I put all my strength in my shoulders to spread them, inhaled as hard as I could. This got a little air inside my cramped lungs, but blinking sparks were already falling, scraping their way down my visual field.
All the Five were cleared away by teachers except for Shpritzy, who was nearly horizontal, stretched in mid-air, his arms locked tight around Shlomo’s head, Desormie pulling him west by the ankles while the Chewer pulled Shlomo east by the waist. Floyd dropped his cheering cone and Main Man grabbed it. He shouted through the belclass="underline" “Nakamook? Nakamook? Where is Benji Nakamook? Is Benji Nakamook in the two-hill field?”
I wanted to know where Nakamook was, too. And Vincie. Leevon. Where was the Side of Damage? If the cheering cone was a soundgun, then Main Man could — but no. There was no need for a soundgun. There was the Side of Damage! All of them but Benji — no! There was Benji. They were standing right there. Not helping me.
Watching.
“Nakamook!” shouted Mookus. “If you are Benji Nakamook please report to the center of the penultimate crowd scene! Please step back to allow Benji Nakamook access—”
Shpritzy and Shlomo had suddenly separated. Floyd’s elbow struck Main Man. The cheering cone dropped. All the Side of Damage glanced between me and Benji.
Again my holder re-adjusted his grip, turning us a little. I caught sight of some Shovers shoving each other, yanking scarves off each other, lofting scarves in the air, then my eye-level sunk to the crowd’s neck-and-back-plane. Any breath I had left in my body was stale. I heard ticking in my ears, and the sparks ceased to blink, and they grew tails like comets and were falling so quickly I was seeing bright lines, phosphorescent white.
And I wanted to know how Desormie could possibly hold onto Shpritzy way over there while he crushed all the air from me right over here.
The white lines thickened.
Desormie couldn’t be in two places at once.
I tried some more kicking. My legs were floppy. My holder said, quietly, “Don’t make me hurt you.” The calm of his voice was unmistakable.
I thought: But he’s only just another boy, though. I’m being defeated by another boy.
“I’m saying calm down, kid,” Slokum said.
I turned my head as hard as I could and used my last halfbreath to twetch in his face, but it only drooled out of me.
Kids were staring.
“Okay now,” said Bam, and he set me down. “You’re okay now. Good guy. Okay.”
I sucked air, gulped air, wiped my face on my hood. Slokum was leaving.
Wait! I shouted.
He stopped. He waited.
I caught my breath and jumped straight at him. He turned away, and I bounced off his arm. “Smacked-up Maccabee,” Boystar said. He thought it was hilarious. “I’m gonna write a song.”
“Just disappear now,” Slokum said to one of us. “Don’t make it all knotty. Don’t complicate things.”
When I got back on my feet, he was gone, in the crowd. The crowd had gone calm, lining up to be counted.
I walked around the hillside and sat in the valley, cold and faceless in a puddle of snat.
I lay back on the stiff grass and stared at the yud-shaped clouds. They drifted together into pairs while I daydreamed an audience that filled the risers in the gym. I paced inside the tip-off circle, denouncing Slokum’s tactics through a megaphone. I explained how I’d have wrecked him if he’d faced me honorably: if he’d attacked head-on instead of creeping up from behind. And if I’d have wrecked Bam Slokum, I explained, he’d be the one in front of an imaginary audience, protesting the unfair tactics of Gurion ben-Judah, explaining how he’d have wrecked Gurion if Gurion had faced him honorably and how in that case it would be Gurion in front of an imaginary meow meow, explaining meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.
Fucker! I yelled at the clouds of yud.
And the clouds said nothing. They were only clouds, mute symbols at best.
I was a snatless wonder.
I didn’t want to fight Bam. I liked him. Even as I’d regained my feet and jumped to attack him, I’d liked him. Even as I hated to like him. Why did I have to like him? And why did he just hold me in the air like that? Was it mercy? Some scholars would argue it was mercy. They would argue that because he could’ve done any number of other things — any number of things that would have seriously damaged Gurion’s body — it was merciful of Bam Slokum to do nothing more than hold Gurion in the air, and that Gurion should therefore be grateful.
Other scholars would see it differently. Maybe Bam held Gurion in the air, they would suggest, because he thought that was the only way to keep his advantage. Maybe he thought that if he fell forward and broke Gurion’s back or damaged Gurion’s kidneys or lifted Gurion higher and dropped him on his head — maybe Slokum thought actions of that kind would incite Gurion’s friends to step in. Maybe he thought Nakamook, or Vincie, or the Side of Damage, though presently kept at bay by their fear of him, would be incited to rally against him if he actually damaged Gurion.
Or, would argue a third group of scholars, maybe Slokum just thought he’d get in trouble if he damaged Gurion. It could be Slokum knew that what he seemed to be doing, to the eyes of Brodsky and the teachers — if they were even watching — was stopping a fight = restraining Gurion = restoring order = separating the undesired prefix from the disArrangement. It is true that Gurion had been stopping that same fight himself, but Bam might not have known that; and even if he had known it, he could plausibly deny the knowledge as long as all he did was restrain Gurion, who few at Aptakisic would ever suspect of attempting to break up a fight.
But then again, maybe Bam knew that being held back helpless while otherwise able to function at full capacity was, ultimately, more humiliating than having that capacity beaten out of you with blows that broke bones and bruised organs. Maybe Bam, like the Cage, was just another fractal of the Arrangement, operating perfectly, in concentrated miniature, according to the central principles on which all its rules were based: The less violent the measures of restraint, the more humiliation those measures inflict on the restrained; the more humiliated the restrained, the less violent need be the measures to restrain them.
What would seem an act of mercy to some scholars would, to others, surely seem a quiet, snakey assertion of dominance, a prelude to enslavement.
But even if those latter scholars would be wrong and it was an act of mercy, who was Bam Slokum to show me mercy? And why should I consider the possibility that it was mercy? Wasn’t that a kind of weakness in itself? Giving him the benefit of the doubt? Why did I have to like him? Ever? But especially now? Why did I have to still like him? Why was I compelled to posit scholars who would come to his defense? Why did I have to play his apologist? Why couldn’t the story be that I used to like him, and then, after he’d humiliated me, I gave up on him and didn’t like him anymore? Why couldn’t I just feel disappointed and then betrayed and then get on with the vengeance or whatever it is you’re supposed to get on with when you’ve been disappointed and betrayed? I could never get disappointed at the appropriate time. I was always so late. It took me nine weeks to see Esther Salt’s shadiness, and it would have surely taken longer if I hadn’t fallen in love with June. And those scholars who had ditched me third period — why not call them enemies? Why resist? What was wrong with me? I wanted to damage someone, but I was the only one in the two-hill field’s valley and I wasn’t getting up.