Free Insurrections by Rion Amilcar Scott Page B

with him. Sometimes Joan would have to go out looking for rocks of her own.
    Joan returned to work and seemed normal until one day she no longer glowed lavender.
    Bit by bit, her husband stripped the house of everything from the copper wires to the front door. There’s a market for anything if you look hard enough.
    At work, Joan heard the librarians whisper. Not like their normal whispers, these whispers were sharp hisses. The whispers were ice picks at Joan’s eardrums. Why didn’t they just pull her aside, grab her, shake her, say what they had to say? Instead they whispered until whispering would no longer do.
    Why don’t you take some time? said the gray-haired librarian who managed the branch. Phil just—I don’t think you’re ready.
    Joan’s wig sat crooked on her head and her eyes burned with a fiery haze. She didn’t smell like lavender; she smelled like a rough Southside night. She wanted to say that she was Joan Santi Claus and the kids needed books from Santi Claus to live, but it seemed like a silly thing to say. Who needs books to live? Even those kids didn’t really believe Joan Santi Claus was the real thing. Joan Santi felt like a mythical being. Like she always had been just that, unreal.
    Joan wanted to speak her thoughts or at least acknowledge them insome way, but she found she couldn’t. She spoke in a knotted bullfrog croak and could only mutter her son’s name.
VIII
    Casey had thought all night and most of the next day about the previous afternoon at Marcy’s. The hat. Kwayku’s grin. Marcy’s flirtation with him. Kwayku’s back as he walked up the street to Marcy’s house. It all provided motivation for him as he gripped the orange sphere and breezed past Kwayku’s bony form.
    Watch, Casey, I’m gonna fuck your bitch, Kwayku said as Casey eased a layup into the waiting hoop.
    That’s game, Casey said through short breaths.
    Wow, you won one. It don’t matter. I’m still gonna fuck Marcy. I’m gonna flip her white ass over, and next time you fucking her, you gonna see pink fingerprints on that ass. That’s me. Remember that.
    Casey ignored him, tossing the basketball against the backboard. It clanged over and over as the ball struck the orange square in the center.
    Have you even fucked her yet? Been with her how long and you ain’t even hit that? You must be gay, man. You the only one that ain’t hit it. He a virgin, that’s why he be throwing rocks at people.
    Man, that don’t even make no sense, Casey said.
    It’s from the Bible, Kwayku replied.
He who is without sin can cast the first stone
.
    Kwayku’s friends erupted in laughter, and even Casey chuckled. Kwayku stood waiting for the laughter to die down before he continued: Dog, I fucked your bitch.
    Check the scoreboard, Casey said. I was raining jumpers all over your ass.
    What you expect? I’m still tired from raining all over Marcy’s ass. He paused. Rich hit it too.
    He stopped talking for a moment to make sure his audience paid rapt attention. They were silent, eyes widened, waiting for the next word.
    Yeah, Richard fucked her too. Ain’t you, Rich?
    Richard nodded.
    She let us run a train, Kwayku said. He stopped speaking for a moment, pausing for effect, letting the silence hang heavy. Dog, I was hitting that shit doggie-style. I was watching that shit bounce and shake.She ain’t a girl, she’s a receptacle. All I could see was these two round globes. He paused again. With ripples all on them. I love that shit, man. Sexy ass ripples.
    Casey frowned. The thick flesh back there did have ripples. He had seen the ripples a few times—kissed them even—before something invariably stopped the proceedings. He remembered pulling down her panties for the first time and marveling that the meat of her ass wasn’t smooth like the asses in the magazines but was choppy and dimpled. The truth of her flesh