The Instructions

  They huddled to discuss me, and I saw my moment. I asked the question as fast as I could.

  I said, You keep saying Feingold, but you really mean Weinblatt, right? Nathan Weinblatt?

  I said that because I thought I knew everyone’s name at Northside Hebrew Day and, though I remembered a Nathan Weinblatt, this was the first time I’d ever heard of a Nathan Feingold. It is true I only went to Northside for a month, but it wasn’t that big of a school.

  “Weinblatt?” “What’s a Weinblatt?” “You think we’re some kind of Snad?” “Nathan. Feingold.”

  Are you sure? I said.

  “Of course he’s sure,” said a different one than the one I asked. He said, “And so am I. Nathan’s my friend, too.” “We’re all friends with Nathan.” “He’s not our best buddy, but he’s definitely our buddy.” “A very good buddy.” “Nathan is a great buddy.” “We go to movies with him on weekends. “But not Cubs games.” “We usually go to Cubs games on Saturdays, and Nathan’s Orthodox.” “Most of the kids at Hebrew Day are Orthodox.” “That’s why none of them can go to Saturday Cubs games.” “And that’s why none of them talk to Gurion anymore.” “Because their parents are scared of him.” “Because they think he’s a bad influence.” “Because they’re the ones who Gurion told them they were Israelites.” “No, not just that. They’re scared because of the other thing he did when he told them they were Israelites.” “That’s true.” “It was that other thing.” “See, when Gurion told them they were Israelites, he also gave them—”

  “Wait!” yelled the three who hadn’t just been speaking. Then they asked me if I was an Israelite. I wanted to hear the rest of their story, so I kept playing along like the truth wasn’t mine and I wasn’t me. I told them I was an Israelite, and they told me to prove it and I spoke to them in Hebrew, saying: Listen to me, now. Would an American Gentile who’s my age know Hebrew?

  But they didn’t know Hebrew, for they weren’t scholars, just non-observant Israelites, looking at me blankly.

  “That’s supposed to be Hebrew? How do we know it’s not nonsense?” one of them said. “Or Farsi or Arabic?” said another.

  I said, Do you even go to Hebrew School?

  “Yeah.” “But they don’t teach us Hebrew.” “They teach us stories.” “And prayers, too.” “That’s the only Hebrew we know is the prayers.” “Well we don’t really know it.” “We don’t know what it means.” “We just know what it sounds like.” “We can sound out its letters.” “We know how to say it.”

  Okay, I said, do you know what the Sh’ma Yisroel sounds like?

  “Who do you think we are?” “Who does this kid think we are?” “What’s wrong with this guy?” “They teach you the Sh’ma first thing.” “We’ve known the Sh’ma since the days of juice and animal crackers.” “Of course we know the Sh’ma.” “And we know what it means, too.” “Well not exactly.” “It’s very mystical, what it means, but we know how it translates.”

  I said, Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, The Lord is one.

  “Yeah, but do it in Hebrew,” they said.

  I recited the Sh’ma in Hebrew and they believed me.

  You were explaining why Israelites stopped talking to Gurion, I said.

  “Right. Exactly,” said one. “Because of their parents,” said another. “A little bit because their parents got scared of him for telling them they were Israelites,” a third said. “But mostly,” said the fourth, “because of this.”

  He pulled a beat-looking sheet of paper from his pocket, and shook out its folds. I saw it was my second scripture.

  The kid said, “This is how it goes: First Gurion makes jokes about boobies and nips and they are funny jokes, but they are not as funny the second time, and you are not supposed to repeat them, so I won’t. But then he tells you how to make the gun in twenty-three steps and then, listen to this: he says, ‘Now you can hurt things from a distance.’ Here.” He handed me his copy of Ulpan.

  I looked it over and gave it back.

  I said, So where’d you get that?

  “From Nathan. He had a party in his backyard and gave these out.”

  I said, Where’d Nathan get it?

  “From this boy Saul Benjamin he goes to school with, who we’re kinda very good friends with, but not buddies, just very good friends.”

  I’d never heard of Saul Benjamin, either. I said, You’re sure these guys go to Hebrew Day?

  “Definitely.” “For sure.” “We know where our friends go to school.” “Yes.”

  I said, Northside Hebrew Day?

