The Instructions

  STEVENS: Any chance you’d be willing to forward us that email now, Ms. Fine?

  FINE: Did you broadcast what I said? My message to Sandy?

  STEVENS: Yes, Ms. Fine.

  FINE: I’ve just put the little arrow on the the SEND button and I clicked.

  So far so good: both entrances covered; Benji at my side, soon to go to the nurse’s; June at my side, forever in love with me; seven Israelites behind us because I was their leader; a less-outnumbered Side of Damage in the gym; scholars presumably approaching the school. What else needed doing? Those seven Israelites were standing there, about to start playing slapslap. I could send them back to the gym to watch TV and potentially cause the Side to feel smaller, or, better yet, I could beef up security.

  I sent two of the seven to bolster Ben-Wa’s crew, and the last five I took to the library. The library’s east wall had a giant picture window, highly visible to the cops and the media outside. It was just the right spot to display another hostage—a fake one this time. Even if the cops got desperate enough to convince themselves that they could lightning-strike Forrest’s or Ben-Wa’s crew before Maholtz or Boystar could be done deadly harm, this third displayed hostage—too far from either entrance to be gotten to quickly—would keep them in check.

  I halted our march just outside of the library, and I said to the smallest, most nervous-looking soldier, who said his name was Fox, though (he told me as quickly as he possibly could) he spelled it Focks when he signed his poems, which were “poems about the difference between language and noise, which all poems are, just not so overtly, not that I’m an expert, I’m really an amateur, but that’s my project, which I can only hope is better than me, something to grow into, something to master before I die, I hope”: You’re the prisoner, Fox. They’ll bring you in with your hands behind your back and sit you in a chair in front of the big window. Keep your hands behind you the entire time, and look as scared as you possibly can.

  “What if I itch?”

  Tell the others in a crying voice, as if you’re in pain, and they’ll pretend to rough you up, but really they’ll scratch you wherever you itch.

  “What if I itch on the wang?”

  On the wang?

  “The wang,” said Fox.

  Try scratching with your thighs.

  “That never works.”

  I—

  “I’m just kidding, Gurion. I can handle a wang-itch. The secret is to picture a nice blue stream full of fishes who are friendly except when there’s heat, which makes them grow fangs and try to eat the hot thing.”

  Okay, I said.

  “Really,” he said. “Because an itch is heat, so you cool the itch down so the fishes don’t tear off your itchy-hot penis.”

  That works?

  “Always works.”

  I guess that’s smart, then. Why don’t you just scratch, though?

  “I thought I was the prisoner.”

  I mean in the past—when have you had a wang-itch that you couldn’t just scratch?

  “If you scratch and someone sees you, they think you’re playing with yourself.”

  Who does?

  “Girls?”

  I don’t think that’s true. Why do you think that’s true?

  Fox blushed.

  Anyway, I said, in the future don’t sweat that. Just scratch your wang.

  “Okay,” he said. “Are you really the messiah?”

  I might be, I said.

  “I hope so,” he said, “but if you’re not, then I guess that’s still okay.”

  Good, I said. Now—

  “Because all these motherfuckers,” Fox continued, “used to laugh off their motherfucking heads at me is why, all because I have the soul of a poet, a delicate soul, even in torment. They’d laugh at me to see the faces I’d make and it made me make faces I didn’t want to make, then they’d laugh even more at those faces when I made them. I don’t think they’ll do that anymore, though,” he said. “I really fucked them up back there, really tore ’em a new one. I broke someone’s nose, I think, fucked him right up, and I’m sure I shot at least two guys down. No one outfoxed me, that’s for certain. If they tried to outfox me I’d fuck them up. And then, near the end, I found Blonde Lonnie, funny Lonnie friend, who he thought he was so funny, fucking with Focks when he focksed around, always laughing his head off on the bus with everyone. I found him and I kicked him in the ear and he wiggled. That’s a good thing, right? I know that it’s good. I feel very good about it. I don’t feel bad.”

  Good, I said. Don’t feel bad.

