Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

That’s neither here nor there.

God was watching out for you. You were blessed.

Blessed hell. I wish he had killed me. In forty-five years, I ain’t slept more than two or three hours a night.

Hello. The words barely quit Hatch’s mouth.

What you want?

I’m—

You in the wrong place. This the senior citizens building.

I’m lookin for Mr. Pool Webb.

I said you in the wrong place.

If you’ll permit me.

You got a hearing problem?

No, sir. I’m looking for Webb. Mr. Pool Webb.

What?

Mr. Pool Webb.

Silence sounds in the slowness of the pause. Pool Webb?

Yeah.

Why?

He’s a friend of my father.

Who’s your father?

Lucifer Jones.

Who?

Lucifer Jones.

The man watched Hatch longer than Hatch cared to return the stare.

Go into the Community Center.

Where?

The Community Center. Round there. The man pointed.

Thanks. Do I need to sign in? Hatch gestured toward the clipboard.

Did I ask you to sign in?

THE COMMUNITY CENTER was a small round checker of a building centered in the massive grid of Red Hook. Hatch cracked the silence of the faraway metal door with the barefaced window. A desk beckoned to his immediate left. Desk or table? Who can tell? The room fluttered white. He heard it and saw it, a window raised on rusted strings. Four white wings veiled Hatch’s peeping eyes — had to peep (no fresh open sight), his pupils carrying the outside light inside. White doves.

Yall want this bread, yall better come get it. Damn if I’m gon chase you. The man held up two stubs of white bread. A gorilla head man with bear feet. What kind of animal? His body enveloped a leather chair in a shapeless mass of flabby flesh, a collapsed parachute. A black-tipped (rubber) brown (wood) cane slanted across his body, the curved head looping the circle of his lap. Hurry up, too. I gotta get back to the desk. The doves settled light onto the limbs of his thumbs. The man’s bowed head raised quickly, as if he’d been kicked in the chin. Yes, his eyes had caught the shadow of Hatch’s approaching shoes.

What you want? The voice thundered. The birds fluttered into white flight. You must be in the wrong place. This the Community Center. His eyes watched Hatch. Strained vision. Red overworked vessels. And yellow, possible jaundice. But more than red and yellow. Two globes of color. Dyed eggs.

You Pool Webb?

Yeah. Who you?

Aw, my name Hatch.

Who?

Hatch. Hatch Jones.

Don’t believe I know you.

I come here about Lucifer.

Lucifer?

Lucifer Jones. You know, Blue Demons.

The man watched.

The basketball team.

What?

Blue Demons basketball team.

Oh, the team.

Lucifer coach—

Oh, Lucifer. Pool Webb smiled in recognition. Lucifer Jones. He extended his hand. Hatch accepted it, amazed at the tension of energy coursing beneath the skin, a secret torrent that bore no relation to the flabby torso, the rubber-band legs in crisp, pressed trousers. Does he press them? With those hands? Ain’t heard from him in a while. How is he?

He fine.

He some kin to you?

Well, he my Uncle John’s brother.

What?

John Jones. He my uncle.

Webb watched, questioning eyes.

Lucifer my father.

Oh, I see. So you want to join the basketball team?

No. I don’t care much for sports.

Just visitin?

I guess. I heard a lot about you.

From Lucifer?

Hatch nodded his head.

He sho is a quiet one. Get more words out of one of these birds. And they ain’t even parrots.

Hatch’s face closed. He warmed to the joke, outer sun radiating upward from his inner belly. He released a delayed, high-pitched laugh.

I didn’t even know he had a son.

Hatch said nothing.

How is he anyway?

Fine, I guess. You already asked me that.

That’s good. He know we got a game Saturday.

I don’t know if he know.

Bread-free, bird-free, Pool Webb rested his hands on the half-loop of his cane handle. Look, I gotta get back to the desk. Webb bowed forward — resting his full weight on the cane — kneeled, a sprinter preparing to drop low on his hips and haunches. The cane’s black rubber foot pressed into the carpet. The wood shaft vibrated. Hatch thought he heard it hum. He extended an arm to assist Webb, but the arm wouldn’t reach. Webb rose to full height. He same size as me; maybe a little taller; can’t tell with those legs. Sit down right here.

Hatch dropped into Webb’s still-warm leather seat.

I be off in fifteen minutes. Want some bread?

What?

Some bread. To feed them birds.

No, that’s okay.

Pool Webb guided his cane, his knees projecting away from one another as if they were scared to touch. Yes, the O of his knees and bandied legs made him stoop and roll when he walked. His thick head bowed, watching his long arms and big fists. Hatch thought he heard a knuckle or two scrape the concrete. Hatch thought what he hated to think. Pool Webb look like a gorilla.

A NOISY VACUUM OF ELEVATOR sucked them in. Inner steel, cold, silver, and surgical. The doors banged shut. The elevator lurched into motion. The spirit of gravity, Spokesman said, dancing, floating, freedom above things. The vacuum sucked at Hatch’s insides. Sucked out the butterflies. The elevator worked in pain. Breaking pain that gave a final push to open the doors.

Hatch followed slow Webb patiently down the hall. Should I help him? Webb pulled noisy keys from his pocket on a loop of steel chain and unlocked all three locks. The chain pulled the keys back into the darkness of his pocket. He pushed the door open and Hatch followed him in. Don’t let the door slam, Webb said.

Hatch caught the heavy steel door. Closed it quietly. Locked all three locks.

The apartment was more window than wall. Four wide boxes— yes, not picture windows cause they were more square than rectangle —that filled the green-gray space with dust-flecked light and polished the furniture with sky-sharpened shine. A single space of room opening into other rooms. Webb’s bed — puffed pillows and ruffled sheets, waiting — held parallel to a concrete veranda. And beyond the veranda, Tar Lake in the distance.

Nice veranda.

You mean the terrace. We all got that overhang. The senior citizens. In a slow, stooping motion, Mr. Pool Webb rolled across the room in round gorilla movements. Make yourself comfortable. You at home.

Thanks.

Pool sat down on the bed. Pulled off his slacks. Heavyweight boxer shorts over bantamweight skinny legs. The carpet was a black sticky swamp. Hatch guarded his steps. Pulled back the aluminum kitchen chair — parallel to the wall, parallel to the veranda — and sat down. A garden colored the veranda— terrace, it’s a terrace —rows and rows of plants in rusted coffee cans. Tomatoes, collard greens, and peppers.

Wait a minute. Sit in one of those wood chairs there. They hold your weight.

Hatch did as instructed. A portable radio, a deck of playing cards, bottles of hot sauce and ketchup, a container of laxative, and a pencil or two were neatly arranged on the wide windowsill. Hatch saw other buildings, dead-white, stained by bird shit. So they gave you a hard time?

Hell yes. That was my last job. Worked there seventeen years.

I see.

Superintendent at Red Hook. Sixteen buildings. Ninety-six hundred families. Nine thousand and six hundred. Hundred thirty-four men worked under me. Custodians. But I couldn’t take all that pressure. Told the doctor, I can’t work no mo. He gon tell me I can. Fuck that. See my legs?

Hatch couldn’t miss them.

I got rubber veins here and here. Webb pointed out long lengths of scars, yellow lines running up (and down) the brown skin of each leg. From when I had a stroke. And that doctor talkin bout I could still work. Fuck that. I told him, See if I work.