Good, I said. Don’t feel bad.
“I don’t and I won’t. I totally refuse to. Fuck those motherfuckers. No skin off my nose. They had it coming and I really gave it to them. All of us did. Our souls are all delicate. All of us are poets inside of ourselves. Focks those motherfuckers. Laughing motherfocksers. Atheists in foxholes. Fuck them all to hell in motherfucking fur handbags…”
Benji put his good arm around Fox’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Benji told him. “They got what was coming. They got what they should’ve.”
“They got what I fucking gave them, Benji Nakamook. I was what was coming. Focks was. Me.”
“That’s right,” said Benji.
“Now you’re this hugger, but you used to be like them.”
“I didn’t,” Benji said.
“You think you’re a poet because you hate Slokum and protect Scott Mookus, but you don’t have the delicate soul of a poet, you’re a killer who hugs me but still a fucking killer. You would have been an Indian if you didn’t burn a house.”
“You don’t know me,” Benji told him. “Don’t say that.”
And just as if Benji had moved to strike him, Fox flinched his shoulders and told him, “I’m shook. Don’t hit me, just shook. I’m talking this way because I’m shook and weird. If you say your soul’s delicate, I’ll try to believe you.”
June took the kid’s hands between both of hers. “You’re fine,” she said. “You just got shook.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m shook. I’m Fox. We’re poets, right?”
“Maybe Fox here should return to the gym,” Benji said.
“No,” Fox said, “it was just a weird moment. I was shook and I’m weird, now I’m steady again.”
You sure? I said.
“Positron Milosevich. Yes sir Arafat. Fucken A Humperdink. Focksen A right.”
June seemed to agree.
The others had started to simple slapslap. I told them to stop. Listen, I said, when you enter the library, brandish your weapons and keep on brandishing. Once Fox is sitting, two of you point them unloaded at him, and scratch him if he itches, but make it look violent. The other two stand lookout, right up at the window, making faces like killers — they’ll be watching you zoomed.
“What if they shoot us?”
They won’t shoot kids. Anyone approaches, three of you shoot Fox with unloaded weapons til the approachers back off, and one of you calls me.
“Which one?” said one of them.
You, I said, and gave him a phone and programmed the number.
“Will you rotate us out like the others?” they said.
Yes, I said.
“What about Fox? They’ll know we’re faking if you rotate Fox.”
You’re right, I said. I said, Fox has to stay.
“That’s okay,” Fox said. “There’s no cable anyway.”
“They’re watching the news in there.”
“That’s the worst kind of all of the kinds of no cable.”
“But we’re on the news, Fox.”
“I am the Fox News.”
“You’re really weird, Fox.”
“So I’m weird,” Fox said. “I’m the first to admit it. I even said it first. At the same time as Focks. I was shook and I was weird. Now I’m steady and weird. The prisoner is weird. A weird steady prisoner who doesn’t feel bad.”
Benji and June and I went to Nurse Clyde’s. In a big metal cabinet, I found gauze and tape, then a box of tongue-depressors in a drawer in Clyde’s desk. I sat across from Benji, who sat in Clyde’s chair, quietly watching his hand change color. June brought us water in paper cups. I wrapped my wrist first, tight in the gauze, so I wouldn’t hurt it worse when I took care of Benji.
“You said you’d replace the guys guarding the hostages,” he said.
Those guys can wait.
“I can go to the gym and recruit,” said June.
Stay here with us. With me, I said.
“You shouldn’t make them wait.”
I said, I’ll call Eliyahu and tell him what to do.
“You don’t want him leaving the gym,” Benji said.
He doesn’t need to leave, I said. He can just—
“You don’t want him just sending them, either,” June said. “What if they’re scared like they were before? They might run or screw up. Someone needs to go with them and be in charge.”
Are you scared? I said.
“No,” June said. “Not while I’m with you. But they’re not with you.”
You won’t be either if I send you, I said.
“True,” she said, “and I might get scared, but I’d be more scared of what would happen if I abandoned you.”
So would I.
“Good,” she said. “So I’ll go and recruit.”
No, I said. I’ll have Eliyahu send Vincie to be in charge.
“You don’t want Vincie leaving the gym, either,” Benji said.
This was true.
Don’t recruit, I said to June. Assign, I said. Assign on my orders; and only use Israelites, and no ex-Shovers. Five to the library, two to Ben-Wa, and three to Cody. Tell them who’s in charge, and if they ask where I am, just tell them I’m protecting them.
“I’ll see you in the gym,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek and then she was gone.
When I finished my wrist, I told Benji to lay his hand on the blotter, palm facing up.
He winced when he did it, brought his hand to his chest.
Sorry, I said.
I went to the Quiet Room, got a pillow off a cot. While in there, I found aspirins on a shelf above the sink and swallowed three with water from the tap. I returned to the desk, set the pillow on the blotter.
Lay your hand on the pillow.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
A little, I said.
My mom had shown me movies. I did the best I could. The bad hand was nearly twice the size of the good one. The redder parts were hardening and growing purpler. Black blood beneath the nails pushed up on the enamel in oval formations. I broke in half one of the tongue depressors and taped it tight to the back of his pinky. Then I taped another to the back of his ringfinger. Those were the darkest parts; the ones that the padlock had made direct contact with. The rest of the hand was busted up too, though. Lots of small fractured bones in too small a space. The best I could do was to cushion it. I wrapped the gauze thick as a boxing glove.
“Stupid,” Benji muttered, as I started on the wrapping.
I said, Don’t call me stupid.
He hadn’t and I knew it and he knew I knew it and he showed me by ignoring the statement.
“I knew the lock broke my hand,” he said. “Anyone would’ve known. What do I do, though? As soon as we go down, I hit him square on the jaw with the broken hand. On purpose with the broken hand. I had time to think about it: Which should I hit him with?… Hit him with the broken one — that’s what I decided.”
Why? I said.
“Guy in juvie who taught me how to fight always said to use the blow that got used on you — that right after you block something, the part of your body you blocked with numbs out and the endorphins or whatever rush there to numb it out more, to protect and strengthen it. I don’t even know if that’s true about the chemicals, but the guy had me throwing knees and elbows against the bedposts for training, and after the first one it always got easier, I could always strike harder, at least that’s how it felt. I never did it with a broken bone, though, and if you’d asked me before, I’d’ve told you it would be a fucken stupid thing to try. If you’d asked me in that split-second when I decided to cave Bam’s jaw with this broken hand, I’d’ve said the same thing. But I did it anyway.”