“It’s weird!” an ex-Shover said. “I thought we were waiting for scholars, not an author.” “And what’s this stuff about a holiday that doesn’t have a name?” said another ex-Shover. “I think you should call it Last Day of School Day,” said the Flunky. “That’s completely dumb!” an Israelite yelled. “It’s completely dumb and it doesn’t sound Israelite!” “Who cares if it sounds—” “Fuck you who cares! We care.” “Who’s Philip Roth?” “How about Shut the Fuck Up You Fucken Coward Day!” “How about you fucken idiots don’t even know who Philip Roth is!” “And the way you keep sending Israelites out to guard the doors!” “Yeah! Why don’t you send any of them, you know?” “It’s like you’re trying—” “He’s not trying anything! You just want to watch TV and bitch and moan!” “We have to get out of here. Gurion. Baby.” “You’re supposed to be the messiah, but you’re sending Israelites into danger!” “What’s the messiah?” “You should send them instead!” “Did that dumbfuck just ask what’s the messiah?” “Is he the messiah?” “Are you the messiah?” “What’s the messiah?” “And where’s that bully?” “The messiah’s a who!” “Where’d they hide Nakamook?” “Why’s he friends with that kid?!” “He might be the messiah and he might not be the messiah!” “There is no might! He is or he isn’t!” “What the fuck do you know? You dropped out of Hebrew School!” “He’s our leader!” “Why, though? Why’s he our leader if he isn’t the messiah?” “He might be the messiah!” “Why’s he leading them if he’s our messiah?” “He might not be the messiah!” “He is or he isn’t! He can’t have his cake and eat it too!” “His cake?” “Our cake!” “Our cake?” “Cake?” “Our who?” “He’s our leader!” “Where’s he fucken leading us!?” “He’s protecting us!” “You feel protected?!”
And I stood there, scholars, listening and listening, trying to get a handle on what needed settling first, til finally I judged that none of it did. These arguers didn’t care about what they were arguing. They were all just afraid. In my absence, as before, they’d all grown afraid, and to combat their fears, they argued with each other. It shouldn’t have surprised me. In war it’s necessary to fill up with enmity — it’s even good — but when under siege, you feel out of control, you become afraid, and you wedge that enmity between yourself and your brothers, who you see before you, who you can reach out and strike: if you can’t attack the one you want to, you attack the one you’re with. It’s a way to forget the siege a little, a way to regain some sense of control. It’s the wrong way, true, one of the wrongest, but it’s still an act of hope, at least inasmuch as it isn’t surrender, and these soldiers before me — they weren’t surrendering. I saw they had hope yet.
I sirened the megaphone. Their mouths stopped moving.
Brothers, I said, you are wasting your enmity, wasting your strength. You’re all just afraid of what might happen next, not in the school, but outside the school; not between one another, but between now and then; us in here and them out—
“It’s them!” someone shouted from the edge of the mob. “Look! Come quick! It’s them! It’s them!”
June grabbed my hand as the mob dispersed. I led her to a spot before the eastern bleachers. Ex-Shovers low-voiced some hey’s and what-the’s. I sat us on the floor to unblock their sightlines, not even thinking to address them directly.
Emmanuel Liebman was live on TV.
The cameraman was shooting from the side of Rand Road, so Emmanuel, in profile, as he pressed forward, was moving from the right of our screens toward the left. Behind him, in columns, scholars were emerging from the edge of the frame. Their pennyguns were drawn, but pointed at the ground. Their columns spanned the asphalt between the road’s shoulders.
At the screen’s extreme left were a pair of squadcars, parked nose-to-nose to block both lanes, their blue lights rotating lazily. Three of four cops who’d been leaning on the doors straightened their postures and crossed their arms. The fourth reached inside of the car he’d been leaning on, grabbed the PA mike and said, “STAND DOWN.” It sounded fizzy.
Emmanuel stopped moving. The scholars stopped moving.
The soldiers in the gym stifled groans, then didn’t.
Samuel was heading the centermost column. Emmanuel revolved, said something in his ear. Samuel said something back to Emmanuel. Emmanuel nodded, revolved, went forward. The rest of the scholars followed his lead.
When the gap between Emmanuel and the cross-armed cops, which was roughly forty yards at the sound of “STAND DOWN,” shrunk to thirty-five, another order came.
“HALT,” said the cop on the microphone.
The scholars pressed forward, filling more of the frame. Nine columns eight-deep to the edge of the screen; now nine-, now ten-, now eleven-deep.
“CEASE. HALT. STAND DOWN,” squawked the mike-cop. The others unholstered batons.
As the scholars closed in, not missing a beat, the PA continued to fizzily squawk. Fifteen yards from the cops, they were all onscreen; another couple yards and Emmanuel stopped them. Soldiers in the gym started groaning a little. I tried to count the rows but the camera zoomed in. I’d counted almost halfway and gotten to twenty. Nine columns by forty-odd rows plus flankers (there were flankers picking rocks from the gravel shoulders, handing them in to be passed across the rows) = roughly four hundred scholars in all. Zoomed-in, I was able to make out more faces: the columns switched off between Schechter and Northside, five of the former and four of the latter.
Emmanuel revolved, said something to Samuel. Samuel said something back to Emmanuel.
How far away are they? I said to the soldiers.
“I think those houses are, like, six blocks away.” “More like two.” “They’re nowhere near us.” “There’s that one with the Santa, though. The year-round Santa one.” “The year-round Santa one’s minutes away.” “Minutes exactly.” “Minutes by bus, dude.” “Two minutes by bus when you catch all the reds.” “Where is it you think you see a Santa, anyway?” “There at the edge.” “That isn’t a Santa.” “It’s the side of a Santa.” “It’s the side of a whatsit — the water thing.” “A hydrant.” “You’re crazy.” “You’re blind. That Santa’s a hydrant.”
“Why don’t you call them?” asked Ally Kravitz.
NoJacks, I said.
Onscreen, Emmanuel was addressing the scholars. He pointed east, then pointed north. Samuel leaned, seeming to protest. Emmanuel shrugged. The cops hadn’t moved.
“They’ve all got NoJacks?” Josh Berman said.
The ones who I know, I said.
“I fucken hate NoJacks.” “I hate NoJacks, too.” In the gym, we cursed NoJacks til Emmanuel revolved again.
Hands cupped at his mouthsides, he hollered to the cops. The mike on the camera barely picked it up; what it did get got garbled into frying sounds.
“STAND DOWN,” said the mike-cop, when Emmanuel finished.
Emmanuel hollered: more hisses and hums. This time the cops, when Emmanuel was finished, started to argue among themselves.
Emmanuel raised his hand, waiting for something.
The cameraman started to speak in a whisper: “The studio’s telling us that our microphone’s failing. The network apologizes… To catch you up: The boy at the front yelled out to officers that he intended to ‘lead his friends to the two-hill field’ and he asked that the officers please get out of his way so that ‘we won’t have to walk on your cars and dent them.’ Some ten seconds later, he seemed to change his mind, and he told the officers that because they ‘seem like nice men who probably have families and need to keep your jobs, which maybe you’ll lose if you don’t stand your ground, we’ll just walk around you while you stand your ground, and your cars won’t get—’ There they go.”