The Instructions

  With the possible exception of certain eighth-grade girls (their preference for the swingset had always seemed fake), everyone’s favorite part of the playground was the territory ceilinged by the bigtoy’s platform. Five steel poles that were set in cement held the platform level seven feet above the earth. The platform’s gapless planks, rubberized for traction, kept the territory dry in the rain and the snow, and the shade it provided was thorough enough to make everything it covered look blue. This shade, in the morning, was perfectly square-shaped. To slapslap within it—especially when other kids were gathered outside it—made you feel like a performer in a reverse-lit arena. And it wasn’t just the best spot at Schechter to slapslap. It was the best spot at Schechter to do nearly anything. Gossip you heard there always seemed urgent, and secrets you told completely secure. The baseball-card kids would go there to trade. The handheld kids would crouch there and game. If you cried with your back pressed to one of the poles, your sobs would leave your throat so heavy and loud that by the time you slid down to sit in the pebbles, your palms on your cheeks, your fingers all gooey, you’d know you’d never cry about the same thing again. After every school-dance, some couple firstkissed there. It was where you would meet to share cigarettes on weekends. At night, it was said, teens went there to drink, to lay in the pebbles and go to third base. So if you wanted a spot there before the first bell, you had to rise early, rain or shine. No more than nine kids could fit uncrammed within the boundaries. No more than six if you wanted to slapslap.

  Everyone wanted to slapslap.

  Overthrow

  It was from under the bigtoy that we’d end the reign of simple, me and Emmanuel and Samuel Diamond. On my second Monday at Schechter—August 27, 2001—our plan got formed during lunch:

  First we made a pact that we wouldn’t simple slapslap, not with each other or anyone else. Second, we’d take the territory every morning. The schoolday began at 8:30, so at 7:25 I’d meet Emmanuel and Samuel at Rosemont and Artesian, and if the weather was nice we’d walk the twelve blocks, and if it was lousy we’d ride the bus. Either way we’d get to school by five to eight, beating the earliest early-morning regulars by at least ten minutes, and we’d get under the bigtoy and slapslap. There’d be room enough for three more kids. If not the best simple slapslappers at school, we knew they’d be some of the most die-hard; they’d have had to rise extra early to get their spots, too.

  Six slapslappers under the bigtoy = enough slapslappers to keep three slapslaps going at once. Owing to our pact, though, no more than one of these slapslaps would ever be simple. Either two of the three would be real and one simple, or only two slapslaps—one real and one simple—at a time would be played, while the third member of each group spectated.

  In the latter case, the crowd who gathered to watch—the crowd was always thick by a quarter after eight—would protest that the space taken up by the third players was wasteful = a lot of pressure on those players to get a third slapslap going. Since the other three wouldn’t have a pact, their third would be less able to withstand that pressure than ours. Thus, the former case would obtain, if not by the first or second day then certainly by the third = Two reals, one simple. That is how we would get others to start playing real slapslap with us.

  There were four main reasons why they’d keep playing real slapslap. As previously noted, to master real slapslap entailed mastery of all the skills of simple slapslap, plus more, and therefore the more the simple slapslappers played real, the more dominant they’d become at simple. Second, once they got used to playing real, simple would seem a lot less fun. Third, crowds liked controversy. They liked to argue with umps and refs. Being that real slapslap entailed scoring controversy where simple didn’t, the crowd around the bigtoy would pay more attention to the real slapslaps than the simple ones. And then finally, there was me. I was unbeatable. Simple, real, it didn’t matter. Few could even score on me. And who was I? Who was Gurion ben-Judah if not the new kid who swore and insisted real slapslap was the ultimate?******** They would want, if not to be like me, then to beat me. In order to do either, they’d have to real.

  That was the softpower part of our plan to end the reign of simple at Schechter.

  The hardpower part was to be put in effect exactly two weeks from the day the softpower part started: I would challenge all comers to whichever form of slapslap they wanted to play. If anyone beat me, then Samuel and Emmanuel and I would permanently relinquish the territory under the bigtoy. If no one beat me, the bigtoy would be declared a real-only zone.

  This hardpower part we thought of as a contingency plan. We assumed the softpower part would end simple on its own.

