Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

WEBB’S PORTABLE RADIO scratched from the windowsill.

Holding on, holding on

To God’s unchanging hand

Hatch hummed the melody. He didn’t know the tune. He didn’t go for the churchy stuff. But this song wasn’t bad. Something about it. The choir inside the radio. Singing out. You like the blues? Hatch said. All down-home folks like the blues.

Never liked it. Nothing wrong with it. But I never liked it. Used to sing gospel, though.

I’ll record you some tapes.

Thanks. You look bout as hungry as I feel. I’ll cook us something.

Yall got any good Chinese food around here? Hatch asked. I could buy us some Chinese food. You like Chinese food?

I don’t eat in restaurants. I used to work in one. We used to spit in the soup. Piss in the stew. And those white folks be, My, they got some good-cookin niggers here.

Hatch laughed.

I make you some fish, but you got to help me clean them.

Okay, if you show me how.

You ain’t never cleaned fish?

Hatch shook his head.

Boy, where yo folks from?

Hous-

Don’t nobody in yo family fish?

My Uncle John. He like to go down to the Kankakee River.

What he catch down there?

I don’t know.

Trout. Probably some nice trout.

And he fish in this little pond out behind his house, well Gracie’s house — she my aunt — Gracie’s house on Liberty Island. He catch these little catfish.

Bullheads.

He put one on a log. Drive a nail through its head, then pull the skin off.

Ain’t much to eat, is it?

Nawl. Uncle John a fishing fool. Just like his mamma, Inez. She my grandmother. She gave me my first rod and reel. To replace the bamboo pole that Uncle John had bought you, like the identical one he bought Jesus. Well, she and George. He my grandfather. Well, my stepgrandfather. Sheila — she my mother — she say Inez used to fish all the time. Georgiana — she was my—

Don’t tell me who nobody else is. I’m old and slow. Can’t keep up.

Well, Georgiana used to be a fishing fool too. So I heard. She and Pappa Simmons used to vacation in the Ca’linas, and they rent a boat and do some deep-sea fishing. Hatch had never seen the sea, but he could imagine it. Unrelieved blueness and a white, formless harvest of waves. They say she could catch crabs, shrimps, squid, scallops, clams, and oysters. Oysters and vodka was her favorite dish. She used to have it on her birthday, on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Labor Day, and Lincoln’s Birthday.

Well, Inez — she my grandmother — they say Pappa Simmons — he my great-grandfather — he died before I was born — they say he like to fish. Maybe—

Webb put on his shorts and went into the kitchen without the aid of his cane.

You ain’t got to do that, Hatch said. We both men here.

That ain’t got nothing to do with it. I never enter the kitchen in draws.

Hatch followed Webb into the kitchen. Webb stooped and pulled a large bowl of fish from the refrigerator. He seated himself on a high stool positioned between the steel sink and the stove. His long arms reached into the steel cabinets above the sink for all the items he needed.

Be sure to cut from here. Webb held the fish with fingers gnarled beyond years. Dug the knife in. The asshole. That’s why I don’t let nobody clean my fish. Lotta people don’t clean out the asshole.

A long-dead memory stirred to life. Knuckleheads in the Boy Scouts would catch lake fish and try to fry it. You found your teeth chewing on sand, grit, and— now he knew —shit.

Hatch saw the fish swim red in the silver-colored sink. I didn’t know fish could bleed.

Bleed just like a stuck pig. Webb hardly had to lean forward. His long gorilla arms and hands did all the work.

Hatch watched and remembered. Studied the rhythmic sense. You don’t have to skin it?

These is porgies. You don’t need to skin em.

Porgies?

Yeah. You ain’t never had no porgies?

Hatch shook his head.

Ocean fish. From the east coast.

Ain’t never heard of em.

Sweet too. Now put flour in the bag, and some cornmeal, a little, but mostly flour. Shake em up good in the bag. Befo you put em in, make sure yo grease hot. The grease sizzled up. And be sure to use a spatula to turn em. Not no fork. Use a spatula to keep em whole.

I like smelts, Hatch said.

Smelts? Those nasty little fish?

Yeah.

Nasty.

Taste good, though.

You know, Jews eat filthy fish.

I know. Hatch grinned.

I mean, they got a fish they call filthy fish.

Oh, Hatch said. You mean gefilte fish.

That’s what I said.

POOL, YOU CAN BURN.

Got to learn how when you got to eat what you cooks. Was gon open me a restaurant too.

Why didn’t you? Hatch leaned forward on the night-stained couch, fish taste in his mouth.

Well, when I was in the army, I sent back all my money to my wife. My first one. We was gon open up a restaurant cause she could cook good too. She spent my money. She and one of her niggas. Or maybe all of em.

Damn … You sho can burn.

Can’t be that good. You act like you ain’t never ate no down-home fish.

You sho can burn.

When I was in the army, them crackas cheated my grandmother and my uncle out of the farm. See, they come along tellin black folks bout oil rights. My grandmother owned the farm. Bought it for a dollar an acre. We grew everything but flour, sugar, and salt. So we always had plenty to eat.

Peach, pear, and plum orchards.

The locust grove bloomed in June.

Many a day, I got up and hunted my breakfast. Possum is good and quail and pheasant — if you cook them right. Get that wild taste out of them. Lard quail with salt pork to get that wild taste out. And you got to boil pheasant in cream.

I used to cook for a man and his family but I couldn’t eat with them. Seem like any son of a bitch could eat at our house but I couldn’t eat anywhere but home. When I was older, my grandmother explained it to me. If you cook for one child, you can invite a family over. But if a family have six or seven children, you be eating their food.

Hatch stretched his legs. The plastic-covered couch moved beneath him. He said no more than he needed. Webb smoked cigarette after cigarette. His lungs are black. A coal-town alley. His words were Hatch’s words too.

See, back home, we’d slaughter a hog and cook it in the earth. Dig a pit. Fire some hot coals. Man, that be the sweetest-tastin hog. Real barbecue. You ever had real barbecue?

No.

Hatch, you need to go down South.

I been—

We used to have everything on our land. My grandmother sold rabbits to white folks. Frogs too.

Yuk! Taste like chicken.

I go out to the pond and catch them for her. Hunt the rabbits. You ever been huntin?

Hatch shook his head.

See, rabbits hear you comin and jump up, run away, run in a circle back to the spot where they jumped. All you got to do is be quiet and wait for em. You ain’t never been huntin?

No. But my Uncle John and Spokesman—

Hatch, I done hunted me some of everything. I’d shoot me a deer and drag it behind my truck to skin it. Ever have any venison? In Tennessee, I’d hunt me a bear. Little black bear. Skin it. Cut it up. Put it in my suitcase and fly it home on the plane.

But you need a good huntin dog. I used to have this dog that bark and twitch in his sleep. He dream about huntin. You know he gon catch something. But he liked to bite everybody. I put a bell around his neck to warn people he comin.

OKRA?

You don’t like okra?

Hatch shook his head. Okra trees harbor red ants.

Boy, what yo mamma feed you? Down South, you better eat you some okra. Sorghum too. Bet you don’t know nothing bout sorghum, do you?