In the meantime, Bam had discovered his advantage. He turned his chair over, legs forward, said, “Guys!” and when the rest of the Indians turned their chairs over, he led them forth crouching in lock-step, a phalanx, and at last Benji Nakamook did what needed doing. The platoon close behind him, their fists at the ready, he pocketed his weapon and charged northeast. Seeing their approach, Bam halted his march and stood higher to strike, to cut Benji down. At three steps distance, Benji sprung. He went horizontal, body turning mid-air, and clipped three Indians at once at the neck. Lonnie and Maholtz, who’d been flanking Bam, hit the floor loud, chairs flying, skidding. Bam dropped his chair and caught Benji on impact. They went down together, a T-shape, Bam-first. Nakamook barrelled through the gap Benji’d opened. Eliyahu came sprinting off the wall to help. Main Man remained in the southwest corner. “Never give the power to the baldhead,” he sang. Slokum, half-stunned, still their T’s crossbar, groaned beneath Benji, who blindly reached down the length of his torso, feeling around until he found nose, and swatted with the heel of his palm, saying, “Hi!” He swatted twice more—“Hi! Hello!”—and then planted the hand that had done the swatting on the mess of Bam’s face, now slick with blood, and started to push, attempting to rise, but Bam turned his head, and Benji’s hand slipped, and Salvador Curtis, in the midst of a fists-forward superman dive — the gym teacher’s gabardined bulge the bullseye — clipped Benji’s temple with the toes of both shoes, and Benji’s weight shifted to Slokum’s advantage. Bam got an arm free, got leverage, turned sideways, cracked Benji deep in the ribs with an elbow. Benji curled up. Bam flipped himself prostrate, then bucked to all fours. Benji, thrown, hit the floor coughing, and Brooklyn, who was grappling with Co-Captain Baxter, using the kid’s own tie to strangle him, took a step back to anchor the choke, landing a heel on Benji’s kidney. Benji thrashed and cursed and coughed more. Brooklyn flailed and lost his purchase, used both hands to break his fall. Baxter wheezed and clutched his throat. On Slokum someone dropped a chair. It wasn’t the first chair to be mismanaged, nor should that fact come as any surprise. Most people can’t make a good fist when the time comes (their snat floods too early, boils them rubbery), let alone apply any kind of strong grip — their barrels wobble, their cudgels slip — and the Aptakisic Indians, in this, were unexceptional. Not even one had swung his chair more than once, let alone aimed for anyone’s head. The chairs they didn’t drop were pried from their hands or shoved in their guts, the dropped ones pitched from the fray by Jerry Throop while Leevon and Dingle mashed faces with their foreheads, and Jelly bit a B-teamer in the middle of the forehead, and Fulton checked Maholtz, who’d just gotten up, then kneedropped Lonnie, who hadn’t gotten up, and Desormie, in child-pose, struggled to recover from Curtis’s sackblast, and Curtis came around and kicked him in the crack, and Shlomo Cohen hobbled toward the pushbar door, and Eliyahu, crawling toward Co-Captain Baxter, tripped Gary Frungeon by yanking his ankle, and Frungeon, falling, brought Curtis with him, and Benji and Slokum kept trying to rise.
You’ll be okay, I said. I’m not here to hurt you. None of us are, just—
Brodsky dry-heaved.
That’s nerves, I said. You aren’t really sick. You’re nothing like dying. You’re doing that to yourself. Now I’m just gonna empty your pockets, I said, and I’m gonna be gentle, I know you’re in pain, I can see that your foot hurts, but I can also see that your foot will be fine — there isn’t any blood there, no bones poking through, you don’t have to keep contorting, there’s nothing to see—but these guys who are standing behind me, watching, they’re wound really tight, and they’ve all got weapons, so please don’t make any sudden movements. Please just don’t even move at all. If you can just breathe deep and stop with the contortions, you won’t get hurt more. You have my word. This isn’t about you. This is just how it is. Okay? Okay. I’m reaching in the pocket of your jacket now. You don’t have to say bubkes. I’ll find what I need.
Seamus and the flautist had thrown Acer on those Israelites who’d gone to the gap to repel fleeing Shovers. Five of the six so dropped upon had crumpled, and just as the two least injured got up, the mob from the bleachers ran them back down. Now robots and kids tripped on robots and kids, and a hill of writhing bodies that was one, then two, then three feet high, grew wide in the gap til it was nearly impassable. Many in the gap continued pushing forward, and a few of them got out, however bruised, to flee the school through the pipeline. Others turned south to escape the bottleneck and go out the northeast- or the pushbar-door-exit, but pressing as they were against those who were northbound, this only caused the bottleneck to clog up more. It is true that some managed to keep reason intact, and they headed sideways, under the bleachers, to proceed toward either of the other two exits, but while many of those who went first escaped, the pushbar-door-exit itself soon bottlenecked. That exit was narrow as a classroom door, and runners on their way to it who didn’t get shot or smacked down by Western Portite kept stumbling on the B-teamers who the Flunky had clotheslined, seeding a pileup to rival the gap’s. The northeast exit was unobstructed and, despite all the blows Eastern Portite administered, the first hundred who’d initially fled there got out, but by the time that the runners who’d tried the other exits first (roughly four hundred) and could still ambulate (roughly three-hundred-fifty) realized they had to head to the northeast one, the powerdrunk bandkids had descended like berserkers and kids were hitting kids to get out of their way, and those hit hitting back, and robots too, and the throng pushed south toward the least resistance, slowly but steadily, creeping like a honeyspill across a tilted plane, the honey sipped by Samson from the lion’s tilted brainpan.
Benji sitting up, Benji holding his ribs. Slokum in a three-point stance, Slokum lunging. Blurring bodies colliding around them.
In a room full of people you’ve known for a while, when somebody’s elbow jams sharp in your sternum, it’s hard not to take that personally; it’s hard to believe that you could’ve been anyone. It’s harder yet, when you find yourself thrilled by the damage you’re bringing, to believe you don’t have your own good reasons. “Call me fat, slut? You ruined third grade.” “On the bus with your motherfucken jerkoff spitballs!” “You don’t tell girls they can’t go to the bathroom!” “Who’s crying now, huh? Who’s bleeding now?” “I don’t show my work cause I do it in my head!” The further south the throng went, the more reasons it discovered. Vendettas once sworn for half-forgotten offenses were remembered and invented with each passing blow. Everyone felt like a conduit of justice.
The Janitor, bashed in the orbit with a trumpet, got dragged from the mob by Mangey and Asparagus.
The Indians/Nakamook ruction had atomized. Mano-a-manos now thrived unimpeded: Baxter/Brooklyn (choking, clawing), Frungeon/Jelly (biting, pleading), Lonnie/Leevon (dukes up, boxing), Maholtz/Dingle (slapping, spitting). Fulton, Throop, and Salvador Curtis divided between them what remained of the B-team (pinning, leglocks, chicken-winging). And Slokum and Benji were tangled again: Benji’s thumbs, Slokum’s temples; Slokum’s forearm, Benji’s throat. A-teamer X extended a hand; the gym teacher pulled himself onto his feet.