“She won’t get hurt,” said Samuel to Shpritzy. “You won’t get hurt,” he said to the Ashley. “We’ll make you Wave 1. You’ll be the first freed. Put out your wrists and let your boyfriend tie them.”
Shpritzy looked my way.
You’ll see her tomorrow, I said. She’ll be fine.
He bent to the floor and unlaced a shoe.
Solly came over, chinned air at Jelly. “She says she’s staying and she won’t leave the body.”
She’s staying then, June said. She won’t leave the body.
“She’s an Israelite, no?”
She’s staying, I said.
We went up the bleachers.
Vincie was tying Starla’s wrists with a cord while Leevon tied Main Man’s, Ben-Wa tied Ansul’s, the Flunky the Janitor’s, Salvador Dingle’s, Chunkstyle Boshka’s, Mangey Ronrico’s, Fulton Jerry’s, Forrest Christian’s, Jesse Stevie’s, Cody Beauregard’s, Chubnik 1 Momo’s, and Chubnik 2 3’s.
Then Vincie tied Leevon’s, Ben-Wa the Flunky’s, Salvador Chunkstyle’s, Mangey Fulton’s, Forrest Jesse’s, and Cody Chubnik 1’s and 2’s the both.
And Vincie tied Salvador’s, Ben-Wa Forrest’s, and Mangey Cody’s.
And then Vincie tied Mangey’s and Ben-Wa’s the both.
And Vincie revolved and he gave me a cord.
“Not too tight.”
A choked sound escaped me.
“Fuck that,” said Vincie, leaning in close. “Don’t fuck us up. We’re holding it down here. Main Main’s watching and Main Man’s fine. He says you’ll raise Benji right after you walk through the Michigan Valley, which I think is in Kansas. The nutmeg—fuck it—God bless the Boystar. Just don’t unconfuse him. Don’t fuck us up. We don’t want to see it. We’re not Call-Me-Sandy. Get your eyes sleepy. Slacken the cramp. Good, that’s good. It works, I know. I don’t know why. It does though. It works. So remember who showed you and leave it at that, and that’s the goodbye, the big stupid cheezy fucken cornball goodbye, the what-Vincie-taught-me you’ve so long awaited, the time that you’ll fondly recall forever, when your this was still that, and your that was a something, and that something wasn’t jaded by X or Y, or clouded by A or B or C, and the difference between P and Q was still clear, and kenobi kenobi kenobi, okay? Now reach in my pocket. This part’s important. This part’s more important than keep your eyes sleepy. That doesn’t mean stop. Keep your eyes sleepy while you reach in my pocket—not that one, the other one. That one. Good. That’s our friend’s lighter. He had a whole bunch so it’s only one of many and there’s nothing at all to get leaky and gooze about. Just some lighter. Keep your eyes sleepy. It’s my lighter, now. Don’t fuck us up. It’s not even the one you burnt that fuck’s head with. It’s just one I took when our friend wasn’t looking. He’d never even used it. Don’t fuck us up. It still had the sticker on the back with the warning. It’s only a lighter. Last week we sparred and he got me in a hold and I brought us to the ground and was still in the hold, but this lighter was peaking outside of his pocket. My hand was right there. Keep your eyes sleepy. My arm wouldn’t move, but my fingers were mine and I reached out my fingers and plucked out the lighter. I said I submitted, and as we got up, our friend started telling me what I’d done wrong, how I got in a position that forced me to submit, what I could’ve done different to avoid that position, all in that way-of-the-fucken-samurai voice, and I told him fuck off and showed him his lighter. I told him, ‘Fuck off, man, I got your fucken lighter,’ and he told me who cares, the lighter was mine, I could keep the fucken lighter, he had hundreds more lighters and lighters were free if you had baggy pockets and command of two hands, so stick the fucken lighter in my baggy fucken pocket and shut the fuck up and learn how to fight. ‘Whatever,’ I said, ‘I got your fucken lighter. You took your baggy pockets and commanded your hands and you know how to fight, but the lighter’s not yours, it’s mine,’ I told him. He winked to distract me, and he shot out his freak-arm, snatched the fucken lighter straight out of my fist, then lit it one time so I could see that it worked, then he threw it in the street, and it fell in the sewer, so actually, I’m wrong, this lighter isn’t that one, it’s a whole nother lighter I stole from his bag when he went to take a piss, or another one I got from his coat when I borrowed it—doesn’t matter anyway. That’s all I’m saying. The lighter’s a lighter that belonged to our friend, one of twenty or thirty I stole this year from the hundreds he took from the thousands on the counters of ten or so local minimarts. If I had another lighter instead of this lighter, we’d use the one I had, and nothing would be different, not