Insurrections (2 page)

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.

Walter. Walter, Walter, did I wake you? he asked as he peeled a can of beer from a six-pack and pressed it into Walter's hand. We need some light in here.

Rashid flicked a switch, and bright white jabbed Walter's eyes.

Come on, have a drink, Walter, it'll help bring you back into the land of the living.

Rashid, right?

You know my name, man.

What is this all about, Rashid? Walter looked at his beer and then shrugged and cracked it open and took a sip.

Man, I never thanked you for saving my life. I mean, I said thank you, but let's face it, if not for you I'd be dead. Saying the words
thank you
is not enough in the face of that.

So you bring me a beer?

I brought a whole pack.

That's funny, Walter said before taking a second sip. Really funny.

But you didn't laugh, Walter.

I'm laughing in my head, believe me.

Rashid laughed so loud that he closed his eyes and his torso shook and he began to cough. It reminded Walter of the deathly cough Rashid released after being cut down, too close to dead, nearly spent.

What I like about you, Walter, is how deadpan you are. Funny as shit, man.

We've barely said two words to each other, Rashid. It's too early to tell what you like about me. Besides, there's nothing funny about me. You should meet my daughter. She's the funny one.

Yeah, but I can tell what kind of dude you are. Maybe I felt your soul when you saved me.

Come, Rashid, have a seat. I want to talk to you. Me and Laura have been really worried.

Worried?

Look, Rashid, Laura tells me all the time not to say anything. She's all concerned with your dignity, but I'm concerned with your life. You all right?

Walter watched to see if even a tiny piece of recognition had seeped through. Rashid's face was a blank hillside freshly covered with sod.

For Christ's sake, Walter said. When I met you, you were hanging by your goddamn neck from a balcony.

That beer is having some effect on you, Walt. You turned from friendly to all volatile and shit in a sip or two. I never seen that.

And I never seen a man hanging from a balcony by accident.

You seen one hanging on purpose?

Goddammit, Rashid, don't play with me. On your baby boy's life, I saw you hanging and it wasn't no goddamn accident, you were trying to kill yourself. I'm not a fool, don't try to make me out to be one. You come
in here with beer and a smile, but if you can't admit that to yourself and to me, it'll come back to haunt you. You'll be up there again and I tell you what . . .

Walter trailed off as he stared at Rashid raising the can of beer to his lips. Rashid looked to the floor as he slurped slowly. Walter stood.

I don't know if you have admitted it to yourself. Or if you've admitted it to your wife. You can just . . . Rashid, I don't know you, not really, but I . . . Look, man, just admit it to me. Here. Now. Tell me the truth. First step you have to take.

Rashid sat back, folding into the couch, the blankness returning to his face, flatness overtaking his eyes. He said nothing. He sipped. He kept saying nothing.

Good goddammit, get out of my house, Walter said. I don't need this. I tell you what, don't be hanging from my balcony when you do this again. I don't appreciate that, and I won't come to save you, I'll let you swing. I didn't ask for this and I didn't need to watch a suicide attem—

Suicide, Rashid said. Man, look Walter. I'm sor— Shit, I was about to bullshit you again. I was— You think it's just easy to say it like that? Suicide. That shit can just roll off your tongue because— You ever try to take— Man, this is just like the first time Ricca told me she loved me. It flapped off her tongue like she was saying hello. We was some kids. Babies. We still some kids to you, probably. She laid up right there in my arms. The thing about her is that she fits well. No other woman had fit in my arms that well. Can you imagine basing the rest of your life on something stupid like that?

Walter shrugged. Love is like that, he said, when it's new and you're young. Same thing almost with Laura. We been around forty-some years.

Yeah, but I just couldn't say it. I babbled about something for a while and she was patient. Said I didn't have to reciprocate. She loved me whether I loved her or not. When she went off to school that day I actually practiced. Practiced saying
I love you
. All this morning I was practicing what I was gonna say to you just like how I practiced back then.

You gonna tell me you love me?

Funny, Walter.

Wrong time, I know. Laura's always warning me about that.

