The Instructions

  Eliyahu put a hand on Benji’s shoulder. “In fairness,” he said to me, “I don’t think Aleph meant to insult Main Man. He said he didn’t like the songs and, yes, it’s true, he might have been a little nicer about it, but—”

  Wait, I said.

  At least I thought I’d said it. Maybe I hadn’t. If I had, no one heard me; no one was waiting.

  “Who’s Aleph?” said Berman.

  “You,” said Eliyahu.

  “My name’s Josh Berman.”

  “You want me to call you Josh Berman, it’s done—calm down. Calm down, Josh Berman.”

  “What’s Aleph mean, though?” Josh Berman said.

  “Yeah, what the hell’s it mean?” voices on my right said. “What’s it mean?” “What’s it mean?”

  Wait, I said.

  “What’s it mean?” said Eliyahu. “It’s a letter. First letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the aleph-bet—like an A, but silent.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “That wasn’t his question.” “Answer his question.” “Don’t dodge the question.”

  “Pipe the fuck down,” Vincie Portite told them. “He was trying to explain,” another voice to my left said. “Just let him talk.”

  Wait wait, I said.

  “Why’d you call me Aleph?” Berman said to Brooklyn.

  “Josh Berman, please. Don’t be so testy. I’m not your enemy. Prior to this I’ve only seen you in the hallways, maybe once or twice on the late-bus too. I didn’t even know you were an Israelite, you know? Let alone a Josh Berman. So I called you Aleph. Like an A. Like a variable. That’s all,” he said.

  “Oh,” Berman said. “Like an alpha,” he said.

  “Sure. Like alpha,” Eliyahu told him.

  “You know? I like that,” Berman said. “I like it a lot. Sorry I got all—”

  “No, forget it,” Eliyahu said. “We just took the school down together, yes? Anything lousy between any of us here—it needs,” he said, “to be forgiven.”

  And at the sound of those words, to be forgiven, nearly every single person in our fifty-head huddle grew visibly relaxed—shoulders falling, face muscles slackening, bodies leaning forward, toward each other… there’d even been an audible collective sigh. And I, to my own great surprise, sighed along. Finding out that Berman—ex-Shover leader, June’s ex-boyfriend, maker of nasty remarks to Jelly’s sister, shooter of nibs into Nakamook’s neck, basher into floors of Nakamook’s face, inadvertant insulter of Main Man’s repertoire… The information that Berman was the same boy as Aleph had performed on me in ways that I couldn’t have predicted. I pictured the following in rapid succession: Berman watching Baxter knock Brooklyn’s hat off; Berman crawling the floor beneath Benji’s legs. But then, instead of thinking: Here’s the mouse who stood by doing nothing while his brother got humiliated, or, Here’s the coward who’d rather crawl on his belly than stand up and fight, what I thought was: Poor Berman, poor Josh Berman. Not poor Aleph—Poor Josh Berman. Coward Aleph had been faceless, scholars. Poor Josh Berman had Berman’s face. And maybe it was just as simple as that: his having a face. Or maybe it was even simpler than that: poor Josh Berman’s face wasn’t just any face; poor Josh Berman’s was an Israelite face. Here the face of an Israelite crawling on his belly, there the face of an Israelite avenging himself. I’d’ve probably done the same, had I been him. Had I crawled on my belly before Benji or anyone, I’d avenge myself too—take the first shot I could, and the second, the third. And I saw that what I’d done was forgiven him. I’d forgiven Berman for having been Aleph and forgiven Aleph for having been Berman. Just like that. And I saw it was good.

  And it was true that Benji had long been despised by most of Aptakisic, and that Vincie had long been despised as well, and the others on the Side by association, and true the ex-Shovers hadn’t themselves been so beloved either, neither by their fellow Israelites nor by the Side, and it was true, finally, that I had been wrong—that there was, at present, animosity here, enmity even—but I nonetheless believed what Eliyahu believed: Because all those soldiers on the Side were my brothers, and because all the Israelite soldiers were my brothers, and because I had led them and because I was leading them, and because we had, all of us, fought together, I believed that they could—I believed that we could—dissolve any and all enmity between us.

