Jeffery Allen - Rails Under My Back

A swan-white sun floated radiant feathers down to the basketball court. You drove the ball to the hoop, only to let some nigga half yo size steal it from you, yes, snatch the pill from your hand and rob the pharmacy. This short nigga, guarding you, like white on a maggot, eating up the ball, forcing you to take shots. Flapping the wings of his arms, beating up a white blur of motion. Game point came before you knew it.

The swan flapped its wings, rippling wind. The short nigga rode white wind. Dropped the ball like an egg in the basket.

Damn, see the thread on that ball?

Yeah. Nigga must think that’s his mamma’s sewin basket.

Good game, homey, the short nigga said.

Thanks, Hatch said.

Thanks, Abu said, his fat titties bouncing better than he could bounce the ball.

Right, Jesus said.

Yo.

Jesus saw a belly, pushing at and poking through spaces of the shimmering chain-link fence which divided the court and the sidewalk.

Yo. Come here.

Jesus headed straight for the belly.

Jesus stopped before the fence and looked into the boy’s chalk eyes. He looked something like a Halloween pumpkin. Though he wasn’t orange enough. Sure, yellow, like the candlelight that illuminated pumpkin skin. A banana-colored nigga. Dark skin is not darkness. Nor is fair skin illumination. No, skin the color of Gracie’s weak Chinese tea. Speckled brown like a butterfly’s wing. Shiny as wax fruit. Knife-slit eyes. Hard and white like the river stones down South. Softened by sweat. Nigga must have a water fountain hidden beneath his bald head.

Yo. Try putting a flick in yo wrist, the round-bellied boy said. You know, like a fag. The boy demonstrated, raised hand curled, a praying mantis. And shoot in an arc. Like this. You’ll never miss a free throw. Guaranteed.

Chirped words blew straight at the nests of Jesus’s ears. He wanted to speak, but his own words stuck on his tongue.

And why you run around like somebody short?

What?

Learn to use your height.

Jesus felt the stabbing sunlight. Held up the basketball and watched his reflection, rippling, in shiny leather. One of those rare things that happen two or three times a summer. The ball gets stuck between the rim and the backboard and somebody has to unstick it. Get Jesus, cause he can jump up and punch and blacken both the moon’s eyes before he comes back down. Who you?

Birdleg.

Birdleg? I ain’t never seen you round here befo.

I ain’t from round here.

Where you from?

Stonewall.

Nigga, stop frontin.

Do it look like I’m frontin?

It didn’t. Birdleg’s eyes were chalk-white, and his words were whiter, scrawling themselves across Jesus’s chest. Learn to use your height. Stonewall. Jesus knew, Birdleg might know a thing or two about basketball since Stonewall was but blocks from the Stadium, where His Highness, Flight Lesson, the basketball king, flew and ruled. How you get here?

I walked.

Walked? Sounded crazy to Jesus, but anything was possible: Birdleg came from Stonewall.

Stupid—

The white ice of the word put a cold pick in Jesus’s heart.

— walked. I gotta go.

Wait. I wanna go.

Birdleg began walking, wide-legged and slow, like a pregnant woman. Jesus watched him through the cone spaces of the fence.

Hey — he shouted at Hatch and Abu. Come on.

Where we going?

Stonewall.

Nigga, stop lyin.

Yeah, Abu echoed, nigga, stop lyin.

Come on.

Hatch and Abu dragged their tired kicks from the court and followed. Birdleg’s kicks never touched a court. His white eyes watched from the sidelines. Walking was as physical as he ever got.

You walked.

If Birdleg stood still too long, his string-bean legs might root in the ground. He liked to walk. Once Abu saw him sprout wings and fly home, and Hatch saw him gallop off into the horizon on a pit bull’s back. His toes cut through his kicks and tracked claw prints in grass, mud, dirt, snow.

We the Stonewall Aces, Birdleg said.

The what? Hatch said.

Yeah, Abu echoed, the what?

The Stonewall Aces.

I ain’t no Ace, Hatch said. I’m a spade.

I’m an Ace, Jesus said.

Yeah, Abu said. A red one. An ace of hearts.

Yo mamma like it.

You walked. Birdleg pointed to white smoke lifting from a manhole. That’s smoke from the underground city.

From where?

Ain’t yall never heard of the underground city?

Sure.

You walked.

Birdleg, what’s that? You pointed at a blue-black bird with red bandannas around the wings.

Stupid. That’s a redwing.

You walked.

Birdleg proudly carried his round belly, a real potbelly, steel, iron, cause you could hear the metal ringing when he walked. He smelled like food, like sugar, though he ate scabs candy-quick, scabs saved in an old M&M’s box — plain, not peanuts; I never eat peanuts, specially peanut butter, cause just look at it. It ain’t nothing but shit, just like I never eat scrambled eggs, cause just look at it. It ain’t nothing but somebody’s brains. All that food and belly and smell balanced on two stick legs. Two string-bean legs filled with pus.

You walked. Followed Birdleg through Central. Birds perched on spiked steeples and steel window ledges. Streets awash with people, merging into eddies and disengaging other paths, and the boys like slits in the swaying mob.

You walked. A lot bright with red dirt. That’s the old negro cemetery. Yall heard of negroes?

Sure, Hatch said. My great-granddaddy was a negro.

Mine too, Abu said.

You walked. Summer burned in your lungs. You saw a pond with lightly starred lilies. You crossed a narrow dry gully. Followed a trail of yellow leaves. Heaviness hung low in the trees. Birdleg overturned ancient stones, exposing green worms wiggling in the footprints of Indians and dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs were birds.

Birdleg, Hatch said, you crazy. Dinosaurs were lizards. Reptiles.

Yeah, Abu said. Giant lizards. Reptiles.

Stupid. Dinosaurs were birds.

How you know?

I know.

You walked in heat without a breath of air. You reeled under the dazzling weight of the sun. Distance melted.

It was moving day. The afternoon white and pure. Birds black and light as smoke in the sky.

Yall wanna see some black squirrels?

Nigga, there ain’t no such thing.

Follow me.

You walked. Birdleg’s legs made a sound like twigs breaking. And when it got cold, his legs would curve into a broken circle. You walked for three days. Damn, Birdleg. We gon walk to China?

Shut up, stupid. We almost there.

Damn. Jesus sparkled, body glazed in warm sweat.

A bridge lifted above a black river. Birdleg started across, the wood creaking, sagging under his footsteps. Jesus put his feet down slowly, unsure if the planks would hold him.

Damn, Birdleg. You tryin to kill us?

You scared?

Nawl. I ain’t scared.

The sun hung low in the branches. Slow shadows on the leaves. Points of grass directed Birdleg to his left. There it was. A little path.

Look. Birdleg stopped, bent his knees a little — a bridge’s creak; no, a rusty sound, like Lula Mae’s lawn chairs — and pointed a chunky finger. A black squirrel.

What’s that black bird?

That’s a buzzard.

A nasty ole buzzard?

Yeah.

Why it nasty?

Cause it full of spirit.

A day bright and clear as the leaves on the green plants which grew low and close to the ground. Dandelions clustered like stars. And the white Afros of milkweeds. Children filled the afternoon streets with their shouts. From the height of the park benches, the Stonewall Aces watched butterflies in the bright colors of girls’ clothing and their floating cheeks. Hair braided tight with colored rubber bands, rainbows.