  “The one that’s in Northbrook.” “North Hebrew Day.” “North-Suburban Hebrew Day, it’s called.” “There’s another Hebrew Day?”

  I said, Gurion went to Northside Hebrew Day. That’s twenty miles from the Hebrew Day of your friends, I said.

  “This boy knows an awful lot about Hebrew Days all of a sudden.” “And Gurion, too.” “An awful lot.” “A suspicious awful lot.”

  I thought: Twenty miles!

  “I think maybe he’s Gurion.” “I was thinking that, too.” “I can’t say the thought isn’t one I wasn’t thinking.”

  I thought: The scholars spread my scripture far and wide, but fail to help me when I need them? What is that?

  Twenty miles! I thought.

  I wasn’t really bitter, though. I even got the Joy of Living Dance feeling a little. So these four here weren’t scholars—so what? Neither was my mom. Maybe this was just as well. Maybe even better. It wasn’t two-hundred-plus secular Israelites who’d just ditched me. It wasn’t two-hundred-plus non-observant ones.

  These four here, in the meantime, said nothing. The three who’d last spoken were looking to the fourth because something was off—consensus was lacking. The fourth had yet to fourth his suspicion of my being Gurion. Instead he kept squinting at me, bancing up their rhythm, breathing heavy through his nose. “Pinker?” one of them finally said to him. “Pinker.” “Hey, Pinker!” And this loud-breathing fourth, the one they called Pinker, stopped his loud breathing, and turned to his friends. He said, “Okay, fine, maybe; but except then again…”

  “Well exactly.”

  “Right! Right? Right.”

  “Exactly then again, I agree because you’re right since…”

  “Since because of how he…” “Right! Since because of how he doesn’t…” “Since because of how he doesn’t even look like a lion!” “Since because of how he doesn’t even look anything like a lion at all!” “Or a hammer.” “Exactly!” “And he doesn’t look black.” “He’s not supposed to look that black, though.” “But he’s part Ethiopian.” “Part Ethiopian and they’re not that black.” “Right! Wait. So what you’re saying is...” “No, not… They’re at least very very tan, though, the Ethiopians, and he’s not what I’d call very very tan, this guy.” “Maybe not very very, but he’s more than just plain tan, for sure—very tan, I’d say.” “Wait, what are we saying, here?” “And actually he does have hair like a black guy.” “But he doesn’t have any hair on his face.” “He doesn’t!” “Yes, well, no, that’s not true; he does have some there, on the bottom of his chin.” “That’s the top of his neck. That’s not his chin.” “What’s the difference?” “Buddies! Best buddies!” “I don’t know what’s the difference.” “My great best buddies! Where do we stand on this, buddies?” “Where?” “Exactly!” “It’s a really big deal!”

  Philip Roth was no scholar. Or Stanley Elkin. Or Andy Kaufman. Or Barney Ross or Lenny Bruce or Larry David. Kafka was no scholar, and neither was Elaine May. Nor my zadie Malchizedek, nor Arnold Rothstein, nor Meyer Lansky. Forget about Isaac Babel and forget about the Stern Gang. Forget about 90 percent of the IDF. And be he Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, Gummo, or Groucho, among the Marx Brothers there was not a one.

  Where are your pennyguns? I said to the four of them.

  None of them heard me. Either that or they ignored me. They kept talking faster, leaning in closer, trying to believe that I wasn’t Gurion
, or trying to believe that I was Gurion, believing either way that whatever they believed about who I was mattered.

  “Okay, look, let’s go one thing at a time: Gurion’s only a seventh-grader. Why’d we think he’d have hair on his face?” “Not only that. He’s supposed to be a fifth-grader, so he’s our age, and we don’t have hair on our faces.” “Plus he’s got the chin ones, or neck ones, whatever.” “So that gets us nowhere.” “So next up, okay: this guy’s small and he does not look that tough.” “Good point, except David was small and he looked like a young version of the rich man from that movie Pretty Woman.” “But he had a slingshot.” “True, he had a slingshot, except this boy has a hood, though. Didn’t you picture Gurion having a hood?” “Yes.” “And his wallet has a chain. I always thought he’d have a chain, but he’s bleeding on the elbow, and I didn’t think he’d bleed.” “Did he jingle when he came in? I heard he jingles when he walks.” “I might have heard him jingling.” “Are you Gurion or not?”