even if our friend wasn’t dead it wouldn’t. We’d do the same thing we’re about to do. You’d reach in the hole in the lining of your jacket—we know about the hole, we just never risked it, you’re weird about that jacket, really fucken sentimental, and we worried we’d tear the hole bigger if we invaded—he’s here or he’s not, you’d still reach in the hole, just like you’re doing—right, that’s good—and you’d pull out the treasure you keep so well hidden—just like that, exactly like that—and you’d do the next thing, the obvious thing—see, you’re already doing it—and pass me mine first, cause you like me the best and our time’s running out and here comes your—thanks, man—here comes your boy, with news of the news, and you’d tell him five minutes, tell him wait til we’re finished, til we burn past the letters—you heard what he said, kid, back the fuck off, I don’t know your name even, none of us do—Emmanuel Liebman, that’s a lot of fucken name, I’m Vincie Portite and I’ve never even heard of you, none of us have, so go line your friends up and leave us alone til we burn past the letters—tell him, insist, yeah, just like that—no, Brooklyn, not you, you stick around here—and three at a time now, you’d light one for June and one for Starla and one for Leevon and pass them along, just like that, and two at a time you’d light one for Wolf, who’s decided in a rush of blood to the head to take up the habit, the best cure for crying, it always works—you cannot fucken sob while sucking on smoke, make sure to inhale, Wolf—and the other for Brooklyn, who’s that kind of kid now, he knows it or not—you are, now you know—and light one for you now and pass the pack down with our dead friend’s lighter for whoever I’ve forgotten, they can light up in pairs, one holding the box and the other takes out from it—takes two out, Flunky—and the first one lights them, passes down the goods to the next pair in line, and so on and so on and—don’t gank the lighter, Dingle, you bancer, I’ll cover your face in a brown paper bag and kill you six times, fucken wager on that—and now we’re all smoking in the Aptakisic bleachers in the middle of the schoolday, and now we can talk, let’s talk, can we talk? I’ll start us off. This is how I’ll start: It’s the middle of the schoolday. We’re smoking in the bleachers. To smoke in the bleachers in the middle of the schoolday—it’s fucken good. Anyone who says different isn’t really a human. Even Brodsky, the cops, even fucken Botha—they know in their fuckfaced hearts this is good. They wish they were us, smoking up here. They wish they were us and we don’t have to wish. Now you. It’s your turn. Say something smart. No? Not yet? I’ll go again: Haven’t you always wanted to do this? It turns out I’ve always wanted to do this. This part’s fucken good, right? This part is good. Now give us a blessing. I’m nearly past the letters. Don’t fuck me up here. Say something smart. Keep your fucken eyes sleepy, Gurion, and speak.”
The news broke the note and the barricade parted. Samuel assigned each hostage a number, one through seven, four to a wave, and Cory and Maholtz were locked in Nurse Clyde’s. We gathered in columns outside the front entrance. Hands tied before them, their sleeves gripped by scholars, seven hostages—one from each wave—slouched to look captured on each of our borders. Emmanuel and Samuel headed up columns adjacent to the central one, headed by Brooklyn, who carried the megaphone, calling out orders. June and I marched northwest of the middle—columns twelve and thirteen, row eleven—so we couldn’t be seen by the cops who were flanking us, nor by those who, eventually, trailed us. Those in the choppers
, of course, could see us, but from that point of view we could not be distinguished from any other soldiers, not with our hoods on; not unless they knew we’d hold hands—they didn’t.
The march proceeded as seen on TV.
As we crossed Rand Road, Brooklyn ordered the first wave of hostages freed, then freed a wave for each block we traversed. In crocodile tears, the freed hostages ran all thirty-plus yards to the news crews and cops to the west, north, and south of us.
Three blocks east of the two-hill field we met the second army, led by Itzik Leslie Bienstein-Pikowitz, a seventh-grade boy from Hillel Torah Day who Shai Bar-Sholem used to bunk with at camp. At Brooklyn’s command, this Itzik halted and parted his army. We got in front of them, returned their Good Yontifs as they lined up behind us, and the hostages on what had been our rear border were passed back westward, to our new rear border. We picked up the march til Sheridan Road.
