The Instructions (102 page)

954

ADAM LEVIN

14

DEATH TO

THE JEW

Thursday, November 16, 2006

5th–6th Period

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

And GlassMan jumped up, shouting, “There!” The guy was way up at the front of the crowd, looking around for who he should sit with. The guy was Shlomo Cohen.

There was something very wrong with that. Something didn’t make sense, or at least didn’t seem to, but struggling as I was to keep my gooze in my face, while trying, with my hands, squeezing his shoulders, to help Eliyahu keep his gooze in his, it took me longer than normal to figure out what. Shlomo, I thought. Cohen, I thought.

Shlomo Cohen, Shlomo Cohen.

Why should Shlomo Cohen care about Berman and his scarf, let alone care enough to harm Bernard “Shpritzy” Shpritz? Shlomo Cohen was an Indian, a B-team Indian; what concern of it was his? What was the angle? Neither side of the Shover schism had beef with the Indians; and not just no beef; it went well beyond beeflessness = they were, the Shovers, schisming over who had the right to be the Indians’ semi-official humps and lackeys = both sides of the schism were on the Indians’ side = there wasn’t any 956

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reason for an Indian to choose sides. If anything, you’d’ve thought that Shlomo Cohen, the one Israelite Indian, would’ve sided
with
Berman and the Israelite Shovers, unless—but no… but then again I remembered when he brought me to Bam and Maholtz, on Tuesday’s intramural bus, recalled my disappointment in him for taking me back there without his even knowing why he was taking me back there, how it wasn’t very Israelite a thing for him to do, but that didn’t mean… at least not necessarily it didn’t…Was he—was it even possible?—could Shlomo Cohen be a
self-hating
Jew
? Was there really such a thing outside of fiction? Maybe, I thought. Maybe, maybe. My mom believed there was, and had, on occasion, convinced me there were self-hating Jews in universities—Noam Chomsky, say, or that Finkelstein guy—except that was universities…

But even if there was such a thing as a self-hating Jew who was not a professor, and even if Shlomo was one of those—even if, say, he didn’t want to be thought of as an Israelite by others (which, fat chance,
Shlomo Cohen
);
even if he felt some need to distinguish himself from the Israelite Shovers, or maybe just the Israelites (the Israelite Shovers as proxies for the Israelites?); even if Shlomo, when the scarves got starred, believed it necessary to demonstrate that he wasn’t on the side of those who had starred them, that he wasn’t one of them, or anything like them—why should he attack Shpritzy? Why not go after Berman? Because Berman was big? Sure, Berman was big—and there he was in the field, on the fringe of the crowd, among ten or so other Israelite 957

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Shovers—Berman
was
big. He was
really
big, actually, June’s ex was, huge, June’s huge ex-boyfriend who
didn’t kiss her
so there was no reason to picture it, to picture her tilting her head with her eyes closed, under the moon, in front of a door on a concrete stoop, not a stoop but a porch, stoops were for cities, a front-door porch in Deerbrook Park, no reason to think of her up on her tiptoes to meet him halfway as he leaned down and—

Shlomo Cohen found a spot in the center of the crowd, revolved to face the school, and sat where he’d stood, and Berman was huge was the point to keep focused on, while squeezing Eliyahu’s shoulders continually—squeezing them
hard
, squeezing them
firmly
, a
steady
squeeze, and not one you pulsed like
I’m comforting you
, not like
Here is an armless hug for you, a boy who needs to be
hugged
,
but firm and steady like
My hands are strong, and my hands,
like yours, are capable of smiting, I have strong, smiting hands, and
I’m on your side, and we will smite, with ferocity, will face down our
enemies
—Josh Berman was huge. Not Bam-huge or Flunky-huge, not overactive-glandular-huge, but reasonably huge, Co-Captain Baxter-size, really big for a kid who was in junior high, and so maybe Shlomo Cohen, who was maybe, it seemed, a self-hating Jew, attacked Shpritzy because—but no, because Shlomo wasn’t small. He wasn’t hardly small. Even if it made sense for a self-hating Shlomo to go after someone other than Berman, someone smaller than Berman, a proxy for Berman the Israelite Shover, there were no few potential proxies who fit that bill—
all
the Israelite Shovers were smaller than Berman, for example—and 958

