Rion Scott - Insurrections

I

Walter caught the sight out the corner of his eye one hot July day, and for so long afterward he asked himself what if he had never seen those dangling legs from the balcony above, kicking, kicking, kicking against the open air.

He watched them first with confusion — what an incongruous vision, a man’s legs in baggy black jeans flailing against the open blue of the sky. He next watched with interest, and then with terror when he heard the gagging and hacking. A man hanging. A man dying.

Laura! Laura! Walter called. Laura, come! Laura come now! Laura come!

She didn’t answer right away. He wondered whether maybe she hadn’t forgiven him their last argument the hour before. He couldn’t recall why he had shouted and dismissively waved his hands at her. When she didn’t respond, Walter figured his voice was making her nerves twitch, and she was turning up the television and ignoring him as she did when the neighbors’ baby wailed from above.

Those legs. Those kicking legs. When Laura came out onto the balcony, Walter was already climbing a stepladder, the biggest, sharpest kitchen knife in hand.

Laura, he called. Come and help me!

What do you want me to do?

Don’t just stand there! Grab his legs. Grab his legs.

Laura gathered the man’s legs in her arms and dragged his body over the railing. He pulled and jerked her from one side and then the other. Hold still, she said. Stop kicking. It’s going to be all right, she said, though it was obvious that things wouldn’t be right anytime soon.

There, there, Walter said, projecting a sense of calm for the first time. There, there, buddy. Try to hold still. He sawed frantically at the rope. The man’s neck had turned a bruised purple.

When the rope snapped, the man’s body dropped, heavy and lifeless. Walter and his stepladder tipped over onto the concrete of the balcony floor. The man’s ribs banged against the railing before he landed atop Laura’s small frame. There was a moment while the hanging man dropped when it seemed they’d all go falling over the side into oblivion. Laura pulled from beneath the motionless stranger to lean into a corner.

Oh God, she said. Oh God. Oh God.

Walter reached to touch him, this man who lay all bunched like a pile of dirty laundry. As Walter’s hand hovered over his shoulder, the man let out a cough, the first in a series of them. One dry and the rest phlegm-filled. They rattled in his throat, in his chest and his gut. The man rolled side to side, clutching his stomach and then his ribs.

He sat up and placed his head against the metal bars of the railing. Laura brought him a glass of water and a wet rag to wipe the spittle and phlegm from his face.

Say, what the hell was that all about? Walter said. You scared my lady nearly to death. We could have all tumbled over the side — you know that, right?

The man hid his face behind the rag, coughing softly and then loudly.

What’s your name? Walter asked.

Rashid, he replied in a strained wheeze, lowering the rag. Walter noticed the man’s yellow-red eyes. They nearly glowed against the night-dark of his skin.

My name’s Walter, and this is my wife, Laura.

Thank you, Walter, I got tangled in the rope. I thought that was it—

You got tangled? You telling me you weren’t trying to hang yourself?

Hang myself? Commit suicide? Naw. Naw. Hell no. I got tangled in the rope trying to fix the wood up there. Ricca been on me about fixing that wood. You seen my little boy running around. Rashid coughed softly. He be giving me hell. I know you seen him. Growing so fast, probably looks different every time you see him probably. That’s all I was thinking about when I was hanging there.

Rashid, you must take me for—

Before Walter could finish, Laura cut in, her voice as smooth and as sweet as velvet cake. Now, Rashid, you need to take care of yourself. All these dangers out here, you almost left your — what’s his name, your little boy?

Luce, name’s Luce. He’ll be three in September.

You almost left Luce fatherless, baby.

Rashid nodded and took a sip of water, his hand trembling. Walter thought of the things he wanted to say, but he let them rest on his tongue. Sometimes Laura’s wisdom was infinite, he thought, that’s why he had stayed with her for all those years upon years.

Rashid shook Walter’s hand and hugged Laura. He hugged her long and tightly, as if she were a great-aunt he loved and would likely never see again. Then he walked out the door and Laura and Walter could hear his feet tap up the hallway stairs and they listened for his door to open and slam. Finally they heard the thumps of his feet on the ceiling above. They listened to the music of Rashid’s steps until his wife and son came home. And Rashid’s taps blended into Ricca’s, and even the awkward footfalls of Luce and his frequent screams weren’t an annoyance this night.

All week they waited for a sound, a gunshot and the thump of a falling body perhaps, or a sight: those legs dangling again from the balcony above. There were only the screams of a child, which now sounded like music. Screams and nothing else. They heard nothing, saw nothing, and that nothing was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all.

II

A week passed and then another week and yet a third without some dramatic incident, so Laura and Walter stopped listening for the end of Rashid’s life. A few times Walter mentioned Rashid and the strange afternoon. Why would that young boy with a pretty wife and baby want to do something like that? he’d say, and Laura would shake her head and reply, Not our business. Twice Walter left the house and saw Ricca struggling with Luce. The first time, the toddler rushed from her as soon as she set him down on the sidewalk. She screamed his name while tussling with full grocery bags. Walter wanted to grab the boy or ask to carry her bags. Anything to lighten the load. Then he’d ask about Rashid. But all that was so forward; not his style with strangers. The other time, she carried Luce in her arms as he slept on her shoulder. Except for that puffy, smooth face, he looked like an armful of crumpled shirts. That time Walter opened the door for her. Howdy, he said, and she smiled, but he couldn’t bring himself to say more. What was there to be said, anyway? Say, Ricca, your husband dead? He off himself yet? Not yet, huh? You know it’s gonna happen, right? Right? How you plan to get on as a single mother once your husband’s dead, huh?

No, he let her trek up the stairs unmolested by inane questioning. Life is for the living, he told himself, and if Rashid didn’t want to live, to hell with him. Maybe he’d say that to her the next time he saw her. Just that first part, life is for the living . He’d smile as he said it, maybe gesture toward Luce if he was there. When Walter opened the door for her, he noticed that Ricca’s smile sat on her face like a kitten on a window-sill. Then she disappeared and her smile was all that was left, like the Cheshire Cat. Something about Ricca and her grace was so feline. Why would Rashid want to take himself away from that? Life is for the living, he thought again one afternoon sitting on the couch daydreaming about opening the door for Ricca and about Rashid’s dangling legs and probably a hundred other things. Then he turned on an old episode of Good Times and fell asleep laughing.

Walter awoke later that afternoon to a pounding at his door. He jumped and looked toward his balcony, thinking that again he’d see dangling legs kicking through the air. Then a second set of banging. Walter stared at the door for a moment. Yeah, who is it? he called. Then he peered through the peephole. There stood Rashid. Walter opened the door and Rashid strode in with his shoulders thrown back and a smile that showed all his teeth.