Naw, levity's good. But I was practicing how I was going to tell you I was trying to suicide myself. Yeah, man. I was trying to kill myself that
day. Something told me it was time to control my destiny, beat the Reaper to it, no reason to see this life thing through. I tried to kill myself, and the moment I went through with it I knew I had made a fucking fatal error. And yeah, I do love you, Walter. Weird thing to say to a stranger, but I do because you saved me and you saved Luce and you saved Ricca.

When he spoke of his family, his voice became high-pitched and the cracking cut sharp at Walter's ears and tears shot down Rashid's face. Rashid covered his eyes and cheeks with his hand. He became stuck between sobs like a disc caught on a scratch. Walter pulled a rag from his pocket and hovered over Rashid.

This the first time you tried taking your own life? Walter asked.

Yes. Rashid nodded through sobs. Yes. I've thought about it off and on for twenty years, but—Luce and Ricca. Damn, the same things that make you want to kill yourself also save your life. I swear all I was thinking about when I was hanging was that boy and that woman.

Walter watched Rashid, stone-faced. Rashid's words seemed to him a comforting lie. He didn't attempt to take his own life because of Luce or Ricca. Such a selfish thought, such a heavy thing to rest upon their backs. And it was Walter and Laura who had cut Rashid from the end of a rope, not a toddler or a woman who was elsewhere at the time. Rashid suddenly struck him as ungrateful and self-pitying. Walter put the rag back into his pocket.

It's like, I been preparing Luce to live without his daddy, Rashid said. Now, isn't that sick? I went out and got a DVD of this old episode of
Sesame Street
where Mr. Hooper—you know, the guy who runs the store—yeah, on that episode he passes away just like the actor who played him, and I showed it to Luce over and over. He be reciting lines from that episode around the house just out the blue, but that first time he was mesmerized. Big Bird's all distraught and the humans are trying to explain why he's never going to see Mr. Hooper again. I thought the shit might be too heavy for Luce, but then I remembered why we was watching. I said, Son, you understand what's happening? He nodded and ain't take his eyes off the TV and he said, Yeah, Mr. Hooper went to the store. He gets quiet, just staring at the screen and I ask him again. He says, Big Bird is sad because Mr. Hooper is lost. I'm like, Do you think he's coming back? Luce is like, No. He's lost. He's not coming back. I kept thinking of Luce walking around the house saying, Daddy's lost. He's not coming back.

They both finished their cans of beer at the same time. Walter peeled another off the rings and handed it to Rashid. Then he peeled one for himself, cracked it open, and began to drink.

Rashid, he said. All that crying got to cease. I'm not going to say that men don't cry. I cried like a baby over every damn little thing in the first couple years of my daughter's life. Children do that to you. Make you weak and strong at the same time, but yeah . . . man up. Look, tell me something. You a Riverbaby?

Riverbaby?

Guess not. Were you born here? You from Cross River?

Oh, yeah, Riverbaby. Naw, but at Freedman's University they say I'm an expert in Cross River history. Yeah, I come from D.C. Ricca's from up north. New York. But she moved to Maryland—not Maryland like Cross River, Maryland, but Maryland like right-outside-of-D.C.-Maryland—when she was in high school. We met when I was in college in D.C. She was an undergraduate, I was in grad school. Well, she dropped out and I told her to go back and she did. We moved out here because I got a job teaching at the college. But look, Walter, shit's one of those compromises where everyone loses. She wanted to move back to New York to be with her mother, I wanted to stay in D.C., so we moved to a neutral spot.

Marriage is compromise.

Compromising yourself. All your principles. Everything. Nobody wins.

Luce wins.

I guess Luce wins. He doesn't even realize some kind of cold war is going on all around him. Man, I'm talking all this shit—

I get a feeling you never said it to anyone before.

Rashid became quiet. Took a long sip from his can.

Hey Walter, let me tell you about this party, one we had back when we was living in D.C. It was a surprise. I didn't know. Ricca didn't know. Man, no one knew. Sometimes I think the people who surprised me didn't even know. Shit just happened. Like magic.

