Insurrections (20 page)

I bet you don't even know where you're supposed to meet tonight, my sister said.

Of course I do.

I waited for my mother to put the key into the lock, but the three of us just stood at the door.

Where? my sister asked.

I paused. I felt no need to explain anything to anyone. After all, in a few hours I would officially be declared a man.

Where, Bobby? my sister asked again. Where are you and your girlfriend and everyone supposed to meet, Bobby?

I looked at the keys jangling in my mother's hand. She stood, refusing to put them into the lock. I grasped for the word, but it perched itself far outside of my mouth, not even anywhere near the tip of my tongue. Since my mother and my sister waited, I hoped to satisfy them with an approximate answer.

In the place where we meet, I said.

My mother reared her free hand back and slapped it against my cheek. I stumbled and looked over at my sister, her eyes and lipstick-red mouth open in shock.

A man wouldn't cry, but I was still a boy and the smack shook loose teardrops big as blowflies.

Don't even have any clue where you're supposed to assemble, she said. It's the narthex, Bobby. The narthex. Not
the place where we meet
. The narthex. Now, shut up with all that damn crying.

I couldn't shut up, though. My sister watched me with a sort of prideful smirk I had never seen on her. She also told me to shut up as my mother pushed the key in the lock and shoved open the door.

My father, standing in the living room holding a rag to his beloved table, saw the tears streaming from my eyes. He watched them, and his face fell and creased, turning into the thick twisted visage of a bull.

What did he do? he said softly, and before anyone could answer, he snatched me by the collar of my shirt. What the hell did he do? my father shouted.

I—

He flung me across the living room as if I were made of cloth and stuffing. I stumbled and slammed into his table, cracking the wood and knocking loose the leg my father had spent the last couple weeks fixing.

Dazed, I struggled up. My father shoved me back down and I heard the wood again crack beneath me. He balled his fists and punched me in the chest. I doubled over and he slammed a fist down on my back.

What the hell did you do? my father screamed. He opened his hand and slapped at my face. I tried explaining through the tears. I gave each blow an amplified howl in an attempt to appeal to my father's humanity or my sister's love or my mother's pity. My mother shut the door, as if to keep the whole neighborhood from hearing our drama.

Sick of you, man, my father muttered.

I could see my mother and sister hanging back, expressionless, as my
father punched me and slapped me and swung me around, flinging me back and forth across the living room.

When the beating was done, he stormed off to his room and slammed the door. My mother followed without even looking back at me quivering and crying and curled into a question mark on the floor.

I looked to my sister and saw a wisp of her heading for the basement.

I lay there by myself sobbing and dazed for what seemed like an hour, but time no longer had any meaning to me; it could have been a minute, it could have been a day. The house had a stillness that I equated with late at night after I finished my movies and dragged myself to bed. Through the quiet I heard my father's voice speaking softly to my mother: What did he do?

I said nothing at all to my sister for the rest of the day. When my father and I passed each other, we looked off into the distance or at some spot on the floor. My mother, toward late afternoon, pretended as if we had just experienced an ordinary morning. She told me jokes and chatted about the comics page. I responded with low grunts and nods and eventually walked away from her.

I put on my new suit. I admired myself in the mirror. I rolled my tongue over the swelling at my lip, the blemish that ruined it all, the stark reminder of my status as a member of the childhood underclass. My mother pushed open the door to my bedroom.

Bobby, you look so handsome, she said.

Thank you.

I'm going to call your sister in here so she can see how handsome you look.

Why don't you call Dad too so you can all take turns beating me?

You stop it, Bobby. Tonight's a special service. Don't turn it into something else.

I got beat for no reason and you know it.

Sometimes these things build up, Bobby. Now straighten your tie and stop frowning; it makes you less handsome.