A ravine divided the road from the beach, and the third army’s frontline—Feingold foremost—was in the ravine, their rearguard’s heels a yard from the water. Eliyahu ordered them to halt and part, then ordered the second army part and flank us. We freed the last wave and crossed the ravine, advancing eastward til we all stood on sand, a thousand soldiers in forty columns, and June and I went to the front, the shoreline.
Eliyahu of Brooklyn gave me the soundgun. I unfolded my scripture and gave it to June. We revolved to face the soldiers, our backs to the lake. A chopper overhead, helped out by a cloud, was blocking the sun. The sun was descending. The sabbath was coming. In Israel, the sabbath was already there. I knew that I’d spend the next sabbath in Israel, that that’s what it was that my mom thought I wanted. I’d known for some minutes, ten or fifteen. The house of Yakov. It was no kind of code. It was barely a metaphor. My mother’d arranged us a haven in Israel on the single condition that no one else died. Someone else died, though. Nakamook died. They would let me stay anyway. Of course they would let me. Of course they would let me, and my mother would make me. All of this occurred to me right around the time the army crested the high hill.
I’m going away for sure, I’d told June.
“I know,” she’d said, “but it’ll be fine. We’ll miss each other, but we already do that. We already miss each other more than we don’t, right? It’s not like we’re used to seeing each other. And you’re not the kind of boy who other boys mess with, so we don’t have to worry that that’ll happen. You’ll read a lot of books and write me letters. I’ll write you back, and read the books you read, and try to learn Hebrew, and visit you every time I can. The juvie’s in Bolling. It isn’t that far. And I know my mom’ll drive me, I’ve figured it out: if my boyfriend’s in juvie, he’s a criminal, true, but I’m not having sex. I won’t even have to say that—that’s just how she thinks. Gurion. Gurion. Hey. Gurion. Hey Gurion—what? Don’t. Not Benji. You have to wait to think about Benji. You’ll ruin him forever if you do it right now. Trust me. I know. You know that I know. You’ll ruin everything. You’re ruining everything.”
I—
“No. Listen. You have to listen. If you think about him now, you’ll make him one way. You’ll make him simple. You’ll make him a story. His death will be the climax. You’ll bend who he was to make sense of his death. You’ll have to edit most of him out to do that. You’ll forget he was a bully, or forget he was your friend. You’ll forget he was a dickhead a lot of the time, or you’ll forget there was kindness in his dickhead heart. And that’s not the worst part. It’s not even close. The worst part’s the story you’ll make of the world. If you make him a story right now, Jellybean, right now when its fresh, when his death seems the climax, you’ll bend the whole world so it fits that story. It’ll be unavoidable. You’ll make the world a story that’s able to contain him, your edited version, your Nakamook story. His death will be the climax of the story of everything. The scholars will be secondary. The Side will be secondary. I will, too. The purpose of the world will be to kill Benji Nakamook, and you will be reduced to a witness, Gurion. Don’t do that to us. Don’t make this a lie. It isn’t a lie I’ll agree to tell. You’re going away. You’ll be locked up. Think about that. How that is suck. That’s what you were thinking about before I tried to comfort you with the story of what it would actually be like—the letters and the books and the visits and baked goods. Did I mention the baked goods? I’ll bring you baked goods. I’ll learn how to bake. I’ll listen to Hebrew on tape while I bake. But take my whole story with a grain of salt. Doubt what I’m saying. Doubt what I said. Worry about that. Go back to that. Don’t think about Benji. Think about us. Tell yourself I’m probably living in a fantasy. Tell yourself that June, even though she means well, won’t follow through, or at least that she might not—that June, herself, the first time you met her, told you that no one could promise forever, and despite what it looks like, she probably hasn’t revised her opinion. Can you do that? Do that. Do that, okay? Doubt me a little and we’ll be alright.”
Okay, I’d said.
“Good,” she’d said.
“There is damage,” I said to the thousand soldiers.
The ones who’d been jumping to get a better look at me settled on their tiptoes, quiet, listening.
A gust off the lake blew a hiss through the soundgun and flapped my scripture, which June held high, and water crept up and splashed at our ankles. Our hands, abiding the shiver, squeezed, and we took a step forward—that’s all there was room for; the beach was packed tight—and got splashed again.