Walter settled into the couch and opened another beer, but he didn't drink. He was feeling lightheaded already, and it had been years since he'd been drunk. Many more since he'd been regularly drunk, weekly and before that daily. He imagined that Rashid, with his light frame and weak
spirit, was far more gone than he. Who knew how many beers he had self-medicated with before ginning up the spirit to come downstairs.

It was the day after my graduation, Rashid said. Now I'm a historian with a Ph.D and shit. Dr. Rashid, Ricca keeps calling me. She graduated the semester before. And we're having a lazy Sunday, right? Just thinking about the future. Half happy I was done. Half anxious about getting a job and getting the fuck on with my life. Ricca's father was in the hospital. Last time, but we ain't know that. We had been talking about going to see him, but no firm plans. She says we did, but really we had no firm plans for nothing. I'm half sleep and Ricca is doing something, I don't remember what. I hear the doorbell ringing and then some pounding at the door and then the door ringing again and I'm all like, what-the-fuck.

I lived in this neighborhood in the northwest part of town off this street called Georgia Avenue where you could look out the window and see crackheads hiding in a shed having sex and shit, so I'm kind of wary of people banging on my door and ringing the bell all crazy. I look out the damn window and it's Floyd and Bradley and this white chick, Kyla. Ricca ain't like that. They were all in class with me. We were like a clique. A little circle. So tight, like a family. Kept everybody out. Meeting them was like falling in love. Powerful group chemistry, Walter. Sometimes you either feel like that with people or you don't. And it's rare. There was one other chick in our group, but I don't know where she was at that day. She was married even back then, so she didn't always hang. Was in that
I'm-married-and-marriage-is-the-greatest-shit-ever-and-you-should-be-married-too-so-you-can-be-as-happy-as-me!
phase. I think that's some face-saving desperation shit. Loved her, but I got tired of her telling me I need to marry Ricca or be alone for the rest of my life. Being alone is no crime. When they came in with their beers and chips and shit, that's what we talked about, Sonya and her lame marriage. I didn't like her husband. None of us did. And they didn't seem to like Ricca. I knew that's what they talked about when I wasn't around. Floyd, he's gay. We didn't like none of the dudes he brought around. Anyone on the border of the group was like an enemy. Kyla and Brad were kind of a couple, almost. Never called themselves a couple, but always flirting and off alone together. But here's the thing: Kyla wanted to have sex with me. She was on and off real aggressive about it, and when she fell back, I missed the attention and tried to get in her light again. I'm fucked up, Walter. We even made out
once or twice and promised not to tell Brad. I see how you're looking at me, Walter, with your lids all low in judgment. You remember being in your twenties?

I'm not looking at you any kind of way, Rashid. Go ahead.

When they show up with their beer, I'm all dazed, but I'm happy to see them. If I could, I'd see them three or four nights out of seven even now that I don't see them at all. They pass out beers and we're laughing and shit and they barely even acknowledge Ricca, outside of offering her a beer they know she's not going to drink. I could tell she's pissed, and part of me was sad about that, but another part of me was having a great time. Listening to music. Making jokes. Talking about things that happened in class. Our professors. History shit. They hadn't graduated yet, so we were talking about the future too. Man, it's like this was a dream or something. Kyla's flirting with me, but trying to keep it discreet so Bradley and Ricca don't notice. Making these eyes, you know. Making all these comments only she and I would get. Inside jokes. Double entendres. She's really smart when it comes to wordplay. Brad's clueless. Ricca leaves the fucking room. I excuse myself to go after her, and she doesn't talk about Kyla, even though I know that's what bothers her; she's like,
What the hell is this? We're supposed to go and see my dad
.

I tell her that wasn't confirmed. We can go tomorrow, I say. She's like,
He's sick. There might not be a tomorrow
. Which makes me stop and think, but I decide she's being dramatic. I say, I don't want to be rude to my friends. She's like,
They're being rude by showing up unannounced. I wish we weren't here
. Then I said, Come back to the party. Dad will be there tomorrow. Single most insensitive thing I ever said, and you know what, I never even apologized for it. She put on some going-out clothes and went out the door, and I went back to the party and had another beer. My friends didn't even ask why Ricca left. They didn't care. I imagine they were relieved.