I carried the icy silence of the car ride into the narthex, thinking mostly of the slap that preceded the beating. I wondered if the swelling at my lip came from that blow or from the later assault. When I saw Alana, I realized
I hadn't thought about her for hours, and I couldn't bring myself to talk to her or even to make eye contact. I hung back while the confirmation group chatted with a newfound collegiality. When they spoke to me, I responded with just a word or a shrug. Mostly I looked off, dazed. Who was I to try to talk to Alana? I couldn't even defend myself from the beatings children get. In less than a half hour she'd be a woman and I'd be what?

While the rector gave us instructions in his soft-dull voice, I barely listened and figured I'd just follow the lead of all the other kids. When the music started, I fell in line behind the Raisin and we did our procession into the nave. I looked left and there stood my family. My sister took pictures, my mother waved. My father seemed to be smiling a bit. Assorted aunts, uncles, godparents, cousins, and family friends had sprinkled themselves throughout the congregation.

Through the songs and speeches and other garnishes thrown in to extend a service that could have been five minutes, I tongued the swelling at my mouth. It had a hot, blood-tart taste. I hated my father, my mother, and the sister who betrayed me. I hated them all.

Alana went first, then Maurice, then Tomás. I watched as the rector asked them about receiving the Lord and they nodded and voiced their agreement to receive Him. Then Popeye accepted the Lord and then the Raisin accepted the Lord.

The rector finally called my name. I again tongued the swelling on the inside of my lip. I eyed the floor beneath my feet and didn't move. My legs felt leaden. So did my arms. My head became a bowling ball. The rector called me again, and a murmuring rippled through the church. I rose from my seat and did a Frankenstein walk with my dead limbs. I reached the altar and knelt before the man and looked up to a shower of multihued light cast down from the stained glass windows. The rector spoke, and I flinched from the lightburst. I could see White Jesus, but not much else. The rector's head shone golden. Do you accept Jesus? he asked. I squinted, trying to see his face. Above me, White Jesus leaned in to hear my answer. When I didn't immediately respond, the rector leaned too. He didn't look like a being of gold anymore. He looked tarnished and cracked. He leaned further and became a shadow.

There was more murmuring from the audience. I never knew that a few seconds could feel like eternity; a long time and no time at all. This
is what White Jesus's heaven must feel like. A day to God is a thousand years. I nodded. The rector's expression was of puzzlement and annoyance. He required a verbal answer. The one that sat lodged in my throat. I looked out onto the crowd. I saw my sister clear as I'd ever seen anything. My mother was hazy and my father was just light. I looked up. White Jesus's arms were long, his muscles defined. He looked sad, though. He had never had sex, like me. Never masturbated to relieve the tension, because that was a sin and he was sinless. Never watched naked women writhe about on Cinemax or whatever the ancient equivalent of that was. Just what did he discuss with those whores? With the one he loved but never fucked? What did he do with all that yearning? I closed my eyes and the rector asked again. I thought about White Jesus feeling the lash of his father's hand striking him, choking him, whipping him, opening wounds all over his body. What else was the Passion but a cosmic spanking? White Jesus and I shared that in common. Just like White Jesus, I was confused by the bruising, and after my lashing, alone in my room I called out
Why?
but received no answer. And when the rector asked a third time, I mumbled, Why? And perhaps God magically turned it into a Yes for everyone's ears, because the rector blessed me and carried on. The church people promised to support me just as they did with everyone else and they slipped into song and I returned to my seat feeling wrung out and exhausted and no one ever asked me about my response. Did they not hear? Did none of it matter? Did they not know?

Well, in any case, I knew and I know and I've always known what really happened the day I received my confirmation.

