Insurrections by Rion Amilcar Scott

Author:Rion Amilcar Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2016-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

II

Kelli showed up in that art class like some kind of illusion. I thought I was a period early or something and I checked the clock, and then I lost interest in time. Even the most basic words fled from me, and I stood in the middle of the class staring at her. It was as if one of the fertility dolls we fashioned out of clay in the beginning of the school year had come to life.

Certain things stay with you. Certain things cause rivers of shame to well up in your chest whenever you recall them, and no matter where you go or what you do, there’s little chance of escaping those poisonous thoughts, little chance of not having to relive them from time to time. But there you go, trying to fill up your head with enough noise to drown out the insistent hum of shame. Standing there staring at Kelli is such a moment. Even in my memories, her face is obscured by her chest, as if she was made of breast meat and nothing more. The thing that made Kelli different than all the other girls was that while their chests bore nubs—good starts, at best—Kelli’s sported round fleshy bulbs. It was as if God the artist was working on a line of clay figures and He had finished shaping and smoothing and baking this one sculpture—and He had sculpted it to perfection—while the others needed years of fashioning before they’d be ready.

Kelli’s breasts. What was it about them that caused such derangement? Commonplace, pedestrian, ordinary things, even when beautiful. Utilitarian chunks of flesh. How we diminished her and in turn ourselves. Turned parts of her body into heavy burdens to carry. Watching. Tittering (we no longer laughed, from then on it was just tittering). Commenting. Losing our composure. Falling in love, developing obsessions, and growing resentful when our shallow affections were ignored. Zeke was the only one who treated Kelli like a real person, and even that was a put-on. Whenever she wasn’t around, he’d remake his favorite Dem Freak Boyz song, chanting, Bounce them big things, Kelli. And we’d titter and we’d titter and we’d titter . . .

She was usually wrapped in her own solitude. Arms folded as she walked, elbows pointed outward like spears. A trail of whispers followed her always. She had done this and that with so and so. She was removed from her last school for so on and so forth. She carried something inside her womb and a flood of milk had swelled her breasts. No, she had killed the thing inside her womb and the milk wouldn’t go away and every day during sixth period she disappeared deep into the guts of the girls’ locker room to spill her milk down the shower drain. The most coveted girls clutched more tightly to the most coveted guys, and the most coveted guys all pulled close to Kelli in the moments when their girlfriends looked away.

Only Jana offered Kelli friendship, and only in the art room.

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