The Instructions by Adam Levin

Author:Adam Levin [Levin, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-12T17:16:27+00:00

LOCKER ROOMS

POOL

throwing a tantrum under the hoop beneath the clock. The heap

E

B-HALL 814

N S SHOTFRAMER C-HALL

W

OUTDOORS

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

of scoreboard wreckage had been removed, and he stomped on the spot it used to occupy, yelling “Jesus! Jesus Christ!” At “Jesus!” he raised his arms. At “Jesus Christ!” he slapped his hips. The person he was yelling at was his father, who stood slump-shouldered at the free-throw line, his pomade bending light into a halo. He shook his head = “No, this behavior is nothing I can brag about,”

and the halo got dull and tilted.

I was in the midcourt doorway, trying to be a wall. It wasn’t easy. B-Hall doorways were smaller than C-Hall ones. They barely buffered sound and their shadows were thin.

“Listen to me!” Boystar was yelling. “Please! I’m telling you!”

He kept raising his arms up and slapping his hips.

There were other people there, too, but none of them watched the tantrum.

At the top of the key, Boystar’s mother was crouching beside the Highway 61 acoustics man I’d seen the day before. He knocked his fist twice on the floor in front of him, then revolved and did it again. The mother leaned in.

Another man was on his knees on the bleacher-side sideline at half-court. He was outlining three sides of an air-rectangle like actors playing directors do in art movies about old Hollywood.

He squinted through the rectangle and tsked his tongue in concentration.

My chemicals were ticking. How could I smash the clock with all these people in my way? Why was this guy framing shots on the sidelines? I dropped the black wingnut into my pennygun.

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ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

If I shot the clock and the shattered glass fell like I imagined, shards would slice off Boystar’s nosetip and knife deep into his shoulders, his feet. The problem was the bleachers—they blocked my vector of attack and there was nothing I could do about it.

Even if I risked moving to the center of the doorway and edging into the gym proper, where anyone in there could see me if they turned their head, the post the hoop hung from would deflect the projection.

Could I run at the acoustics man, shove him out of the way, then shoot the clock from the top of the key?

A guy in a suit as metal-looking as the hair of Boystar’s dad came out of the door of the boys’ locker-room. “Our star the Boystar!” the guy said to Boystar, adjusting his belt.

“I’m not happy about this, Chaz. I’m not happy about this at all,” said Boystar. “I’m really fucking unhappy.”

The guy in the glitzy suit—Chaz—put his arm around Boystar’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

Boystar said, “You’re a real sweetheart, too, Chaz Black, but that’s got nothing to do with anything. Emotionalize is about being sexy.”

Explosive as I was getting, I probably could move the acoustics man and hit the clock. Or I could even just race across the gym and hit the clock running—my chemicals were making me simple; my aim would be true—but I would get seen, caught.

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