Rion Scott - Insurrections

The day was breezy and cold, and I wore a thin jacket as I’d expected it to be warmer when I left the house in the morning. Cold wetness does much to clear the detritus from the mind and leave one focused only on the moment, and before long I had two thoughts: I’m soaked. I’m shivering.

I’ve never been one to watch weather reports. It’s more honorable to take the weather as it comes.

Forgive me if I digress; you wanted to know what happened to my brother.

So it was raining that day, pretty heavily. The sky glowed an incandescent gray, shimmering overhead. I nervously smoked a cheap cigar, my lungs burning. I imagined them a flaming red, shining through my skin and through my clothes. Then I imagined them a crusty, charred black. But really they were likely still a fresh bright pink, like cooked salmon. I only smoke at times of distress.

The Cross River had again breached the Southside, at least part of it, the part that’s always taking the brunt of the floodwaters — the part where all the poor folks live and where my little brother lived. First it was dry, and then it started to rain and just like that the water rushed in, a steady flow of dirty brown liquid. I have never understood why people live there. This is nearly a yearly occurrence and nobody seems to care. There’s a trailer park down there that regularly becomes a scattered field of overturned trailer homes, the flimsy material they make those pieces-of-shit with strewn all about the place. I see pictures, almost every year, on the front page of the Days & Times . And then they rebuild absurdly like a great flood never happened.

I told my brother not to move into that trailer park, but listening — not drugs — was his true problem. The bastard that owns that place calls it Riverview. What a fucker.

In the morning when they were threatening rain and promising a flood like this town hadn’t seen in a hundred years, my mother called me up nearly in tears, telling me to go find Stephen, make him come home.

Mom, I told her, the last time I talked to him he said that trailer park was home. He cussed me out. He’s not going to listen now.

Nobody had talked to him in weeks, since he didn’t have a phone. Every once in a while he’d call, sounding distant and scratchy, just a disembodied voice offering a mumbled cry. Usually he requested cash, some emergency always on the horizon, and my mother would send me to Western Union with a fat envelope of her Social Security money. He’d pick up the cash across the bridge in Virginia — Port Yooga. It always galled me the lengths he’d go to avoid letting me or Mom see the desperate creature he’d become. Those times, I couldn’t help but imagine the phone call I’d receive one day telling me they’d found his gaunt, lifeless body on a dirty floor.

This stormy day when I saw her, she put the money in my hand, clutched my free palm tightly, and stared at me soulfully with those big gray eyes. Go and get your brother, she said, and bring him home.

She tried to appear strong, but I knew she’d been crying for him as she’d never cry for me.

When I left her house it had already started getting chilly, but the rain hadn’t begun for the day. I didn’t believe it would rain, at least not as hard as it did. I needed to think about what I’d say to Stephen when I saw him, so I decided to walk. It would be a long walk, but it would give Stephen a chance to sober up for the day and me a chance to choose my words carefully.

Ever notice how the weather can turn your whole mood? As I walked, the sky became darker. I watched the churning clouds move. They seemed black with rage and so was I. How could Mom allow herself to be played over and over by this con man? I pulled a cigar from a package and lit it as I rehearsed my words, and they became more rage-filled and the rain fell harder. I had heard that tobacco can calm the disturbed soul and it only became a problem when modern man began using it as a crutch. At first it tickled the back of my throat, then it felt like pinpricks in my windpipe. Before long my lungs burned, and I started to think about my mission and I hunched over. Rain poured and the high wind blew my jacket about and made me stumble. The rain pellets stung as they sprayed the exposed flesh of my cheeks. My cigar grew soggy, the damp tobacco blotting out the glowing tip. I sheltered beneath a tree, but then the thunder clapped. It was a loud and deep rumbling, accompanied by a bright purple fork of lightning. I tossed the cigar and kept moving.

As I walked, I noticed two squirrels scurrying ahead of me. One chased the other, so I assumed they were a male and a female. The pooling rain would be a problem for them, I imagined, but instead of troubled, they looked carefree. It reminded me of the story my mother used to tell my brother and me when we were children about the boy who willed himself into a squirrel rather than live a difficult life. I really don’t know what my mother was trying to get at with that story, but I loved it. Stephen loved it more than I did. I figured my speech to my brother would involve squirrels somehow. I tramped through deep, dirty puddles and the water collected inside my shoes and I thought I could hear my socks squishing beneath the weight of my steps.

I walked underneath awnings and beneath the eaves of houses. I stooped over like an old man. It was all so ridiculous, and I stopped preparing my speech to address the stupidity of my gait. I straightened my back and raised my head to the glowing gray. As soon as my walk was somewhat automatic, I took my mind from it and returned to thinking of what I would say to my brother. About a block or two down the road, a man in a black rain-beaded bowler hat and matching umbrella called my name. He looked hazy in the rain. I didn’t at all recognize him.

The bowler-hatted man told me his name and it still didn’t sound familiar, but he spoke as if we were friends.

Say, jack, where you heading to in this storm? he asked.

Going to see my brother, I replied.

Yeah? How’s he doing?

Man, I haven’t talked to him in like months. He lives his life, I live mine.

You have his face.

He has my face. We have our mother’s face.

And your mannerisms. It’s like you’re the same person.

I assure you—

Let me ask you something, jack.

I really got to run.

It’ll only take a second.

Okay, but make it quick.

Okay. He paused without saying a word. The rain rapidly splattered against his umbrella, making a clopping sound. I let out a frustrated sigh and he continued: So, would you like a ride to the Southside? It’s pouring and it’s a long walk. I haven’t seen Stephen in a little while and I’d really like to see him.

Well, man, I appreciate it, but I need to clear my head and I got some real brotherly shit to say to him, I replied. It’s kind of personal, so I’ll need to talk to him alone. You understand, right?

He took a step toward me, in a way that was meant to be menacing, but it didn’t really scare me. Some rain from his umbrella splashed into my eyes.

Listen, jack, said the bowler-hatted man as I snapped my eyes shut and wiped the water from my face. When I opened them, a woman wearing a black veil over her face and a black hijab that nearly covered even her feet strolled up to us and he stopped talking.

She held a bright yellow umbrella spread out overhead. The bottom of her garb was damp.

Do either of you have the time? she asked softly, and I became transfixed by the watery brown and green pools of her eyes. The rest of her body was totally covered, except for her hands with their soft, slender olive fingers. But her eyes were two celestial bodies. I wanted to ask her if her eyes were real. Instead I simply looked at my watch and, as coolly as possible, told her the time.