Rion Scott - Insurrections

People waved and shouted from rooftops. I wished we could stop and rescue them all. Bring food or water. We ignored them as if their cries were silence. We passed the bodies of floating cats and dogs, mostly cats. Dead insects floated by, and dead rats and pigeons, but they all deserved to be dead. I imagined myself shot and tossed overboard, floating next to them. The men were paddling in the direction of my brother’s place. A human body floated face-down in the distance, his white T-shirted back an island.

Maybe that’s your brother, the bowler-hatted man said. The fucker had a smile in his voice, sounded excited. I scowled at him. It might have been my brother, though; I couldn’t deny that. The body was the right size. The right shape. The right color. I wanted to jump from the canoe and swim to the floating man. We got close enough to flip the corpse. The nose looked like a smashed mushroom sitting there on his face. His eyes filled with redness. Face puffed out, all bloated and cracked. A sad case, but not my brother.

We passed the next several minutes in silence. The light crept out of the sky, making it a darkening gray. I spotted my brother first on the top of a roof with two other men. I didn’t dare say anything. Didn’t want to alert the bowler-hatted man and his goons to Stephen’s existence. He waved his arms and jumped, calling out to me. Expressionless, the men turned their heads toward him and paddled in his direction.

Stephen’s face had become gaunt and pockmarked with scars. He had a bulge in his pocket that I took for drugs but could have been anything. My brother, a mass of bones and baggy flesh and hair and eyes that were too big for their sockets. A mess of parts that didn’t quite fit. His garments were too big for him. Dirt-caked jeans drooped and bunched at his ankles. A flannel shirt lay askew at the shoulders. He looked like a boy wearing his father’s clothes. I told myself I had never seen him looking so bad, but that’s untrue. This was his natural state. I always looked the other way, but now I couldn’t turn from him.

He smoked a cigarette, looking again like a child doing an adult thing.

Big brother, he said, all this water and I’m thirsty as shit. Didn’t God promise he wouldn’t flood the earth again?

When have you ever known God to keep a promise, the bowler-hatted man replied.

What are you doing with that asshole? my brother said sharply, pointing with his smoking hand.

I stood to cross from the canoe to the rooftop and felt a hand on my shoulder. I stumbled and tripped onto the roof. The goons yelled and cursed. The two men sitting behind my brother pointed and laughed at my clumsiness.

What the hell are you doing? the bowler-hatted man screamed from the canoe. You almost capsized this shit. You are as dumb as your brother. Don’t share his fate, motherfucker.

Threats always put steel in my spine. There is something about an asshole trying to make himself bigger by acting like a tough guy that brings out the thug in me.

Look, I don’t have time for your fucking nonsense, I said. I need to talk to my br—

Thug-me disappeared the second the goons crossed from the canoe to the rooftop, holding pistols and wearing the flat emotionless faces of killers.

Maaaaan, my brother said. What kind of shit is this? I spend months ducking these clueless fuckers only to get sold out by my own family. Thanks, bruh.

Fucked up, said one of the dirty men, the one with the lopsided Afro, as he rested his hand on the shoulder of his friend, a balding man with gray and black dreadlocks sprouting from the sides of his head.

I’ve said it before and I’m gonna say it now, the man with the dreadlocks said. Family will sell you out quicker than your enemies. Fucking family, man.

I… we… they had a boat, I said. All I had thought to tell my brother sputtered from my head. Mom sent me, I said.

At that he scowled. The dirty men both smiled broadly and chuckled back and forth. Mommy, the man with the dreadlocks called, and I shot him a look. He shot me one right back.

Your brother loves you, the bowler-hatted man said. I, on the other hand, don’t. Stephen, you made us look like fools. Running around town searching for you. And for what, a few thousand bucks?

Look, man, I got robbed by some big gorilla-looking pig. He be shaking down every nig—

What makes you think I want to hear your bullshit?

I’ve been working to get you your money. You can kill me and get nothing, or you can work with me and get paid back.

The bowler-hatted man and his squat goon walked toward my brother. The time for talking was done. Perhaps it had finished weeks ago, but I couldn’t help screaming like my voice would be able to make up for all the times I ignored my brother’s existence, all the phone calls I didn’t return, emails, old-fashioned letters I read briefly and tossed into the trash; eventually he realized I’d never respond, and all contact ceased. When my voice mattered, all Stephen heard from me was silence.

I’ll pay you triple, dog, I screamed. You’re throwing away a fortune. Don’t be a f—

I felt something seize my throat from behind. I reached for it and thrashed around, but that only made it tighter. The heft of another human being weighed heavy on my back. I swayed side to side to shake him. We toppled from the roof into the dirty water. Free from whatever choked me, I thrashed like a bucking beast trying to tread water. The dirty liquid soaked into my clothes, making me heavy. Pressure to the back of my head and my shoulders prevented me from rising. The more I thrashed about, the more nasty brown water spilled into my mouth and swam down my throat. My head bobbed above the surface and I gasped, taking in a mouthful of water and a lungful of air. A hand shoved me back under. Everything went black.

The world around me turned emerald. Those eyes. They hung above me like twin suns. She blinked every few moments and the world became black again and then emerald again and then black and then emerald and on and on. The woman whispered to me in a broken Arabic. She struggled with it as if it weren’t her native language. Amina. Khadijah. What could her name be? I heard a voice like my own voice raining down upon me. She’s here to watch over you . It was as if I had died and returned to become my own spirit guide. Magical, mysterious, mystery muslimeena. Madam, my muslimah, make me more than a mark who’s made my brother mortuary bound. My brother. I’d forgotten about him through this meaningless obsession. My own voice cascaded down upon me again. How do I return?

I awoke face down on the roof, shivering and coughing. My brother was gone and so were the two goons and their leader. I hacked up thick brown phlegm and a bubble pressed against the inside of my stomach. It seemed that sometime during my unconsciousness I had vomited and shat myself.

He’s alive, I heard the man with the lopsided Afro say.

What happened? Where is my brother?

Yes, your brother was a good man, the balding man with the dreadlocks said.

May he be blessed with long life, the man with the lopsided Afro replied.

They both wore flat, creased faces that looked like abused rubbery masks.

How long was I out? I asked, sitting up.

Hours, the balding man with the dreadlocks said. I would say it’s the middle of the night, but them dudes took our watches. You was mumbling. Kept going ma-ma-ma-ma, like you was sucking on a tit. Mama. Mama. That’s what it sound like you was trying to say while you was out.

There hung a big moon that cast a white light over the slow-moving water. The sky was a navy blue. I glanced at my wrist and my watch was indeed gone. I reached for my pocket. My phone was gone too, along with the money my mother gave me for my brother.