  “I don’t and I won’t. I totally refuse to. Fuck those motherfuckers. No skin off my nose. They had it coming and I really gave it to them. All of us did. Our souls are all delicate. All of us are poets inside of ourselves. Focks those motherfuckers. Laughing motherfocksers. Atheists in foxholes. Fuck them all to hell in motherfucking fur handbags…”

  Benji put his good arm around Fox’s shoulder.

  “Hey,” Benji told him. “They got what was coming. They got what they should’ve.”

  “They got what I fucking gave them, Benji Nakamook. I was what was coming. Focks was. Me.”

  “That’s right,” said Benji.

  “Now you’re this hugger, but you used to be like them.”

  “I didn’t,” Benji said.

  “You think you’re a poet because you hate Slokum and protect Scott Mookus, but you don’t have the delicate soul of a poet, you’re a killer who hugs me but still a fucking killer. You would have been an Indian if you didn’t burn a house.”

  “You don’t know me,” Benji told him. “Don’t say that.”

  And just as if Benji had moved to strike him, Fox flinched his shoulders and told him, “I’m shook. Don’t hit me, just shook. I’m talking this way because I’m shook and weird. If you say your soul’s delicate, I’ll try to believe you.”

  June took the kid’s hands between both of hers. “You’re fine,” she said. “You just got shook.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’m shook. I’m Fox. We’re poets, right?”

  “Maybe Fox here should return to the gym,” Benji said.

  “No,” Fox said, “it was just a weird moment. I was shook and I’m weird, now I’m steady again.”

  You sure? I said.

  “Positron Milosevich. Yes sir Arafat. Fucken A Humperdink. Focksen A right.”

  June seemed to agree.

  The others had started to simple slapslap. I told them to stop. Listen, I said, when you enter the library, brandish your weapons and keep on brandishing. Once Fox is sitting, two of you point them unloaded at him, and scratch him if he itches, but make it look violent. The other two stand lookout, right up at the window, making faces like killers—they’ll be watching you zoomed.

  “What if they shoot us?”

  They won’t shoot kids. Anyone approaches, three of you shoot Fox with unloaded weapons til the approachers back off, and one of you calls me.

  “Which one?” said one of them.

  You, I said, and gave him a phone and programmed the number.

  “Will you rotate us out like the others?” they said.

  Yes, I said.

  “What about Fox? They’ll know we’re faking if you rotate Fox.”

  You’re right, I said. I said, Fox has to stay.

  “That’s okay,” Fox said. “There’s no cable anyway.”

  “They’re watching the news in there.”

  “That’s the worst kind of all of the kinds of no cable.”

  “But we’re on the news, Fox.”

  “I am the Fox News.”

  “You’re really weird, Fox.”

  “So I’m weird,” Fox said. “I’m the first to admit it. I even said it first. At the same time as Focks. I was shook and I was weird. Now I’m steady and weird. The prisoner is weird. A weird steady prisoner who doesn’t feel bad.”

  Benji and June and I went to Nurse Clyde’s. In a big metal cabinet, I found gauze and tape, then a box
of tongue-depressors in a drawer in Clyde’s desk. I sat across from Benji, who sat in Clyde’s chair, quietly watching his hand change color. June brought us water in paper cups. I wrapped my wrist first, tight in the gauze, so I wouldn’t hurt it worse when I took care of Benji.

  “You said you’d replace the guys guarding the hostages,” he said.

  Those guys can wait.

  “I can go to the gym and recruit,” said June.

  Stay here with us. With me, I said.

  “You shouldn’t make them wait.”

  I said, I’ll call Eliyahu and tell him what to do.

  “You don’t want him leaving the gym,” Benji said.

  He doesn’t need to leave, I said. He can just—

  “You don’t want him just sending them, either,” June said. “What if they’re scared like they were before? They might run or screw up. Someone needs to go with them and be in charge.”

  Are you scared? I said.

  “No,” June said. “Not while I’m with you. But they’re not with you.”

  You won’t be either if I send you, I said.

  “True,” she said, “and I might get scared, but I’d be more scared of what would happen if I abandoned you.”

  So would I.