Of all the cases of Reverse Animalism
¹
that we have either read about or observed firsthand, the case of Louis Smith
²
is the most puzzling, if in many ways the clearest. And if we may make so bold a statement, it is a case that is often misunderstood owing to its mishandling. Smith's backwards evolution and descent into what can only be described as simian behavior could well have been avoided if responsible parties—i.e., school officials, parents, the courts, and so on—had been more attentive and
aware of the symptoms
³
of Reverse Animalism. Then perhaps Louis Smith's mental state could have been salvaged and he might have been rehabilitated and released back into society. As it stands now, the man who as a child was once referred to as “the erudite young Louis Smith”
⁴
is beyond reclamation. Despite advances in treatment of the disorder, the scientific community has dragged its knuckles for too long, and as a result the subject of this report is destined to live out his life as more animal than man.

We intend in this study to present the facts of Louis Smith's descent into bestial behavior in order to afford what we believe to be the first clear, published look at Reverse Animalism. In examining this specific case, we hope to challenge the public's preconceived notions about the
condition and to stimulate badly needed discussion. Also, we aim to spark a greater awareness of the disorder and would like to foster a great leap forward, both in understanding and in treating Reverse Animalism, for the sake of our society and of the increasing number of people afflicted with this troubling disorder.
⁵

It is a popular misconception that Louis Smith at age nineteen simply and inexplicably stopped shaving, then bathing, and within six to eight months ceased speaking, to communicate instead in hisses, grunts, and growls until he became a nuisance to society, an irritating vagrant who wandered from nightclub to nightclub, somehow crossing velvet ropes in order to fondle and “freak dance” (i.e., rhythmically gyrate the male genital region against the buttocks or genital area of a partner in an erotically stimulatory manner) with the opposite sex in ever more primal and base fashions. This view has, unfortunately, been put forth in report after report, most notably the Meratti Pharmaceuticals report.
⁶
This version of events, however, does not take into account that Reverse Animalism never simply arrives like an unwanted visitor. Instead it has a gradual onset. Many small symptoms, such as an impulsive surrendering to one's base desires, appear before the larger symptom of losing the ability to communicate through or fully comprehend human language.

Louis's intellectual peak seemed to be in the sixth grade, when he was named cocaptain of the Walter J. Clash Elementary School debate team. An English teacher handpicked him to join the team after witnessing his eloquence in discussing
The Diary of Anne Frank
in class. The teacher recalls that Louis was often very aggressive toward male opponents and teammates. A victory would find Louis laughing at his opponent, somewhat obnoxiously, and shouting him down. The occasional loss often caused him to retire to a corner, not speaking for some time. Ironically, these were the traits that convinced teachers that Louis would make a good debate team captain. And by all accounts, he was. The team often found itself victorious, and his English teacher credits Louis. The teacher and debate team coach had this recollection:

I had to lecture Louis on sportsmanship more than once. He didn't take losing, or winning for that matter, very well. But he was a good leader, everybody followed him. Once, during a real crucial debate—we're at a school in the next town [Port Yooga, Virginia], an all-white team—Louis's cocaptain C——just blanks. In front of the whole school, a packed auditorium, all the parents and teachers, this fifth-grader, a real eloquent and bright kid, is just frozen there. Costs us the whole tournament. Well, Louis is not saying much about the whole thing for most of the bus ride back. Everyone's quiet, just contemplating the match. I stand to give the guys a standard pep talk. I tell them that it wasn't C——'s fault. Louis cuts me off and starts yelling.
No Mr. G
——, he says to me.
It's not all right
. Then he stands up and turns to C——.
We trained for months for this tournament and you blew it for us. Now we have to go home to nothing. Nothing. Thanks a lot
.

I'm speechless. C——starts crying, and all I can do is ask Louis to sit down. He glares at me for a few moments before taking his seat and staring out the bus window all calm and docile, but obviously he's pissed. It wasn't my finest moment. It's probably when I lost control of the team. But Louis was only saying what everybody, including me, was thinking.

Louis Smith's earliest recorded clear symptom of Reverse Animalism, though almost certainly not the first, was an incident in the eleventh
grade in which he, out of boredom one day in gym class, fondled the fleshy portion of a young girl's posterior.
⁷