Insurrections (6 page)

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.

I asked again: Where's my brother?

He's paying some of his debts, the man with the lopsided Afro said.

I'm gonna miss the little guy, the balding man with the dreadlocks said.

Yeah, the man with the lopsided Afro said. That guy always had a story. Say, jackson, you remember the one about the squirrel?

The balding man with the dreadlocks laughed.

Yeah, the man with the lopsided Afro said. That dude in the story went through all kinds of shit and then zap, he plum turns himself into a squirrel and don't have to deal with none of that shit no more. I wish I was a squirrel. That's how I'm gonna remember your brother, as a squirrel. Yeah, man, it would be cool to be a squirrel. Call me Buck Buck Squirrel.

You a damn fool, Buck Buck, the balding man with the dreadlocks said. How being a squirrel gon' get you out this mess?

I guess it wouldn't, he replied. Maybe if I was a flying squirrel. They say it's gonna rain again.

Who say that? the balding man with the dreadlocks asked. It's only the three of us here. You got the Weather Channel beamed into your knotty head?

You think anyone's coming for us?

Naw, man, don't nobody give a fuck about us down here.

Can you believe it? That nigga Stephen used to be my social worker. Then he was my taxi driver. Then my drug dealer. Ha!

And you was gonna sell him out for a few dollars?

Can't trust nobody these days, right?

The men started laughing and then they shut their mouths, but the laughter wouldn't stop. What a sound. A deep full-throated open-mouthed laughter. Though they looked silent and stoic like wood carvings, they weren't silent or stoic. They were laughing.

Say, jackson, the man with the dreadlocks said to me, you all right? You looking all fucked up.

Even as he spoke, he competed with his own laughter. His words and the laughter were a chorus simultaneously singing different parts of the same composition. I turned onto my side and vomited. I shivered. Sweat poured down my skin, though a cool breeze kept blowing. This must have been how it was for Stephen every blessed time he tried to kick the stuff.

I lay on my back, coughing up the saliva and bile that had caught in
my throat. The men stood over me. I heard them through the persistent laughter.

He not looking good.

I'd be surprised if he make it through the night.

Shit, he ain't no good no more.

What you think we can get for him?

I said he ain't no good no more.

But he look enough like his brother; we could still get some money.

He ain't no good. He spoiled. Rotten. Won't no one pay us nothing for that. Help me with him.

Man, I ain't touching this dude. I'm not letting no sickness jump from him to me.

You don't want him to make you sick? Then help me flip him into the water.

I tried to scream out, but the only sound I could make was a donkey-like neighing, which just made the men's laughter more pronounced. Water touched my skin. Soaked into my clothes.

Again everything turned black.

I awoke to the rocking of a boat and the watery sound of oars thrusting through the water. The putrid sulfur smell of the filthy muck below filled my nostrils. I coughed. A voice called my name. It sounded like my brother. I glanced upward at the figure who stroked the oars back and forth. The person was hunched and cloaked in all black. I became convinced that it was my brother; he had survived and, in turn, had come to rescue me.

It's nearly morning, a voice said. You were out for some time.

The voice was a feminine one. I wanted to respond, but still I couldn't speak. It took all my strength to pull myself up. What I saw, though it was not my brother, filled me with joy. First, the dazzling eyes, two burning brown and green sparks dancing on her face. Then the veil.

She told me to lean back, to relax. Still unable to speak, I muttered a horrible sound over and over until I became frustrated.

You were out there clinging to a piece of wood, she said. I don't know if you remember. But you're safe now. We gotta get you to a hospital.

I started to mutter again, but it was no use. My face hurt and I could form no words. I tried to ask her all the pertinent questions. Tried to tell her about my brother, who I knew I would never see again, but my brain
felt tired. I couldn't even remember his name, though I could see his face, which brought such shame welling up in my heart that I nearly began to cry. I wanted to tell her about myself, about my mother who would soon be bawling. I wanted to tell this mythical woman that I loved her, that she was beautiful.