  “Good,” she said. “So I’ll go and recruit.”

  No, I said. I’ll have Eliyahu send Vincie to be in charge.

  “You don’t want Vincie leaving the gym, either,” Benji said.

  This was true.

  Don’t recruit, I said to June. Assign, I said. Assign on my orders; and only use Israelites, and no ex-Shovers. Five to the library, two to Ben-Wa, and three to Cody. Tell them who’s in charge, and if they ask where I am, just tell them I’m protecting them.

  “I’ll see you in the gym,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek and then she was gone.

  When I finished my wrist, I told Benji to lay his hand on the blotter, palm facing up.

  He winced when he did it, brought his hand to his chest.

  Sorry, I said.

  I went to the Quiet Room, got a pillow off a cot. While in there, I found aspirins on a shelf above the sink and swallowed three with water from the tap. I returned to the desk, set the pillow on the blotter.

  Lay your hand on the pillow.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  A little, I said.

  My mom had shown me movies. I did the best I could. The bad hand was nearly twice the size of the good one. The redder parts were hardening and growing purpler. Black blood beneath the nails pushed up on the enamel in oval formations. I broke in half one of the tongue depressors and taped it tight to the back of his pinky. Then I taped another to the back of his ringfinger. Those were the darkest parts; the ones that the padlock had made direct contact with. The rest of the hand was busted up too, though. Lots of small fractured bones in too small a space. The best I could do was to cushion it. I wrapped the gauze thick as a boxing glove.

  “Stupid,” Benji muttered, as I started on the wrapping.

  I said, Don’t call me stupid.

  He hadn’t and I knew it and he knew I knew it and he showed me by ignoring the statement.

  “I knew the lock broke my hand,” he said. “Anyone would’ve known. What do I do, though? As soon as we go down, I hit him square on the jaw with the broken hand. On purpose with the broken hand. I had time to think about it: Which should I hit him with?… Hit him with the broken one—that’s what I decided.”

  Why? I said.

  “Guy in juvie who taught me how to fight always said to use the blow that got used on you—that right after you block something, the part of your body you blocked with numbs out and the endorphins or whatever rush there to numb it out more, to protect and strengthen it. I don’t even know if that’s true about the chemicals, but the guy had me throwing knees and elbows against the bedposts for training, and after the first one it always got easier, I could always strike harder, at least that’s how it felt. I never did it with a broken bone, though, and if you’d asked me before, I’d’ve told you it would be a fucken stupid thing to try. If you’d asked me in that split-second when I decided to cave Bam’s jaw with this broken hand, I’d’ve said the same thing. But I did it anyway.”

  But why? I said.

  “Cause I knew it would work. And it did. It worked. I hit that kid harder than I’ve ever hit anyone—no doubt about it. With my left hand, too, my weak hand. The give of his jaw when I landed the punch was—it was something. I heard things, like, detaching… except now I’ve got this mangled hand. Fucken stupid. Kinda thing that’s gonna hurt for the rest of my life. It’ll rain and I’ll whine. I guess at least it’s my weak hand. How’s your wrist, though? How’s that extra half-lip growing off your bottom one, handsome?”

  I’ll be fine, I said. My chin hurts the most, but whatever. It’s fine.

  “So why are we still here?”

  Where? I said.

  “The nurse’s,” he said. “I’m fine, you’re fine…”

  We’re getting fixed up, I said.

  “We’re already fixed up. Splinted and wrapped. Ready to fight.”

  Here. Take these, I said.

  I put two Xanaxes next to his watercup.

  “Warmth and well-being? Pain without care?”

  Yeah, I said.

  “Why would I want that?”

  You want the other kind instead?

  “Four to pass out?”

  What’s the tone? I said.

  “Maybe I want the SpEdspeed.”

  You don’t, I said.

  “You know that how?”

  What’s your problem, Benji?

  Benji said “Tch,” and dropped the pills in his mouth. He chewed them, wincing, chugged both our waters. “So let’s go,” he said.

  I futzed with my bandage and tried to look purposeful.