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Shlomo could have attacked any one of those guys, any one of these smaller-than-June’s…

If he didn’t have the snat to pick a fight with Berman, Shlomo could’ve attacked any of these smaller-than-Berman-size Israelite Shovers to make his point. None were so small as Shpritzy, true, but the kind of coward you’d have to be to go after a kid
so
much smaller than you when there were bigger ones available, ones your size or even just four-fifths your size—because Shpritzy was what? two-thirds Shlomo’s size? maybe even just four-sevenths his size?—that kind of cowardliness was—what? Akin to the cowardliness of hating your own people? Of being so ashamed of where you came from that you’d attack your own people in order to show others that you had overcome your origins? Well, actually…

“There!” the Five said. They passed the word around their circle like a stolen cigarette. “There!” said Mr. Goldblum, blinkering with his finger. “There!” said Pinker, who jumped in place.

The Levinson said, “There!” and bounced fists on his thighs, and Shpritzy cracked his knuckles on his temples, saying, “There!”

And then the Five were streaking down the hill’s western slope, each one’s bare hand open in front of him, each one’s gloved hand balled at his side.

They had to slow their advance when they came to the crowd, and as they made their way through, high-stepping laps and legs and heads, June came across the street, into the field. She held her hand above her eyes as if to block the sun, but there wasn’t any 959

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sun, the sun was in clouds, and I thought to wave, but I didn’t want my girlfriend to see my face tear-streaked, and my hands were still busy with squeezing Brooklyn’s shoulders.

As the Five closed in on him, Shlomo revolved. It was hard to imagine how he couldn’t have spotted them, but the way his head was tilted, like the head of a squirrel, a squirrel being fed in the park by a stranger—he could not have known the Five were after him. And how could he not have known that they were after him? For the same reason he’d thought to attack Shpritzy in the first place: he couldn’t believe—refused to believe?—
failed
to believe who he actually was.

I kept my eyes on Shlomo, my hands on Eliyahu.

The Levinson yelled something. Then all the Five yelled something:

“Death to the Jew!”

I knew what they meant. Still, it signified wrong.

Eliyahu took off first; shook my grip and bolted. I followed him, shouting, Don’t hurt them, Brooklyn!

We were ten yards away when they fell upon Shlomo—Pinker, Shpritzy, and The Levinson. Shpritzy pulled the head back by the hair both-handed, The Levinson pinned the wrists, and Pinker stood the hips, crouching, jumping, landing where he’d started.

Shlomo screamed. And then Mr. Goldblum and GlassMan arrived.

GlassMan dropped all his weight on the crotch, elbow-first. Mr.

Goldblum reared back and kicked Shlomo’s jaw in.

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His leg was cocked for a second face-shot when I got there and threw him aside. Eliyahu dragged GlassMan away by the ankles.

Mr. Goldblum said to me: “But you said!”

About then is when Brodsky began to catch on. At the edge of the crowd, with most of the teachers, he was too far away to see more than blurred movement, but the movement blurred fast, fast meant violent, and Shlomo kept screaming. The principal yelled, “Break it up!” through his soundgun, and the sitters in the field all leapt to their feet. The standers were already thickening around us.

Mr. Goldblum attempted to make his way past me, faking to the left, slipping to the right. I side-stepped to block him, left-right-left, til he caught me off-footed with a sideways shoulder-thrust. I landed on my ass and he helped me back up, saying,

“Sorry, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry.”

We were standing nose-to-nose, Mr. Goldblum and I, and I thought: We’re nose-to-nose, Mr. Goldblum and I, and I’d think we’d be nose-to-clavicle, us, or at least nose-to-thrapple.

Was I also cartoon-looking? I touched my nose.

I noticed his copy of
Ulpan
on the ground. I knelt to pick it up, still a little bit stunned, and he shot right past me, returned to the fight. I jammed the paper in my pocket, tried to follow him in, but before I’d even landed a second footfall, I got yanked back, then up in the air. Two arms wrapped tight around the crooks of my own, and my elbows pressed into my gut so hard some lunch got displaced and I puked in my mouth.

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I spit it out.

I thought: Desormie.

I kicked my legs around, trying to get free. The stun was entirely gone now.