  I said, Who do you want me to mess up?

  “Right, see? Of course. So now he’s saying he’s Gurion, but that somehow makes it seem—” “Maybe he’s lying.” “Exactly. Lying.” “I’d want people to think I was Gurion.” “So would I.” “Who wouldn’t?” “What did we expect? You don’t just ask him ‘You Gurion?’ and expect the kind of answer that’ll set things straight.” “We have to test him.” “How do we test him?” “What would such a test measure?” “Any number of things, but mainly: Can he fight?” “Can he fight four guys, like?” “Just like that.” “Yeah. Let’s attack him.” “Attack him?” “Attack him.” “If he’s Gurion, we’ll get messed up for the second time in one day!” “I don’t want to get messed up twice in one day.” “It wasn’t that bad the first time, though. We’re alive, remember.” “It’s true, we’re alive.” “You’re right. We’re not dead.” “We’re not dead at all.” “We are not dead at all.”

  Just as the fifth-graders rose from their chairs, flexing their fists, their batting gloves squeaking, eyes nothing like sleepy, Nakamook entered the Nurse’s Office.

  “Gurion,” he said.

  And the attack was called off.

  “Oh God!” “Oh man!” “Oh gee!” “We didn’t mean to—” “We’re sorry!” “Please don’t—” “We’re sorry!”

  Benji held up his right hand, which was bleeding from the center—it looked like something wooden was in it.

  “Jesus!” said one of the fifth-graders

  “Not at all,” said Nakamook. He brought his hand closer, a step at a time, and they backed away smoothly, like same-charged magnets, and once they were sitting, huddled as before, he thrust the hand between their heads, deeper and deeper, til they all leaned away from each other with their eyes winked and squinted. Nakamook’s hand was a mess.

  Soon he got bored and put it away.

  The fifth-graders re-huddled.

  Benji turned to me and said, “I wanted to hang with you, but Botha wouldn’t unlock the gate, so I took a pencil, right? And I stabbed my hand and broke off the tip, right? And this is what it looks like. This is my stabbed hand!” he yelled. He shoved his hand back into the fifth-graders’ head-space and shook it around. The huddle split again and some blooddrops dripped on some laps.

  “Jelly told me I was crazy,” Benji said. He stopped shaking the hand and sat next to me to whisper. He said, “Botha was so pissed, he mumbled curses in Australian. He said ‘shate’ and ‘crep’ and he said ‘basted.’ I said the curses back to him, too. I said, ‘El crep en yer ed, yeh shate-ater, yeh saley basted!’ Then Main Man starting belting out ha-has and Leevon was standing behind Botha and doing impersonations of Botha’s pass-writing movements. Leevon’s perfect at impersonations. Perfect. Did you see that grip he laid on me and Vincie? It was the exact same grip I’d just demonstrated. Got me thinking we should show him Bruce Lee movies—he’d become a one-man special-ops force fast, I think. And I think that’s what we need. I’ve been thinking maybe the Side of Damage is a good thing. If we can run the Cage like we did during— Hey.” He pointed his finger at the huddle of fifth-graders. “Hey, Gurion,” he said, “is that what I think it is?”

  What? I said. I was really stunned out.

  “That,” he said, blinkering the finger.

  The boy who’d shown me the copy of Ulpan had it under his thigh, folded in thirds. Step 23—Look at the pennies you lined up earlier. Understand you hold a gun.—showed just above the crease.

  “What the fuck is that?” said Nakamook.

  Identical to the Ulpan I’d delivered in April, the fifth-graders’ ended as follows:

  Now that you have been delivered these instructions, you will receive an instruction sheet. It is a copy of the sheet I am reading from. Each one of you gets one copy. You will take your copy from beneath the paint-can at the gate. Fold it and put it in your shoe. Guard it closely. Do not guard it with your life, but guard it with your face. It is not worth getting killed over, but it is worth getting a broken face over. Tomorrow, you will make thirteen copies of your copy. You will invite thirteen Israelite boys to come to your backyard after Shabbos, like I invited you, and you will deliver these instructions from a high tree-limb, exactly the same as I have delivered them to you. If you do not have a tree with high limbs in your yard, or if the high-limbed tree you do have is unclimbable, sit on top of a swingset or fence.