  STEVENS: Thanks again, Bob. Indeed, the number of onlookers outside of the Aptakisic Junior High School building in Deerbrook Park does appear to be doubling by the minute. The police have asked us at NBC to ask you folks at home in the Chicagoland area to not, I repeat, to not make your way to Aptakisic. Three concerned parents of boys believed by police to be members of Maccabee’s allegedly Zionist terror organization, the Side of Damage, have already been taken into custody for crossing the cordon in the parking lot. In the meantime, the Chicago Transit Authority just released the following statement: “Between aproximately 8:30 and 9:15 this morning, CTA received four reports from Red and Brown Line operators stating that at least two hundred middle-school-aged boys had boarded their trains without any apparent supervision. As per protocol, CTA sent word of these reports to the Chicago Police. CTA cannot conjecture on how the police responded, but CTA did its part by the book, according to the rules, and as per protocol.” We go live now to a press conference outside of police headquarters in Chicago’s Rogers Park district, the police district that is home to both of those Jewish parochial schools formerly attended by the terrorist Gurion Maccabee.

  SEAN O’MALLEY, POLICE SPOKESPERSON: Now I’ll take a couple questions.

  REPORTER: We’ve just learned that the Chicago police received word of a mass migration of students on the Red and the Brown Line el-trains as early as 8:30 this morning. That seems to contradict the statement you made just minutes ago.

  O’MALLEY: As far as I know, the first we heard of any of this was 9 a.m. We sent truancy cruisers and graffiti-buster squads to the el stations at which both groups of kids had boarded. There wasn’t any graffiti. There weren’t any kids.

  REPORTER: You said “both groups,” but you—or at least the CTA—received four calls. What about the other two groups?

  O’MALLEY: Right. We believe this was two groups of kids. Each orginated at red-line stations; each transferred to the Brown Line.

  REPORTER: But how can you be sure of that?

  O’MALLEY: Go back to New York, funnyguy. Go back to Boston. Wherever you’re from.

  REPORTERS: (UPROAR OF QUE
STIONS)

  O’MALLEY: What’s wrong with you guys, huh? You’re the ones showing emails on the television before you show ’em to the police. Thing is, you should have this part cracked already, but you’re numbskulls and douchebags. And just to be clear: I don’t speak for the mayor here, when I suggest that you’re numbskulls, and I don’t speak for the city when I call you douchebags, but I am nonetheless in earnest, you lot of pantywaist hacks. Why don’t you khaki-clad yokels take a walk to any el station in the city and have a look at a map on the wall before you try to question the authority of the Chicago PD? Course I’m not really asking you take a walk on those spindly legs. And I’m not even suggesting you use one of your handy PDAs there to Google an el map because if you’re too numbskull to think of that yourself it’s cause you don’t know how to use those things to begin with is what I’m saying. Or maybe you’re so good at using ’em you forgot about maps because you’re all GPS now. I don’t know what your problem is, actually. I’m just sayin, here. No more hostility from youse. I’m two days from retirement, I got racquetball with Richie Daley at 1:00, and I will not abide it. This hostility being what I mean by “it.” So look: That email’s addressed to kids from two schools. You got the Solomon Whoever and the Northside Whatsit. They’re going north to the suburbs, these kids, right? They’re going north to the suburbs from Rogers Park, right? What do you think? They have to get on the Red Line, and then they gotta get on the Brown Line. And oh, take a look at the attachment that came attached to that email you showed on TV before you showed it to the police. Oh dearie me! In the email there, it says: Take the Red Line to Howard. Transfer to the Brown Line. Now. That latter transfer? That was almost two hours ago when they did it, and the trains have had some slowdowns, sure, but they ain’t that slow. All of which is to say those kids are not in Chicago anymore. Those kids are in the suburbs and have been for a while. You’re bothering the wrong cops, fellas, and in my closing statement, on this, what is certain to be my last press conference before retirement, I, with rapidly blossoming flowers of joy in my old Irish heart, would, on behalf of myself, like to say, just one last time, to you, my spindly-legged semi-literate douchebag pantywaist hackish yokel reporter friends: No. Further. Fucken. Comment.