  It almost did. By recess of the thirteenth day since the softpower part’s enactment—September 10—we anticipated only two challengers: Shmooly Gooses and Joshua Pritikin. Whereas Gooses was a slow boy who couldn’t grasp the rules of real, let alone the psychology of faux-faking, Pritikin was not just a champion of simple, but a completely uncompromising loyalist. He was the one simple slapslapper in all of Schechter who’d refused beneath the bigtoy to cave to the crowd. He’d point to us and tell them, “Blame it on these three.” But no one would blame it on us. Instead they’d boo Pritikin, call him a mamzer, demand that he real with our third.

  Though I admired Pritikin for being such a hardhead, I didn’t doubt for a second I’d rout him. Shmooly Gooses only scored when someone let him, and we’d already decided that for his sake we’d make an exception. To ban Shmooly from playing simple under the bigtoy = banning Shmooly for being slow. He really couldn’t understand the rules of real, so he’d still be allowed to simple in the territory, as would anyone else—just as long as they were doing it with Shmooly.

  In short, we saw the hardpower part of the plan as a formality. Pritikin was honorable, so we knew he’d take the challenge, we knew I’d shut him down, and that he’d accept the consequences. Shmooly I’d go through the motions of almost losing to, and I’d then, for his benefit, explain to him and the crowd that his near-defeat of me granted him the privilege described above.

  Victory Undeniable

  We were halfway to Schechter when the first plane hit the Trade Center. I was warming up with Samuel when the second one struck. We didn’t know about any of it. Neither did the first twenty or thirty kids who showed up at the playground, and none but us three knew of the challenge we’d make. The plan was to announce it as soon as fifty kids had gotten to the bigtoy, but last minute I changed it a little.

  At 8:06, Pritikin rolled up on his GT Compe. He performed a triple bunnyhop at 0 MPH, then dismounted into a kind of handstand with his legs like an L; its horizontal bar propped the bike from falling sideways. It made me admire Pritikin more and wish I was good at bike-tricks. He clamped the Compe to the rack and came over. He walked like he always walked, and didn’t make any extra eye-contact. To me this proved Pritikin wasn’t a show-off. He’d done the bike-trick for the beauty of the bike-trick, not so kids would admire him. The thought of that led to my seeing the single problem with our plan. To surprise Pritikin with my challenge in front of fifty people, while it wasn’t just unnecessary to secure his defeat, might later provide him with an excuse for having been defeated. For the longevity of real slapslap’s imminent reign, it was important he and everyone else knew I beat him fair and square. So I took him aside and let him know I’d challenge him publicly, as soon as fifty kids got there. He said he’d accept the challenge, then paced by the wacky wall, waiting.

  By the time fifty kids showed, it was twenty after eight. Though usually there were fifty by 8:15, none of us thought twice about it. We didn’t think twice about Sheldon Markowitz, either. At twelve after eight, he got out of his mom’s car. He took a few steps toward us, then his mom yelled his name. He got back in the car, and they drove away. We just figured he’d forgotten something at his house. Maybe his lunch, maybe his gymshorts. (Sheldon was heavy and hated Gym, which was probably why his mom always drove him to school even though they
lived only a few blocks away.) It wasn’t til nearly a half hour later, when everyone was gathered inside the multipurpose room, that Emmanuel offered a stronger hypothesis: between the time Sheldon opened the passenger-side door and the time his mother called his name out, NPR, to which Mrs. Markowitz—if she was anything like the rest of our mothers—was listening, received word on the second plane and announced it.

  At 8:20, I explained the challenge to the crowd. I told them Pritikin had already accepted it, but it was open to the rest of them as well. Shmooly, as predicted, was the only one who stepped up.

  Gurion 21, Pritikin 3.

  Gurion 21, Shmooly 19.

  Everyone agreed the territory was a real-only zone. Everyone agreed on the exception for Shmooly. Then the first bell rang. We went to Assembly.

