Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

One afternoon, Daddy came home all slumped up, bone-tired. He hadn’t been to the fields that day. And he come in and take something outa his shopping bag and set it down on the table. A ham. All wrapped up neat and nice in butcher paper and smelling like sawdust. A big heavy one too. Make the table wobble.

What that? Mamma said.

Daddy looked at her. Woman, what you think it is?

Where’d you get it?

Where you think?

Well, can’t eat that thing by itself. She removed a quarter from her bosom. Go to the store and get me a pound of greens.

Why can’t you send one of these chillun?

Cause they busy doin stuff for me.

What about Beulah there?

Daddy looked at me.

Beulah gon help me fix this ham.

Soon as Daddy left, Mamma tucked that ham under her arm. Beulah?

Yes’m.

Follow me.

We walk and walk. I could feel the heat all along the back of my neck, that heat trying to get into my head and legs and arms. I never knew a person could get so hot. Mamma, where we goin?

To get some seasonin.

We walk bout a mile from the house. Mamma stop and let the ham fall to the ground. I start to pick it up.

Leave it, she say.

Mamma find her a thick branch and start to diggin at the ground.

Mamma, what you doin?

Preparin that ham.

You gon cook it in the ground? I ask. (Sure was hot enough.)

She didn’t say nothing.

She dig her a hole and kicked the ham into it.

I says to her, Mamma, why you do that?

She didn’t say nothin.

Mamma, why you bury that good ham?

DADDY LOVED THEM DOGS. Redman and Blackjack. What we ate, they ate. Never had a cold meal. Followed him everywhere, he just talkin away and they beside him, noddin they heads and waggin they tails. They be the first at the do when a guest come. Gon way from this door, Red. This caller ain’t fer you. And what you, Blackman, his shader? They could howl so, like to scare off any thang come creepin long in the night. Walk us to school, one long each side a us. And be waitin outside the schoolhouse to walk us back. And them dogs could sniff out the devil down in the deepest hell. When the huntin be good, Redman and Blackjack liked to rob the woods of all coon, possum, and rabbit.

Nasty, Hatch thought, almost saying it.

Daddy even have enough meat to sell.

There was this mean ole cuss, Mr. Boatwright. Talkin bout a nigra shouldn do this, and a nigra shouldn do that. Even the other white mens couldn’t stand him.

Hatch watched her in disbelief.

One day, Daddy and I take Redman and Blackjack to town. Mighty fine hounds you got there, uncle, Mr. Boatwright said.

Yes, suh.

Mighty fine.

That Mr. Boatwright was a right nasty white man. He carry this brown snot rag hangin long out his back pocket. He pull it out and start to blowin.

Reckon a nigga can do right well for himself with such hounds.

Daddy keep walkin.

I figure five dollas a right mighty, uncle.

Thank ya, suh, but they ain’t for sell.

Awright, ten dollas, uncle.

No, suh.

Damn it, uncle. You got somephun gainst money?

No, suh. Daddy keep walkin.

Next morning, Mr. Boatwright come out to the farm. Daddy greet him. I’m holdin back Redman and Blackjack, barkin.

Well, uncle. Come to bring you that ten dollas.

Suh?

Fer them dogs. We had a deal. No, suh.

Now, uncle, you callin me a liar?

No, suh.

Well, bring me them dogs.

White folks, why don’t we let the sheriff handle this.

Mr. Boatwright look at Daddy. Now, ain’t no need to get the sheriff involved. Sure he got plenty to keep him busy. Be seein you, uncle.

Bout a week later, ole Redman and ole Blackjack out in the front a the house chasin each other tail. Round and round. Round and round. Then they start spittin up meat filled wit maggots.

Moving like tiny white fingers.

Turnin round and round in a circle. Then no meat jus maggots start to comin out they mouth, churnin like milk. You shoulda seen it.

He wished that he had.

Next morning, Daddy buried them out behind the house. Daddy never did talk much, and he talk hardly at all after that.

Mamma rubbed his shoulders. And rubbed. And rubbed.

Daddy said, Don’t you go and Bible me.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth up some other way —

Beulah worried the silence. And Daddy didn’t say nuthin else. But he was the first one to enter the church when Mr. Boatwright died, all respectful, hat in his hands, walked right up to that white man’s coffin and just stood there so long that the usher had to make him move long.

BIG JUDY WAS A MESS.

You remember the time she cut that woman for tryin to cut in with Buck?

Don’t remind me.

Beulah, Lula Mae, and Koot tried to steer Big Judy away. Judy, you know that woman crazy. You know she done killed five peoples. But with that quick straight razor from her bosom she cut that woman ten red roads on her hands and arms — a good Christian, she spared the woman’s face — before the tramp could even get the handle of her gun out of her purse.

Well, Beulah, I guess we better get you all ready to go back to St. Paul.

Beulah’s colored medicine bottles waited on the nightstand like missiles on a launching pad. No, Beulah said. I ain’t ready to go back. They keep passin me round like a plate of green peas. They only interested in my pension check. You know they all on that stuff.

I kinda suspected that, Sheila said.

I don’t know how much mo I can take.

Beulah’s look pushed in at her. She recalled how Beulah had pleaded with Sam’s woman, Don’t kill him. He’s my only brother.

Can I come live with you?

Beulah, I’m tired. You know that. Tired. I’ll come up to St. Paul and help you find the best nursing home they got there.

I wanna come live with you.

Beulah I work every day. Who gon take care of you when I’m gone? I bet they got some good nursing homes in St. Paul. I know they do. Find you the best.

YOU’LL FEEL BETTER, Montel said. My father is buried just down the road. I talk to him as I could never do in life.

Sheila studied Montel’s long, melonlike head — some hair left, not much, enough for a small Afro — and the body gone soft in a few places. A miracle that Montel was alive at all, here in Miss Emma’s living room. (The same after all the years. More the same each time she visited.) Doctors had predicted, promised that the sickle-cell anemia growing inside would kill her by age forty. She battled continual sickness and always bounced back. She had remained a familiar, normal presence for fifty years. They became best friends from day one at the Catholic high school during the war. Pencils in their hands and legs proper under their desks. Stealing looks at the white boys under the nun’s habited faces, hovering above them, monitoring, anxious to punish. Girl things. Frequent Beale Street clubs, flirt with the men, get the cute ones to buy them drinks. A beer or two, nothing hard. Drink, giggle and flirt, dance. No sex. Just fun. Gracie had tried to strain their solidarity. Kept popping up in their path, a needlelike weed. You’d be having a good time on the riverboat then turn and see Gracie watching you, angry but calm, uneventful, natural and forceful like the waterwheel. Ain’t nobody following yall. She had a right to be there.

They had it on the news that big flood yall had, Montel said. Yall didn’t have any problems getting out of the city?

No. They say they got it under control.

That’s good.

Never know, though. We might have problems going back.

I hope not. Pray for the best.