Insurrections Read Online Free PDF Page A

thing wasn’t the move. Besides, who would want to rent something like that? Why not own? Hang it there in the closet and break it out on any old day. Take the boy to the park dressed as the Cookie Monster. Drop him off at daycare all furry and blue. I’d be the most popular father who ever existed, showing up shaggy and blue with a tin full of snickerdoodles. That was the dream.
    You have strange dreams, Walter said, returning to the couch. He let out a sigh as he removed his hat and settled himself into his seat. I’m not sure I want to hear the rest of this. Is this better than an episode of
Good Times?
Because I’m missing
Good Times
and you’re missing your son’s birthday party.
    My brain was all cloudy and black before this, Rashid said, gesturing about with his furry, blue hands. I was all filled with goddamn anxiety, man. This gave me purpose. Now it’s turned to shit.
    I can smell that.
    Are you just going to make jokes?
    I’m sorry. It feels like the moment calls for some humor. You’re ranting and dressed like Elmo.
    The Cookie Monster.
    Whatever, Rashid.
    I spent every free hour rooting through the Internet, trying to find a deal on a Cookie Monster outfit. Got fat on sugar cookies and chocolate chips and on the creme-filled ones, clicking from site to site, chasing one dead end to another. Sometimes I’d be fucking red-eyed late at night at that computer, then I’d wake and do it all over again. This was all duringmy summer break when no one was paying me shit and I had to be home with Luce playing babysitter most days. Luce is running about and screaming and smelling like warm piss and shit and I’m searching, not even noticing my son is stinking until the mess starts growing stale. I figured if Luce doesn’t care, why should I? Luce at some point would try to climb onto my lap. And I’d have to say, Kid, you stink. But he’d be crying and screaming and pushing his way up there to sit, like my lap’s a throne and he’s king, and I’d search until I couldn’t take it anymore and then I’d go change him and search some more.
    So . . . Luce shitted in your costume? Walter asked.
    What? No. No, no. I found this one late, late at night just before school started in August. Did I tell you that I’m broke? I put off getting this costume so many times waiting for some money. Waiting for when I got a little left over, but it’s mostly check to check for me, bruh. This one was on some auction site. An out-the-way one most people know nothing about. Bids started at five dollars and went up to fifteen and I bid thirty to get it going. But thirty dollars from where? Ricca had to cover the entire rent that month. If Ricca knew I was bidding on this costume . . . Fuck. You know, I had to shake my parents down for just enough to cover the cable and Internet. Cable’s important. I watched
Sesame Street
three, four times a day on the kiddie channels to study Cookie’s mannerisms and voice. No use being some generic monster; if you’re going to do something, do it right. That’s what my father used to say. He’s probably upstairs now trying to figure what the hell is wrong with me. Trying to figure out why I’m not doing things the right way like he told me. Fuck, you think he’ll recognize that I tried?
    Rashid, every father says that bit about doing things right. I said that to my daughter and one day you’ll say it to Luce.
    Right. Anyway, to lose the Internet would have been tragic. A disruption in the costume search would mean a shitty party for my son. You ever bid in an Internet auction? That shit is a white heat. Checking back every few minutes. It’s all about defeating all the other bidders and cheating the auctioneer. There go the bids. Forty dollars. Fifty-five. Higher. Seventy-five, ninety. Something was telling me to stop. I wouldn’t have an extra ninety bucks for