Rion Scott - Insurrections

While the rector gave us instructions in his soft-dull voice, I barely listened and figured I’d just follow the lead of all the other kids. When the music started, I fell in line behind the Raisin and we did our procession into the nave. I looked left and there stood my family. My sister took pictures, my mother waved. My father seemed to be smiling a bit. Assorted aunts, uncles, godparents, cousins, and family friends had sprinkled themselves throughout the congregation.

Through the songs and speeches and other garnishes thrown in to extend a service that could have been five minutes, I tongued the swelling at my mouth. It had a hot, blood-tart taste. I hated my father, my mother, and the sister who betrayed me. I hated them all.

Alana went first, then Maurice, then Tomás. I watched as the rector asked them about receiving the Lord and they nodded and voiced their agreement to receive Him. Then Popeye accepted the Lord and then the Raisin accepted the Lord.

The rector finally called my name. I again tongued the swelling on the inside of my lip. I eyed the floor beneath my feet and didn’t move. My legs felt leaden. So did my arms. My head became a bowling ball. The rector called me again, and a murmuring rippled through the church. I rose from my seat and did a Frankenstein walk with my dead limbs. I reached the altar and knelt before the man and looked up to a shower of multihued light cast down from the stained glass windows. The rector spoke, and I flinched from the lightburst. I could see White Jesus, but not much else. The rector’s head shone golden. Do you accept Jesus? he asked. I squinted, trying to see his face. Above me, White Jesus leaned in to hear my answer. When I didn’t immediately respond, the rector leaned too. He didn’t look like a being of gold anymore. He looked tarnished and cracked. He leaned further and became a shadow.

There was more murmuring from the audience. I never knew that a few seconds could feel like eternity; a long time and no time at all. This is what White Jesus’s heaven must feel like. A day to God is a thousand years. I nodded. The rector’s expression was of puzzlement and annoyance. He required a verbal answer. The one that sat lodged in my throat. I looked out onto the crowd. I saw my sister clear as I’d ever seen anything. My mother was hazy and my father was just light. I looked up. White Jesus’s arms were long, his muscles defined. He looked sad, though. He had never had sex, like me. Never masturbated to relieve the tension, because that was a sin and he was sinless. Never watched naked women writhe about on Cinemax or whatever the ancient equivalent of that was. Just what did he discuss with those whores? With the one he loved but never fucked? What did he do with all that yearning? I closed my eyes and the rector asked again. I thought about White Jesus feeling the lash of his father’s hand striking him, choking him, whipping him, opening wounds all over his body. What else was the Passion but a cosmic spanking? White Jesus and I shared that in common. Just like White Jesus, I was confused by the bruising, and after my lashing, alone in my room I called out Why? but received no answer. And when the rector asked a third time, I mumbled, Why? And perhaps God magically turned it into a Yes for everyone’s ears, because the rector blessed me and carried on. The church people promised to support me just as they did with everyone else and they slipped into song and I returned to my seat feeling wrung out and exhausted and no one ever asked me about my response. Did they not hear? Did none of it matter? Did they not know?

Well, in any case, I knew and I know and I’ve always known what really happened the day I received my confirmation.

The Strange and Savage Case of a Once Erudite and Eloquent Young Man

Of all the cases of Reverse Animalism 1that we have either read about or observed firsthand, the case of Louis Smith 2is the most puzzling, if in many ways the clearest. And if we may make so bold a statement, it is a case that is often misunderstood owing to its mishandling. Smith’s backwards evolution and descent into what can only be described as simian behavior could well have been avoided if responsible parties — i.e., school officials, parents, the courts, and so on — had been more attentive and aware of the symptoms 3of Reverse Animalism. Then perhaps Louis Smith’s mental state could have been salvaged and he might have been rehabilitated and released back into society. As it stands now, the man who as a child was once referred to as “the erudite young Louis Smith” 4is beyond reclamation. Despite advances in treatment of the disorder, the scientific community has dragged its knuckles for too long, and as a result the subject of this report is destined to live out his life as more animal than man.

We intend in this study to present the facts of Louis Smith’s descent into bestial behavior in order to afford what we believe to be the first clear, published look at Reverse Animalism. In examining this specific case, we hope to challenge the public’s preconceived notions about the condition and to stimulate badly needed discussion. Also, we aim to spark a greater awareness of the disorder and would like to foster a great leap forward, both in understanding and in treating Reverse Animalism, for the sake of our society and of the increasing number of people afflicted with this troubling disorder. 5

It is a popular misconception that Louis Smith at age nineteen simply and inexplicably stopped shaving, then bathing, and within six to eight months ceased speaking, to communicate instead in hisses, grunts, and growls until he became a nuisance to society, an irritating vagrant who wandered from nightclub to nightclub, somehow crossing velvet ropes in order to fondle and “freak dance” (i.e., rhythmically gyrate the male genital region against the buttocks or genital area of a partner in an erotically stimulatory manner) with the opposite sex in ever more primal and base fashions. This view has, unfortunately, been put forth in report after report, most notably the Meratti Pharmaceuticals report. 6This version of events, however, does not take into account that Reverse Animalism never simply arrives like an unwanted visitor. Instead it has a gradual onset. Many small symptoms, such as an impulsive surrendering to one’s base desires, appear before the larger symptom of losing the ability to communicate through or fully comprehend human language.

Louis’s intellectual peak seemed to be in the sixth grade, when he was named cocaptain of the Walter J. Clash Elementary School debate team. An English teacher handpicked him to join the team after witnessing his eloquence in discussing The Diary of Anne Frank in class. The teacher recalls that Louis was often very aggressive toward male opponents and teammates. A victory would find Louis laughing at his opponent, somewhat obnoxiously, and shouting him down. The occasional loss often caused him to retire to a corner, not speaking for some time. Ironically, these were the traits that convinced teachers that Louis would make a good debate team captain. And by all accounts, he was. The team often found itself victorious, and his English teacher credits Louis. The teacher and debate team coach had this recollection:

I had to lecture Louis on sportsmanship more than once. He didn’t take losing, or winning for that matter, very well. But he was a good leader, everybody followed him. Once, during a real crucial debate — we’re at a school in the next town [Port Yooga, Virginia], an all-white team — Louis’s cocaptain C — just blanks. In front of the whole school, a packed auditorium, all the parents and teachers, this fifth-grader, a real eloquent and bright kid, is just frozen there. Costs us the whole tournament. Well, Louis is not saying much about the whole thing for most of the bus ride back. Everyone’s quiet, just contemplating the match. I stand to give the guys a standard pep talk. I tell them that it wasn’t C—’s fault. Louis cuts me off and starts yelling. No Mr. G —, he says to me. It’s not all right . Then he stands up and turns to C—. We trained for months for this tournament and you blew it for us. Now we have to go home to nothing. Nothing. Thanks a lot .