She reached her slender arm back to me and took my right hand in hers, telling me to rest. The woman reassured me that everything would be okay. And it was only then that I noticed how warm it had become and how the light from the expanding sun had taken over the whole sky and how it made the ripples in the dirty water shimmer.

Every day, twice a day, Joan Santi bathed her son in lavender, from the soft spot on his head with its wispy hairs to his tiny light brown toes. You could always smell it emanating from every crevice of baby Phil. Consequently, Joan's hands carried the smell. This was back in the eighties when she was a new mother. That's what she became known for. That beautiful purple smell. This pudgy woman, occasionally with slight acne and neatly pressed hair or carefully chosen wigs. Who didn't gravitate toward her in those days?

It was only after the boys had played their last game of basketball that Casey noticed the woman. He was a bit lightheaded from the workout, and he breathed briskly through his mouth. He bent forward, rested his hands on his knees, and looked up. She was in the distance at first, appearing very briefly like a hallucination, walking round and round, speaking gibberish to herself loudly and animatedly.

Her shirt was dirt-caked and dotted with black smudges. It stopped just above her navel so that her belly flopped over her waistband and hung low. The woman paused and watched Casey and his three friends for a few minutes before moving again in a circle round the perimeter of the ball court.

At first they ignored her, making small talk and jokes, and then Casey said, What she want?

A new shirt, Richard replied.

She ain't bothering us, Wayne said.

When she strode closer, Casey noticed a bulbous pus-filled sac just above the right corner of her upper lip. Curly whiskers grew out of it. Wild crabgrass patches of hair dotted her chin and cheeks. She parted her lips and the boys watched the gray and black strays that surrounded her mouth.

Fillafil. Fillafil . . . Fillafil . . . Fillafil, she called. Then she walked.

The boys screwed their faces in disgust, chuckling between short breaths. Kwayku was the first to get a hold of his breathing and in a husky, wheezy growl he said: Look, Casey, there go your mother.

Everyone laughed except Casey, who twisted his brow. If only he had taken more shots instead of listening to Wayne and passing the ball, he could've shut Kwayku up by gloating over a victory, but after a loss, or a series of them, there is very little the loser can tell the victor.

The conversation moved along to girls in general, then it turned specific, the boys tossing off names of girls they'd sleep with if ever given the chance—or, in Kwayku's case, boasting of girls he slept with or came damn close. Casey, through everything, stayed fixed on the woman; he studied her as she passed. The boys swatted at gnats and dabbed sweat from their foreheads while they discussed female body parts, particular body parts they were all familiar with and had glimpsed through clothing at one time or another: a left breast, a thigh, a few particularly thick butt cheeks, some puffy cleavage that recurred day after day. Marcy's breasts. More to the point, her ass. It was an outsize thing. An impressive thing. A jutting-outward-and-still-rounded thing. A disproportionate thing when compared to the rest of her. A special and jean-warping thing. Twin planets divided by a crack of slender outer space. And much to the pleasure of boys everywhere, it was unable to be hidden beneath sweaters tied round her waist or any other type of thick clothing no matter how she tried.

Man, Kwayku said. If I could be the wallet in them back pockets.

Times like this, Casey wanted to punch Kwayku right in his wolf smile. Then he remembered that it was all jealousy. Marcy belonged to him, ass and all.

A white girl with ass, Kwayku said. It's fucking unheard of.

The bearded woman danced through Casey's peripheral vision, and he was happy to take his mind off Kwayku's nonsense.

There that bitch go again, Casey said.

Calling your mother a bitch? Have some respect.

That woman, that bearded freak, looks nothing like my mother, Casey thought, rubbing the slick sheet of sweat that covered the back of his neck.

She moved purposefully. Staring forward, her head tilted. Casey had seen her before in one of her lucid moments, sheepishly approaching passersby and requesting change. He had seen her angry and belligerent, but most often she was just babbling and confused. Always she was an irritating and bothersome creature, like the stray dogs of the Southside who roamed at night in packs.