  Surrounded by Underdogs

  During Announcements, moms appeared in the doorway. Not one or two, but ten or eleven. They took away their children, and news started spreading. From radios in cars and TVs at breakfast, some kids had learned some things about a plane and a building. Or planes and buildings. The center of the world. It wasn’t very clear. At first everyone had thought whatever’d happened was an accident, but why were all these moms showing? Take a look around. Teachers chewed hangnails, pulled tieknots, were quiet.

  After Attendance, before morning prayer, Rabbi Unger said everything was fine. Most of us knew then for sure: not everything.

  We started to daven. More kids’ moms came. Most were in and out in under thirty seconds, but one started crying, another arguing with a teacher. The arguer wanted to take her daughter’s best friend home with them, claimed the girl’s mother had asked her to. The teacher wouldn’t budge without written permission; but if written permission were gettable, explained the arguer, the best friend’s mom would have shown up herself.

  “But yet nonetheless—”

  “But yet nonetheless nothing! Today of all days is no day to play the bureaucrat.”

  Rabbi Salt went over and whispered to the teacher. The mom left the school with both girls.

  The news, spreading fast, became rumors faster. A plane had hit the Sears Tower, it was said. Later that day, I’d wonder which schmuck had spread that, but it was probably no schmuck, just some kid who mis-heard the message he’d been passed. If between mouth and ear the World Trade Center could so quickly become the center of the world, it only followed that the tallest building in the country would get confused for the one that used to be.

  A couple syllables into the Shemoneh Esreh, everyone but Solomon Schenk had stopped praying. Schenk’s bar-mitzvah had happened the previous Saturday. At Schechter that meant he’d lead prayers all week. Schenk was the boy whose mother was crying. His eyes were on scripture and he’d failed to see her. She was slouched on the opposite side of the multipurpose room, waiting politely for Solomon to finish. When finally he noticed that no one else was praying, he lifted his head, and there she was. Through the mike on the podium, he said, “Where’s Aba? What happened to Aba? Where is my aba?”

  “Your aba is fine,” she yelled back to her son, then from the same kind concern for decorum that had caused her to wait in the corner, crying, she incited a panic she’d intended to cull. “Everyone’s parents are fine,” she said.

  And we knew what that meant. We thought we did.

  “Sears Tower’s destroyed!” “And the center of the world.” “Planes are missing.” “Planes are missiles.” “Where’s our parents?” “We want our parents.”

  Rabbi Salt took the podium and told us what he knew. Two planes had hit a building in New York. The building was called the World Trade Center. Nothing bad had happened in Chicago. It was alright to weep, even he felt like weeping, weeping made sense, but we should know, he told us, what exactly it was that we wept for. It wasn’t our parents, it wasn’t our parents. “Please sit back down and we’ll continue to daven.”

  “How do you know?” “How does he know what’s happening?”

  “Keep down your voices,” we were told by Rabbi Unger. “Sit down in your seats and we’ll continue the service.”

  No one sat down in his seat. Kids with cellies******** called home, checked in, then passed the cellies on to kids without them.

  Rabbi Salt, wise, buzzed the media-tech. A few minutes later, CNN was on the wall-screen. We sat on the floor in front of it. Towers were burning, people were falling, no few planes were still in the sky. Most of us began to enjoy ourselves. That might sound cold, even arch, to a moron. Our parents were fine, though, and plus we had enemies.

  Just minutes earlier, when the possibility that our parents were dead had seemed, for the first time ever, real, we’d discovered we were not as bad as we’d suspected. Who among us hadn’t, at one point or many, entertained reluctant fantasies of being orphaned—all those guys you’d know more than, all those girls who’d notice, all those good reasons to cry and lash out, the allowances granted you for all of it, the admiration you’d get for having overcome? And who of us hadn’t wondered what was wrong with himself for having entertained such fantasies? Who hadn’t worried that in his heart of hearts he was selfish and guilty, a wishful parricide? And now we knew we weren’t, that we hadn’t ever been. During those couple minutes in which we feared our parents’ deaths, we learned their deaths were the last things we wanted; that those fantasies, like nightmares, said nothing true about us. We were good after all, we’d been good all along, our dreams of orphanage the outcome of frustrated longings we hadn’t known we’d had, longings for actual, unadulterated enmity = It turned out we’d just always wanted enemies. Worthy enemies. Materially demonstrable injustice to (after some struggle) beat. Explicit threats to rise above. Good reasons to dominate, a righteous path of conquest, the chance to exhibit strength without being a show-off. Ways to do violence while remaining a mensch. The need to do violence to remain a mensch.