  And I saw that the others believed it too. Brooklyn had said, “To be forgiven,” and all of us leaned and slackened and sighed.

  All except for Benji, who made the noise “Tch.”

  To which Josh Berman responded with “Tch.”

  And everyone stiffened, postures adversarial, their collective intake of breath a long hiss.

  And I saw that one of them had to be removed. It didn’t matter which—at least it didn’t seem to. I watched Berman’s eyes go to Nakamook’s hand, which was visibly throbbing. Berman, no doubt, saw an exploitable weakness. I saw my out: Nurse Clyde’s Office to get fixed up. Benji’d go quiet. He’d lose no face, nor would the Side—no one would.

  Yet I couldn’t take Benji away just yet—he’d see right through me if I just said: Benji, your hand needs attention. I needed a spoon to replace the baby’s knife. Something needed to happen to change the subject. Something relevant, preferably urgent. An act of God. The ceiling falling in. An earthquake. A fire. Something that didn’t emanate from me.

  Brooklyn, baruch Hashem, was aware of this.

  “Gurion,” he said. “Any word from the scholars?”

  “What scholars?” said Berman, eyes off Benji’s hand now.

  And I realized the Israelites didn’t know about the scholars—I hadn’t told them. They’d helped attack the school without any assurance they’d get away with it. And then they must have become afraid, and gathered together on the bleachers afraid, which must have made the Side afraid of them—for the Side was greatly outnumbered by them—and sensing the Side was afraid of them, the Israelites must have grown afraid of the Side, and by the time I’d returned from the firemen to the gym, the 64 I’d left behind were but 44 and 20.

  That the Israelites didn’t know about the scholars—this was a good thing. A great thing, even. For not only could I tell them, which would quell their fears, but I needed to tell them. It was urgent I tell them. And anyone could see that, Benji included.

  “What scholars?” they said. “Which scholars?” “Who scholars?”

  An army of scholars is coming, I said.

  “When?” they said.

  Soon, I said. They’re supposed to arrive at eleven o’clock, but the el’s moving slow and the weather’s probably delaying them, too, plus they might have missed all the rush-hour Metras. They’ll get here, though, they’ll take us out of here, you’ll all be safe, and you’ll blame this on me.

  “Who will believe us?”

  Who won’t believe you? Isn’t it true?

  “In a way it’s true.”

  A way that everyone’ll want to believe, I told them. It’s never the rioters who go to prison—it’s only the guy with the megaphone inciting them. Who’s got the megaphone?

  “You’ve got the megaphone.”

  All of your parents will be dying to believe you. All of our teachers will be dying to believe you. Nobody will want to believe anything else. Not even Brodsky, who’s sitting there, bound, hearing us conspire.

  “All due respect,” an ex-Shover said. “How do we know that you’ll fess up to everything?”

  You don’t, I said, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t need to fess up to anything to protect you. There’s seventy-nine of you and one of me. What’s anyone’s word against ten contradictions, let alone nearly eighty? This school is dead, I said, and we’re the ones who deaded it. Now we just have to hold it til the scholars arrive. Do what I say, and that won’t be a problem, but we have to move fast, and we can’t fight each other. We are, every one of us, brothers.

  No one disagreed, at least not aloud, and Josh Berman said, “So what should we do?”

&
nbsp; First of all, I said, you should give me some room here. I’m breathing more brotherly breath than I’d like to.

  Laughing much harder than the comment warranted, the soldiers all back-stepped and opened up the huddle. They stretched and they yawned and they cracked their knuckles.

  I asked which ones had their cellies on them. Seven Israelites raised their hands. I told six of them to call their mothers and repeat the following: “Mom, this is [insert soldier’s name]. I’m calling to tell you two things. First of all, I’m safe. Secondly, Gurion ben-Judah says to tell you we’ll all be safe as long as the authorities stay fifty yards back. I have to go now.” I programmed Botha’s number into the seventh soldier’s phone and handed the phone to Eliyahu.

  That’s the only number you answer, I told him. And that’s the only number you call, okay?

  “Okay,” he said. “Look.” He pointed over my shoulder.

  Boshka and Chunkstyle were entering the gym, pushing television carts.

  “Where’s the outlets?” said Chunkstyle.

