Eliyahu was hilarious. He talked like he was singing. A zadie in a movie.
I said, The kid who knocked your hat off is Co-Captain Baxter. He’s in eighth grade. We can damage him easy, but I can’t really protect you from anything. I’m in the Cage. They don’t even let me go to lunch.
He said, “So you’re saying if you weren’t in this Cage, you’d be willing and able to protect me?”
I said, We’re friends. I’d definitely try to protect you, but I don’t know how able I’d be, even if I wasn’t in the Cage. I can avenge you whenever, though. I could do that whenever. We could find Co-Captain Baxter at his locker, either right before or right after detention today, and I could put the cripple-grip on his clavicle, and then hold his arm so that his hand is partway inside the locker, and you could slam the door on his fingers as many times as you’d want, and he wouldn’t be able to shoot free-throws anymore — but protection’s different from vengeance.
Eliyahu showed me both his palms = “Please hold on a second.” Then he turned very suddenly and took a drink from the water fountain. The water fountain made the low whistling water fountain sound and Eliyahu’s curved back looked delicate, foldable like cardboard, like if I punched him between the shoulderblades, his spine would collapse. When he was done drinking, he unpressed the button and the whistling sound became a humming sound. Then Eliyahu lifted his head. Most people lift their head before unpressing the button. That way wastes water. And when Eliyahu turned back around, he did not wipe his mouth on his sleeve like most people, but skipped the water droplets from his lips and his chin with his thumb and his pointer. These were gentle things to do. They were very controlled. I noticed he was still bent forward on top. He still looked afraid of something. I thought: Maybe he always looks afraid of something.
I could not stop hearing the humming of the motor in the water fountain.
Eliyahu told me, “Not vengeance. No vengeance.”
Something about how he said it made me not try to convince him, despite the singsong. It was very final how he said it. Vengeance was out of the question. But then protection was impossible.
I explained to him, Even if I wasn’t in the Cage, we’d still be in different classes — I’d only be able to protect you at lunch and in the hallway.
He said, “A little bit of protection is better than none. And so what can we do to get you out of the Cage?”
Nothing, I said. I said, As long as there’s a Cage, I’m in it.
“Maybe we’ll get rid of this Cage,” he said.
I said, Not today. I said, Do you know how to fight at all? I’ve never fought the Co-Captain, but he looks like the kind of kid who’s never gotten hit, like if you hit him just once, he’ll run away.
“I can’t,” said Eliyahu. “I think of hitting someone? I think of hurting him. I think of hurting someone? I become sad. My stomach aches. I cry a little. I just can’t do it. So how does a boy get into the Cage?”
The Cage is locked down, I said to Eliyahu. You only get to leave for Lunch and Gym, and sometimes you can’t even leave for Lunch.
“So what?” he said.
You have to sit there all day in a carrel, facing forward. The teachers don’t teach. They tutor in the center, but you can’t just approach them. You have to get called on, and most of the time they’re not looking around to see if your hand’s raised. You sit there, waiting, and you can’t talk to anyone, or even see anyone — you’re not allowed to look.
“Okay,” he said. “So it’s quiet in there. So no kids can bother me.”
That’s not exactly true, that no kids can bother you. Ways can be found.
“But you wouldn’t let any kid bother me,” he said. “You’d protect me from that.”
That’s true, I said, but the Cage is no kid. The Cage will bother you. And Botha, I said, who’s the schmuck who’s in charge — he’ll bother you, too. He’s a horrible man. Cartoon-level horrible. He’s even got a claw instead of a hand.
“I’m bothered already by the school,” he said, “and I’m certain the teachers will bother me, too. Public school teachers — they’re always bothering.”
You’re a scholar, Eliyahu. You don’t want to be there.
“And you’re not a scholar?”
I’m a scholar, I said.
“So what, then?” he said. “Why should a scholar not be in the Cage? Who says it shouldn’t be? Rabbi Akiva, maybe? Not Rabbi Akiva: He died in a cage. In a torture chamber! At the hands of Romans! How do I get in?”
It was true about Rabbi Akiva. It was also true that Eliyahu was determined to stay near me, where he would feel protected, no matter what it meant, and that if I didn’t tell him how to get in the Cage, he’d figure out a way to get in there himself. And while it’s true I didn’t want him to be in the Cage because the Cage was terrible, it’s also true I wanted him to be in the Cage because I was in the Cage, and to have another friend there, let alone another scholar, couldn’t help but to make the place more tolerable.
“Nu?” said Eliyahu.
Break things, I said.
“Break things,” he said. “And what should I break?”
I said, It’s not just what you should break, but when you should break it.
“When should I break what I should break?” he said.
After you get told to do something you don’t want to do, I told him.
“And what is this that I won’t want to do, Gurion?”
The first thing you’re told.
“And if I want to do it?”
Pretend you don’t, and then break something.
“It sounds very simple,” he said. He chewed his thumb some more.
I said, Don’t be afraid, Eliyahu. It’ll be fun if you’re not afraid.
He said, “I’m not afraid of breaking things. I just don’t like this school. I don’t like that for protection I need to be violent. Violence causes death. I do not like death. I don’t want to cause death or contribute to death. I don’t want death to be. I don’t want us to die. I do not like it, how everyone dies.”
I said, I won’t die.
“Then I will try not to fear it,” he said. “I’ll break a window.”
I said, A window would be a perfect thing to break. It’s loud and dangerous and if you broke it with your fist, they’d think you were violent, but they’d also worry that you secretly wanted to kill yourself with glass in the armveins. It would get you in the Cage for sure, for two-week observation at least. The problem is all the windows in the classrooms are highly shatter-resistant. Swung chairs can’t even break them, much less fists. It’s been tried. Believe me. Too bad, too. That really is suck. A window would’ve been—
“Science!” said Eliyahu.
Science?
“In Science, there’s usually a fire-extinguisher.”
That won’t go through those windows, either, I said. Those are some serious windows. You can barely even open them — they’re casement windows.
“No. Not to put it through the window. The fire-extinguisher, at least at my last school, was always in a box on the wall, a glass-doored—”