  I’m not saying all of us. What I’m saying is most of us. (Emmanuel, for instance, showed no signs of power-surging. He just stood there, worried, quietly saying, “This is not good, people are dying,” while keeping his tears welled, not wanting attention.) And I’m not claiming all of us knew why we were thrilled. I’m not claiming any of us knew why we were relieved. I’m saying we were thrilled. I’m saying we were relieved. I’m saying that for the first time in most of our lives, these two previously contradictory feelings served to complement each other. We were good and we had enemies. We had enemies, were good. We had enemies because we were good. I’m attempting to account for the secret reasons why this all seemed true to us, why it all made sense to us. I’m attempting to explain that it wasn’t just the on-the-spot cancelation of classes, or the feeling of productivity you get watching news in a group, or even the oft-reported rush that comes of surviving intact a force others like you have not. We had this feeling of importance, of total purpose, that most of us had never experienced before.

  We suspected we had become the underdog.

  By the time the South Tower collapsed, we were sure. And then some new questions arose, or tried to. When, exactly, had we become the underdog? Was it possible we’d been the underdog all along? Without knowing? And was it right to speak of a group as an underdog; i.e. was an underdog group not comprised of many individual underdogs? And if comprised of many, was it not likely that some were more underdoggy than others? Which ones?

  “I’ve been to Manhattan.” “I was born in Manhattan, so I know what you mean.” “You’re right, you’re right: my father was just there on business last week.” “I have cousins in Brooklyn, just over the bridge.” “Here, take my phone, Yoni. Call your cousins.”

  “They might go for downtown.” “My dad works downtown.” “Mine’s in the Hancock.” “Mine’s at One Mag Mile.” “Board of Trade.” “Prudential.” “Lake Point Tower.” “Daley Center.” “Birthday Cake.”

  “I’ve got cousins who live in actual Manhattan.” “You know what, Yoni? Give the phone to Shayna first.” “But it’s busy, Saul, I have
n’t gotten through to—” “But her cousins live in actual Manhattan.”

  “My dad’s in Sears Tower, and that’s the tallest so they’ll hit it.” “If they hit it, Ran.” “What’re you trying to say?” “Who cares what he’s trying, cause you’re all of you wrong. The Aon buiding’s what’s getting hit if something’s getting hit.” “I don’t even know what that is.” “You’d know it if you saw it, that’s why they’d hit it. Listen to Blitzer. It’s all about symbols.”

  “Where in Manhattan?” “I don’t know exactly where.” “She says she doesn’t know where, but it’s actual Manhattan.” “But just cause mine are in Brooklyn doesn’t mean hers are closer.” “Brooklyn’s a totally different city, though.” “So what? Pizza is in Evanston. It’s in a totally different city from Chicago, but still Pizza’s closer to us than Comiskey Park, right? Or even Wrigley Field. Admit it, Shayna.” “No. It’s not like you’re saying. They’re islands.”

  “Who’s that guy with the big brown eyes?”

  “My father always said this would happen.”

  “Sears Tower you’d know if you saw it, plus its name.” “Aon building’s white. Monolithic.” “Lake Point Towers is shaped almost like a clover. It’s right next to Navy Pier and it’s black. It’s where the real action happens, where my dad works.” “The real action happens in the Hancock, which you’d not only know if you saw it, and it’s name, but it’s way more important architecture. Sears Tower’s ugly.” “Aon’s not ugly.” “No one knows it’s name, though, the Aon.” “Lakepoint’s close to Navy Pier.” “The Empire State’s what they’d have hit if they cared about names.” “Statue of Liberty’s what they’d have hit if they cared about tourist attractions.” “The White House and the Pentagon is what I’d’ve tried to hit.” “Don’t act like a seer; they already announced the Pentagon was hit.” “They announced they heard something about the Pentagon. They didn’t announce if it was true yet.” “The point is anything is vulnerable.”