  Find them, I said.

  Once the callers finished calling, I had them turn off their phones. I gave the phones to June and she put them in her bag.

  “Hi,” June said.

  Hi, June, I said.

  She leaned in close. “I’m worried,” she whispered.

  We’ll be fine now, I said.

  She squeezed my hand.

  A phone started ringing.

  “That’s mine,” said an Israelite. “The power button’s jiggly.”

  I took out its battery.

  “But what if that was my mom calling back?”

  “What if?” said Eliyahu.

  “She’s worried,” said the kid.

  And the rest of the callers said the same of their own moms, and many of the non-callers asked why they couldn’t call their moms.

  I said, There’s no way to make it so your mothers don’t worry. All of your mothers. We’ll be on TV soon if we aren’t already. Word will spread. They’ll be worried either way.

  “That is suck.”

  Less suck, I said, than if the cops come in here. You’ve called your moms, you haven’t told them any lies: you’re safe and you’ll stay safe as long as the cops stay back. Your moms will make it known to the cops that you’re safe. Your moms will make it known that your safety’s conditional, and your moms and the cops will think you’re hostages. With me so far?

  They all seemed to be with me.

  Soon, I told them, the cops’ll get their numbers straight. They’ll figure out exactly how many people are in here. If I let everyone call and you all talk like hostages, the cops will come to suspect we have a lot fewer soldiers than we want them to think. They’ll be quicker to enter. That’s why the rest of you can’t call your moms.

  “When do we get our phones back?” said the callers.

  Later, I said.

  “What if we promise—”

  “Enough already!” Eliyahu shouted. “You believe in Gurion, or you—”

  And Berman cut him off, shouting even louder, and although he spoke toward the same end as Eliyahu, Eliyahu’s eyes flashed, burning for a second. “Are you nice little Jewish boys missing your mothers, or soldiers of Israel!?” Berman yelled.

  They said they were soldiers and stopped asking questions, and they even seemed to forget about the phones, but Chunkstyle and Boshka had turned on the news, and what passed for their forgetting was at least as much caused by that.

  “All we get is NBC,” Anna Boshka announced. “Everything else is the snow of purest static.” No one seemed to mind. Each screen was split between footage of the battle, and a shot of the bus circle filled with flashing lights. Along the bottom, crawled STUDENT UPRISING CLAIMS AT LEAST ONE LIFE… HOSTAGE CRISIS OUTSIDE CHICAGO. Off screen, the studio anchor was saying, “…quasi-proto-terrorist youth group—”

  I punched both MUTE buttons, and said to the soldiers: Watch TV all you want, but stay on your feet, keep an eye on the door, and always keep a soldier next to it, listening. I’m gonna go take Brodsky to the Cage and check on the soldiers at the other entrances. I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, if you hear anything funny coming from the other side of that door, tell Eliyahu immediately, and he’ll call me. I’ll come back fast and I’ll handle it.

  “I wanna watch cable,” the Flunky said.

  “Flunky,” said Vincie, “calm down and watch. You’re just about to clothesline a couple of Indians.”

  “I seen that already,” the Flunky said.

  Brodsky couldn’t walk. The foot on which Boystar’s mother had dropped the mikestand caused him too much pain to even take his shoe off. I decided to requisition some soldiers to carry him. Though my talk of the scholars had gone a long way toward quelling the fears of most Israelites, it hadn’t done nearly as much for the Side and Big Ending. Even as the television showed him shooting Indians, Vincie turned his head at every small noise—I’d thought I’d even seen his hand jump once—and Ronrico and Leevon and Jelly and Mangey all kept not one but two hands on their guns. I figured this had to do with the numbers: the 44 and 20 (now 50 and 20, or 44 and 26, depending who the Five and the Ashley counted for). Scholars coming or no, the Side/Big Ending was still well outnumbered, and I was about to take off with Benji. I didn’t believe they had anything to fear, but that didn’t matter: fear engendered more fear, and I wanted less fear. So the soldiers I picked to carry Brodsky to the Cage were Israelites, five of them, non-ex-Shovers: Israelites so as not to reduce the Side’s numbers further, non-ex-Shovers because the ex-Shovers were the ones who’d been rough with Brodsky earlier. When the five I picked lifted him, he started to argue and I told him I’d gag him and he ceased to argue.

