Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

Meaning Memphis. Down Main Street to the bridge and across the bridge, the river beneath reaching up to touch you like a live cold hand, into Memphis, John Brown bent forward over the steering wheel, his two withered hands moving near his throat like they were adjusting his tie. John Brown always looked at Lula Mae as if she was something rare.

YOU THINK THIS WILL BE ENOUGH? Sheila said.

Porsha looked at the seven bottles of Mogen David wine in Sheila’s suitcase.

You got those from the Shipcos? she asked. Steal wasn’t the right word. If it was she couldn’t say it. Both she and Sheila knew that the Shipcos would hardly miss them. Even if they did, they had money to spare and could buy more.

Sheila nodded.

I guess they’ll do. You know black folks like sweet wine.

YOU BUY THE DRANKS?

Yes.

You thought I didn’t see you. Comin from Chinamen’s. Actin a fool.

What I do?

Actin a fool round those mannish boys.

When?

I can’t send you to the sto without you actin a fool?

I ain’t—

You better be careful. Can’t jus run fast and foolish when those boys bother yo principle.

I ain’t do nothing.

What I tell you bout talkin back?

I ain’t talkin back.

You mamma ain’t teach you no better.

She teach me.

You need to be churched, Lula Mae said.

That’s where we going? I don’t want—

Hush yo mouth.

— to church.

We going.

You gon dress me?

Why, child, why?

My mamma said don’t put none of them cheap earrings on me.

Lula Mae drew back her hand. Go on. Lip smart. Go on.

PORSHA STOOD IN THE KITCHEN and looked out the door to the backyard. Not ready to enter the yard yet. Let her toes feel the sun-heated grass.

Little Sally Walker

Sitting in her saucer

Weeping and crying for someone to love her

Rise, Sally, rise

Wipe ya weepin eyes

Put ya hands on ya hips

And let ya backbone slip

Shake it to the east

Ah, shake it to the west

Shake it to the one you love the best

Skip a song down the two long railroad planks that flattened the grass in a path to the lil house.

Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty. Lula Mae calling out the back door. Calling her cats. Cans of dog food (Chuck Wagon) waiting in the grass. She never let them in the house.

MAMMA? Porsha said. I wanna ask you something. How long was she gone?

Trolleys that carried you down the serrated palisade of Main Street, carried you past the poplar-filled and maple-filled square, by dingy brick three-storied houses or smoke-grimed frame houses with tiers of wooden galleries in grassless plots, junkyards, greasy spoons with rows of noisy backless twirling barstools, a lone tree out front, lop-branched magnolia or stunted elm.

A long time.

But how long?

I don’t know, but it was long.

Beulah says two years.

Way longer than that.

And Gracie says ten.

Not that long. We went to Houston to live with Daddy Larry and his wicked heifer.

The wicked stepmother?

Mamma nodded. Yes, the wicked stepmother. Ivory Beach. She never messed wit me or R.L., but she jus couldn stand Gracie.

Why not?

Said she was two-headed. And the way she used to knock Gracie wit her fist, she like to give her a second head. So one day, I grabbed her fist. Squeezed it to crumble it to dust. And I told her, If you hit Gracie again, I’ll beat you till you can’t see. And that was the end of it.

Porsha said nothing. She let the new words soak in with the tea.

I saw that woman years later. She used to live on Kenwood.

She did?

Yes, she did. She said, Sheila, you wuz an evil child. I said, No. You the evil one. I hit that heifer. Like to kill her.

Porsha rowed her spoon in her cup and changed the direction of the conversation. Well, what did she do in New Mexico?

She ain’t do nothing. Casey Love, the man she went wit—

You mean run off wit.

— worked road gangs. Construction. In Tucumcari.

Where?

Tucumcari.

Porsha made a mental note to look it up.

See, R.L. was her son by that man, Casey Love. Real name was Robert Lee Harris, but everybody called him Casey Love. So I remember. She wuz married to Daddy Larry, but she left him for this man.

Porsha felt the warmth of her teacup. How old was you?

Well, R.L. was eleven or twelve, I believe. So I was ten.

Then Gracie was seven or eight?

Yes …

Why she come back?

He went on to California and she came back to Memphis. We moved back into the house on Claybrook Street that she rented from her friend. She started working at the car factory.

Car factory?

Yes.

They had a car factory in Memphis?

And a lot else.

Thought she was workin fo those white people.

That was later.

You came wit Beulah? Porsha was heavy, full of questions.

Yes.

When Gracie come?

Bout a year later. She stayed wit Lula Mae in the house on Claybrook.

What they do?

You ask Gracie.

She say that Lula Mae put you in Catholic school but wouldn’t let her go.

That’s a lie. I paid fo my own schooling. Helped Beulah at those white folks’ house.

Why she say it then? Why she lie?

You ask her.

Porsha thought about it all. How old was she when she had him?

Eighteen, I believe.

That means she was only sixteen or seventeen when—

Yes.

So R.L. was twelve when she left. That means she was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine?

Yes, that sounds about right. A year or two before the war …

Porsha thought about it all. Lula Mae was sixteen. Sixteen. A mother at sixteen. It was all starting to make sense. You said she left round the time the war started?

Yes.

But how could that be? Sam and Dave fought in the war.

They were older than R.L.

How much older?

Not that much older. A few years. They were still boys really. Couldn’t have been older than sixteen when they went.

That young?

Yes.

Well, how did they get in?

They wanted to go. Trouble never had to find them if they could find it first. Beulah did her best to keep R.L. on the straight and narrow. The people she worked for were good people. The Harrisons. Those white boys treated R.L. like a brother. Took him everywhere wit them. Then when he got grown, he went out to California. That man, Casey Love, had a ranch out there. R.L. sent me letters.

Where the letters?

Don’t know what happened to them. Beulah got them. Maybe Lula Mae.

How they get them?

You ask them.

Well, what did he say in those letters?

I don’t remember much. It was so long ago.

What happened to his father, this Casey Love?

I don’t know, but R.L. did take his daddy’s name, Love. And you know Beulah got those letters from China, his Indian wife, and R.L. Junior his son. Yeah, they out there somewhere in California. Call the phone company or get a phone directory and see if—

Mamma, you know I ain’t never tried that and you know why. You know how many Loves there might be in California? And where in California?

I don’t know …

How R.L. end up in Brazil?

I don’t know. R.L. was always ready to throw a saddle on a tornado.

There ain’t no tornadoes in Brazil, Porsha said, her mouth serious and factual.

Mamma said nothing, seemingly stunned …

How old was he when he died?

Twenty-five. Twenty-six. I believe.

Sam and Dave never went looking for R.L. out in California?

They say they did.

They weren’t with him when it happened?

No. They were already in the city by that time.