Rion Scott - Insurrections

Get that shit out of here, boy, Kwayku said. What you think this is?

Stop showing off and pass that shit! Wayne screamed.

Casey looked over at his girlfriend. Their eyes met and she grinned and shrugged. He looked away, pretending Marcy wasn’t there even as he felt her eyes on him. She clapped and shouted Casey’s name, which made him more conscious of his own existence, the physical space his body occupied.

Whatever, Kwayku, Casey said. Let’s see you do that again.

Kwayku slapped down Casey’s shots three more times. Richard, after each block, snatched the ball and tossed it into Kwakyu’s waiting hands. In a single swift motion, Kwayku pulled up and each time released a perfectly placed shot that would have swished in the net had there been a net. And just as he released the ball, he dedicated each shot to Marcy, who accepted the honor by playfully blowing kisses in his direction. Before long, it was over for Casey and Wayne. Kwayku snatched his baseball cap from the ground and slapped it onto his head, declaring it his crown.

I’m the king of basketball! Kwayku shouted. And Richard is my deputy. Everybody address me as Your Highness . Forget that sucker, Marcy, you could be my queen.

No thanks, Your Highness , Marcy replied.

Casey strode to the edge of the court, ignoring Kwayku and Richard’s trash talk, and put his arm around Marcy.

I don’t need your sweat all over me, she said, pulling from him. Shoot, she mumbled. When I ask you to touch me… She sucked her teeth. Casey shot her a glance that was supposed to look angry but only appeared wounded and weak.

Kwayku bawled and clapped his hands. The massive things slapping together sounded like hooves clopping along the road. Yeah, Kwayku said, you stink. He laughed louder. Richard and Wayne joined him.

Damn, your girl dissed you, Kwayku said, his words riding waves of laughter.

Whatever, Casey mumbled.

Marcy, you know you don’t really want to be with him, Kwayku said. Come holler at me.

Casey frowned. Marcy said nothing. She smiled, though.

You got a donkey, girl, he continued. Casey don’t know how to ride that.

Shut up, Kwayku, Marcy said. Stop talking about my ass. You’re just jealous ’cause Casey got this donkey and what you got?

Then there was quiet until Kwayku said: Hey, Rich, she told that nigga he stink. She said: Get the hell off me, nigga! You stink!

She ain’t say that, Casey said.

Man, everybody heard her, Richard said.

You and Richard, y’all need to stop instigating, Marcy replied. Casey know I said nothing like that.

The back-and-forth went on for several minutes. Lady MacBeard circled the playground slowly as if on a mission, though no one noticed.

Watch, Marcy gonna be laying up with me today, Kwayku said. Ain’t that right, Marcy?

Whatever, she replied.

Can’t stop talking shit, huh? Wayne asked.

What? I’m just saying, she know she want to, Kwayku replied.

Man, Kwayku, that’s enough, Casey said.

Kwayku walked over to Casey, standing so close to him they traded body heat. He had nearly a foot on Casey. Kwayku’s voice rumbled where everyone else’s squeaked.

Who you talking to like that, boy? When Casey didn’t respond, he said: Dog, I’ll smack the shit out of your little ass. He paused. Just ’cause you can play some ball don’t mean I won’t smack you.

Casey looked down at the rocks on the ground. In the distance, Lady MacBeard made another circuit and Casey noticed her for the first time.

Watch, man, I’m gonna fuck your girl. What you think about that?

Again Casey didn’t respond.

Man, that ain’t a rhetorical question. I’m gonna stick my dick in that ass. What you gonna do?

Marcy was as still as a plastic doll, or rather a mannequin from a department store window. Richard and Wayne chuckled, yet they didn’t smile.

Casey looked around at each eye. They were fixed on him, hungering for his reaction. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Huh? You forget how to talk?

Man, Casey said slowly and quietly. I don’t care. Do what you want.

Kwayku, man, why don’t you leave him alone? Wayne said.

Casey’s my nigga. Kwayku smiled and put his arm around Casey. He know I’m just playing.

In the distance came an animal-like bleating. Fillafil Fillafil Fillafil, Lady MacBeard cried. Her voice echoed throughout the neighborhood.

Marcy and the boys looked at her. Kwayku’s smile broadened, and he looked toward Casey.

Man, he said. I ain’t even gonna say it.

The group walked slowly to Marcy’s house, with only awkward asides cutting into the silence. Marcy was in front, her arms wrapped around her torso, speaking only when addressed and then replying with just one or two words.

She was on display as usual — one of the only white girls at District Central Senior High School, a member of one of the only completely lily white families in Cross River. And sometimes, she had told Casey on the Saturday after the heavy rains had passed, she hated being a star, hated the older guys speaking to her with unsaid words hidden behind their words, hated all the mistaken assumptions about who she was. Casey, timid and understated, was a change of pace from the world she, as an oddity, a display piece, was expected to inhabit. She told Casey this, except that when she said it she said: Casey, I like you ’cause you’re so laid back, you’re a thinker. Sometimes I want you to take action, though — be more assertive like, you know, those guys who be hanging out in the afternoon by the bus stop.

What do you mean? Casey asked. They were alone in her basement, yet they sat on opposite sides of the room. You want me to yell about how much I want to hit that when you walk by?

Grow up, Casey. You know that’s not what I mean. But, you know, you could grab my ass sometimes instead of waiting for me to make a move. Don’t you want to do that? she asked, walking over to him. She pressed Casey’s left hand to the soft cushion behind her.

They kissed and fondled for a while, and then he climbed the stairs with a dull ache burning beneath his waist. Casey described his pain to Marcy as the two made small talk by her front door, and she responded: It’s your own fault. Then there hung a blank, lingering and torturous silence that he was learning to get used to.

Marcy, he felt, was slipping from him.

V

Three out of the four Christmases when Joan was employed by the Downtown Branch Library, she played Joan Santi Claus, handing out slim paperback picture books to smiling children who had spaces where their baby teeth once were. Casey, even as a teenager, still had his book. It was about an Italian witch with a magical cauldron that produced endless pasta. That’s how everyone regarded Joan, as magical. Unruly hellions became docile and sweet in her presence. Even when she began to miss work and generally faded into her own world, children and librarians and parents all regarded her as the good witch. They couldn’t help it; she inspired smiles and conversation. The good witch from over there on the Southside of Cross River. It’s a shame what’s happening to those neighborhoods over there , her coworkers would say. She just nodded when they said that. Nodded as if to a beat. Not like how her uncle and his friends nodded. She used to watch them and they’d make her promise to never lose control that way. That herr-on, Joan, her uncle would say and then shake his head and rub his swollen, scabby hands.

That September — on the second Thursday of the month, before her last Christmas at the library — was the first time since maternity leave that she had to cancel story time. Phil was nearly a year old. She called that morning, as she would many times after that, following a long night in her Southside townhouse. She felt so sick, she told her boss. In those days, it was always a party. Passed bottles and joints. Her husband one night laid out a line of white powder and made it disappear inside his vacuum-cleaner nose. Joan observed him like a scientist day after day, and he was the same man going off to his job at the Public Works Department and coming home to play with Phil before welcoming the neighbors for drinks and a card game. One night she closed her eyes, blocked her right nostril, and disappeared a coke line that burned the space inside her face just beneath her eyes.