  Halfway up B-hall, they had to put him down.

  I called Eliyahu, had him send five more Israelites, again non-ex-Shovers. The two crews of five carried Brodsky in shifts, fifteen to twenty-five feet at a time. I told Benji and June to keep them all moving, and I fell back behind them, just out of earshot—I needed some privacy.

  It had been nineteen minutes since I’d said to have Roth on the line in thirty. If they couldn’t or didn’t have Roth on the line in thirty, I’d have to have Wolf brutalize Boystar, and/or the cops might feel compelled to rush the school in reaction to or in fear of my doing so. If they did have Roth on the line in thirty and the scholars weren’t there yet, I’d need to come up with another demand, or make some concession, probably both. I didn’t want any of that. I just wanted stasis til the scholars arrived. But what if it took them more than eleven minutes? The hail had stopped hailing, but it had hailed for a while and the el was moving slow. I needed to give the cops more time without seeming too reasonable. I called 911, hoping they hadn’t found Roth yet.

  This is Gurion ben-Judah, connect me to Roth.

  “Hold on, sir,” said a female dispatcher.

  A click, then a man’s voice.

  “How do we know that you’re Gurion ben-Judah?”

  Because I’m calling for Roth.

  “That doesn’t prove anything. Anyone—” he said. “Please hold on, sir,” he said.

  And as I held I understood. It didn’t prove anything because they must have already played Ori’s tape on TV and any prankster would know the demand that I’d made. Whether I’d seen it but was too stupid to figure that out, or I hadn’t yet thought to turn on the television, or I was a prankster, the guy on the other end of the line wasn’t sure.

  Another click. “Sir?” said the man.

  Get me Roth.

  “How do we know that you are who you say?”

  Forty-some minutes ago, we phoned in a bunch of fake emergencies to distract you guys, I said. The first one was about an incident at the Frontier Motel. Would I know that if I wasn’t Gurion? I said.

  The guy hesitated. They must have said something about that on television, too.

  “We need to further authenticate.”

  How about this: For the Frontier Motel one,
I used the same phone as I’m using now, but not for the fire in the Nakamooks’ basement, and not for the gunmen at the mall. You can check your logs against your caller ID.

  “Hold on, sir,” he said.

  A click.

  Now they’d know I wasn’t stupid and they’d know I was Gurion; they’d assume, now, that none of us were watching TV. I saw that was good, especially the last part: now, if they decided to raid us, they might not spend manpower preventing live cameras from shooting the raid. We’d be that much more likely to see them coming.

  Another click, and then a different man’s voice, a Texan-sounding one.

  “Wayne Persphere, crisis negotiator,” he said. “I’m speaking to Gurion?”

  You’re not Roth.

  “You said thirty minutes. It’s hardly been twenty.”

  My call-waiting beeped—Eliyahu.

  Hold on, Wayne Persphere.

  I clicked over. Eliyahu? I said.

  “The Levinson went to the bathroom,” he said. “He heard someone breathing in one of the stalls, and came back into the gym and told me. Long made short, BryGuy Maholtz now lays at my feet, here in the bathroom, head and shoulders sopping wet from the multiple swirlies the Five, after binding his arms and legs, administered.”

  Did he call anybody?

  “He said he called the police, but they were already here, and he wasn’t able to tell them anything that they wanted to know. He said they asked about numbers, but he didn’t know the numbers—he’d been hiding in here since before we cleared the gym. He says so, at least.”

  You believe him? I said.

  “I do,” said Eliyahu. “He’s too scared to lie. He’s crying his face off, begging we don’t kill him. Should we keep him here, or—”

  No, I said. I know something we can do with him. We’re on our way to the Cage—tell the Five to bring him. Right now I have to go, though. I’m talking to the cops.

  I took a deep breath, and clicked back over.

  Roth? I said.

  “Wayne Persphere,” said Persphere.

  Wayne Persphere, I said. Wayne Persphere, I said. Wayne Persphere, I said, you are not Philip Roth. I want to talk to Roth. Put Roth on the phone.