Rion Scott - Insurrections

Man, Kwayku said. If I could be the wallet in them back pockets.

Times like this, Casey wanted to punch Kwayku right in his wolf smile. Then he remembered that it was all jealousy. Marcy belonged to him, ass and all.

A white girl with ass, Kwayku said. It’s fucking unheard of.

The bearded woman danced through Casey’s peripheral vision, and he was happy to take his mind off Kwayku’s nonsense.

There that bitch go again, Casey said.

Calling your mother a bitch? Have some respect.

That woman, that bearded freak, looks nothing like my mother, Casey thought, rubbing the slick sheet of sweat that covered the back of his neck.

She moved purposefully. Staring forward, her head tilted. Casey had seen her before in one of her lucid moments, sheepishly approaching passersby and requesting change. He had seen her angry and belligerent, but most often she was just babbling and confused. Always she was an irritating and bothersome creature, like the stray dogs of the Southside who roamed at night in packs.

Fillafil… Fillafil, she said as she made another pass.

What she saying? Falafel? Why she keep circling the playground, why don’t she go somewhere? Casey asked. I bet you she gonna ask for money any minute now.

Well, damn, Casey, she your mother, you should give her some money, Kwayku said. At least pay for a shave.

She was nearly out of sight when Casey picked up a rock, medium-sized and irregularly shaped. Had some heft to it. He didn’t mean to strike her when he threw it, only to scare her, but he did hit her, square in her head. She covered the bleeding spot with her hand.

Kwayku howled sharply, unable to contain his shock. Wayne gasped and Rich followed. Everyone silently watched one another. The woman’s eyes widened as blood ran down her face. Kwayku snickered and then doubled over in laughter.

The woman stood frozen, and then she was in motion, running off into the street, and then she was gone. The boys spent a half hour replaying the event, changing it until it became a myth.

Man, that was fucked up, Wayne said.

Shut up, nigga, Kwayku said. You was laughing the hardest.

At the end of the half hour, they remembered the rock striking as a light thing, an inconvenience to the woman. They forgot the terror on her face. The sinking feeling of fear that wound through their chests. The blood. It became a scene in a slapstick comedy. They renamed her Lady MacBeard. Instead of shocked silence, the boys recalled laughter being stuck in their throats. It was all a kind of nothing, and in brief moments they remembered what they forgot.

When they were all done and Casey versus Lady MacBeard became little more than an elaborate story, they walked down the hill to Marcy’s house to watch the Spice Channel as was their custom.

III

When she returned to work after maternity leave, Joan’s scent would light up every corner of the library. She glowed lavender and purple and fuchsia and plum. Maybe it was from baby Phil. That’s what her husband said as he stood and watched his wife and son from behind his ever-present cloud of smoke. There was no one at the time who didn’t also radiate their own colors when they saw Joan. The librarians she assisted grinned when they spoke about her. The children in the reading room crowded around once a week as she sang songs and read them picture books. They cooed when she showed them the images and giggled at the different voices she put on for each character.

It was one of those facts lost between childhood memories, but Casey used to be there sometimes, infrequently really, sitting in the front row. Each time she read, she daydreamed one of the children was her Phil watching his mother read from a favorite storybook. One or two times Casey was Phil. And Wayne once was Phil. Every week a new Phil.

Joan loved that place. The smell of the books, for a time, gave her just the highest feeling.

IV

A week of heavy rains kept the boys from venturing from their homes after school. The basketball court up the street from Marcy’s house at Wildlands Forest Elementary sat beneath several inches of water. And even Marcy’s basement, where Casey and his friends went to see naked people writhe about on the television screen, hosted a shallow pool of floodwater. Nothing major, just an irritation, but enough to keep guests out for a while. Then all that passed away and the boys went back to the basketball court.

The day of their return, a Tuesday, the court was dotted with puddles, and when the ball rolled into the grass, it became coated in muddy water. To clean it, Kwayku rolled it off his long black fingers high into the open air, and droplets of brown water went shooting off in all directions.

The atmosphere was damp and heavy with unfallen rain. Wispy gray clouds hung low in the sky. Kwayku spent most of the day telling and retelling the tale of Casey’s triumph, adding a flourish here, a detail there. Casey kept a grin on his face all day until Kwayku said: Man, why you want to do your mother like that?

She does look like his mom, doesn’t she? Richard said.

The grin melted from Casey’s face. She looks nothing like my mother, he thought.

When the four boys finished their basketball game, Kwayku and Richard found themselves victorious again, and Kwayku began his taunts by offering to do Marcy in various positions. Casey noticed Lady MacBeard circling the perimeter, her head bandaged. She walked slowly and ignored the boys, mumbling to herself and occasionally waving her arms for emphasis.

Kwayku pointed and said: Casey, your momma is looking for you.

Casey felt his thoughts darken. He threw a rock. It slapped the ground behind the woman with a thud, splashing onto the muddy earth. She walked on as if it never happened. Casey dug another from the dirt and lobbed it. It whizzed by her. He threw another and another and another until one slammed into her back. She stumbled forward and then stood still, her face frozen in confusion and horror. And then she ran.

Yeah, run, bitch, Kwayku said as he curled back his arm and hurled a stone at Lady MacBeard. It fell far short, as if he never meant to hit her at all.

Richard timidly collected a handful of rocks and tossed them at the fleeing woman, all of them flying far wide or far short. Wayne sighed and shook his head in disgust at his friend — really a neighbor his mother asked him to watch out for — before grabbing Richard and ordering him to cease. And like that, Richard stopped and looked up at his older friends as if waiting on directions.

Casey scratched at his neck, where sparse patches of hairs had started growing in. The boys threw the ball toward the hoop and, tiring of that, walked off to watch pornography at Marcy’s house, speaking of the thing that was her ass the whole time.

The next day, just as Kwayku drained a perfect three-point shot past Casey’s outstretched hand, Marcy showed up, points of sunlight shimmering against some of her stray blonde hairs. Casey smiled and waved at his girlfriend. Sweat covered his face. She smiled back, standing at the edge of the court where the blacktop met the grass, swaying, saying nothing. She greeted Richard and Wayne and ignored Kwayku. He nodded at her as he threw the basketball at Casey’s chest. It smacked into his torso. He gasped, letting the ball drop to the ground.

Your ball, Kwayku said with a growl.

Let me show you how to play, Casey said, tearing his shirt from his sweaty back and slapping the ball against the hard black playground court.

This fool want to take off his shirt when his girl show up, Kwayku said. Put the bird back in the cage.

Casey charged the basket, leaping off the ground and letting the ball rise from his fingers into the air. With little movement, Kwayku reached his ropy arm to the sky and slapped the ball to the earth.