I saw Eliyahu wrap The Levinson’s torso and wrestle him off of Shlomo Cohen’s wrists.

The Levinson’s face was soaked with tears and he was screaming at Shlomo: “Where’s your friends now? It’s
my
friends who saved you!
My
friends! Mine! You—” Then he was knocked away by the Chewer, and Eliyahu got arm-barred by Maholtz.

Eliyahu’s fedora fell in the grass.

Finally my heel made contact with something soft on my holder and my holder said, “Fuck,” but he didn’t drop me. He swung around, and I could no longer see Eliyahu and the Five, and then I made contact again with my heel, and my holder swung us back to the first position. If I was him and he was Gurion, I would have leaned forward and fell on Gurion, stuck my knee in one of Gurion’s kidneys and sideways-chopped on Gurion’s neck, but he was not me and I was not him. He just kept holding me in the air while I kicked, and walking us backward, away from the fight, further into the crowd, and laughing, he was laughing, a peculiar laughter. It was forced, but not loud enough for anyone to hear—not anyone but me. He was laughing for my benefit.

I heard Brodsky screaming for Jerry and Floyd. He was still far away, trapped back by the crowd.

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My holder kept swinging me left and right. Kids opened a path so they wouldn’t get kicked.

Boystar, now travelling beside us, was thrilled. He got in my face and talked news like it was his: “Maccabee’s a dead man!

Maccabee’s dying!”

I wanted to say something back but I was gasping. Every time I exhaled, the pressure on my center got tighter. My holder adjusted his grip a little, and for a few seconds, I could see over everyone’s heads. I saw Co-Captain Baxter. He crushed the crown of the fallen fedora, then stepped to the Maholtz-grappled Eliyahu and took his yarmulke. He threw it behind him, frisbee-style, into the crowd. Maholtz reached his leg around the front of Eliyahu, released the arm-bar, and shoved forward so Eliyahu tripped. He fell bad. He caught his own knee in his beauty, and his wind got blasted. I needed to get loose to help him and I couldn’t. Co-Captain Baxter flipped him over and pinned him, slapped him, twetched in his eye. Everything in sight spun for a second.

I put all my strength in my shoulders to spread them, inhaled as hard as I could. This got a little air inside my cramped lungs, but blinking sparks were already falling, scraping their way down my visual field.

All the Five were cleared away by teachers except for Shpritzy, who was nearly horizontal, stretched in mid-air, his arms locked tight around Shlomo’s head, Desormie pulling him west by the ankles while the Chewer pulled Shlomo east by the waist. Floyd 963

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dropped his cheering cone and Main Man grabbed it. He shouted through the bell: “Nakamook? Nakamook? Where is Benji Nakamook? Is Benji Nakamook in the two-hill field?”

I wanted to know where Nakamook was, too. And Vincie.

Leevon. Where was the Side of Damage? If the cheering cone was a soundgun, then Main Man could—but no. There was no need for a soundgun. There was the Side of Damage! All of them but Benji—no! There was Benji. They were standing right there.

Not helping me.

Watching.

“Nakamook!” shouted Mookus. “If you are Benji Nakamook please report to the center of the penultimate crowd scene! Please step back to allow Benji Nakamook access—”

Shpritzy and Shlomo had suddenly separated. Floyd’s elbow struck Main Man. The cheering cone dropped. All the Side of Damage glanced between me and Benji.

Again my holder re-adjusted his grip, turning us a little. I caught sight of some Shovers shoving each other, yanking scarves off each other, lofting scarves in the air, then my eye-level sunk to the crowd’s neck-and-back-plane. Any breath I had left in my body was stale. I heard ticking in my ears, and the sparks ceased to blink, and they grew tails like comets and were falling so quickly I was seeing bright lines, phosphorescent white.

And I wanted to know how Desormie could possibly hold onto Shpritzy way over there while he crushed all the air from me right over here.

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The white lines thickened.

Desormie couldn’t be in two places at once.

I tried some more kicking. My legs were floppy. My holder said, quietly, “Don’t make me hurt you.” The calm of his voice was unmistakable.

I thought: But he’s only just another boy, though. I’m being defeated by another boy.

“I’m saying calm down, kid,” Slokum said.