about tomorrow?”