“There was always damage,” I said to the soldiers, as the cloud and the chopper that were blocking the sun began drifting apart, “and there will be more damage,” I said to the soldiers, as a ray from the sun touched a chink in June’s retina, and she, refusing to lower my scripture, let go of my hand to cover her face in order to avoid misting gooze on the soldiers, and proceeded to sneeze a sneeze no one heard, for the noise of the lake being riven was deafening.
No one quite saw what they thought they were seeing, and to this day few see what’s truly before them as they marvel at the footage the helicopters shot and choke on huzzahs or cry out, “The horror!” or cry out, “Moshiach!” or postulate U.S. government conspiracies or Hollywood-Zionist-Media ploys or remark with false calm on aberrant tectonics, lunar events, anomolous plate-shifts, barometric hyperflux, electomagnetic energy bursts, non-contiguous molecular planes, destabilized particles, rogue nuclear states, comets, sunspots, or paratidal deviance.
It’s true that a valley had formed in the lake, that the valley was the width of our forty columns, and its miles-high walls, half a foot thick, occluded by foam and sand and stones and baffled fish and swaying vegetation, were smooth as glass on their valley-facing sides, and it’s true that the walls cast all their spray outward, and its floor was level and as smooth as the walls, and it’s true that the valley, from its moment of creation, stretched east through the lake past the vanishing point, and it’s true that the soldiers marched into the valley while I remained standing just east of its mouth watching my east-marching army recede, and true June was standing just southwest of me, and it’s true I reached back and took hold of June’s hand, goozed though it was, and true that as soon as our palms pressed together the walls of the valley began to splash down on the heads of the soldiers, threatening to drown them, and true that I then let go of June’s hand and all the falling water and debris it contained once again became walls, and it’s true June thought I’d been icked by the gooze and she wiped off her hand before grabbing mine again, and true that, again, the walls began to splash down, and that this time I didn’t let go of June’s hand, but that all that was falling again became walls. It’s also true, however, that I’d moved my feet. I’d moved my feet just a couple inches west, a couple inches outside the mouth of the valley. That’s something nearly everybody fails to see.
And it’s true we held hands for the next few minutes, standing in place while the scholars pressed east, deeper and deeper into the valley, and true that w
hat we said was not prolific. The lipreader-dictated subtitles are true. It’s true June said, “You have to go.”
It’s true I responded, Fuck Him, I don’t.
It’s true she said, “Please.”
It’s true I said, No. Enough is enough.
It’s true that I tried, one last time, in hopes He was bluffing, to enter the valley holding June’s hand, and it’s true that the walls began to splash down, and it’s true I removed my foot from the valley and that all that was falling again became walls.
And it’s true the police, some fifty police, had, by then, begun to close in. It’s true that I told them, as they’ve faithfully reported, that if they came any closer I’d stop what I was doing.
I’ll stop what I’m doing is exactly what I said.
And they came no closer; that is true.
And it’s true the implications of what I’d said were that I was holding the valley open, and that the valley would close and drown all the scholars if I were to cease to hold it open—it’s true I implied I was performing a miracle. And it’s true I knew that’s what I implied, and true that’s what I intended to imply. It’s also true my implications were false, and true I knew my implications were false, and true as well, and finally true, that there wasn’t any miracle—a feat of God certainly, a spectacle stinking of divine interference, a holy stunt sure, but not a miracle. Only a test.
“Please go,” June said. “This isn’t a test. I mean it,” she said. “It’s not like when I kicked you and made you bring my sketchbook. I won’t love you less if you go,” she said.
I said, ‘Fuck Him,’ I said.
I raised the soundgun.
“Wait,” she said. “Let’s wait then,” she said. “This part we don’t have to rush, okay? Let’s wait here a minute and look at the valley.”
And it’s true we waited and looked at the valley, and it’s true it was more a chasm than a valley—a valley a space between graded planes, between hills or mountains that might be worth trying to climb if you wanted—but still it was less a defile than a valley—a defile a thin breach through which only one person could pass at a time, a space that an army would have to break ranks in order to trek—and yet I’d been thinking, before June said valley, that it was a defile, and that seems important, how I’d formerly thought of it, especially in light of how I came to think of it, and maybe it is, except not like you think, but only because I’d decided to call it whatever June Watermark thought we should call it.