Rion Scott - Insurrections

Rashid, every father says that bit about doing things right. I said that to my daughter and one day you’ll say it to Luce.

Right. Anyway, to lose the Internet would have been tragic. A disruption in the costume search would mean a shitty party for my son. You ever bid in an Internet auction? That shit is a white heat. Checking back every few minutes. It’s all about defeating all the other bidders and cheating the auctioneer. There go the bids. Forty dollars. Fifty-five. Higher. Seventy-five, ninety. Something was telling me to stop. I wouldn’t have an extra ninety bucks for weeks. A hundred and fifty. All this tension throbbing at my throat, Walter. One fifty-five, one seventy-five. The other dude topped off at two fifty and, Walter, I’m at three fifty and thought that was it. No one bid for a while. In the last minutes someone bid four seventy-five and I hit back with five fifty. And then someone hit back and I hit back. When it all ended and I realized I’d won, everything was silent all around me and I heard my office chair creaking. And I’m sweating and grinning like a dumbass fool. All very exhilarating, right? Then I got the sudden awareness that I was on the hook for twelve hundred and fifty big ones that I didn’t have.

Walter sat on the couch, leaning forward, his head in his hands. Man, Rashid, I seen some reckless things, but damn. If you were married to my daughter—

I’m not that reckless. I thought about the change jars I kept. Sometimes I could get like a hundred and fifty out of there, but they were empty. Then I remembered that Ricca had just dumped all of that into Luce’s college fund.

Oh, God, Rashid.

God had nothing to do with any of this. Nothing. He’s no help to me. So, yeah, I looted that college fund. Ain’t tell Ricca shit about that. It’s in my name, therefore it’s my money. Went into our shared savings. Shared checking. Cleaned that shit out. I don’t know how we’re paying rent next month. Then there’s our retirement fund. Thing is down to twenty-eight dollars and it’s got a thirty-five-dollar maintenance fee every month. You know what I got for my troubles? A used, holey costume that smells like someone pulled it out the rankest dumpster in America. I bit my nails and waited two whole weeks to find out the world is a fucked-up place. Ad said it was brand new. Never worn. Look at me. This look like something that’s never been worn? The thing came to the door after the damn party had started. I took that box to the back room quick, quick, quick.

Rashid’s words became caught on the cracking of his voice, and tears poured down his cheeks.

Man, Walter, he said. I screamed and Ricca came in and I screamed again and she was like, There are twelve kids out there. I told her I spent a G, much more than a G — I don’t want to even tell you how much — on a smelly maggot-covered Cookie Monster corpse. She was pissed, Walter. Ain’t even mention the money; that’s how I know she’s pissed. I’m gonna hear about it later. Gonna have to tell her we have to start all over with Luce’s college fund, with everything. She just looked at me with these dead eyes. Wasn’t no more love in those things. She said, Rashid, get a grip. There are twelve kids out there trying to eat cookies and have a good time. Don’t be a jerk. We’ll deal with everything else later. She stormed out and I thought about it and was like, She’s right. So I put on the costume and walked out singing about how C was for Cookie and you know what, all twelve of those kids started crying and the adults started coughing and waving their hands and one little girl grabbed her mother and said, Mommy, the Cookie Monster stinks. That’s when I took off the head and ran out and came down here to you.

Walter breathed deeply, taking the garbage smell into his lungs, and then he sat silently with his eyes closed, hoping when he opened them there would be no absurdity, no insanity inside his apartment. Where was Laura when he needed a firm but patient hand? Walter opened his eyes and there was the Cookie Monster with the head of a man and a stench that grated at his throat.

God, Rashid, that’s quite something, he said. I’m not sure — You young people. There are going to be rocks in your way and rocks on your backs. You’re a man, you can’t approach this like a baby would. It won’t get any easier, Rashid. Not a lick easier. It’s gonna be like this forever. Shit, it’s going to get harder.

Forever, huh? I was going to name Luce forever, or rather, Samad, one of the ninety-nine names of Allah — Al-Samad, the eternal. But then I started to think about eternity, what a curse if you’re not God, right? My man God doesn’t have holy rent and holy bills to pay. Eternity means someone always digging into your pocket, forever being distracted from your deepest desires, spending all your time doing something you don’t want to do in order to pay a petty light bill. So in that hospital room while Ricca was screaming and pushing Luce out, I changed my mind about wanting my son to be eternal. His little head looked sort of like a beam of light so I dropped my college Arabic for my high school Spanish. La Luz, the light. But light, it’s beautiful and all, but it generates heat: heat burns. That’s what this family shit does, it burns you. Sets you on fire. Burns you to a fucking crisp. All my sense is burned from me. Everything. I’m gutted like a burnt-out building. I’m burned. I can’t stand. One day I’m gonna topple over, a pile of fucking burnt ash that’ll burn forever.

And that, Rashid, is the good news. The sun burns and burns and burns and one day it’ll burn out. Massive explosion, taking everything with it, kid. But while it burns, look how much flourishes. Go back to your family, Rashid. Make the day special for Luce. Let Ricca scream at you. You deserve it. And then tomorrow, continue to burn, it’s all you can do.

Rashid stared at the old man and then he turned and slowly walked to the door. Yeah, he said with his hand on the knob. Yeah. You know something, Walter? I regret it all. Every single moment. Not getting head from Kyla. Ricca. Luce. This stinking-ass Cookie Monster costume. My job. Cross River. And if I had made any different choices in life, I’d regret those too. Catch you later, Walter.

Later, son. Oh, you might want to take off that smelly costume before you go back in there.

Right, Rashid said from the hallway. As he shimmied from the furry blue outfit, the door slammed itself shut. Walter heard Rashid’s feet moving up the stairs and above him a door opened and slammed.

If there were a time to head to the corner store and get a pack of beer, it would be now, he thought. Why would he want to remember all this? This was the type of memory that one wants to fade into a fuzzy haze. Walter noticed the blue Cookie Monster head resting on the floor. From some angles, the smiling open mouth looked like an expression of abashed joy, from others it resembled horror. He rubbed his eyes and his forehead. He felt drunk, but it was a different drunk from the one the bottle would give him. Walter suddenly was struck by the image of one day coming in to see Rashid’s legs dangling atop his balcony, all dead and furry and Cookie Monster blue.

But right now there was music and children’s laughter from above and when he got close to the balcony, he could even hear Rashid laughing, to be sure. Walter placed the smiling, googly-eyed Cookie Monster head atop his bookshelf and rested himself on the couch. That afternoon he fell asleep watching the grinning puppet head and listening to the joy from above.

Walking with a hunched posture, shambling through a windy day, being pelted by cool dots of water. There was something inevitable about my bent gait. Somehow, somewhere deep down I really did believe it would protect me from the rain. Did no such thing, of course.