Free Insurrections by Rion Amilcar Scott Page A

Wayne had finished his sentence.
    Rich, Wayne yelled. You better get your ass home. When your mother calls, I ain’t lying for you.
    See y’all tomorrow, Kwayku said. The sound of the basketball tapping against the ground became lighter and lighter before it faded.
    Casey thought of Marcy’s face and realized that instead of the kiss he had received, he would have preferred the hug his friends got. Her hugs were deep and soulful. That’s simply the way she hugged, solidly with her entire body pressed tightly against the other person. It was a nice hug.
    Soon Casey and Wayne passed the playground.
    Ain’t that your mother? Wayne asked Casey as they cut across the Wildlands Forest Elementary playground. Casey looked up expecting to see his mother, but instead Lady MacBeard strolled slowly by. Casey dropped his backpack in a rage, scrounging through the dirt at the edge of the blacktop for the perfect rock.
    Lady MacBeard sidled up to the boys, swaying back and forth, one side of her old face drooping. Casey rose, his hands empty. He scowled at her, watching the yellowish bump on her lip and the long wavy hairs that curled into her mouth.
    The woman’s head was still bandaged, and there was a brown spot where she had bled through the gauze. She emitted a scent like rotting cheese.
    Y’all know where Sycamore Lane is? she asked. I’m trying to find Sycamore Lane.
    No ma’am, Wayne said. I’m sorry. Sycamore Lane ain’t around here. That’s closer to the library downtown, right?
    Casey shrugged.
    Fillafil . . .
    This bitch want a falafel? Casey said to Wayne.
    Shut up, Wayne replied.
    There’s no need to be rude, the woman said. I’m looking for my boy Philly Phil. Have you seen Philly Phil? Philly Phil. Fillafil Fillafil Fillafil Fillafil . . .
    Can’t say that I’ve seen him, ma’am, Wayne said.
    Bless your hearts, she said, walking off. Y’all look just like my Philly Phil.
    When she was again in the distance looking something like a specter, Casey bent and snatched a smooth, heavy stone from the ground.
    Bet I can hit that crackhead right in that brown spot on the bandage.
    Man, Casey, Wayne said as he walked. Stop being stupid. Ain’t no one here to show off for.
    Casey stood upright, dropping the rock, and followed his friend.
VII
    Everyone, including Joan, blamed her decline on what happened to Phil. His baby heart stopping suddenly in the middle of the night as if he were an old man with a poor diet and a pack-a-day habit. That was in the October before her last Christmas at the Cross River Downtown Branch Library. Really it started before that—long before—in the basement of her Southside house. The place was always in motion. What times those were. The people that came in and out. The jokes. The drinks. The music. That smoky basement. Just as the party started getting old, Joan’shusband came one day with tiny white rocks, a butane lighter, and a glass pipe. What a brief intense dizzying derangement. Slipping from yourself for a few moments. That’s how she described it and little by little, each time, less and less of her returned.
    After Phil left, her husband disappeared into the wilderness of the Southside. He’d be gone for days at a time. The parties ceased, and the people who had once come in and out passed the house without so much as a glance. Once in a while Joan would spot them when she peered out the window, and they would just shuffle by.
    But mostly, Joan sat for hours in her favorite spot on their old living room couch where she once breastfed Phil. It felt sometimes like he was resting in the crook of her arm. Other times, her breasts would drip milk and she’d sit with a throbbing ache in her chest. Her husband went away and returned, a different person each time, as if trying on new identities: laughing, angry, sedate, violent, arms swinging, stoic. Sometimes he brought the rocks home